INTELLIGENCE TESTIMONY BEFORE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP58-00597A000100020007-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2001
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: May 10, 1956
• Content Type: MEMO

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10 May 1956
SUBJECT: Intelligence Testimony Before Congressional
Committees
The Senate and House Armed Services Committees are the parent
committees of CIA and each has established small subcommittees with
jurisdiction over Agency activities. The Director of Central Intelligence
appears before these subcommittees each year to brief them on Agency
operations, to discuss Agency problems, and to describe major budget
items. All authorizing legislation requested by the Agency is also handled
through these committees.
The Director of Central Intelligence also appears before subcom-
mittees of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, and describes
to them in detail the annual budgetary requirements of the Agency. In this
process, these subcommittees are also briefed quite fully on Agency opera-
tions. Extraordinary fund requirements, such as those for the new CIA
building, are also heard by Appropriations subcommittees, although the
Congressional representation at these hearings is likely to be larger than at
hearings which deal with the operating budget.
In addition to the above, the Director of Central Intelligence appears
at least once every session before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
or a subcommittee thereof, and briefs them on atomic developments within
the Soviet Union. This procedure was established many years ago, shortly
after the Joint Committee was created, and the regular briefings are held
to matters which are properly within the jurisdiction of the Joint Committee.
CIA witnesses also appear before various other Congressional committees on
special matters. For example, we have been called upon to furnish confi-
dential data to subcommittees on Post Office & Civil Service on our personnel,
to subcommittees of Government Operations on our property holdings, to the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of Judiciary on matters such as the
Apart from hearings where matters of an unclassified nature are
considered, such as the appropriation request for the new building, CIA
witnesses to date have never appeared in open hearings before Congressional
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committees to give intelligence briefings. Up to now, such briefings have
not only been given in Executive Session, but in most cases no written trans-
cripts have been made, and in no case has there been any public release of
testimony, even with security items deleted.
All aspects of this problem were raised recently as a result of testi-
mony by the Director of Central Intelligence and by other members of the
intelligence community before the Symington Air Force Subcommittee of the
Senate Armed Services Committee. The Director of Central Intelligence and
his associates appeared before this subcommittee during three three-hour
Executive Sessions. They briefed the committee fully and frankly on Soviet
air strength, and responded to numerous questions on the subject. A trans-
cript was made of this testimony, and the Committee indicated a desire to
release as much as possible of it to the public. The transcript of the hear-
ings was edited for security and returned to the committee, but with a request
from the Director of Central Intelligence that none of the substance of the
unclassified testimony be released as attributed to any of the intelligence com-
munity witnesses who had appeared.
The considerations behind the decision of the Director of Central
Intelligence to refuse to release any of this testimony were as follows:
a. The attributed release of the Intelligence Community
testimony would impair relations with friendly foreign intelli-
gence services, and might well result in a drying up of
valuable sources.
b. A precedent would have been established before the
Congress which would be difficult, if not impossible, to control.
If one Congressional committee is able to publish testimony by
Intelligence Community witnesses, there is no reason why other
Congressional committees cannot expect a similar privilege.
Many committees, such as Government Operations, Foreign
Affairs and Foreign Relations, Judiciary, etc. , have been wait-
ing for an excuse and a justification to call on the Director of
Central Intelligence for a briefing on any matters they happen to
be interested in, such as the situation in a given country, the
defector program, psychological warfare activities, etc.
c. Intelligence officers of the Government cannot
do their job properly if they are under the constant threat
of having to appear before Congressional committees and
to assume that the substance of information they give
those communittees will be disclosed to the public. Apart
ET1
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from the obvious security problem, there is an important
psychological problem created within the intelligence com-
munity if responsible officers cannot assume that their
analyses and evaluations in the estimating process might be
subject to scrutiny outside of the community. This latter
problem relates not only to the public testimony before
Congressional committees, but also to the problem of the
disclosure of National Estimates or other working papers to
individuals outside of the departments of the Government who
have a need to know the content of such documents.
25X1A Norman S. Paul
Legislative Counsel
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