STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE [Vol. 16 No. 2, Spring 1972]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78T03194A000300010013-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 121
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2005
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: January 1, 1972
• Content Type: IS

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STUDIES
INTELLIGENCE
VOL. 16 NO. 2
SPRING 1972
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
ARCHIVAL RECORD N_? 1499
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CONTENTS
Page
Penkovskiy's Legacy and Strategic Research ...... Len Parkinson 1
The latest strategic information is not in all cases the most
useful checkpoint. SECRET
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962: Presenting the Photographic 19
Evidence Abroad ........................... Sherman Kent
Inside story. SECRET
Bayesian Analysis
Bayes' Theorem for Intelligence Analysis ........ Jack Zlotnick 43
More on probability - I. UNCLASSIFIED
The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: A Comparison of the Con- 53
ventional and Bayesian Methods for Intelligence Warning.
Charles E. Fisk
More on probability - II. SECRET
The Origins of National Intelligence Estimating .............. . 63
Ludwell Lee Montague
In the beginning. CONFIDENTIAL
Intelligence Implications of Disease ........................... 71
Warren F. Carey and Myles Maxfield
Genesis of a project. SECRET
Strategic Warning: The Problem of Timing ... Cynthia M. Grabo 79
On assessing timing. SECRET
Intelligence Support to the US SALT Delegation .............. 93
Howard Stoertz, Jr.
Letter from Helsinki. 'SECRET
Notes and Comments ....................................... 107
Intelligence in Publication ................................... 113
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THE STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE
AND SHERMAN KENT AWARDS
An annual award of $500 is offered for the most significant contribu-
tion to the literature of intelligence submitted for publication in the
Studies. The prize may be divided if the two or more best articles
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Except as may be otherwise announced from year to year, articles on
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The editorial board will welcome readers' nominations for awards but
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CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
Len Parkinson is a member of CIA's Office of Strategic Research.
Sherman Kent is presently engaged in historical research.
Jack Zlotnick was formerly with the Office of Current Intelligence and
Charles E. Fisk is a member of CIA's Office of Economic Research.
The late Ludwell Lee Montague was a retired member of the Board
of National Estimates.
The late Dr. Warren F. Carey was a member of CIA's Life Sciences
Division, as is his colleague, Dr. Myles Maxfield.
Cynthia M. Grabo is a member of the National Indications Center,
and a contributor to Studies in Intelligence in the past.
Howard Stoertz, Jr., former member of the Office of National Estimates,
is now the director of CIA's Imagery Analysis Service, and was on
the scene for the activity he describes.
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No Foreign Dissem
The latest strategic information
is not in all cases the most useful
checkpoint.
PENKOVSKIY'S LEGACY AND STRATEGIC
RESEARCH
Why do we in the Directorate of Intelligence continue to research
the documentary material Colonel Penkovskiy photographed in the
early Sixties with his Minox cameras?
For one thing, we have concluded that most Soviet military
practices and strategic theories are slow to change. We have, therefore,
found it useful to identify as many of these practices and concepts as
possible, because this helps us in analyzing genuinely new Soviet
strategic doctrines, and in evaluating how the Soviets are reacting or
might react to particular political and military events.
Secondly, the development of some key weapons systems requires
long lead-times. For many weapons in the Soviet Navy, as an
example, the average is about ten years. Furthermore, additional time
is required to work out the operational concepts for the use of some
new weaponry. As a result, the discussions of some new systems in
IRONBARK-the code name for the bulk of Colonel Penkovskiy's
photographs-retained usefulness for strategic researchers through
the late Sixties and early Seventies. A large number of hardware
developments observed in the last several years of the last decade
can be traced to discussions in the IRONBARK documents.
A third reason for repeated immersion in the thousands of pages of
IRONBARK, even though much of it is now ten years old, is
realistic training for intelligence analysts. A survey conducted by the
Office of National Estimates in 1970 concluded that several offices in
the Central Intelligence Agency continue to value the collection,
particularly as an aid in the training of new researchers. The ONE
poll concluded that there is no better source from which to gain a
basic insight into the way the Soviets think about military philosophy
and doctrine.
*Adapted by the author from his presentation before the February 1971 Mideareer
Executive Development Course (Number 27).
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So, for all these reasons, it is rather evident why we still value the
Penkovskiy material as a solid reference aid.
How we use it is a more complex question to answer. I will address
that question by examining five general research areas in which the
I RONBARK proved to be a coup of the first magnitude. These five
main areas, in which it is still quite useful as a checkpoint, are: first
and foremost, military doctrine-in particular, the IRONBARK is
critical background for our current research on Soviet perceptions
of the nature of an East-West war in Europe; second, military
organization--a research area which particularly involves the subjects
of combat readiness, reinforcement, and mobilization in the Soviet
(round Forces; third, hardware-our research on this currently
centers on the characteristics of anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs) and
surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and anti-submarine and anti-carrier
weapons, the need for which were outlined or hinted at in the
IRONBARK; fourth, the Penkovskiy material is useful for research
on bureaucratic behavior, an analytical field which involves a
combination of our research on doctrine, organization, and hardware;
fifth, and last, the IRONBARK remains useful in researching the
rather exotic field of Soviet procedures for maintaining control of
their nuclear weapons. In the popular literature this is called
"fail-safe," but it really ought to be called "positive control," and
toward the end of the article I will examine the question of who pushes
the button.
One: Doctrine
Several months ago, a document on Soviet offensive operations
in the European theater came across my desk. I was, at that time,
responding to a request from the Pentagon to prepare a memorandum
on the significance of one of the earliest IRONBARK documents,
which also examined Soviet offensive operations in the European
theater.' The two documents on my desk were not only dated a
decade apart, but they advocated sharply different approaches on
the proper manner to wage a European war. Thus, my analytical task
became an effort to assess which one more closely reflected current
accepted Soviet military thinking on this important matter.
And here is a good example, I think, of the current value of
understanding the totality of the Penkovskiy reports. By studying
all the documents in the IRONBARK series, we and our counterparts
I An article by Lieutenant-General V. Baskakov, Special Collection of Articles of
the Journal Military Thought, 1960, First Issue.
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in British Intelligence were able in the early and mid-Sixties to identify
a number of patterns and signs of evolution in the doctrinal
discussions. The identified patterns, in turn, have helped. us to
evaluate the reports that we have received singly from other
sources since Penkovskiy was apprehended in 1962.
