BRIEFING ON THE OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE COORDINATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP61S00750A000700050010-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 28, 2000
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 29, 1954
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 200011/2A ria-ofb61S00750A000700050010-7
Z9 March 1954
MEMORANDUM FOR; Special Assistant to the Director for
Planning and Coordination
SUBJECT: Briefing on the Office of Intelligence
Coordination
1. Following up our conversation on Friday. I submit
for yoru information:
a, A compilation of the Law, National Securi
rectivos and Director of Central Intelligence
ctives which govern CIA and the major relation-
ships among the intelligence agencies. with a covering
b. A file bearing on the IAC.
c. A statement {with explanatory papers where
necessary) of the disposition or proposed disposition
of the nine current functions of OIC as listed in Tab A
of my 13 January memorandum to the DCI.
4. A file of papers bearing upon some problems on
which OIC has worked over the years. Some of those
are concluded and some may arise again. They are
presented to give you a perspective of the typical
coordination problems of the Agency.
e. A list of file headings of the action files now
maintained by this Office, in order that you might have
at least a cursory view of the subjects which have en-
gaged us.
2. In terms of the historic organizational role of a CIA
staff office dealing with coordination, you should know the following:
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as Up Until 1949 there was an interagency $
ctor called "Interdepartmental Coordinatio
b, From 1949 to 1951 the same staff was called:
"Coordination and Operations Policy Staff. " It dealt
with intra-agency as well as interagency problems.
c. In 1951 the Office of Intelligence coordination
tablished, composed exclusively of CIA personnel.
The Terms of Reference are already in your hands,
OIC reported directly to the Deputy Director of Central
Intelligence until 1952, when the Office of the Deputy
Director (Intelligence) was established. The first DD
Mr, Becker, took the view that as DDI it was his rote
to be the principal advisor to the Director on problems
of intelligence coordination and that OIC was his staff
aid in this regard. The present DDI has not formally
declared his role in the same way, though generally
speaking he has so operated when making use of 01C.
3. These various staffs, over the years, have played a
tending role in the development of most of the NSCIDs and DCIDs,
working closely, of course, with the appropriate officers of CIA
and other agencies.
4. The principles on which the Office of Intelligence
Coordination has operated have been as follows:
as ClAmust achieve coordination (short of recourse
to the NSC) by leadership, stimulation and persuasions
b. The primary role and expert knowledge of any
agency having substantive responsibility for a particular
problem should be recognized.
e. Actual coordination on specific problems should
be decentralized,, whenever possible, to the individual
CIA offices and LAG agencies having functional responsi-
bility.
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- A
d, The DCI, however, maintains a general
supervisory role over all the coordination processes,
,AD/IC should be responsible for assisting the DCI in
this role.
as The effectiveness of coordination depends in
the last analysis on the relations of the intelligence
chiefs themselves, particularly in the IAC,
f. In order to solve relationship problems, a
flexible, practical attitude is far superior to a juris-
dictional doctrinaire approach,
ence, the rote of the Secretary of the I
AC
,
has generally proved very useful, although it could be argued not
absolutely essential. to the solution of interagency problems. The
following are the reasons why it has been useful:
a. It has provided insight into the relationships
g the chiefs of intelligence as they have met and
solved their problems.
b. It has provided a ready device for OIC to
communicate with the other intelligence chiefs to get
the necessary staff work done on those problems coming
before the IAC on which there did not exist any staff-level
mechanism.
c. It has insured that recommendations for IAC
approval would be subject to staff criticism and assistance
by OK at an early stage. It is our belief that OIC has made
extensive contributions in this area, even though, being
anonymous, OIC's role cannot be proved after the fact.
JAMES Q, REBER
Assistant Director
Intelligence Coordination
OIC.JQR:KM (29 March 1954)
Distribution:
2 - SA/DCI/P&C
3 - OIC (file)
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