SNIE 100-2-56: ENEMY CAPABILITIES TO MISLEAD THE US (DRAFT FOR BOARD CONSIDERATION)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP61S00750A000700040001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 46
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 1999
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 10, 1956
• Content Type: MISC

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C E N T R A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A G E N C Y
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
10 December 1956
SUBJECT: SNIE 100-2-56: ENEMY CAPABILITIES TO MISLEAD THE US
(Draft for Board Consideration)
To estimate the ability of US intelligence to cope with enemy
attempts to mislead and misinform in a manner or on a scale which
would threaten US n~,.tional security.
This estimate, which differs radically from the normal national
intelligence estimate, owes its origin to a recommendation made by
the Killian Committee and NSC Action 1430. Specific recommendation
C.L. 4of the Killian report reads rLs follows:
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"We need to examine intelligence data more broadly, or
to invent some new technique, for the discovery of
hoaxes. As a first step, we recommend a National
Intelligence Estimate, with adequate sa.feguards, of
our success in keeping secret our most useful techniques
of intelli;_-ence. This estimate would suggest the extent
to which an enemy might be manipulating the information
obtained through these sources."
I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Definitions and Distinctions
1. Deception, or hoax, as used in this paper, is defined as the
act of misleading through deliberate manipulation, distortion or
falsification of evidence. Generally speaking, the methods are as
follows: (a) by planting; false information; (b) by coloring or
distorting otherwise authentic information so as to make it ccnvey a
false impression; (c) by selectively releasing some correct
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information on a subject while withholding essential parts of the
total picture; and (d) by releasing plentiful data, whether true or
false, with the object of overshadowing and obscuring certain particular
items of paramount importance. These various methods may be pursued in
combination or singly.
2. For the purposes of this paper, deception must be distinguished
from concealment. The latter aims by withholding information to prevent
the victim from arriving at a true conclusion; the former aims by
manipulating information to make him arrive at a false conclusion.
Concealment is intended to foster ignorance, and deception to produce
error, and it is with deception that this paper is primarily concerned.
3. The distinction between concealment and deception is theoretically
valid, but in practice it is often futile and sometimes impossible to
separate the two. Deception };enorally -- though not always -- depends
for success upon an accomanying suppression of truth. Concealment in
turn is often made more certain by an accompanying deception intended to
distract attention from the truth. The two thus go generally together.
ri'luawl row'C'Me to 1/-4 /lxe d? r. &'d "Lw-~~h.~et &V'/ t'GaI e?t do Mot tiw.c~. , lie. a4-c PI
In this paper, however, we are -lexaminin~ not the extent of our ignorance
of Soviet affairs, nor the capabilities of Soviet security agencies to
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withhold information, but rather the extent to which our
At Pvadrut Of
Soviet affairs may be uitiat-kr` deliberate Soviet deception. Accordingly
we shall as far as possible exclude the element of concealment from
the discussion, while recognizing nevertheless that it is usually an
essential component of successful deception.
Objectives of Soviet Deception
14. Broadly speaking, Soviet hoaxes undertaken against US and
allied intelligence would have one of three aims:
(a) To 1L. ad us to an underestimate of Soviet or Bloc
strength and determination, either in some particular
respect (e.g. heavy bomber strength; Soviet disposition to
support Communist China), or generally. Such an underestimate
could be profitable to the Bloc by causing the US and its
allies to cut down on the development of countervailing,
strength, and then to find themselves confronted by superior
Bloc power at a time of crisis. At worst it might lend to
defeat of the US and its allies in war, because of inadequate
preparation.
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(b) To lead us to an overestimate of Soviet or Bloc
strength and determin.tion, either in some particular respect,
or generally. Such an overestimate could be profitable to
the Bloc by creating unnecessary economic and political
strains as the US and its allies strove to build up counter-
vailing power. It could also produce excessive caution in
the US and its allies, causing them to accept reverses, or
to fail to press advantages and achieve successes, when the
true power situation made such courses unnecessary.
