SNIE100-2-56

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP61S00750A000700040007-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 7, 1998
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: July 2, 1956
• Content Type: MFR

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TS #102377-ac
2 July 1956
SNIE 100-2-56
iE.`?1011tANDUM TC THE BOARD
1m Herewith a preliminary draft of SNIE 100-2-56, on Hoaxes.
It is obviously incomplete, and is designed chiefly to start
discussion. The main problem will be to make a paper which will
be useful without violating security. I do not believe it possible
to write any paper covering this subject, of whatever classification,
which will fulfill the requirements and yet will not violate security.
The present draft is a first attempt to see whether something can. be
donw within TOP SECRET limits. If it looks useful, we could proceed
to enrich it with new ideas and further details, and to get it made
correct- I do not pretend that everything said in this draft is trues
Part III is especially recalcitrant,
2, You may wish to look at the Terms of Reference, dated
9 March 1956, 25X1A9a
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SUBJECT: SNIE 100-2-56: ENEMY CAPABILITIES TO MISLEAD THE US
(Preliminary Draft)
To estimate the ability of US intelligence to cope with eiemy
attempts to mislead and misinform in a manner or on a scale which
would threaten US national 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.4,
of the Killian Report reads as follows:
"We need to examine intelligence data more broadly, or
to invent some new technique, for the discovery of
hoaxes. As a first stop, we recommend a National
Intelli'ence Estimate, with adequate safeguards, of
our success in keeping secret our most useful techniques
of intelligence. This estimate would suggest the extent
to which an enemy might be manipulating the information
obtained through these sources."
TOP SLCS750A000700040007-2
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I. GEO RAL CO;ySIiJ TIO1S
1. In its efforts to defeat the aims of US and allied intelligence,,
the Sino-Soviet Bloc almost certainly relies chiefly on its remarkably
effective security system, which enables it simply to withhold information
concerning its strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, and intentions.
It may also, however, attempt to plant false information, or to distort
and color authentic data, in order to mislead and deceive foreign
intelligence. Finally,. it may disseminate large amounts of information,
not necessarily false, in order to overshadow and obscure particular
items which would, if recognized for what they were worth, be of paramount
importance to US security. This paper is concerned not primarily with
the ability of US intelligence to penetrate the Bloc security system,
but rather with its ability to discover,and discount deliberate hoaxes
and deceptions which may be attempted by the Communist powers.
2. The US does not possess any method of intelligence collection
or analysis which is wholly unknown to the Bloc, or any method which
is completely free from susceptibility to deception or hoax. This is
not to say that the Bloc is aware of the e,~ctent 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
in all instances of the degree of advancement which a particular
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technique has reached. Neither is it true that all intelligence
methods are equally susceptible to hoax; under some conditions
photographs, for example, or the direct observation of competent
witnesses, may furnish evidence which is for all practical purposes
incontrovertible. It does mean that US intelligence must constantly
guard against the possibility of deception, and must always consider that
a good deal of the data available to it may be the product of deliberate
falsification.
25X1X5
TOP SJCRET
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1. US intelligence officers are, of course, aware of the
possibility that they may be the recipients of information intended
to deceive. Each piece of data concerning the Sino-Soviet Bloc is
examined with a particularly critical and skeptical eye. In the more
technical branches of intelligence research, investi-ation is constantly
in progress to ascertain the possibilities of deception, to devise
methods for defeating them, and to invent new means of intelligence
collecting which may, for a time at least, be relatively immune from
hoax. This awareness of the danger is the first line of defense against
25X1~~?
TOP SECRET
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