Some of the IRONBARK material which Penkovskiy passed
to us in 1961 and 1962 revealed a sharp military debate concerning
Soviet military concepts and organization needed for nuclear warfare.
There was general agreement in the writings that the existing
doctrine and organization were obsolete and inadequate for the era
of modern nuclear weapons. But there was wide disagreement on what
changes were necessary and how best to accomplish them. The
central issue in the IRONBARK debate in the early Sixties was the
force structure question of whether nuclear weapons should support
massive conventional combat operations in Europe-or replace them.
The IRONBARK document that the Pentagon wanted our
comments on called for forces which could practically vaporize
NATO countries-their national command centers, economic and
strategic targets, and armed forces-by nuclear strikes carried out by
the Strategic Rocket Forces. This strategy gave the Soviet Ground
Forces the subordinate task of marching through the rubble. No
"battle" was to take place, and there was little indication that a
systematic conquest of NATO Europe was conceived, not any
attempt to exploit its resources in the interests of the Soviet Union.
(The cold calculation, presumably, was that ashes were not really
worth occupying.) This theory, which we dubbed the "more rubble
for the ruble" strategy of former party leader Khrushchev, was
endorsed by only two other military writers in the IRONBARK
collection?
The Khrushchevian conclusion that nuclear weapons would replace
massive conventional combat operations in Europe promptly provoked
a sharp reaction from a wide variety of senior professional Soviet
officers. These officers proceeded to lay out the main themes of their
more orthodox, traditionalist line in subsequent issues of the
IRONBARK material. The more orthodox writers argued that the
indiscriminate use of nuclear weapons in the European Theater was
wrong (one general rebutted that such saturation strikes do not "con-
form with Marxist dialectics" 3), that nuclear-missile weapons should
2 Colonel-General A. I. Gastilovich and Lieutenant-General I. A. Tolkonyuk,
Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military Thought, 1960, First Issue.
3 General of the Army P. A. Kurochkin, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal
Military Thought, 1960, Second Issue.
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SECRET Penkovskiy's Legacy
be used only within the limits of expediency, and that the selection
of enemy objectives to be destroyed in the tactical and operational
zones is the prerogative of the troops of the Front, not the Strategic
Rocket Forces .4
in the view of the orthodox camp,5 sufficient reason remained to
draw up conventional plans to blitz to the Rhine and beyond. These
plans were based firmly on the traditional judgment that a land battle
would be fought in Europe which would require adequate ground and
air forces. One traditionalist writer argued that "the dominant role
in an operational-tactical plan will quite often belong to the Ground
Forces. ..." 6
The weight of this orthodox counter-barrage was so heavy that the
very radical, Khrushchev-like views practically disappeared from the
IRON BARK debate. As a result, Khrushchev initially failed to sus-
tain an imaginative airing of military arguments in favor of his de-
fensive policy in the published material supplied by Penkovskiy.
At this point, the singular nature of some of the IRONBARK,
particularly the Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military
Thought, merits some explanation. The Soviets classified the documents
top secret, but, most significantly, they were in fact unofficial. The
unusual nature of the Special Collection arose from the fact that it
was established, in early 1960, as an ad hoc forum for the airing of
frank, controversial and far-ranging views of senior military officers.
According to an editorial note, the articles expressed only the opinions
of the authors.
The articles selected for publication in the Special Collection were
evidently regarded as too sensitive for publication in the secret
Collections of Military Thought articles, or in the more widely circu-
lated monthly Military Thought.? The circulation of the Special
Collection was limited to army commanders and higher. The contribut-
ing writers, for the most part, were drawn from the same small circle
of military elites. Numbered among the contributors were the Minister
of Defense, the deputy ministers of defense, military district com-
a General of the Army V. V. Kurasov, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal
Military Thought, 1960, Third Issue.
In addition to Kurasov and Kurochkin, it included Marshal of Armored Troops
1'. A. Rotmistrov, Colonel-General N. 0. Pavolvskiy, General of the Army A. V.
Gorbatov, Colonel-General A. Kh. Babadzhanyan, Colonel-General I. 1. Gusakovskiy,
and Colonel-General G. I. Khetagurov.
e Kurochkin, op. cit. Emphasis supplied.
7 This version was restricted to "Generals, Admirals, and all officers of the Soviet
armed forces."
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manders, senior staff officers, chiefs and officials of military director-
ates, and military academy heads and theorists.
Since the Special Collection constituted a forum principally for the
exchange of unofficial or individually held viewpoints, the materials
contained numerous recommendations for the planning and conduct
of strategic and front operations in a future general war. And the
articles varied in quality. Some were distinguished for the care and
thoroughness exercised in their preparation. Other articles were dis-
jointed, naive, incomplete, extreme.
The very extreme nature of the views put forward in the IRON-
BARK document on my desk (the one the Defense Department had
requested more information on) was probably part of the reason for
the failure of Khrushchev's attempt to gain many adherents for the
foundations underlying the logic in his military philosophy. His
premises were that, first, any direct confrontation in Europe over
vital interests would quickly escalate into an all-out nuclear exchange
that, second, would leave little room for a land battle and, therefore
(to repeat), little need for a massive, multimillion man conventional
force.
The fireball philosophy of Khrushchev-and this appears to be
the salient point-involved much more than military strategy.. It was
closely tied to his long term program for domestic economic develop-
ment. His program required increased resources for domestic invest-
ment and consumer goods, which he hoped to obtain in large measure
through economies in the military. At the expense of conventional
capabilities, he advocated a military policy based on a minimal nu-
clear deterrent. His strategic policy was in part dependent on decep-
tive statements and Soviet secrecy, in the sense that it rested at that
time largely on the US intelligence community's inflated assessment
of the numbers of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
In brief, Khrushchev's considerations on the nature of a future
war were simple and cheap. The bulk of the professional Soviet
military's arguments in the Special Collection, by comparison, was
costly and complex.
The outcome of the debate exposed in the IRONBARK was
greatly influenced by two developments: the introduction of US
satellite photography, which subsequently exposed Khrushchev's
missile gap deception; and the failure of Khrushchev's last "cheap"
attempt to employ the strategic threat for policy gain by trying to
position medium range missiles in Cuba in 1962. The post-Khrushchev
leaders apparently concluded that past deficiencies in strategic power
were in part responsible for foreign policy fumbles, and that a policy
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of minimal deterrence was too risky for the Soviet Union. In other
words, the new leadership decided to purchase the security-in both
the strategic and conventional forces-that Khrushchev tried to
finesse.
