RESOURCE ONE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 26, 1999
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: June 7, 1972
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
MEMORANDUM FOR: Executive Director-Comptroller
SUBJECT: Resource One
Several months ago it seemed that the Agency was in
the midst of an epidemic of heart disease - in a five
week period, there was one heart attack per week, re-
sulting in death or some degree of impairment.
Indeed, the incidence of heart attacks among adult
white males in relatively affluent occupations in the
U.S. has reached epidemic proportions. From such attacks
(coronary artery occlusions) the overall U.S. death rate
is now 500,000 a year, and 200,000 more die from strokes.
At least 5% of the adult males in the Nation show signs
of some form of heart disorder.
Given these statistics, and the visible effects of
heart disease in the Agency, it might be productive to
explore ways in which we can ameliorate or prevent the
effects of heart disease on Agency employees.
But first, let us look at the villain in the piece -
atherosclerosis. The modern name of the disease is
derived from two Greek words: athere, meaning "porridge"
or "mush" and skleros, meaning "hard." This apparently
contradictory combination describes the fact that the
lesion begins as a soft deposit and hardens as it ages.
Materials that have been deposited from the blood stream
in the inner lining of the major arteries penetrate the
arterial wall; they form plaques that gradually grow and
thicken the wall, thus narrowing the blood channel.
Eventually the thickening may close the channel entirely,
or pieces of the plaques may break off and travel with
the blood stream until they are stopped in a smaller
artery and thereby plug it. When the blockage occurs in
Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
 Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
the coronary artery, it produces a heart attack by cutting
off the blood supply to the heart muscles; in the brain
it produces a cerebral stroke; in the lower extremities
it can lead to gangrene.
How are the fatty materials deposited in the arterial
wall? There are several current hypotheses. The one most
widely accepted is that the fatty substances are trans-
ported into the wall by plasma, the blood fluid, and are
trapped within the wall. It is believed that the plasma
itself, under the force of the blood pressure, can leak
all the way through the wall of the artery in small
amounts, which then return to the blood stream by way of
the lymph-circulating system. The large lipoprotein
molecules or complexes, on the other hand, cannot filter
through the wall so easily; consequently they may tend
to pile up within the wall, particularly if the plasma
carries an excessive quantity of them. [1]
Conditions which tend to elevate the blood pressure,
or increase the level of lipoproteins in the blood stream,
favor the development of atherosclerotic plaques on the
artery walls.
Many divergent factors have been implicated in heart
disease - among them, smoking, high fat diets and stress.
Interestingly enough, a person under competitive stress
will be upping his serum cholesterol, regardless of what
he eats. The body manufactures cholesterol as a response
to stress.
The Air Force discovered this fact the hard way a few
years ago. Air Force medics became aware that a high
percentage of SAC generals were having heart attacks. A
special program was then instituted which encouraged SAC
generals to go on a low-fat diet. While most of the
generals in this special program maintained their low-fat
intake, surprisingly enough, their blood cholesterol level
remained high, as did the incidence of heart attacks. The
constant stress of running SAC bomber wings caused these
top Air Force executives to maintain high blood cholesterol
levels.
The Air Force solution: institute a program of
planned rotation - moving SAC generals into rela-
tively low stress assignments, after completing a
SAC tour.
Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
 Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
The result: a dramatic decrease in the heart
attack rate among SAC generals.
In the case above, the stress was job-induced;
however, it is part of the common wisdom that many people
have stressful life-styles. The hard-driving, competitive
perfectionist is a prime candidate for an early coronary
(an even likelier candidate than American men in general,
whose chances of having a heart attack before age 60 are
one in five). This common wisdom has gained support
recently from two San Francisco cardiologists. Drs. Ray
11. Rosenman and Meyer Friedman in an 8-1/2 year study
of more than 3,000 American males have discovered that
temperament is more important in making you a candidate
for a coronary than the number of cigarettes you smoke,
your blood pressure, the level of cholesterol in your
blood, or even your heredity. [2]
The work was undertaken in 1960 with substantial
backing from the National Institutes of Health. A total
of 3,500 male subjects aged 39 to 59, with no known history
of heart disease, were interviewed and classified as
personality type A or personality type B. Type A is the
hard driving perfectionist who drives himself harder than
he drives those who work for him. He is not much for
exercise (not enough time), and when he does play golf,
it is fast through. He never returns late from vacation,
and his desk top is clean at the end of each day. Type B
tends to be easy going, and hard to needle into anger.
