TRANSMITTAL OF COPIES OF A PROPOSED REVISION OF THE MISSION OF THE COMMUNICATIONS BRANCH.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP61S00527A000100140014-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 15, 1998
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: April 22, 1953
• Content Type: REQ

STANDARD FORM NO. 64
Office SMNi
MINH R es6anCIA-RD 1 S00527A000100140014-7
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO Chief, D/S DATE: 22 April 1953
FROM : S/COM
SUBJECT: Transmittal of Copies of a Proposed Revision of the Mission of
the Communications Branch.
Persuant to instructions, attached are some copies of a
proposed revision of the mission of the Communications Branch.
For purposes of clarity, the scope of the subject matter to
be treated is contained in a separate paragraph. This draft has
been expanded to include those additional aspects of the field
that you indicated you wanted us to cover.
It should be noted that the proposed scope is at marked variance
with an existing OSI-ORR agreement which, as a matter of fact, could
not and has not been adhered to for obvious reasons. A copy of this
agreement is attached. It is our understanding that 25X1A9a
DAD/OSI now contemplates a proposed revision of this agreement to
bring it.in line with our past and present performance. It is
probable that the depth and magnitude of the requirements laid upon
CIA by SE-38 influenced this intention to some extent.
25X1A9a
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 Sanitized -Approved For Release : CIA-RW61 S00527A000100140014-7
22 April 1953
Mission:
The mission of the Communications Branch is to support the economic in-
telligence program in general and to contribute to related economic intelli-
gence in particular in the field of communications. Toward those ends the
Branch will collate and coordinate intelligence studies prepared by the IAC
agencies and will itself produce analyses and reports as appropriate and
necessary. The Branch will determine the composition, manner of use, degree
of effectiveness, trends in usage, rates of growth, direction of growth,
purposes, and intentions of communications media, facilities, and services;
evaluate media inter-relationships; measure input-output factors; and assess
the contribution and appraise the essentiality of communication services to
the economic and strategic power of a country or a group of countries with
common interests. The Branch will identify and measure the degree of depen-
dence (and hence the vulnerability) upon communication services of all economic
activities including the economic implications of political, military, social,
and cultural activities along with estimates of the effects of service and
facility losses and impairments and on rates of recuperability. The Branch
will also measure capability of a country's communications resources to
support emergency, cold war, and hot war actions. The Branch will also main-
tain surveillance on gaps in raw information, in finished intelligence, and
in the currency of intelligence, and will act to remove those gaps uncovered.
For the purposes of this mission, the field of communications encompasses
all media designed or used for the conveyance of intelligence or control
signals, including wire, radio, thermal, infra-red, sonic, visual, physical,
record, and word-of-mouth. However, in order to give fuller meaning to
intelligence in this field and to show how communications fit into the economic
picture as a whole, matters of organization, manpower, training, and technology
will be given some treatment. The primary approach to the field will be the
operating and operational media and facilities planned and in being, while
equipment production, distribution, research, and development aspects will
be considered only for purposes of forecasting events in the cognizant field.
Subject to special instructions to the contrary, the geographical areas of
interest are first the Soviet Bloc; second, the countries peripheral to the
Bloc; and third, the rest of the World.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP61S00527A000100140014-7