In this sober vein, the theoretical pitch of that new document (the
one which I was contrasting with the ten-year-old IRONBARK
article) reflected the orthodox consideration that in order to strengthen
and make the Soviet deterrent more effective, the Soviet Union
must make serious and costly efforts to prepare for all kinds of threats.
This view was central to other post-Khrushchev classified articles
which discussed offensive operations in the general vein of the more
traditional advocates in the 1960-62 IRONBARK Special Collec-
tion series. 8
Two: Organization
The knowledge of the doctrinal debate in the IRONBARK turned
out to be doubly important, because the various articles on the sub-
ject also provided considerable new insight into the key subjects of
combat readiness and mobilization.
The IRONBARK evidence on combat readiness9 indicated that in
peacetime Soviet authorities viewed most of their divisions as gen-
s This lengthy footnote is composed for those readers who wonder what happened
to the "orthodox" and "radical" strategists of the early Sixties. The quick answer is
that their subsequent careers appear to have been largely unaffected by the points of
view expressed in the debate. The longer answer, starting with the last known positions
of the conservative writers, is as follows: P. A. Rotmistrov, a general inspector of the
Group of General Inspectors of the Ministry of Defense; N. 0. Pavlovskiy, deceased,
last held the post of Deputy Chief of the General Staff; V. V. Kurasov, inactive, last
held the post of Member of the Joint Supreme Command for Warsaw Pact Forces in
East Germany; A. V. Gorbatov, probably inactive, last held the post of Deputy
Chief of the General Staff; A. Kh. Babadzhanyan, presently Deputy Commander in
Chief of Ground Forces and Chief of the Armored Troops; I. 1. Gusakovskiy, probably
inactive, last held the post of Chief of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry
of Defense; G. 1. Khetagurov, probably inactive, last held the post of Commander of
the Baltic Military District; P. A. Kurochkin, may be inactive, his last post (terminated
by 1970) was as Member of the Joint Supreme Command for Warsaw Pact Forces in
East Germany. The last known positions of the "radicals" are as follows: A. I.
(1astilovich, inactive, last held the post of Senior Professor at the Academy of The
General Staff; I. A. Tolkonyuk, last identified in 1969 (but since replaced) as the First
Deputy Commander of the Siberian Military District; V. Baskakov, presently a
Colonel-General and the Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate for Military Training
Institutions. N. Khrushchev, the last of the important radicals, "retired" in mid-
October 1964 and died c;, 11 September 1971.
9In particular see Major-General Ya. Shchepennikov, Military Thought, 1961,
Third Issue. Also see Major-General A. Klyukanov, Special Collection of Articles of
the Journal Military Thought, 1961, First Issue.
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erally falling into three classes, based on level of strength and avail-
ability for use. The first class consisted of units "in a full state of
combat readiness" and available for immediate use. The second class
of units were frequently termed "of increased combat readiness" re-
quiring a "short mobilization period" and capable of being moved to
the theater of operations "within hours" or up to "several days."
The strength and availability of the third class were the least clearly
defined in the documents. The third class units were described as
either "at reduced strength" or "in cadre status," and their availability
was expressed in days or (sometimes) weeks.
Evidence over the last ten years supports this three-way break-
down. The only refinement some of us would make would be the
addition of a fourth class of division, one in skeleton form.
Most of the IRONBARK writers who wrote on combat readiness
were in agreement that at least three classes of divisions were ex-
pected to participate in the hypothetical campaign to seize Western
Europe. And most Soviet authorities in the early Sixties considered
that the campaign would be finished in about two to three weeks. In
the schemes of the General Staffers, the campaign was to end with
the arrival of Soviet forces at the English Channel within 10 to 20
days. On the timetable issue, we have evidence that the Soviets'
current planning for the blitzkrieg campaign against Western Europe
is essentially as ambitious as it was at the time the IRONBARK
documents were published, including both timing and composition
of the Warsaw Pact forces to be involved.
The capability to accomplish such a dazzling deployment depends
in large part on the effectiveness of the mobilization system. In this
connection, information on the Soviet system and its capabilities gen-
erally echoes assertions in a 1961 IRONBARK article which main-
tained that large units from the western part of the Soviet Union
could complete their mobilization and reinforcement in about 10 to
12 days.'? For example, in the case of their performance during the
1968 Czechoslovak crisis, when the Soviets could set the pace them-
selves, a partial mobilization and reinforcement was accomplished in
about two and a half weeks.
Three: Hardware
A third research area where the IRONBAR,K remained valuable
for many years was in the identification and analysis of some of the
characteristics of several new weapon systems.
10 Major-General P. Stepshin, Collection of the Journal Military Thought, 1961, Sixth
Issue.
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At the outset, however, it may be helpful to highlight the critical
information provided by Penkovskiy on the fairly old medium-range
and short-range ballistic missiles. This information helped us to evalu-
ate readiness conditions. For example, it enabled us to inform the intel-
ligence community that at least part of the medium range (MRBM)
force was in an increased state of readiness during the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, when other sources indicated that
crews working on the SS-4 were performing certain critical work re-
vealed in the Penkovskiy material.
Significantly, other intelligence sources helped us determine at an
early stage of the Soviet buildup of forces along Czech borders that
this deployment of forces was not directed against NATO. In other
words, the increased state of readiness of some of the Soviet MRBM
force was a precautionary move-part of a contingency plan against
the rather remote contingency that the invasion of Czechoslovakia
would spark a general European war.
How has the IRONBARK helped us in our research on new stra-
tegic defensive weapon systems-ABMs and SAMs?
Two articles published in the IRONBARK series in early 1962
reflected Soviet consideration of low altitude intercept of ballistic
missile reentry vehicles." Both articles rejected the concept of using
atmospheric sorting as a means of identifying the reentry vehicle
prior to its engagement and destruction. The engagement phase of
the Soviet ABM system should take place in outer space, not in the
atmosphere.
