PROPOSAL TO TERMINATE THE POSITION OF DCI CHINA COORDINATOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00148A000200030002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: January 24, 1972
• Content Type: MF

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24 January 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR: Mr. Tweedy
SUBJECT: Proposal to Terminate the Position
of DCI China Coordinator
The coming of age of China as an intelligence target
of top priority and the current proposed reorganization of the
Intelligence Community call into question the future utility of
the position of DCI China Coordinator and of the interagency
mechanism under him, the China Intelligence Activities
Coordination Group (CIACG).
The position of DCI China Coordinator was established
in 1965 in the wake of China's first nuclear experiment and in
response to the then DCI's wish to appoint a senior officer to
a China function which would be clearly identifiable within the
Government. This duty devolved upon
1, the then Chairman of USIB's Critical
Collection Problems Committee. I discharged
the China Coordinator duties for over two years in addition to
his other responsibilities. His work in the China field was
focused on cataloguing the various intelligence assets and
programs targeted on that country, in stimulating interest
within the Community and in encouraging the allocation to
China of additional collection resources.
the duties of China Coordinator. thereafter
major contribution during his two-year tour in the job was the
preparation and coordination of two studies published under
USIB auspices, one on Chinese Communist advanced weapons
and US intelligence capabilities, and the other on warning
placed much reduced stress on China in the CCPC.
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capabilities against strategic attack by China. In addition,
he found opportunities to assist in creating better commu-
nications among collectors and among analysts in the China
field.
Final coordination and publication of the strategic
warning study took place in January 1971 after the job of
DCI China Coordinator had been passed on tol
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Prior to I transfer to senior staff duties
in the DDI, it was suggested and proposed to the DCI that
since the position had never actually demanded the full time
of the incumbent officer such continuing occasional duties as
might be called for could well be discharged by 25
from his desk in DDI/SRS. The Director did not accept this
proposal and expressed the wish that the position be main-
tained and that a qualified officer be appointed to it. This
was done and took over from I uin 25
November 1970.
Since that time much has happened in the China field.
Most significant have been the July 1971 announcement of
President Nixon's intention to visit Peking and the September
United Nations action in voting Peking in and Taipei out of
the world body. These two events have meant that China has
received first-hand attention at the very highest levels of the
Administration and in the bureaucracy. Actions have become
the immediate responsibility of command-line officers through-
out the Government and particularly within the Intelligence
Community. The DCI China Coordinator has had an under-
standably restricted role in these circumstances and the
influence in the Community of his relatively low-level com-
mittee has been minimal. On a selective basis the DCI China
Coordinator has pointed out areas within which some improve-
ments in collection or analysis might be made, but he has
been careful not to call into question the command authority
of program managers and other responsible officers, both in
CIA and without. His anomalous role as the only USIB-blessed
organism having a geographical rather than a functional orienta-
tion has placed him potentially in the path of almost every other
duly constituted reviewing and advisory element in the Community.
His experience over the past few months indicates that with the
n -?* a
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China priority nailed to the masthead by political develop-
ments there is no doubt that the regularly constituted USIB
functional groups can and will deal professionally and most
effectively with China problems as they arise. They have
in fact been doing so for at least the past three years.
The DCI China Coordinator has undoubtedly served
a useful function. At the least, it has given evidence to the
Intelligence Community that the DCI accorded China a special
niche among his many major tasks and problems and has
thereby kept some heat on the Community at times when
other priorities tended to get the lion's share of attention
and resources. The President's initiative toward China,
however, is a stimulus to action and attention of enormously
greater impact, and its effects will most likely be permanent.
It seems quite probable that this new situation will be reflected
in the work of the newly constituted committees and bodies
created as a consequence of the White House ordered intelli-
gence reorganization.
This brief review of the past and present of the
position of DCI China Coordinator indicates that events have
overtaken its usefulness. It should be phased out and its
residual functions, if any, assigned to other USIB bodies.
An early termination date should be considered.
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SECRET W,
10 Nove: ;,zber 1970
MEIA10RANDU -i. FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
as DCI China Intelligence Activities
Coordinator
SUBJECT: AnnOwce;nent of Designation of
1. The job of Coordinator of the China Intelligence Activities
was established in 1965 as a result of pressure from the then Chair-
m:ian of the :.-'resident's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board,
General v`axwell Taylor, who felt the need of a single place in the
community .` xowledgeable of all intelligence activities aimed against
China.
2. I Iwas assigned to this position in an
individual capacity (and not as Chairman of the CCPC). I
did a very creditable job of developing an inventory and
assessment of all activity (collection, processing and analytical) aimed
against China. The ad hoc committee which he chaired issued a
number of papers summarizing and evaluating the effort against China.
It also forrriulated a statement of the objectives of the intelligence
effort in China against which the achievements or inadequacies of this
effort can be evaluated.
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place. The thought at that point was that
had completed an impressive staff exercise in
establishing the totality of the intelligence effort against China. It was
thought that the effort -would benefit fro a the guidance of an individual
with considerable personal and substantive experience in the area.
During the approximately 13 months of incumbency the
focus was primarily on an attempt to evaluate and improve the
co nmunity's coverage of advanced weapons development in China and,
more recently, the American early warning capabilities as regards
military initiative by the Chinese.
vacancy in C
has been recently assigned to fill an important
being assigned as his
dI
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replace -I. --nent.
has served In the Far East a nuttier
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/s% John A. Bross
JOHN A. BROSS
DIDCIIN1P.E
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