(c) To cover (i.e. to assist in the concealment of)
some particular Bloc operation, or some aspect of Bloc
policy, by directin? the attention of US and allied intelligence
to other matters.
5. Any Soviet deception must lo%ically be directed towards one
or another of these Foals. In practice, however, more modest aims might
in certain circumstances be all that the Soviet leaders needed or
wanted to achieve. Suppose, for example, a period of intense inter-
national crisis, with war an imminent possibility. The problems and
uncertainties facing intelli:ence officers would be very groats, and
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large amounts of contradictory data would be flowing in even in the
absence of deliberate deception. At such a time hoaxes which fell short
of being wholly convincing would nevertheless serve to puzzle and dis-
tract the activities of intelligence. Such hoaxesmight accomplish their
purpose if they prevented estimates from being timely and firm, even
though they did not succeed in causing them to be incorrect. Thus,
although the logical aim of deception will always be to induce a false
estimate, the practical aim may be simply to hinder and delay the pro-
duction of a correct estimate, and to cause it to be attended with doubts
and reservations.
Soviet Capabilities for Deception
6. Soviet capabilities for deception depend in great part upon the
degree to which various US intelligence methods are susceptible to hoax;
this problem is discussed at length in Part II of this paper. Here it
is only necessary to point out that since the Soviet state is totali-
tarian, its rulers can exert an unusually high degree of control over
the information respecting their country which becomes available to the
outside world. Publications, speeches, broadcasts, and the like, can be
directly controlled. Statistics and other descriptions of Soviet life
and achievement can be systematically falsified. Observers can be shown
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what. the Soviet WerrZent wishes them to see,, and exeluded from what
the government wishes them not to see, Moreover, Soviet ru'ers are ntt
answerable to their own public for what they do in this eeMectit+n.
They can decree any feasible operationt of reception they wish, almost
regardless of cost, and they need not worry if their own general public
is puzzled or misled by hoaxes primarily intended to deceive foreigners.
Thus the basic capabilities of the Soviet government for deception are
greater than those of any other important government in the modern world.
6a, It may be observed, nevertheless, that totalitarian controls
are not an unmitigated advantage to a government seeking to deceive.
The foreign observer of the USSR may not know whether the information
he gets is true or false, but at least he knows that on the whole it is
what the Soviet government wants him to get. The intelligence officer,
however he gets his information, knows that nothing of consequence is
said or done in the USSR without the sanction of government. It is pos-
sible that the Soviet regime might weaken, and that as a ,.e-ens ,-gven"
unauthorized things would happen in the state. As long as the regime is
strong, however, it must forego the advantage democratic states enjoy
(whether they wish it or not) of confusing foreign intelligence with vast
masses of uncoordinated data, correct and incorrect, authorized anel
unauthorized, valuable and worthless.
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Defenses against Deception
6b. Intelligence officers are aware of the possibility that they
may be the recipients of information intended to deceive. Each piece
of data concerning the S3no-8oviet Bloc is examined with a particularly
critical and skeptical eye by US and allied intelligence personnels to
ascertain, if possible, whether it has been deliberately distorted. In
the more technical branches of intelligence research, investigation is
constantly in progress to discover the possibilities of deception, to
devise methods for defeating them, and to invent new m othods of intelli-
gence collecting which may, for a time at least,, be relatively immune
from hoax. It is clear that the best defense against deception would be
to acquire information respecting the Soviet Bloc by methods vh ich the
Soviets did not know about, and which consequently they could not use to
introduce deceptive data. Generally speaking, however, this defense is
not available.
7. The US has no method of intelligence collection or analysis
which is wholly unknown to the Bloc, nor any method which is entirely
free from susceptibility to hoax. This is not to say that all methods
are equally untrustworthy on these grounds; in some circumstances photo-
graphs, for example, or the direct observation of competent witnesses,
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may furnish data which is for all practical purposes incontrovertible.
