LETTER TO (SANITIZED) FROM L. K. WHITE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03097A000200040110-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 110
• Publication Date: December 9, 1948
• Content Type: LETTER

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F'L.,GIQN BROADCAST IBFORM&TIO8 Uffl..-
2430 S street, 1.W.
Washington 26, D.C.
STAT
Chief, Okinawa Bureau
Foreign Broadcast Information Sorvios
Headquarters, Ryukyu Command, 0-2
APO 331, % Postmaster
San Francisco, California
I am writing you at this ti-se to give you some constructive
criticise of your performance to date as Chief of the Okinawa Bureau.
Before I offer you criticism, I feel I should say that I am
keenly aware of the fact that I told you to write us often and keep
us advised of your problems, activities, *too I also rooogniss the
fact that your operations to date have been pretty aah of an
exploratory nature and there has been little that you oould really
sink your teeth in. I also recognise the fact that you are doing
your own typing and that there are probably many, many other diffi-
oulties which are not apparent to us hers in Washington. Hawsvers
you m?st appreciate the fact that we are extremely busy here and
while we feel it is our first duty to serve our Field .bureaus, we
must insist that the Field Bureaus oonduot their affairs and present
their problem in such a manner as will enable us to solve the problems
without requiring time and effort out of proportion to the particular
problem or to that required for other Field Bureaus who have similar
problems.
The first thing I want to discuss is your oorrespondeaoe. I
should like you to understand that I as always glad to get a personal
letter from you containing any amount of material either relevant or
irrelevant to FIll and you may rest assured that I will give the
contents of any such letter sir personal attention. These personal
letters, however, should not contain matters which may have to be
referred to or coordinated with other offices of CIA or other agencies
of the United States Government. You should realise that this
oorresppoondenes may have to be referred several different PvePIS
or offlees who .=lain it for several 4`Irerent purposes and from
several different anties. We do not and cannot operate the Washington
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office on the same informal basis hioh you have soon at Tokyo and
Kauai. This oorrespondenoe then should be very oare-thtly proparod
and I should like to feel when I receive it that it represents your
very best effort. Your correspondence and memoranda to date do not
appear to be well thought out and are not particularly well written.
They contain too much irrelevant matter, personal and official
matters are too frequently intermingled, and after reading that
they lean most of us wondering what the problem is, it any, at
conclusions you have drwin, what recommendations you want to .wakes
and speeitioally just what you would like to have the Washington
ortioe do. Gorrespondrnoe with us concerning official matters,
particularly those which may have to be coordinated with other offices,
should in general be confined to one subject and should follow a
~ogeneral pattern of a brief presentation of the probiea, a discussion
all ants'rO n wi11 onabj.e'us romalreeaon ~3.gent deoisiononand
give you the action and support which you seek, but met be as brief
and well written as possible consistent with the above.
The second matter is your contact with officials on Okinawa.
O n e of the primary reasons for your selection as Chief of the Okinswa
Bureau was my feeling that due to your experience as an Arty officer
you would have no difficulty In gaining access to people with
authority and you weo-pid understand Arc procoduxe, organisation, eft.,
thoroughly enough to fit in smoothly with the occupation. I, of course,
can only judge from your oorrespondenes, but it appears to me here that
you are dealing on a very low level with people who do not have authority
to make the decisions which will certainly eventually, if not now, have
to be made. Furthermore, these contacts are too informal and do not
give us the authority that we will eventually have to have before we
can implement any project that requires the expenditure of funds. I
liked Colonel Patton, the G'2, personally very much, but I certainly
gained an impression that he might be on many occasions talking about
things of which he was not sure and concerning which he did not have
authority to make final decisions. Before we implement any project
which requires the expenditure of funds, we most be sure that our
plans have been approved by the Commanding 0eneral and, if possible,
in writing. We cannot act on informal, verbal agreements, or under-
standings with G-2 or the zzsoutive for 0.1. a case in point is this
80 kwe transmitter about which I an not yet sure. Certainly somebody
on Okinawa most know exactly what the plan is, if there is a plan.
You not recognise that you represent not only FBIB but the Central
Intelligence Agency and it is certainly not out of line for you to
request an audience with the Chief of Staff and to advise him that
the CIA wants an answer to such and such a question. Of course, you
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should proceed with measured diplomaoy. You also know as well as I
that personalities in the Aray setup ohange frequently and what has
been understood and agreed by Colonel Patton might be unaooeptable
to his sucoeesor.
The third problem which I have on my mind is awrely an impression
that you may be going overboard a bit on your plans for administration
and housekeeping without taking into oonslderation the operational
necessities of your station. 'e do not have unlimited funds and the
taxpayer's dollar must be looked out for at all times. I do not want
a station on Okinama top-heavy with housekeepers and administrators.
I want the maxima amount of information which 'aiay be used for intelli-
genoe purposes with a niniauia of our money spent for administrative,
overhead.
The last point I have in mind is that I do not care to raise the
standard of living for Orientals who work for us on Okinawa to the
Anwrioan level. Granted that these people will for ,the most part have
to purchase from American oaemaissaries, post exchanges, eto., and it
is an entirely different proposition from hiring a Chinese for instance
in China, it still is not expected that we provide these people with
susfioient funds to live on the same standards to which Americans are
accustomed to living. I say this because from your letters I gain a
definite impression that the personnel which you contemplate hiring
locally will not be hired anywhere near as cheap as I had contemplated.
It is myr idea that in hiring people locally we should be able to get
two or three for the Baas aunt we can get people from the States.
If our cost is going to be too great for hiring these people, then we
can send people from the States. My oan experience is that it the'
American has the ability, he will turn out two or three or more times
as much work as the average Jriental.
I have been very frank in this letter, and I hope that it will
be received in the saw spirit in which it is written. It is certainly
not to be oonsidered an admonition to any extent whatever. I an
probaoly at fault for not having made my feelings on these points
crystal clear when you were in Aastingtoa. I had assumed that due to
our being in the Army together for these past several years that it was
not necessary. There may also be some points on which ay impressions
from distant Washington are not correct. I do think it very important,
howver, that you understand clearly my feelings on these mottos. As
I said in the beginning, your problems so far have been exploratory and
no harp has been done,. I do anticipate shortly that it will be necessary
to start discussing these problems with other offices and it is very
important that we start now on the right basis.
Vol 00
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Please give all or these mattsr: ..fir .1*medi*te attention.
Sinoerely,
L. K. Whit*
LKWshmg
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