RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL WITH REGARD TO THE CAREER SERVICE IN OCR.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP62-01094R000100070007-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2000
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: June 1, 1956
• Content Type: MF

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Jure 1, 1956
MEMORANDUM FOR: Assistant Director, Central Reference
Central Reference Career Service Board
FROM: Deputy Director, Intelligence
SUBJECT: Recommendations of the Inspector General with
regard to the Career Service in OCR.
1. Kindly prepare for me a staff study of the career service
situation in OCR, with particular reference to the statements and
recommendations on this subject which have been made by the inspector
General. Your staff study should contain its own recommendations
as to any changes in the existing set-.up Which you consider desirable.
2. The recommendations of the Inspector General have been set
forth as follows, (pages 13-14 of his report):
"It is recommended that:
na. The Central Reference Career Service be
discontinued and all personnel formerly in such service
be assigned Intelligence Production or Su ort Career
Service designatiOns in Eaallidrilith their respective
backgrounds and qualifications.
"b. The Assistant Director for Central Reference
be designated a member of the Intelligence Production
Career Service Board and that a subordinate Panel for
Central Reference be established within his Office.
"c. The Assistant Director for Central Reference
prepare and maintain on a continuing basis a roster of
personnel within his Office considered qualified for
assignment to other offices in the Agency.
"d. The DD/I, as Chairman of the Intelligence
Production Career Service Board, utilize the OCR roster
of personnel considered qualified for assignment to
other offices in the Agency as a first basis for recruit-
In personnel for other DD/I offices and that he not
approve the entrance on duty of professional personnel
to those offices until an orderly and systematic deter-
mination has been made that no individual on the OCR
roster qualifies in a realistic sense to fill the vacancy
for which recruitment or EOD is proposed.
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"e. The DD/I, as Chairman of the Intelligence
Production Career Service Board, direct that a study be
made and, based thereon, issue a Notice establishing
certain segments of OCR as training and recruiting areas
for other offices in the DD/I area,.
"f. The Assistant Director for Central Refer.
ence confer with the DD/8 and establish a procedure for
integrating OCR personnel with SiTipert. career designa.
tions into systematic consideratUnITY the Support
Career Service Board and itsvarious panels.
3. The comments on OCR which have led the Inspector General
to make the above recommendations are set forth as follows on pages
85.90 of his report:
"Career Service
"a. Agency Regulation 20-1102 'The CIA
Career Council and the Career Services,' establishes
a separate career service for all personnel in the
Office of Collection and Dissemination. Under the
recent change in the office designation, this Career
Service should now presumably be entitled 'Central
Reference,' The Assistant Director is designated
Head of the Career Service. He relies upon a Career
Service Board, chaired by the Deputy Assistant Direc-
tor and composed of the Executive Officer and all
Division Chiefs, to establish basic Career Service
policies, to recommend on promotions through GS.12
and in general to provide him with advice and assis-
tance in all matters related to the Office Career
Service. The Board meets once a month or more fre-
quently as the press of business may require. Agenda
are prepared by the Operations Staff with major
assistance from the Administrative Staff. Within
the limits of its own Career Service, there is every
indication that the Board functions efficiently.
Training opportunities for career personnel are
actively supported; career policies are freely
debated and specific recommendations developed;
position vacancies are circulated widely through
the Office and all qualified personnel are carefully
considered on an office.wide basis in filling such
vacancies; promotion is fair and equitable among
the various components of the Office; and there is
every reason to believe merit is properly rewarded
insofar as possible within the low office grade
structure. Promotions above GS.122 being few in
number, are handled directly by the Assistant
Director and his principal advisors.
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be Notwithstanding the relative efficiency
of the Central. Reference Career Service Board serious
elra7.c problems directly related to career plenning
now face the Office and promise to increase in severity
ulless decisive corrective meanures are taken. Numerous
discussions and interviews with personnel in ell echelons
.establish clearly that provision for increased opportun-
ities for capable individuals to advance in intelligence
el a cereer both financially and in the challeage of
their worh is the :lumber one problem facing the Office
at this tine, In recent years?? OCR, through sound
planning and determined efforts, has recruited many
highly intelligent, capable, and ambitious young college
geaduates to staff the analytical positions in the
Industrial Register, the Biographic Register, the
Graphics Register, the Special Register, and many seg-
ments of the Library. Generally, 'these individuals
are recruited as GS.5118 or G5-718. After several
years of hard work mastering the principles of intell-
ience and leerning the functions of the Registers
and the Library, these capable employees become
inescapably aware of the serious limitations upon
their future careers in the Agency. CCR has a very
low grade structure compared to other offices in the
Agency recruiting college graduates. As a consequence,
it is a fortunate individual indeed who can sue his
way clear to a GS.11 position. Most analytical personnel
in OCR are firmly blocked as GS.90s or lower. Still
more serious, however, is the boredom and lack of chal.
lenge which develops in time as a result of the essen-
tially routine nature of most work in OCR. After several
years maintaining dossiers in the Registers and associat-
ing with analysts from other areas, the capable and
ambitious individuals in OCR quite naturally desire the
opportunity to move on to the more challenging and
higher paid research positions in tR, OCI, and OSI as
well as into DD/P.