The two articles in the IRONBARK recognized the need for
sorting, but one discarded the atmospheric approach on the basis of
the limited reaction time available after target identification (and in
fact it is literally counted in seconds). The other IRONBARK article.
warned of the risks to ground targets if ICBMs and intermediate
range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) were allowed to penetrate to alti-
tudes below 40 to 50 kilometers before attempting intercepts. When
the first generation Soviet ABM system was deployed around Moscow,
technical analysis of the system by CIA's Science and Technology
Directorate was consistent with the IRONBARK exoatmospheric
conclusion. Subsequent U.S. progress with endoatmospheric inter-
ception (with the Sprint missile) alerted us to look for any
possible evidence that the Soviets were reconsidering their earlier
rejection of atmospheric intercepts.
11 Colonel-General I. Podgornyy and Colonels V. Savko and N. Maksimov, Special
Collection of Articles of the Journal Military Thought, 1962, First Issue.
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Another 1962 IRONBARK article 12 cited the chief of Soviet
strategic air defense (PVO Strany) on the need for a long-range
surface-to-air missile system. Such a system would permit a change
in the Soviet organization of air (not missile) defense from defense of
points to defense of zones. This, of course, alerted us to look for the
development of a long-range SAM. When one appeared with
characteristics which seemed to fulfill the zonal requirement, the
IRONBARK statement formed part of the evidence used in
assessing the role of this new SAM system.
Several articles discussed the problems of air defense for the
ground forces.13 These stressed a need for highly maneuverable
weapons which existing Soviet strategic SAM systems (SA-1, SA-2,
SA-3) could not provide. This alerted us to watch for development of
mobile SAMs, which we first saw in 1964. The IRONBARK articles
also indicated that the Soviets probably would not deploy large
numbers of their SA-2 and SA-3 systems with tactical forces, and
they have not.
Another important field of weapons development discussed in the
IRONBARK dealt with the Soviet Navy. However, IRONBARK
was not clear regarding the role of Soviet ballistic missile submarines.
Apparently the small force then in existence was targeted against
naval bases and ports and not on cities or military targets farther
inland. The best deduction is that the role and future of the
ballistic missile submarine were under debate in 1960-62, but at the
highest level and was too sensitive a topic to be within IRONBARK
material.
With the exception of this gap in the IRONBARK, the material
helped us to understand at least two important missions of the
Soviet Navy-the anti-carrier mission and the anti-Polaris mission.
The IRONBARK admirals saw the US attack carrier as the
greatest strategic threat at that time. New anti-carrier equipment
was entering the Soviet fleets but major problems of its strategic and
tactical employment remained to be solved. And the cruise missile,
delivered by aircraft and submarines, clearly emerged in the
Penkovskiy papers as the primary anti-carrier weapon. This knowledge
helped US intelligence discern the purpose of the SS-N-3 and other
missiles, a navy bomber, and two classes of cruise missile sub-
12 Lieutenant-Colonel Ye. Ryukin, Military Thought, 1961, Sixth Issue.
13 In particular, see Colonel-General S. Mironov, Special Collection of Articles of
the Journal Military Thought, 1962, First Issue.
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SECRET Penkovskiy's Legacy
marines.14 All of these weapons were exercised in the annual
Norwegian Sea exercises during the Sixties. These exercises have
continued into this decade and have followed the strategic and
tactical lines set out in one of the Military Thought articles.15
This article and other IRONBARK papers were our principal
guide for interpreting these important exercises and establishing the
estimate of the SS-N--3 missile as, primarily, an anti-ship weapon-
not a weapon intended for strategic attacks on bases and other
targets ashore.
The IRONBARK admirals, exhorted to look ahead, foresaw that
the Polaris submarine would replace US attack carriers well before
1971 as the primary strategic threat from the sea. One admiral 16
revealed that the Soviet Navy was assigned its anti-Polaris mission in
1957, and another 17 outlined a rather comprehensive anti-Polaris
program. I n retrospect it is clear that many essentials of the plans in
the IRONBARK were accepted. Due to the long lead-time required
for development of many anti-submarine warfare (ASW) systems,
some of these just recently showed up in operational versions. This is
a case in which the hardware value of IRONBARK is particularly
relevant to today's strategic researchers.
The IRONBARK admirals, however, were divided on the proper
direction for the submarine mission. One admiral18 advocated
multipurpose submarines for anti-ship as well as anti-Polaris
mission, while another 19 argued for several classes of specialized
submarines with designs optimized for specific tasks. Consequently
IRONBARK, while suggestive, is not a definitive aid in sorting out
several new classes of attack submarines now under construction.
There was general agreement, however, in the Penkovskiy papers on
the value of nuclear propulsion for submarines and for the priority
development of better sonar and torpedoes.
19 For example, the Kennel and Kipper missiles, the naval TU-16 bomber, and the
K -class and .J-class cruise missile submarines.
75 Captain First Rank Ye. Mamayev, Collection of Articles of Military Thought
(the SECRET version), 1962, Third Issue.
16 Admiral N. Kharlamov, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military
Thought, 1962, First Issue.
17 Rear Admiral 0. Zhukovskiy, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military
Thought, 1961, Fourth Issue.
1.8 Admiral V. Platonov, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military
Thought, 1961, Second Issue.
19 Admiral Yu. Panteleyev, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military
Thought, 1961, Third Issue.
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The total impression given by IRONBARK was that, while anti-
Polaris killer submarines held the greatest promise, aircraft and
surface ships had crucial stalking roles to play. For example, one
paragraph in a Special Collection essay 20 assisted in our early (1967)
assessment of the Moskva helicopter cruiser as an anti-submarine war-
fare ship. Other admirals advocated ASW cruisers and destroyers
with strong air defense armament to protect them while hunting
Polaris far at sea. We believe this concept is behind the appearance
of surface-to-air missiles on the Moskva and on five other classes of
ships whose NATO designations all begin with "K": the Kresta,
Kashin, Kanin, Kotlin, and Krivak classes. The joint SAM-ASW
concept may also be behind additional new classes of major
combatants under construction.
In the main, the ASW aircraft force, with its improved detection
and weapons systems, developed along the lines laid out in IRON-
BARK. In fact, the increasing emphasis to the ASW mission in naval
aviation, like the use of the helicopters on the deck of the Moskva
helicopter cruiser, was foreshadowed in the Military Thought
articles.
Another current research area in which we still use the IRONBARK
involves a combination of the three subjects just discussed-doctrine,
organization, and hardware.
We call this research on bureaucratic behavior, and the Penkovskiy
material is extra rich because several critical features relating to
doctrine, organization, and hardware were all in sharp focus by 1960.
In addition, a number of important decisions were begging for
resolution, such as the proper role of armor in a nuclear war.
