PROPOSAL FOR A SENIOR SEMINAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-06213A000400080001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 17, 2006
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 16, 1970
• Content Type: MF

Executive Director- Comptroller
Deputy Director for Support
SUBJECT Proposal for a Senior Seminar
1. A study recently undertaken in the Office of Training points to
a need for. a seminar for senior officers of this Agency - GS-15 and higher.
I urge that cons iderataon'be given now to its establishment.
2. Much attention has been given to improving and broadening
/gency training for junior and iri.dcareer officers, with. the general
objectives of deepening their understanding of the intelligence profession
as it operates in a world of growing complexity, and, in the Midcarcer
Course, helping to prepare them for higher responsibilities. These
objectives deserve at least equal emphasis at the senior officer level.
!rlt should now be our aim to provi.le senior officers with the time and
-ssources to review the status of the intelligence profession; to comprehend'
dlaveloping trends and necessities of which they may be only partially
aware; to hear and discuss the most profound judgments available con-
cerning foreign and domestic affairs, the relationships between them,
rind the potential impact of event upon intelligence as a major function
of government. Most of all, we should provide those officers who are
,
in the line of succession to senior managerial positions with an opportnriity,
to address themselves in. the most sophisticated fashion to the orga.niza-
tional and management problems which they will be inheriting.
Some of the factors underlying this recommendation are these:
a. That senior officers are interested in training opportunities
for themselves is indicated by the number of conlpMi.tors the Training
Selection Board had to consider this year for the senior war colleges,
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the Senior Seminar of the Foreign Service, the Federal Executive
Institute, the Harvard Business School, etc. I do not know how many
applied, but their superiors nominated 58 of their for. 26 places
more than twice as many as could be accepted, though all 58 were
qualified for special recognition. 'llnis disparity is likely to grow.
It is also notable that several of these: courses last up,to a year, so
it is clear that senior officers can be spared for advanced training.
b. '1 litre is certainly a market for the kind of trailing mentioned
in paragraph 2 above. The best single evidence is the Advanced
Intelligence Seminar, whose three successful runnings so far have
all been oversubscribed and have been repeatedly described in student
critiques as "the best course I've over had. " Excellent outside
spca~ers, student interest in domestic problems and the future, and
free exchange of views among representatives of the four directorates
have all encouraged us to develop further training along these lines.
But that Seminar lasts only two weeks and the average grade of the
students has been GS-l4. Similar changes have also been w lcomed "
in the i hidcareer Course, the COS Seminar, and elsewhere, but we
are not yet reaching the near.-future managers of the Agency. The
effort to roach them in the Midcareer Course has led to such a
concenitration of students in their rnicidle and late 40's that I am
recommending that the course be restricted (with few exceptions)
to men and women in their 30's, and that older officers be catered
in other courses including the one I am proposing here.
c. Meanwhile the kind of senior training in. intelligence I
propose is not available an where else. T7he senior war colleges
and the Foreign Service's 'Senior Seminar give only the most
peripheral attention to U .S. intelligence. 'I7.he. Federal Executive
Institutes is of necessity aimed primarily at personal growth and
renewal, and cannot concentrate on the pioblenis of a particular
activity within government, Outside management courses have to
generalize the problems of American business. All these are
recognized as valuable experiences for the few senior CIA officers
who can share them, but it ought to be possible to combine their
best attributes of broad scope, depth of attention, sabbad.cal refresh-
umennt, and (not least) prestige iuuto a course that focuses on CIA and
itsleadcrship of U. S. intelligence.
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d. 'llie Agency's fair success with problem- solving seminars
suggests that the course I propose could serve that purpose as well.