Ile, The failure of the Agency to provide
for capable individuals to follow this logical rotation
pattern in a planned and orderly nhnner is the single
most damaging factor to the present morale of OCR pro-
fessional Personnel. Admittedly, the OCR Career Service
Board is not in a position to solve a problem which is
essentially Agency-wide in scope. Nevertheless, it has
been remiss in not pressing more aggressively for broader
consideration of the problem. Attendance by a senior
OCR official, usually the Deputy Assistant Director, at
ea,
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meetings of the DDA Career Service Board and working
group has been of little value in solving the problem
especially since the DIVI Career Service Board has had
little successin developing effective career planning
within its own area. As a consequence of this inactions,
many individuals devote a disproportionate percentage
of their time and effort in seeking better opportunities
elsewhere within the Agency. The recent personnel
ceiling has eliminated many past opportunities for
self-placement rendering the problem even more acute.
"d. Requests for release to seek positions
elsewhere in the Agency average six per month and
indicate, in part, the magnitude of the problem.
Some pereonnel have been successful in finding posi-
tions elsewhere within the Ageney. Others have been
misled into positions for which they are poorly quail
-
Lied, and still others have resigned in frustration.
This situation exists in spite of the efforts of the
Administrative Staff to place capable and qualified
personnel in positions of greater opportunity both
within OCR and in other offices of the Agency. Al-
though 37 of the 72 individuals requesting releases
in the past year were finally transferred, the morale
problem remains unchanged because such transfers
were actually effected on an ad hoc basis rather
than as part of some systen onialKy career plan-
ning. The problem lies primarily in the hearts and
minds of personnel in CCR who understand full well
that their future is dependent at the present time
upon ad hoc solutions.
ne. The problem can only be solved by the
establishment and midespread acceptance of a planned
and well ordered career system in which OCR personnel
can place full confidence. Arguments that selected
OCR personnel are not qualified for research positions
in other DIVI offices are not substantiated by past
performance and should not be permitted to prevent
the development of orderly career planning, Admit-
tedly, senior personnel highly qualified in various
professions will always be required in the research
offices. However, this requirement should in no way
prevent the advancement of selected CCR personnel
Into the junior analytical positions in other DD/I
offices. Such personnel should prove decidedly more
useful to research offices than higher graded personnel
recruited directly from outside the Agency. Personnel
rotated from within OCR will have a proven motivation
for intelligence as a career. They will be thoroughly
familiar with the basic tools of intelligence research
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aild they will initially occupy the lower graded poreeiols.
Sftmilarly, the various support peroonnel in OCR, the nnehine
operators and tabulators, the key punch operators, rind the
mj.crealm processors, should be given opporturitiee to
rot4vee to other offices in DD/S and DD/P rewiring oneh
epec9,alties0 There are many machine operator: who huve
been in the same machine room in OC R for six end seven
yoses. The more competent of these indSe.ridue,s should
eeeeideeed to fill new opportunities elsewhere in the
;Lenoy in an orderly and systematie manner, not on the
p-eeaont cateh-as.catch-can basis. )'or exemplr, as Kin
alpta ueehine indexing Tretheds? OR personnel should
qystematioally considered for the better pesitlone
ed Liven wererence over personnel recruited Zroxacni:;:,,
aide the Agency*
":7, In short, it is considered des*rable that a
large segment of OCR be viemed as an Agency, primarily )D/I?
tvaininc and recruiting area for men7 categores of new
employees. Contrary to what might be expecteC, this con.
cept is actively supported by the overwhelminf, rajority of
key supervisors in OCR. These supervisors lkee with and muet
solve insofar as possible the daily morale problems arising
from the lack of opportunity for the planned Idvaneenenb of
their personnel into other areas of the Agency. When it is
realized that the same supervisors who stand to lose the most.
under such rotation are the ones most actively suppaetiag it,
the serioesness of the over-all morale problem in OM can
better be appreciated.
"g, In view of the above, it is believed that OCR's
Career Service Program will never be more than a horeav shell
until it can provide opportunities commensurate with the
abilities of its personnel."
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