Thirteen articles appearing in the IRONBARK's Special Collection
constituted the main vehicle for an intramilitary assessment of the
armor question 21 The authors of these articles ranged from technical
20 Rear Admiral N. Zvyagin, Special Collection of Articles of the Journal Military
Thought, 1961, Second Issue.
21 See articles by Colonel-General A. Kh. Babadzhanyan, Colonel-General A. I.
Gastilovich, Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Malinovskiy, Colonel-General P.
Poluboyarov, Marshal of Armored Troops P. Rotmistrov, Major-General L. Sergeyev,
Lieutenant-General A. Shevchenko, Lieutenant-General M. Shaposhnikov, Major-
General G. Zavizion, Colonel V. Zemskov, General of the Army A. Zhadov, and
Major-General C. Zimelev. For a good analysis of these articles, see the Rand study
The Role of Armor: Case Study of a Soviet Bureaucratic Decision Pattern (Secret, April
1969, RM-5814-PR/ISA).
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SECRET Penkovskiy's Legacy
specialists who detailed fine points of tank design and troop
organization, through senior branch-level officers who dealt with
more comprehensive concepts, up to the Minister of Defense, who
summarized the course and content of the professional military's
discussions. The Minister of Defense (Marshal Malinovskiy at that
time) also indicated the main directions he thought worth pursuing
in the armor field.
For a strategic intelligence researcher, these articles-which span
practically the whole period embraced by the Penkovskiy material-
are engrossing, because their contents testify to a vigorous exchange
of views and an examination of alternative choices.
One choice that the Soviets made resulted in the machine which
they call the Infantry Combat Vehicle or ICV. The guidelines for the
1CV were set out in considerable detail in one of the articles on the
tank debate.22 This advanced weapon was first seen in the Moscow
parade in November 1967, and when analysts in the Intelligence
Directorate began to study its characteristics, they were already on
first base, thanks to the 1961 guidelines in this one IRONBARK
article. The guidelines called for an amphibious, lightweight, low
silhouette vehicle mounting a turreted cannon and an antitank
guided missile. The guidelines added that the vehicle was to carry
a squad of men and provide hatches at the rear of the vehicle for safe
entry and exit under fire. The Infantry Combat Vehicle meets all
these requirements.
Interestingly, from a bureaucratic point of view, one choice that
the Soviets apparently did not make was a super-sophisticated tank
described in the IRONBARK by the top man in the Soviet military,
Defense Minister Malinovskiy.
The Special Collection materials on the role of armor, supplemented
by Soviet open press writings and by our own esoteric communication
analysis, enable the researcher to reconstruct, practically blow-by-
blow, the institutional, bureaucratic realities in which some major
Soviet decisions were actually made.
Another subject in which research on bureaucratic behavior is
currently making use of the Penkovskiy papers concerns the organiza-
tion of the Strategic Rocket Forces. The SRF was established only a
few months before Colonel Penkovskiy made his first contact with
us. And the key fact about the SRF in the 1960 to 1961 period was
that it was still in the process of formation: jurisdictional responsibil-
ities were being defined and redefined, relationships with the General
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Staff were being determined, personnel acquired, and major director-
ates being transferred to the SRF.
On the subject of the SRF's organization, the researcher can set
aside the IRONBARK volumes and make use of the colorful
CHICKADEE series. CHICKADEE is the codename for the tape
recordings Penkovskiy made and the reports he himself wrote.
One of the particularly interesting series of CHICKADEE reports
concerned a dispute between two important rocketry officials in the
Soviet military, Marshals Varentsov and Moskalenko. Penkovskiy
reported that beginning in early1961 there were rumors at responsible
levels of the Soviet General Staff that the strategic missile command
under Moskalenko (then Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Rocket
Forces) would be combined under a new command headed by
Varentsov, a close associate of Penkovskiy. Varentsov, then respon-
sible for tactical missiles, had openly referred to his rival, Moskalenko,
as a "stupid old sheep." Agitation for the incorporation of Moskal-
enko's strategic missiles under Varentsov's command apparently
existed throughout 1961, but by January 1962 Penkovskiy reported
that the final decision on this matter had been taken in Moskalenko's
favor.23 But in the Intelligence Directorate, the reasons behind
Moskalenko's success and Varentsov's disappointment in early 1962
remain another mystery of Moscow's byzantine-style politics.24
Politburo-level politics and policies, and particularly those dealing
with research on the highest level military decision-making bodies in
the Soviet Union, constitute another research target in which the
Penkovskiy material retains value. Here the CHICKADEE series
provides useful background on the rough-and-tumble way Khrushchev
ran his Higher Military Council-the rough equivalent of our National
Security Council. These reports also provide a useful contrast with the
comparatively phlegmatic management style of the current party
23 Marshal Varentsov was reduced in rank following the discovery of Colonel
Penkovskiy's activities. (Penkovskiy was a frequent visitor in the Varentsov home,
and had full access to the Marshal's missile and artillery headquarters.) Varentsov
never regained his former lofty rank of Marshal of Artillery. A final indication of his
disgrace was the terse, unsigned notice of his death in Red Star on 4 March 1971.
This is the sort of obituary usually given to relatively obscure veterans.
24 The mystery is "solved," if you are willing to accept the authenticity of Khru-
shchev's story in his "memoirs." Krushchev, by CPSU (and Mafia) standards, would
have owed a debt to Moskalenko. According to the "memoirs," Moskalenko (like a
sheep) followed Khrushchev's extra-legal orders soon after Stalin's death by arresting a
Kremlin goon of the period (Lavrenty Beria) in the Politburo inner sanctum. "I Could
see that Comrade Moskalenko would do what was necessary for the Party cause."
Khrushchev Remembers (1970, Little, Brown and Co., Inc.), page 338.
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o s egacy
boss, Brezhnev. Penkovskiy's tape recording sessions also provided
another chapter on the energetic style of the present Defense Min-
ister, Grechko 25
In short, the IRONBARK and CHICKADEE material have been
invaluable in our research on bureaucratic behavior. This material, in
part, helped us modify the simplistic Cold War notion of the Soviet
Union as a monolithic system directed by a unified central power.
A fifth current research area concerns the sensitive subject of So-
viet procedures for maintaining control over their strategic nuclear
weaponry.