Neither is it true that the Bloc is always aware of the extent to which
the US employs each of its various intelligence methods? or of their
application to particular problems, or of the success with which they
are used, or of the degree of advancement which a particular technique
has reached. When a technique is very new, or is newly applied in some
particular area of intelligence interest,, there may for a time be good
reason to believe that its use is unknown to the Bloc, and the data
which it produces may be received with substantial confidence that they
do not form part of an operation of deception. As a general rule, how-
ever, we consider it impossible to find assurance against deception
through intelligence methods unknown to the Bloc.
7a. While no method of intelligence collection can be proved to
be invariably free from susceptibility to hoax, nearly all methods will
frequently produce particular data which can be demonstrated to be hoax-
free. One sure defense against deception would be for the intelligence
community to use nothing but such data, but the result would be an ex-
tremely limited view of Bloc affairs, quite inadequate for the needs of
policy-makers. Accordingly,, it is necessary to fall back on large
amounts of information which, taken bit by bit, cannot be certified as
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hoax-free. This would be a serious weakness if each piece of data
existed only in isolation from others, but obviously such is not the
case. Intelligence estimates very rarely rest on isolated bits of data.
On the contrary, practically all are based upon a substantial mass of
information, the various parts of which tend to support one another and
to provide an elaborate structure of evidence which is internally con-
sistent and mutually confirmatory.
7b. There is no need to review here the well-established rules
for the use of evidence,, Strictly in relation to the problem of de-
ception, however, two modes of confirmatory procedure may be mentioned:
(a) Any piece of data may be considered hoax-free if it is
clearly and specifically confirmed by other data which can be
proved hoax-free. The former may then itself be used to confirm
additional items? and so on through a chain of confirmation --
which must of course be constructed with caution;
(b) If substantial amounts of data fit together into a con-
sistent whole, a presumption may thereby be established that the
data is hoax-frees even though no single piece of it, taken by
itself, can be proved to be so. As observed above, however, the
capabilities of the Soviet government are such that large masses
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of internally consistent but actually deceptive data might be dis-
seminated for the benefit of foreign intelligence. Hence the pre-
sumption of freedom from hoax must be carefully considered. The
strength of this presumption will depend upon (1) what proportion
of the evidence can be shown to belong almost certainly in the
hoax-free class; and (2) how feasible a hoax actually would be in
the particular situation and with the particular data under con-
sideration.
8. The data bearing on each estimative problem is different, and
hence the degree of defense against deception is different in every
estimate. In general, however, estimates relating to the more ordinary
aspects of Soviet life -- the economic system, for example., and much of
the conventional military establishment are based upon a great deal
of data from many independent sources. Confirmatory evidence is plentiful,,
if not always sufficient. Moreover, the feasibility of deception is at
its lowest when the false data to be fabricated is voluminous and the
correct data to be concealed equally so; when deception would have to
involve very large numbers of Soviet officials, and might seriously mis-
lead those who were not admitted to the secret. On the other hand, in
certain specialized and highly secure aspects of Soviet activity -- the
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guided missile and nuclear weapons programs for example -_ information
on some of the most important points is scanty and there is rarely much
directly confirmatory evidence. In these situations it becomes of the
utmost Importance to secure data which is inherently hoax-free, and
which does not require confirmatory evidence to argue that it is so.
9. Over the general field of intelligence work, therefore, the
principal defense against deception lies in continual and laborious
acquisition of plentiful data from independent and (if possible) widely
distributed sources. By this means a new piece of information may fre-
quently be clearly confirmed, and pronounced hoax-free, If such specific
confirmatidn is impossible, new information may nevertheless be accepted
as substantially true if it fits reasonably well into the context in
which it belongs, and if that context is itself fairly well established.
Painstaking research into the whole structure and pattern of Communist
society is essential for the purpose of establishing such a context and
permitting the testing of new bits of information as they come in. In
normal circumstances intelligence would never reach an important con-
clusion on the basis of information from a unique source if that in-
formation were inconsistent with the pattern which had been established
and into with ich it would be supposed to fit.
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10, It follows in general that hoaxes, if they are to be of any
consequence, must be of large scale and long continuance.* Sporadic
deceptions and falsifications of data are soon recognized by sophisticated
observers because of their inconsistency with the main mass of evidence.