Type B takes his time in making decisions, as opposed to
type A who makes decisions very quickly - in minutes,
rather than days. Following type classification, all
members of the study had complete physical examinations,
which are still being performed on a regular basis as
the program continues to accumulate data. So far, 257 of
the test group - who are roughly half A's and half B's -
have developed coronary heart disease. Seventy er.cent
of the victims have been type A's.
What can we do to protect our number one resource,
the Agency employee? Well, we can protect the employee
from the Agency - recognizing that the Agency itself can
pose serious threats to the physical and psychological
well-being of Agency members. Some overseas stations
Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
 Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
are more stressful than others. How do we recognize a
stressful station? The rate of alcoholism and suicides
are rough stress indexes. The heart attack rate is
another index.
Some jobs may be especially stressful. It may be
(I don't know) that stress is relatively high among Agency
Watch Officers, Deputy Directors or Administrators (Ad-
ministrators at the Goddard Space Flight Center suffered
almost three times as many heart attacks as either the
scientists or the engineers).
After identifying stress-prone stations or jobs,
we can preserve our assets by using the SAC approach
(limit exposure to the stressful job), or identify, and
then change, the crucial factors about a job which in-
duce stress.
We can educate our employees to the potential dangers
of stress. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a
lecture series for its senior executives conducted by
Psychiatrist Lee Buchanan. Dr. Buchanan lectues on
factors which influence stress on the job - insecurity
associated with having to venture outside normal job
boundaries; difficult bosses or subordinates; worry over
carrying responsibility for other people; the lack of
a feeling of participation in decisions governing their
jobs, and so on. The cost of such an educational program
is minimal compared with the potential savings - the
average Agency GS-15 has collected wages from the Agency
in excess of $250,000, has earned every nickel of it,
and is worth another $250,000 on the hoof.
What else can we do? The Surgeon General of the
United States, Researchers Friedmand and Rosenman, and
many others, have implicated cigarette smoking in heart
disease. An anti-smoking clinic, sponsored by, and con-
ducted within the Agency, represents a negligible invest-
ment for a potentially large savings in employee resources.
The technology of intelligence is carried in the heads
of our employees - it is not in the computer banks on the
ground floor, or in the filing cabinets which line our
offices. Let us protect these assets by every means at
our disposal.
Chief, ADP Training Staff, OCS
Approved For Release 2000/08/29 CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
- 4 -
 Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
[1] Atherosclerosis, Scientific American Magazine,
August 1966.
This article by Dr. David M. Spain, Director of
the Department of Pathology at the Brookdale Hospital
Center, Brooklyn, New York, is a good primer on the
nature of atherosclerosis, and summarizes some findings
of the effects of diet on atherosclerosis.
[2] What Stress Can Do To You, Fortune Magazine,
January 1972.
This article by Walter McQuade summarizes current
research exploring the relationship between stress and
heart disease. It is well written, and profusely
illustrated.
Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
 Eli UPoCUASSI 'All ogAeMYse 2000/08/2 'TERNAL T
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
FROM: EXTENSION NO. n
7331 ~., A
DATE
Chief, ADP Training Staff, OCS 7 June 1972
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
ft
or-Comp
Executive Dire
rolle
r
2. L ID F /?.t,u
-bjy (V t9 b
S
Tb
DA
c
u
F'r
3.
t J
JUN
ILi 972
~..
~. .~
o_t_
i
4.
972
zw)s
7.
8
.
coil/
/!'
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
FORM 61 O USEDIITIONS' ^ SECRET ^ CONFIDENTIAL ^ USE Era ONLY r_1 UNCLASSIFIED
3-62
 Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8
ILLEGIB
Orig - sent to C/Regulations
Control Staff
712 Magazine Bldg
1 I:0/DD/M&S
1 D/MS Files
Headquarters Notice
Approved For Release 2000/08/29 : CIA-RDP78-05077A000100090024-8