Here it is important to emphasize that the IRONBARK and
CHICKADEE provided a wealth of essential information, previously
unknown and unavailable to us through other collection efforts, con-
cerning Soviet strategic missiles. Through another IRONBARK
series--the Top Secret Information Bulletin of the Missile Troops s''-
we saw for the first time how the Soviet strategic missile units were
organized and structured, what the functions of the various staffs in
each unit were, how these units were linked through the chain of com-
mand to the military high command in Moscow, and what the activi-
ties of missile units were at the different levels of combat readiness.
Through the CHICKADEE series, we received for the first time de-
tailed technical data on the missiles themselves, on the yields of their
warheads, on the method by which the missiles were oriented toward
their targets, and on the types of priority targets to be attacked by
strategic missiles, that is, military targets, industrial and administra-
tive centers, and the like.
But regarding all this data, there are analysts in the intelligence
Directorate who now maintain that the Penkovskiy material and
ancient history are beginning to have much in common. Indeed, the
IRONBARK is aging, particularly in light of the stunning changes in
the makeup of the Soviet strategic missile force since the last of the
Penkovskiy papers were acquired in 1962. For example, the force of
Penkovskiy's time was composed almost entirely of medium and inter-
mediate range ballistic missiles. The Soviets in the past few years have
begun to deactivate these missiles. Only a handful of intercontinental
25 An earlier chapter on Grechko's management style was derived from our telephone
tap in the Fifties, when he was Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Forces in East
Germany.
M In contrast to the Special Collection, the Bulletin was a technical journal which did
not carry controversial or unofficial articles.
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missiles were available when the IRONBARK documents were writ-
ten, and these were located at vulnerable soft sites (i.e., above ground
level). Since then, well over one thousand ICBMs have been deployed,
principally in single, dispersed, hardened silos. Advanced systems for
command and control of the force have, according to Soviet sources,
been put into use in the same period to centralize control of all stra-
tegic weapons. In addition, multiple warheads are now being intro-
duced into the force, and production of Polaris-type submarines has
been underway for more than five years.
Nevertheless, some of the information in the Penkovskiy material
continues to be pertinent to intelligence research being undertaken
today in the Office of Strategic Research. And a prime example is
in the area of research on Soviet measures for control of strategic
offensive weapons.
This research examines measures the Soviets have taken to achieve
what is called "positive control"-preventing accidental or unauthor-
ized use of nuclear weapons while maintaining a capability for quick,
measured nuclear strikes. It also examines questions about Soviet
awareness of the need for such control and the evolution and present
status of the Soviet national command mechanism; who in the Soviet
hierarchy gives the order to launch a nuclear attack? How is an order
communicated to the launch sites? This research draws upon open
Soviet sources. A wide variety of technical collection systems are also
used. But the contribution from the Penkovskiy material remains
conspicuous and significant.
Unexpectedly, it is not always what the Penkovskiy documents
say that is important for our detective work in this research area,
but what they do not say.
Until quite recently, there was evidently a prohibition against dis-
cussing in the Soviet open press the dangers of unauthorized or acci-
dental use of Soviet nuclear weapons. Significantly, the Penkovskiy
papers did not discuss this issue, which indicated that the blackout
extended even to classified military publications. The chief reasons
for the blackout might have been Soviet super-sensitivity toward the
subject-that is, security concerns may have outweighed other
important considerations, including that of keeping foreign govern-
ments informed about the adequacy of Soviet precautions. The
IRONBARK editors may also have believed that the more one can
learn about Soviet safety precautions, the more one can infer about
Soviet preparedness and capabilities-and in the early Sixties, unlike
the early Seventies, the Soviets had little of either preparedness or
capabilities in the strategic-missile field.
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en ovs fy s egacy
It is also possible to reinterpret and gain new clues from the
Penkovskiy material on the basis of what we have subsequently
learned about the Soviet command network from other sources. In
this connection, some of the IRONBARK documents addressed the
need to make greater use of computers and automation in the command
and control process as well as in the actual firing of missiles. Although
these particular documents did not describe the computer and auto-
mation systems needed to do the job, they did reveal the types of
command and control problems the Soviets were experiencing in 1960,
1961, and 1962, and the types of proposals they were considering to
correct these problems.
The documents indicated that the Soviets would seek, through
improvements in communications technology, automation, and data
processing, to reduce the reaction time of their strategic forces and
increase the versatility and reliability of their strategic command and
controls systems 27 Knowing these were the Soviet goals, we are
placed in a better position to evaluate the present state of the Soviet
strategic command and control network.
The Utility of the Penkovskiy Reports In the Seventies
Several intelligence researchers maintain that the evolution of
Soviet strategic forces, combined with the inflow of technical and
documentary evidence during the last few years, has converted the
Penkovskiy papers into "just historical" documents, with no lasting
relevance to the situation in the mid or late Seventies. Regarding
documentary material, and aware of the "apples and oranges"
situation, some believe that the Soviet statements at the Strategic
Arms Limitations Talks (even though they are skewed by the multi-
lateral arena in which they are voiced) have developed into a collec-
tion of evidence on Soviet strategic thinking more valuable than
major parts of the Penkovskiy collection (prepared for a far different
audience and not reflecting in all cases the agreed upon, prevailing
doctrine). Other contributors to Studies have highlighted the kinds
of detailed information we have received over the last ten years and
can expect from technical collection systems in the Seventies. So,
with the premise and prognosis of my colleagues that the IRON BARK
will continue to be buried by a flood of high quality technical and
documentary strategic information, I will conclude with a few words
on the tremendous analytical mileage which has accrued from the
Penkovskiy contribution.
21 A "single centralized system of communication with wide-scale use of multichannel
radio relay and wire links" was referred to in General Kurochkin's article, op. cit.
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The ten-year-old IRONBARK information stands as one of the
most valuable collections in the history of strategic intelligence.
The IRONBARK documents covered a period when the Soviets
were preparing for a major revision in the three key areas touched on
in this Studies article-Soviet military doctrine, organization, and
weaponry. The documents were composed at a time when the last
major revolution was taking place regarding Soviet perceptions on the
nature of a future war, and on the type of weapons and command and
control procedures needed to wage that hypothetical conflict.
This period represented a major watershed in the transformation
of Soviet military thinking away from the Stalinist preference for
massive conventional forces, to new patterns of thinking, calling for
brand new forces equipped with highly sophisticated, modern weap-
onry.
