DOCUMENTATION OF ERA REPORTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP62S00231A000100020016-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 23, 1998
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: October 3, 1952
• Content Type: MEMO

SA RD FORM NO.
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200 131 A0001,QP020016-5
Office Memorandum ? UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO : Chief, Economic Research, ORR
FROM : Chief, Materials Division, ORR
SUBJECT: Documentation of ERA Reports
REF : Your memo, same subject, 25 September 1958
DATE: 3 October 1958
1. After having considered the proposal advanced at the recent
Staff Meeting regarding changes in procedures for documentation and
having discussed this with the D/M Branch Chiefs, I feel very strongly
that gains from the proposal would not be worth the cost and that
present procedures should not be altered.
2. As you note in referenced memo, the objective of eliminating
or reducing documentation is to speed up the editing, typin?;, and
reproduction of reports; present procedures for documentation are to
be retained through the review stage. This means that the analyst
would initially document as he has been doing all along. After
review is completed, he would then be asked either to eliminate or to
reduce documentation. The question of elimination is discussed below.
If documentation were reduced, then the analyst would have to spend
additional time preparing a second statement of documentation. More-
over, editing frequently results in the elimination of material and
hence in a change in the original list of sources. It would thus be
necessary for the analyst to conform his documentation so that a
clean and correct copy of the documentation can be deposited in
St/PC. Thus, his work load would be increased as compared with the
present. I can see no net saving in time for ERA as a whole and I
am not wildly in favor of reducing St/PB's load at the expense of the
analyst. In addition:
a. If sourcing is done through textual statements, as a
partial or complete substitute for source citations, reports
will tend to become longer and less readable. In addition,
the objections in 3 below would apply, to a lesser degree
than for complete elimination of sourcing.
b. If sourcing is done in narrative fashion, in an appendix,
the objections in 3 below would also apply, but to a lesser degree
than for complete elimination of sourcing.
3. The comments in 2 above beg the question of whether docu-
mentation should be eliminated altogether. I would be against doing
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SUBJECT: Documentation of ERA Reports
a. We are talkie;; here about a fraction of our
production, to wit RR's and PR's. Many IM's are not
now documented, and I believe that documentation is
the exception rather than the rule. RR's and PR's
represent our basic resee-ch, which adds to our
fund of knowledge, and which serves as support for
later research of a more estimative nature. It seems
to me that this kind of research requires detailed
documentation to accompany the report itself.
b. It is perfectly true that most readers find
no occasion ever to check the source references, but
it is also true that when a person wants to do so he
wants to do so very badly. For example, there have
been many frustrations in this Division because we
do not know the sources for statements contained in
25X1 X1 reports.
c. Even if a reader does not need to look up
a particular source reference, he can better judge
the depth, nature, anxi quality of the research if
the sources are attached to the report. Reference
to a file copy in st/PC is impossible for an out-
side reader and awkward for an inside reader.
Moreover, the documeir ation attached to a published
report becomes as much a part of the record as the
report itself. Hence, long after the research is
complete and the report published, one can discover
from the list of sources the extent of the research
and evaluate the validity and currency of the con-
clusions.
a. Very often a finished report on a given
aaubject will contain Material related to another
field. In these not infrequent cases, the ready
availability of a source reference is a great
convenience to the reader in this other field.
e. More generally, the use of source re"-
erences is one aspect of good scholarship.
Although documentation would be maintained through
the review stage, so-that in principal this proposal
would be neutral with respect to the analyst, I
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6UBJECT: Documentation of ERA Reports
fear that increasing the quantity of unsourced reports
would have an adverse psychological effect on the
anal;; st .
25X1A9a
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ORRY