(SANITIZED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP01-00569R000100070011-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 12, 2009
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: June 29, 1983
• Content Type: LETTER

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STAT
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13 June 1983
Editor., Studies in Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
.Washington, D.C.
Dear1
I deeply regret that I will be unable to attend the
awards ceremony on 20 June owing to a long-standing May
engagement which had been cancelled and then changed to
the ZOth. I wish, however, to express my thanks to the
Editorial Board of Intelligence Studies for honoring my
essay on Col. Lawrence K. White with an award.
As I said to you earlier, anyone writing on Red White
has an enormous advantage over any other contender. Like
writing about Sherman Kent -- it's hard not to spark. interest.
I remember at the-time of Sherman's retirement party -- a
black .tie affair at the City Tavern-Club -- I made a little
:farewell speech. Ail I did was to tell a half dozen little
anecdotes each of which ended with one of Sherm's poetic
obscenities. It had the whole party, including A11en Dulles,
in stitches. Afterward people came up to me and said, "I
had no idea you had such a sense or humor!" Quoting Sherman.
Kent, who could miss?
Again, I express my thanks to the Editorial. Board .and
ask that you tran mit them for me.
Sincerely yours,
R. Jack Smith
STAT
STAT
STAT
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7 June 193
The annexed memorandum proposes a study of CIA
relations with Congress over whatever period of time
appears appropriate -- possibly 1947 to 1973 -- or
any other period long enough to serve as a discree t
sample..
The result could be reassuring and refute some.
of the mythology about CIA's reluctance to deal with
Congress.
If approved, it should be done with the know-
ledge and perhaps collaboration of the relevant
Congressional Committees.
STAT
o n ross
Attachment - 1
Prospectus -- Congress and the CIA: The Dilemma of a
Secret Agency in an Open Society
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?
PROSPECTUS
CONGRESS AND THE CIA:
The Dilemma. of a Secret Agency in an Open Society
The American attitude towards government has not tradi-
tionally provided an atmosphere hospitable to a secret intelli-
gence service, for our constitutional system presupposes
widely-dispersed power and open debate. Distrustful of cen-
tralized power, Americans have generally believed that govern-
mental probity is best assured by each of the three branches of
government exercising checks on the ether two. But the Central
Intelligence Agency poses a special problem for this type of
arrangement, since many of its activities must be secret and
thus, outside the normal supervisory mechanisms.. Not surpris-
ingly, such a situation has evoked congressional suspicion,
criticism, and outright hostility from time to time.
But this recounts only half the story. Congress has also
turned repeatedly to the CIA for assistance, and the Agency has
-exerted an important influence in shaping key national security
legislation over the past three decades. The relationship
between the. two is considerably more compliczted than simply.
.that of overseer to ward. Through congressional. briefings and
the dissemination of its intelligence, the CIA has substantively
enhanced defense and foreign. policy debates, and therefore
deserves wider recognition as a .prominent contributor to the
policy making process.
Seeking to explain this paradoxical conjunction of
suspicion and partnership, we propose a study of the relation-
ship between Congress and the CIA since the Aaenc_y's creation.
An inquiry of this sort will aid in clarifying issues and spot-
lighting special areas of achievement, controversy, and potential
hazard. Numerous questions suggest themselves for consideration.
In what ways has the CIA made its voice heard in Congress? How`
has it successfully competed with other .organizations for
influence or .funds? What role has the Agency played during the
past generation in the public debates over. important defense
issues--the bomber and missile "gaps," Soviet technological
capabilities, Cuba, Vietnam, SALT I and II? Has wider dissem-
_ ination of classified information created significant security
problems, and how have Agency officials balanced the demands
of security with the desirability of a forthright response to_
legislative requests? To what extent have individual Presidents
influenced the tone csf congressional-Agency relations? How
might the CIA, given the fragmented, undisciplined, partisan
nature of Congress, protect itself from irresponsible or
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ill-informed attacks? To what extent have relations witr~
Congress been captive to forces beyond the Agency's control;
to what extent can the CIA shape the relationship? And certainly
not least in importance, how successfully .has the CIA reconciled
the anomaly of a secret agency in an open society? These are
not merely abstract questions;. their answers possess obvious
contemporary relevance as .well.