Much of the revolutionary IRONBARK material grappled with
concepts which the Soviets did not begin to implement until the mid
or late Sixties. A lot of what has taken place in Soviet military
doctrine in recent years has only been a footnote to the intense
debates in the information provided by Colonel Penkovskiy.. Thus,
while the ten year old material has less value than it did when it was
ten months old, its continuing utility as a checkpoint for our current
research is clear.
In sum, it is probably going to require another revolution in Soviet
military thinking to reverse the present situation, reduce the IRON-
BARK itself to footnotes, and relegate the Colonel's legacy to "just
historical" documents.
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No Foreign Dissern
Inside Story
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS OF 1962:
PRESENTING THE PHOTOGRAPHIC
EVIDENCE ABROAD
It was 0737 in the morning of Sunday 14 October 1962 when
Major Richard Heyser began the crossing of Cuba in his U-2. He
flew almost due north-on a course some 60 miles to the west of
Havana-and passed over the northerly beaches six minutes later.
In that brief timespan he took 928 pictures, which covered a swath
75 miles wide. The resolution of his best shots was a matter of three
feet.
Once past the target, he headed for McCoy Air Force Base near
Orlando, Florida. There the exposed film was transferred to special
shipping containers, loaded into a courier aircraft, and flown with all
deliberate speed to the Naval Photographic Interpretation Center
at Suitland, Maryland. It was late in the day when the film arrived;
from then on and through the night the Center developed the
original negatives and began making duplicate positives--not the
usual kind of photoprints on opaque paper, as we amateurs might
think, but a special kind of print on clear acetate that the pro's
could study over a light table.
The first of these duplicates reached the National Photographic
Interpretation Center (NPIC) just before 1000 on the morning of
15 October. By 1600 that afternoon the photointerpreters (PI's)
were almost certain that they had identified large surface-to-surface
missiles; in another hour or so they were sure enought for Arthur
Lundahl, the Director of NPIC, to pass the word to CIA Head-
quarters. Headquarters, in turn, reached McGeorge Bundy about
2100 that evening. It was his decision to give the President a
night's rest and the PI's a night's more labor before putting the
earth-shaking evidence before his chief.
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SECRET issue `rises
The President and his principal advisors were informed the next
morning.' This left the question of what to do-- a matter which
was resolved after five days of debate and deliberation in favor of a
"strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under ship-
ment to Cuba." Once the President reached this basic decision, he
had a myriad of second-line but still important decisions to make.
Just to touch on one-and incidentially the one that triggered the
subject of this essay--consider that word "quarantine." The Presi-
dent used it to avoid the more provocative word "blockade,"
but no matter what he called it, the other man was free to take
grave offense. Neither would go down easily with the USSR. In fact
it was possible that the quarantine and its enforcement would lead to
that well-known series of actions and reactions so often cited in
intelligence papers as the unintentioned stairway to general conflict.
Though the odds favoring this progress of events were small, they
were by no means negligible. Even if events stopped a long way
short of the cataclysm, there was still room for a thundering crisis,
the outcome of which would depend in significant measure upon the
way in which our allies would respond-whether they would support us
or back away.
During the seven days between the President's learning of the
Soviet's emplacement of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic
missiles in Cuba and his speech announcing it, a few score principal
officers of the Executive Branch worked endlessly and in unpenetrated
secrecy. Except for the President, the members of the so-called Ex
Comm (the ad hoc executive committee of the NSC), and the top
echelon of the intelligence community, few indeed of our fellow
countrymen knew what was going on and why, and practically no
one in the governments of our allies. Until the President was ready
to act, the Russians must not know that we knew their secret, and,
when we were ready to act, our allies should know our chosen course
before our adversaries. It was to this end that the Ex Comm drafted
for the President's approval a time-table of consecutive actions
which included the briefings of the chiefs of government of our princi-
pal allies.
L A good bit has been written on the subject of the missile crisis. The best full account
is still Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (Philadelphia and New York, 1966). Mr. Abel's
material comes in very large part from oral testimony-taken while events were still
fresh in mind-from most of the major American policy officers and a few of the
British. Robert Kennedy's Thirteen Days (New York, 1969) is an important first-
hand account.
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At A hour of D day (a time which became 1900 EDST Monday
22 October) the President was to tell publicly what was wrong in
Cuba and what the US government proposed to do about it. At
about A minus 12, the British were to receive formal advance
notice, about four hours later the French and the Germans, and
later still the Canadians? Our ambassadors were to call upon the
chiefs of government, deliver personal letters from the President and
a copy of the speech to be delivered that night, and make whatever
oral comment was appropriate. Each of them was also to have copies
of the air photos and (for the presentations to the British, French,
Germans, and Canadians) an intelligence officer from CIA. head-
quarters to brief and answer questions as necessary.
Of our ambassadors to the UK, France, the Federal Republic, and
Canada, only Mr. Bruce was at his post in London. Mr. Dowling was
not in Bonn; he was in Georgia on compassionate leave. Mr. Bohlen,
our ambassador-designate to Paris, was on his way on a boat in
mid-Atlantic,3 and Mr. Butterworth, the ambassador-designate to
Ottawa, was not to assume his functions until after the New Year.
In Mr. Dowling's case there was a remedy, a speedy termination
of his leave; as for Mr. Bohlen and Mr. Butterworth, there was no
remedy but that of finding worthy substitutes. For the group heading
for Europe there was to be a presidential aircraft (Air Force One)
which would transport Mr. Dowling, Mr. Acheson (the substitute
for Mr. Bohlen), the documents, the pictures and their CIA security
courier Edward Enck, and the three CIA men to do the intelligence
briefing. Chester Cooper, who had had a tour of duty in London,
was to be with Mr. Bruce; R. Jack Smith (who was AD/Cl at the
time) was to go on to Bonn with Mr. Dowling; and I had the honor
to be with Mr. Acheson. In place of the absent Mr. Butterworth, the
President called from private life Mr. Livingston Merchant (who a
few months earlier had resigned as our ambassador to Canada and left
the Foreign Service). He and William Tidwell, his CIA intelligence
briefer, made their separate ways to Ottawa.
There is some evidence that first planning in the Ex Comm did not
envisage that the intelligence briefing of the chiefs of government
2 The Turks and Italians were also to receive advance notice.
3 Between ambassadorial assignments Mr. Bohlen had been keeping Soviet matters
under special scrutiny for the benefit of the President and Secretary of State. His
appointment to Paris had come only shortly before the discovery of the missiles in
Cuba. After this turn of events, President Kennedy was torn between keeping Bohlen
at his side in Washington or releasing him to take up his duties in France. The result
was some temporizing which led to Mr. Bohlen's late departure.
