WE UNDERESTIMATE THE RUSSIANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100190080-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 80
• Publication Date: January 8, 1956
• Content Type: NSPR

PodT J01 8 i 6
App, etthF W 2000/06/13: CIA-RDP75-0000V 6 190080-9
Matter of Faet
We Underestimate the' Russians
CP R j h and Stewart Alsop postwar book on strategic intelligence, Sher-
man Kent. The board has the task of making
EVERY SO 'OFTEN nowadays, anyone w o w a may
till bothers to report the life-and-death facts problems, such as the rate of Soviet aircraft
.
f the American national situation gets a very, outputBut, the for'rocessexampleby no means ends there.
eculiar feeling. It is the feeling of being The output o e s , Of 3170,
uddenly transformed into one of those super- Intelligence from other sources for that mat-
uper bores who insist on reciting last night's f r, cannoon be acce pted as official andstbe e.
ad dream at next morning's sunny breakfast examined by the' National Intelligence Ad-
able.
These reporters must confess to having this visory Committee committee .
is called advisory because
feeling at t the the mo momen The last The lathree reports the director _ of the Central Intelligence
in this space have been filled with an ad-
Agency, Allen W. Dulles, has the exclusive
ii mit s.ea f ugly and otppr me mass of facts. statutory duty of providing intelligence to the
enThose fjoyable act to o deal l in not what printed it National Security Council. Dulles serves as
what is s repellent because, repellent and ugly. . ch in
Cic They were printed because they unfortunately chqjrm-)n of Bthe ut ommittee. whichists so that
but all too nclncively prove a point of vital advises the final .ohim. the pinion offered to the Security Coun-
natihe importance. p is simple. The by Allen Dulles may be fully agreed and
The long approved by all interested parties.
point atomic superiority which has served so American Ame s long
has
as the free world's sole defense is now rapidly HIGH-LEVEL representatives of the three
melting away. The Soviet Union, by making armed services, the office of the Secretary of
vastly greater effort than pis country is now Defense, the State Department and the FBI
making, is beginning g to surpass us in the one sit on this committee. l?nanl~to~#,A>3ud~n
area of strength that used to be exclusively `
j& _Q aired. Ay_ ,_? ati4ll esf..ima#e which
our own. e ig ga g t e committee is a synthesis of
IT MIGHT be supposed that the merest sug- lie est opinion from all the different sources
gestion that this could happen would stir listed.
things up a bit. The knowledge that it is hap- Experience has 'proved, however, that the
pening, and the virtual certainty that nothing national estimates can be safely relied on ex-
is going to be done about it, sometimes fills cept'in one important way. Perhaps because
these reporters with an almost irresistible im- the unanimity requirement woks in favor of
pulse to run around in'circles barking like ma tof fu ere den,mina a mititaryt all dusonal
dogs. But in our present national condition achievements have always turned out to be
of to tthat euphoria, facts most which prove e are anything in- far too ,y conservative when finally tested by
dined to think hinr events.t was true with the Soviet A-bomb
unpleasant are really not facts after all. and the Soviet H-bomb. It was true~with'tiie
eds to
hi
th
t
ne
a
ng
So there is one further t
MIG-15 and the, It was true again with
be said before this painful subject can be lie"'adger? an lions, bombers and the
finally dropped. The facts are facts (one is " "Farmer" and "Flashlight" fighters.
almost inclined to shout it), or at least they in every case where there has been a test
are as near to facts as any information about to date, the official American intelligence fore-
can seer be
i
t U
vi
'
G
n
on
. g
e
l TIM on
Jae So
StSbiei
What then is the origin of these facts con? ,ho ;,,h C~ aerie- nr"lhati tfiev "could 'floc do it
est o
b
e
h
n a
e
as
"?'? - t- - Lhere
.-.--~un- ,
is si mple. They are squarely based on na
doubted information concerning the "national shown, alas, that Soviet capabilities had been
estimates" which are, or at least ought to be, sadly underestimated.
No allowance has been made for thii,-juilt-in
lic
y
ilding blocks of American po
the basic bu i the facts and figures which have been
making. prfe in this space to show the massively
A COMPLEX machinery to produce these growing fair-atomic power of the Soviets. Most
national estimates has been set up under our probably the true situation is measurably
highest policy-making body, the National Se- worse than we have represented it. In any
eurity Council. There is first of all an esti- case-to revert to our original image-it is
rV6
App o hcr'ii~~ltnl~iy?>uQ
a
t
.
o e a e
armed services and the State Department and will prove
headed by the author of the most important Copyright, 1956. New York Herald Tribune, Pee.
 Approved For Release 2000/OA/1-:1 :.( IA =Q-=001R000100190080,-9.'
4 January 1956
&1E! )RANDUM FOR.* Colonel Grogan
SUBJECT : Contact with Press
{I;N'bFtE11Cr: . CIA Notice No. 10-25J-3
1. On 27 December I had lunch with Stewart Alaop at the
r,*tropolitan Club. At the outset we were joined by a guy whose name
did not get but who was later identified as the Washington repre-
entative of the Saturday Evening Post. He was, to put it mildly,
-,ickled. The entire discussion related to non-official matters-
mnnstly whether or not ape kid brother was a bastard or rust misguided
for writing his article in Life.
2. On 29 December i lunched with Joe Alsop who probed me a bit
on the reasons for Nelson Rociefeller's resignation but I refused to
give. moreover, I do not personally have the inside dope on the matter.
He asked me about the relations between the IAC, I lanr:in7 Board, and the
OCB and I gave him a general briefing on the structure with no nor*
detail than has been frequently included in responsible public sources.
3. He told me that he had written a aeries of articles on the
approaching >oviet air atomic. supeer r ty and threw out some statistics
about the rates of production of certain US planes and Soviet equivalents.
I told nim .: was completely uninformed on US production and couldn't
comment on Soviet. The first two of this aeries of articles are undoubtedly
those that appeared on 2 and it January.
Ii. Peter Wyden of heweweek came to see me at his request in th.
25X1 A9if t' ce saying he was doing; a profile of Virtually all
25X1A9aof nis questions were about - as a man, idiosyncrasies, tastes, etc.,
with some reference to how he performed as-chairman of the Planning Board.
I answered him at worst innocuously mid in general in a manner quite
25X1A9q,on,limentar,; to . He has an appointment with
25X1A9a himself for today. To the extent I described Planning Board procedures I
25X1A9a{id not, go beyond own description in the current Atlantic.
ROBERT Ar ORY, JR.
Deputy Dire etor/Intalligm
Approved For Release 2000/06/13 : CIn_Rnp7f-10001 R000100190080-9