IM-132. SELECTED DATA ASSEMBLED FOR THE HARMON COMMITEE OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-01617A000300330003-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2000
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 16, 1949
• Content Type: MEMO

ADDRE prlQ CF,IQrTRelease 001/03
THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.
16170 0300330003-6
EPARTMENT OF STATE
WASHINGTON
March 16, 1949
.Mt MORAID?DUM
To: Assistant Director
office of Reports and Estimates
Central Intelligence Agency
V ashington, D.C.
Subject: IM-132. Selected Data Assembled for the
Harmon Committee of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
1. The Intelligence organization of the Department
of State does not concur in subject report. Statement of
dissent is attached.
2. Three copies of your memorandum of 23 February
are returned herewith.
For the Special Assistant:
State Dept. declassification & release instructions on file
Approved For Release 78-01617A000300330003-6
 Approved For Release)
DISSENT FROM IM-132
I. The figures in the report do not appear to be substantiated by available
evidence. ,. check of selected items included in Appendix A reveals discrep-
that this approach to the problem is likely to lead to erroneous results.
reports of questionable reliability. For the following reasons it is believed
2. Parts of the report that deal with the U.S.S.R. appear to be based in
large measure on uncritical use of fragmentary plant information and/or on
U.S.S.R. machine tool production was estimated at 25,000 to 50,000
units in work sheets for the report. The formal version gives 22,500 metric
tons. We estimate production at 90,000 95,000 units. We have no estimate
of machine tools output in tons and do not know the method used to convert
from units to tons.
(b) The report gives the Soviet Zone of Germany production of machine
tools as nil. This runs counter to all information available to us which
indicates substantial capacity still exists in Eastern Germany despite
withdrawals.
r.:f '(c) U.S.S.R. Chemicals: We have no estimate:;of output of the chemicals
listed, but note that in some cases (e.g. soda ash) the report figure is
less than the amount produced by the U.S.S.R. almost twenty years ago, while
in other cases (e.g. caustic soda), the report figure is above the 1950 plan.
"I (d) French Benzol: An estimate based on official figures for 1948 is
61,600 m. tons as compared with the report estimate of 80,900 m. tons.
i`' (e) French Petroleum: 1948 production of crude oil is estimated as
52,000 m. tons compared with the report estimate of 74,200.
u-~ (f) Swedish Soda Ash: Official statistics indicate that in 1945 pro-
duction was 2,272 tons. The report has a 1948 estimate of no production.
WF (g) Western Germany Calcium Carbide: With Bizone,producing only 333,500
m. tons in 1948, it is quite unlikely that the French Zone with a prewar
output of 50,000 tons and a 1947 output of 25,000 tons was. able to produce
80,000 tons in 1948, as is indicated by a total of 414,000 given by the report.
14 (h) Western Germany Caustic Soda: Bizone produced 156,000 tons in 1948
and French Zone 8,000 tons in 1947. The report estimate of 216,000 tons is
too high.
C (a) A complete list of installations that currently produce a given com-
modity cannot be compiled in most instances. This is particularly true when
the commodity is only one of several items produced by a given typE of plant
(e.g. sulphuric acid by chemical plants; machine-tools by machine-building
plants); it is less true when the installation produces primarily a single
commodity (e.g. blast furnaces for pig iron) and where the production units
f are few in number. Wherever an apparently complete list can be compiled,
the degree of its completeness is either indeterminate or is estimated on
some such basis as an assumed complete list, or in independently derived
set of figures on regional output or ca acit .
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(4) Regardless of the degree of completeness of any list of installations,
the information on particular plants is rarely suff icient to permit making a
valid estimate of the current output of the particular plant. For example,
even in a favorable case such as blast-furnaces, data on the coefficient of
utilization and furnace volume are available for only a few plants -- very
likely typical ones.
(9) It is well-known that much of the available plant information on
particular installations is inconsistent and that there is often no objective
basis for deciding between mutually contradictory raw data. Unfortunately,
it is also true that plant information has been a ccumulated in such a
haphazard way that it is often impossible to determine whether reference is
being made to an installation that existed before the war, one that was
destroyed or evacuated during the war, or a plant that can be safely assumed
to be in existence at the present time.
being unsupported by adequate evidence, give an exaggerated impression of
Soviet weaknesses, i.e.
From P. IV 1: "For every fanatical Party member to whom Communism
is a religion for which he would gladly give his life, there are
thousands of Russian workers and peasants to whom the present regime
is merely another form of tyranny."
This sentence grossly exaggerates the ratio between Communists and non-Com-
munists and conveys an impression of serious instability in the Soviet regime.
There are 6 million Communists in the Soviet Union and about 100 million
persons of voting age. While many Communists cannot be described as "fanatical",
having joined the Party primarily to assist their economic futures, and while
most of the population have not attempted to enter the Party, which carries
mixed blessings, there is no evidence that all, or even a large percentage of
the workers and peasants consider the regime "merely another form of tyranny."
In 1921 the slogan of the counter-revolution was "Soviets without Commissars,"
indicating acceptance of the Bolshevik reform program while rejecti Bolshevik OY
dictatorship.
3. Paragraph 2 of Part IV contains certain conclusions which, in addition to
l
J. t
From P. IV 1: "Thus the mass of the Soviet people can hardly share
in any schemes of conquest or establishment of world Communism that
the Kremlin and the Party may foster. Their sincere participation,
insofar as the plans included war beyond the boundaries of the home-
land; would be no more probable now than it has been throughout Russian
history."
I
4
This paragraph draws an unsafe conclusion from a distorted picture of Russian
history. The conduct of Russian troops in foreign campaigns has historically
differed little from that of the troops of other great powers.
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