Background and Status of Correspondence Handbook

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00005R000200060036-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2003
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: February 6, 1968
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Releag'e`2003/98144, . .GA-RDP74-00005R0002000600
6 February 1968
SA/DDS
25X1A9A
SUBJECT : Background and Status of Correspondence Handbook
1. At present there is on the books the regulatory issuance
25X1 titled Correspondence Style and Procedures".
some 3000 0 copies were printed. Every component with a complete
set of Regulations should include a copy of that Handbook despite its
May 1955 issuance date.. The original distr i'ution was 1,135 copies
and the remaining, 1,365 were distributed until exhausted in October
1963.
2. As you will note in the attached -folder, (TAB A) a revised
version of the Handbook was started in February 1963 and was submitted
to Regulations Control in August 1963. That draft was returned to this
Staff in October 1964.
3. T'h o.e attached diary notes indicate the subsequent coordination
and re-editing that continued without producing a Handbook. Also, the
requests for Correspondence Handbook copies became more and more em-
phatic. In October 1961 reprinted 100 copies of the old
1955 Handbook only updating the Forms in the exhibits. Distribution of
these was limited.. Fifty were given to (QTR for their clerical training
sessions. Only a few are available today. (One is attached at TAB B
for your information.) 1
4. In March 1967 when I moved into this Staff I assigned a Career
Trainee to complete the Handbook. He was not pleased with the asuien>
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menu and requested a transfer within a few weeks, veorked on 25 1A9A
it again and in July I had rework the draft. His product
so imitated the Office of Communications I' CorresT)ondence Handbook
(including examples) I could not use it as an Agencywide issuance. In
August 1967 I talked with the Clerical Training faculty and with Mr. 25X1A9A
their component Chief about my dilemma with the Hand-
book. They were so anxious to have the Handbook comcpleted they arranged
to get me another Career Trainee. reworked the drafts, 25 1A9A
analyzed the various other Handbooks available, and completed a Grid
Chart comparing them (TAB C). His draft is the most prolisi, to date
(TAB I)).
5. During the summer of 1967 thin Staff actively cooperated with
National Archives and Records Service in preparing , r;,axondence
Handbook for the U. S. Government (TAME). NABS announced its expected
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issuance for September 1967. We felt that it would fill many of the
Agency Handbook needs and thereby permit us to issue a small supplement
to the U. S. Government Correspondence Handbook, Unfortunately they
have the type coordination problems we have and their book has been
delayed too.
6. Your January 1968 inquiries parallel those we received from.
in Clerical Training. 1 can only respond as follows:
a. There are lovrespondence handbooks in the Agency
s iled with the Iiegu a ions in each component. These have 90
of the material that will appear in any new issuance.
b. Large components with correspondence requirements have
rm samples of the
off- ice of c1
e ltif-
c Intelligence, and :P -ice of om;I.unica..ions. We have ex-
amined IVPIC's as well. There are several others on which we were
not consulted.
c. The Office of Training used to issue a copy of the
Handbook to every new employee passing throu h the Clerical
Training Sessions. We urged and hope this practice will no
longer prevail.
d. We believe the old Handbook should not be reprinted
again until it is revised and updated.
e. I cannot believe the urgency for a new Correspondence
Handbook is as pressing as the Clerical faculty is inclined to
indicate.
f. I do believe the Agency would save considerable printing
costs if it issued the Government Correspondence Handbook =a
only printed a small supplement concerned with the few special
exceptions required by some of our activities. This we could
and should wait to do,
7. We will continue to prepare the draft for coordination
and probable issuance as the updated correspondence Handbook for the
Agency. We will be flexible enough to change the plan if a u eable
Federal Handbook i.s;,issud soon. Any assistance and, information you can
provide us on this matter will be most appreciated.
25X
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CIA Records Administration Officer
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MEMORANDUM FOR: DDS Operations Staff,
Dick 'Your suspense system very efficiently reminds me repeatedly
that we have not issued a current correspondence handbook. I recommend
that we cancel plans to produce a correspondence handbook and that the
item be removed from your tickler system for the following reasons:
A. The clerical training faculty is the only source of demand
for a correspondence handbook in the Agency. Anything taught
in the clerical training classes is subject to modification by
the practices and procedures of the individual components to
which the students are assigned. The Correspondence Handbook
published by the General Services Administration should serve
adequately to meet the clerical training requirements.
B. There is no such thing as standard correspondence policy
.and procedure in the Agency and this is the prim ry reason that
we have been unable to coordinate a proposal even at the infor-
mal level during the past several years. The advantages of
standard correspondence practice are not so impressive that
they are readily salable to managers at any level of the Organ-
ization. This militates against the adoption of the recoimuenda-
tion that a handbook be prepared for use at. levels of the Agency
subordinate to the deputy directors. Coordination of standard-
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ized practice at these levels is no less a problem than it
C. The resources of the Records Administration Branch are
already stretched too thin in supporting activities of the
Records Management Board in addition to their normal duties.
We have no one available who can be given the task of pre-
paring a correspondence handbook even if it were a necessary
and desirable thing to do..
In my discussion of the Records Program with Mr. Bannerman, Mr.
Coffey, and members of the DDS Staff a couple of weeks ago I offered
the suggestion that we cease to concern ourselves with correspondence
management in the conventional sense and that we begin to concern our-
selves with correspondence systems. We should be less concerned with
width of margins, standard indentations, proper spacing and alignment
of date lines and signature lines and so on, and more concerned with
the system of correspondence which creates paper in multiple copies,
assigns a log number to it at each element of the organization it pas-
ses through on; route to its destination? ?n eh -a-?way- t care d ~t=
at th time of creation theyc~oApywhhach ultimately will be stored at
L
the Records Center' h? ar rzn >>~.ri~-iaba.e and,
retrievable by any element of the organization which has a requirement
for access to it. I believe this is a valid recommendation. The pro-
blem is we don't have any resources to devote to this approach either.
I am convinced, however, that resources can be much more productively
applied to a systems approach than to a minutely detailed procedural
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I would like to see this item killed altogether,
but if not that, let's at least put it off until the study group
that's about to be created has had a chance to took at the
Records Program and made its recommendations.
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