If the Bloc desires to have a given piece of misinformation accepted by
US intelligence (assuming that the misinformation ii?o-apoint of real
importance) it must first fabricate considerable amounts of confirmatory
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Self-deception
11. This leads us to a final aspect of deception which cannot
altogether be ignored; that of self-.deception, or the misinterpretation
of evidence because of preconceptions, prejudices, or bias. Self?
deception is a highly complex matter, most of the aspects of which can
be excluded from a paper mainly concerned with deliberate Soviet
deception. However, any successful hoax is likely to depend to a con-
siderable degree on the predilection of the victim to accept certain
An exception may be the bluff, which is usually a form of hoax
designed to produce a misrea ing of intentions. A bluff can be
quick and successful, but it requires some background to give it
verisimilitude. This background may be either true or false; if it
is false, the above rule holds. Another exception would be the sort
of hoax described in paragraph 5 above.
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kinds of falsehood, and it must be assumed that the USSR, in any extensive
operations of deception, would endeavor to take advantage of what it
estimated to be the preconceptions and biases of US and allied intelligence.
This is apt to be particularly true in "cover ;;-tans". It is at least
theoretically -possible that we may arrive at a correct description of
some Soviet activity and on the basis of our own prec' inceptions judge
it to be of the greatest intrinsic imy,ort,ance, although to the USSR
it is important mainly because it has distracted cur attention frc:m
soma other activity. Sup?;.)ose, for exam1;le, that the Soviet heavy
bomber program had been ::resigned. primarily to distract the attention
of US intelli- once from the Soviet guided missile program.
12. There is more than this to self-deception. We have observed
above that much data respecting the Sino-Soviet Bloc must be accepted as
credible for no Letter reason than that it fits harmoniously into a
previously established context or pattern. This context, once we have
formulated it, ten's naturally to become somewhat rigid, and the more
elaborately it is constructed the more rip-,id it becomese Thus there
arises a disposition to reject new and startling information, at least
provisionally, oven though the information may be correct. Su.-)pose,
for example, that there occurred a runcuncod weakening of the Soviet
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state, in its political, economic, or military spheres, or in all three.
It is not unlikely that the evidences of such weakening would for a, long
time fail to be accepted by US intelligence. The USSR would derive
advantage from this failure, and might find ways to encourage it.
13. The USSR might, by long-continued and skillful operations,
create in US and allied intelligence organizations the preconceptions
that would, at the required moment, become the basis for a successful
hoax. In other words, the USSR could contribute to the construction
by US intelligence of a false pattern of Soviet society by which to
test new data for consistency. In this way the Soviet leaders could,
at a crucial moment, perpetrate a successful deception without actually
falsifying the particular evidence involved, but simply by having;
AAr
previously_as-surod it would be misinterpreted. The inter-action of
self-deception with Soviet hoax would be complete. In the general field
of intelligence, this form of deception is almost certainly the most
difficult to guard against.
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TON SBCRJ T
II. INHERENT 70SCkPTIBIL1TY OF VARIOUS INTELLIGENCE METHODS TO HOAXING
Overt Intelligence
14. By fax the greatest volume of intelligence data is procured
by overt and commonplace means, from ordinary and easily accessible
sources. The materials thus collected come from hooks, newspapers,
magazines, scientific and learned journals, radio broadcasts, official
declarations and published documents, speeches, photographs, reports
of travellers, and so cn. We may also stretch this cate~%cry to include
the conversations of US `zplomatists and other officials with those of
the Bloc, and the interrogation of defectors, returnees, and prisoners of
war. The mass of such materials is enormous. It is reduced to shape
and significance not only by the labor of analysts in the intelligence
community but also by scholars, publicists, and others who have no official
connection with intelligence work.
15. The sheer volume of theso materials., together with the
widely varied skills of the numerous analysts who work on them, would
The various hea:ain ,s unJer which i.n.te.lli Mence methods are considered
in this section are ado-)ted for c_Mvenience and for the >rticular
purposes of this _ )per; thoy -1o not constitute