This study is designed not for the academic specialist but
for the CIA manager or other Agency officer seeking historical
perspective and reliable background date. Our intentions are
to cover developments through 1?77 and the establishment of the
two Permanent Select Committees, with a brief epilogue summarizing
the period since then. Sources for this investigation will
include Agency correspondence, memoranda, and briefing papers,
congressional hearings, reports,. and debates; and relevant
secondary materials to provide context. In addition, interviews
with key Agency personnel and .others in both the executive and
legislative branches will supplement the written record.
Congress played a central role in the creation of the
CIA. The landmark national Security Act of 197 transformed
the inadequate Central IntelligencerCroup ir_to a Central
Intelligence Agency, responsible to the President through the.
National Security Council. Its primary purposes were. to
coordinate the intelligence activities of the United States and
to advi.s.e the NSC in matters relating to intelligence and
national security.
Two years later, the Congress passed the equally important
Central Intelligence Agency Act, which established many of the
subsequently controversial practices followed by the Agency
-over the next twenty-five years. Under its provisions the
.CIA gained exemption from any federal law that required dis-
closure of the organization, functions, names, titles, salaries,
or numbers of its employees. In addition, the Agency was author-
ized to bury its annual appropriations within the budgets of
other departments, to transfer funds from. other government
.agencies, and to disregard .numerous provisions of statutory law
respecting the expenditure and accounting of public monies....
The methods followed by the Congress in passing this bill were
just as striking. Both Armed Services Committees held hearings
in executive session and released only fragmentary reports,..
noting that much of the testimony they had heard was too sensi-
tive to share with their colleagues and asking Congress to vote..
on faith for the creation of an agency with unprecedented and
largely unsupervised .peacetime powers. t~'ith the passage of
.this act in 1949, .the basic framework of the CIA coos cor.~plete.
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For the next twenty or so years, most Americans,~includina
most congressmen, possessed few clear ideas about what the Agency
was actually supposed to do, and not many asserted a right to
know in detail about this aspect of America's national security
apparatus. Legislative oversight of the CIA, ti,Ther. it occurred
at all, was informal and nominal. The Congress, like the rest
of the nation, was gripped by a set of cold war assumptions that
seldom questioned the need for an active and relatively unsuper-
vised central intelligence organization. Impressive CIA triumphs
in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala a year? later easily smothered, what
little inclination existed to monitor the operations. of the Agency.
During appropriations time, the principal concern on Capitol
Hill was insuring that the Director had as much money as he
rectuired .
Until 1956, the only mechanism for congressional oversight
.consisted of small ad hoc groups of senior congressmen who
received annual briefings on CIA activities. No formal review
process existed; the exchanges which did take place were charac-
terized more by mutual congratulations and self-satisfied expres-
sions of good will than by any real desire to share the responsi-
bility of supervising the country's intelligence carsnunity.
Beginning in 1956, the Appropriations and Armed Services committees
of each House did establish formal CIA subcommittees, but the tone
of the relationship between Congress and the Agency remained ane
of camaraderie and understani~ing. Significantly, CIP. appearances
before the oversight subcommittees were usually called `?briefings"
rather than "hearings." The nomenclature is revealing. Critics
even suggested that far from serving as an instrument of legis-
lative control over the intelligence agency, the system which
gradually evolved during the 1950s and 1960s actually acted to
shield the organization from effective congressional scrutiny.
But then, most legislators saw little need to pry into
CIA operations, for from their perspective the Agency was
performing admirably in providing significant services to the
nation,-and to Congress as well. DCI ~~'. Aedell Smith. and his
successors, particularly Allen Dulles, realized the importance
of staunch congressional allies, and each was careful to insure
that the appropriate members received timely briefings on
potentially sensitive matters.. In the mid-1950s, for instance.,
the CIA's Cffice of National Estimates, by successfully challenging
the Air Force's alarmist assessments of Soviet long-range bomber
_capabilities,dissuaded Congress from allocating huge sums on
unnecessary countermeasures.. On a more frequent if less dramatic
basis, the Agency-often briefed congressmen preparing to travel
abroad and solicited their observations upon their return.
CIA efforts?to cultivate friendly relations with the.
legislators were centered. in the Office of General Counsel or,
.after 1961, in a separate Office of Legislative Counsel. For
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most of the Agency's initial two decades, liaison with Congress
-was the special province first. of j~7alter Pforzheimer and then
of .John Warner. The CIA repeatedly benefited from the continuity
Pforzheimer and Warner represented, for this allowed time for
the development of intimate ties with influential figures on
'the ?-:ill such as Richard Russell, Carl Hayden, and Carl Vinson.
CGC and OLC staff members coordin