For example, the first running could have as its unifying theme a
study and revision of that look at CIA's future which Lyman Kirkpatrick's
and why, and what further changes. are in prospect? ,
task force wrote in 1965. How much have times changed since 1965,
e. A properly developed, rational program of career develop-
ment training requires the establishment of this final, most sophis
ti.cated segment. This remains especially true so long as scores
of senior CIA officers have had little or no training or experience
in any intelligence function outside their own immediate jobs, and
have only hazy or outdated notions of the work performed in other
directorates and offices. Even those who have had the Midearcer
Course (probably a number:, of years ago, if they are now in line of
succession to top jobs) would benefit from a new and deeper look;
they would be sharing their greater experience with a small number
of other comers more usefully than was possible at midcareer.,
f. The burden which training puts upon the topmost officers ..
of the Agency is heavy, but I believe that much. of it could most
appropriately be devotec.l to those in the line of succession, while
some of their customary appearances before more junior audiences
could be handled by, subordinates. One somewhat invidious reason
for the prestige of the Mlidcareer Course is that in many cases the
midcareerist:s have had more, or more recent, exposure to the
top of the Agency than their own superiors have had. A senior
course ought to strcngtl-,.n the connection between the top men
and their eventual successors, not just in their own directorates
but throughout the Agency.
g. Finally, I am convinced we must devote more attention to
the growing complexity and accelerated change in our situation both
at home and abroad, and especially to the.ir implications for the
intelligence profession and the function. of CIA. We should act on
the suggestions made by article, "The Agency
and the Future, " in Studies in Intelligence (Spring, 1970) - one of
which was for an OTR seminar on the future.
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Its relationship as an agency to the White House, Congress,
and Anrcrican society, plus its internal developments, prospects,
,and problems. For example, how have the successive l esiden.ts,
their advisers on foreign affairs, and the DCIs influenced its
development?
Something of the personal approach of the Federal Executive
Lustitute; something i'roln one of the good managemer t programs
not to management in the abst?:act.
that could supplement the Grid or planning courses the students
may already have had; possibly an updated Brookings week of the
kind that used to be included in the Midcareer Courses. ? .This
segment would be tailored as closely as possible to CIA problems,
'173e National 5,ccu3_ity Machincry
I-low the NSC and the special committees and groups work,
now and prospectively; their impact on CIA and vice versa.
221c 172tC11? P;t'Ilce Conlnlullit
training program. Some of it would be fairly free- swinging, but the
travel patterned after that of the Midcaret r Course and the DD/S&T
considerable variety of reading, some writing, much discussion, films,
debates, student presentations, roundtables, and perhaps some domestic
grade GS- 15. It would Include a wide variety of speakers, the hest we
could find both inside and outside the Agency, but would also seek
4. Here, then, is what I propose: a seminar. of three months'
duration conducted twice a year, each for twenty officers of minimum
structured blocs would include the following:
requirements, jurisdictions, responsibilities, successes and
A. frank review of relations and problems, the impact
of various types of collection and analysis upon one another,
failures.
b. Management/Punning
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the relationship between domestic and national security affairs,
at the professional intelligence officer who must be attuned to
Aimed not only at the concerned citizen but especially
and sensitive to the ways in which they coincide or conflict.
with. We would hope for some publishable writing.
The most penetrating assessment of future foreign relations
and problems thq guest speakers and student body can come up
g. The Impact of Science and Technology
A broad consideration of the societal consequences of
'technological developments, narrowing down to their profound
consequences for intelligence.
problems of military estimates.
A view or sera es of views by experts on nuclear relation-
ships, SALT, deterrence, the role of war in modern society, the
5. That will do for openers, and I believe that with the necessary
support from the rest of the Agency OTR can present such a course in
the Fall of 1971. But once such a course is successfully under way I
believe we ought to consider and plan for a second stage: turning the
course into a National Sens or Intelligence Seminar open to the upper
levels of the whole intelligence community. It could become an important
vehicle for CIA's exercise of leadership and influence over the whole
intelligence process. For the senior officers who took it, it could come
to have as groat educational value and prestige as they now get from any
other senior course in the government. We could plan for a course
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completely open to the community or alternatively for one part open and
a later part reserved to CIA. I
1 1 t 1
Director of 'Raining
L. K. White
Executive Director -.Comptroller
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TO: Director of Training
1 5 DEC 19/0 .
1. The proposal outlined in paragraph 4 is approved. In
preparing the seminar, the Director of Training should give careful
attention to the constructive comments about the proposal which were
made at the Deputies Meeting on 2 December 1970.
2.. We shall defer a decision on whether this seminar will
become a permanent part of our training program pending an eva,J,ua--
tion of the first experience, and we shall of course reserve judgment
on. the second stage, as mentioned in paragraph 5. 25X1