MANAGEMENT MEMO TO AD/OCD, 16 SEPTEMBER 1949, SAME SUBJECT.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP51-00036A000100010005-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: October 14, 1949
• Content Type: MF

Sanitized -Approved For Release: CIA7F 51-O40b3UA000100010005-6
~ Oc o er 1949
SUBJECT: Agency activities relating to coding and abstracting
of intelligence information.
REFERENCE: Management memo to AD/OCD, 16 September 1949, same
subject.
1. Reference memorandum is forwarded for your perusal and action.
In my opinion it does not, however well-intentioned.. contribute anything
of value to the Agency at the present time. I believe it should either
be scrapped or placed in cold storage for future reference.
2. If acted upon, these recommendations would either abolish the
Industrial Register and Biographic Register functions entirely, (just
at the time when the two Registers are getting on their feet and begin-
ning to produce as was long ago planned by Management), or else would
transfer them on paper to the CIA Library which would have to absorb
the present Register files and staffs.
3. The proposal that ORE and OSI branches perform all car-ling and
abstracting represents aver-enthusiastic approval by Management of an
OCD experiment (originally undertaken in the face of Management disap-
proval) which is proving successful. I welcome, and am grateful for,
Management's generous readiness to change its stand on the problem; but
I am absolutely certain that our work toward a successful solution would
be just as disastrously affected by Management's present proposal as it
would be by diehard opposition. The experiment is producing good results,
and OCD proposes to push it as far as possible with the means available,
but it must be furthered on a step- by-step and day-to-day basis - as is
being done. To eliminate OCD from the coding and abstracting entirely,
as is proposed, would mean (a) that no uniform system of classification
could be evolved, and hence no truly central reference system, and (b)
that no complete machine index of incoming intelligence documents could
be prepared - for what is everybody's responsibility is nobody's respon-
sibility.
4. It would be well, I think, for us all to recognize that the
time for sweeping reorganizations and blueprinting is largely past -
if we are ever to get down to work and produce. It is now time to
improve on the machine we have designed and assembled. It is just
ueginning to produce results in which we may feel some justifiable
.tisfaction, and all our effort should go into the making of adjust-
ments, elimination of creaks and groans, and improvement by means of
day-to-day hard work and experimentation. We should not now dismantle
the machine and start from scratch again.
Dcc\la -nt T'o. 3_
`' JAIES M. ANDREWS
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP51-00036AO00100010005-6
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP51-00036AO00100010005-6
0 face Memorandum ? UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO : Management Officer, CIA
i___ THEODORE BABBITT
ok
FROM : Assistant Director, Office of Reports and Estimates
SUBJECT: Abstracting and Coding of Intelli;ence Information
Reference: Memorandum of 16 September 1949 from Management Officer to
Assistant Director, Collection and Dissemin