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SECRET Missile
would take place simultaneously with the ambassadors' presenta-
tions of the case. Rather the technical intelligence colloquy was to
take place on a service-to-service basis soon after the principals had
met. I mention this to indicate that the Ex Comm did consider the
intelligence aspects of the multi-national maneuver and came to attach
a high importance to it.
Whether the Ex Comm worried about the credibility of photo-
graphic evidence (it was the only solid evidence there was) I do not
know, but I do know that a few very important officers of the Agency
did. Accordingly, Cooper, Smith, Tidwell, and I were urged to pay
particular attention to the way in which our audiences responded to
the photographs and to record these reactions in our memos for the
record. We were also urged to make these memos as full and detailed
as other demands on our time would permit.
Cooper and I did find the time to write up our experiences at length.
Smith, who did not, spent some time last June (1971) giving me the
benefit of his remembrance of the events almost nine years back.
Tidwell wrote only a short memo, of which more later, since the magis-
terial Memorandum of Conversation which Mr. Merchant filed with
the Department of State covered the subject with depth and thorough-
ness. In these communications there is much of interest to the intelli-
gence calling. But let the memos speak for themselves.
First from a shortened version of Chester Cooper's "Memorandum
for the Record" of 29 October 1962:
The Prime Minister
On Monday, 22 October [1230 London time] I accompanied the
Ambassador to the Admiralty to assist him in briefing Mr.
Macmillan on the situation in Cuba. The letter from the Presi-
dent had been sent to the Prime Minister's office earlier in the
(lay. We delayed our session with the Prime Minister for half an
hour, hoping to bring with us an advance draft of the President's
message.
The Prime Minister was alone except for his Private Secretary.
It was evident that the Prime Minister had some advance gen-
oral knowledge of the developing situation in Cuba (as indeed he
should have since we had briefed various members of the British
intelligence community several days before in Washington).
However, Mr. Macmillan obviously had no idea of the extent or
precise nature of Soviet offensive capabilities in Cuba. His first
reaction, which he addressed more to himself than to the Ambassa-
dor, was to the effect that the British people, who had been
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living in the shadow of annihilation for the past many years,
had somehow been able to live more or less normal lives and he
felt that the Americans, now confronted with a similar situation
would, after the initial shock, make a similar adjustment. "Life
goes on somehow."
The Prime Minister was obviously aware that this might be mis-
interpreted, and went to considerable length to explain to the Ambassa-
dor that this was more of a philosophical commentary on human nature
than any indication on his part that he was not sympathetic with
the US position or shocked at the news.
After my recitation of the present Soviet offensive strength in
Cuba, Mr. Macmillan said that, if the President were convinced
that a meaningful offensive capability were present, "That was
good enough for him." He did not spend more than a few seconds
on the photographs. Although the Prime Minister did not develop
this theme in my presence in detail, he did indicate that he felt
that a blockade would be difficult to enforce and that the US
would have problems in getting solid UN support. He also rumi-
nated about whether it would not have been better to have con-
fronted Khrushchev privately with our evidence and given him
a private ultimatum.
Lord Home then joined the Prime Minister and the Ambassador
for a discussion of policy matters and I was excused. I was quickly
followed by the Private Secretary who stressed the necessity for
making our evidence as convincing as possible to the British
public. . . .
Members of the Shadow Cabinet
Cooper also briefed Hugh Gaitskell and George Brown of the British
Shadow Cabinet. He, Ambassador Bruce, and two embassy officers
met with them on Tuesday evening. Cooper told the story and showed
the photographs. Gaitskell, who up until that time had feared that
the President was confusing the issue of the Soviet buildup by making
it appear that surface-to-air missiles were offensive weapons, confessed
his earlier apprehensions and acknowledged that they were ill-founded.
He was visibly shaken by the evidence of the long-range missiles.
He made much of the analogy between Cuba and Turkey and
brushed aside most of the standard arguments about the differ-
ence between the two. However, he seemed much impressed with
the fact that the Cuban missiles were outside the BMEWS sys-
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tem. He felt that this did, in fact, represent a change in the status
quo and in the "balance of terror" question.
George Brown was concerned as to whether the United States had
deployed more or fewer Jupiter missiles in Turkey than the Soviets
were putting into Cuba and as to the Soviets' capability for early
warning of the firing of these missiles. Cooper said he would try to
get enlightenment for Brown on both matters. Brown's point, and one
to which Gaitskell assented, was that if the United States did indeed
have fewer missiles in Turkey than the Soviets would have in Cuba and
if the Soviets did have an early warning capability, the argument about
the equivalence of the Turkish and Cuban bases would be weakened.
Gaitskell said that he had been with the Prime Minister just
prior to our discussion and that the Prime Minister expressed
annoyance about the lack of advance knowledge of US actions.
I pointed out to Gaitskell in fairly strong terms that there were
two aspects to the question of advanced knowledge: one was the
developing situation in Cuba and the other was US intentions
with respect to Cuba. In connection with the former, I told
Gaitskell that we had occasion to discuss Cuba with several
important people in the British intelligence community who
happened to be in Washington during the week of 15 October,
and that several of them had been given a formal briefing on
Friday, 19 October. We could only assume that they notified
their government of the developing situation in Cuba. With
respect to US intentions, I noted that we had hoped to get an
advanced copy of the President's statement to the Prime
Minister 12 hours before the broadcast, but that this was not
possible because the President himself had not decided on the
precise language of his statement until fairly late in the day. . . .
This was unfortunate, but in the nature of the circumstances,
was all that could have been done. . - .
The British Intelligence Community
Ambassador Bruce and Cooper agreed that it would be wise to
give the briefing to the British Joint Intelligence Committee, and Q
got in touch with Sir Hugh Stephenson (the
JIC Chairman), who set the time for 1000 Tuesday morning.
There was no evident skepticism of the validity of our
evidence, but it was clear that the Air Ministry was anxious to
get the photo take for analysis by their own PI's (a team of Air
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Ministry officers was provided an opportunity for closer
examinination of the photos later in the afternoon). There was,
naturally, considerable speculation as to Soviet motives. To the
extent that there was any consensus in the JIC, it was very
much along the line propounded by Sir Dick [White] the
previous evening. ... [Namely: that the Soviet aim was to
confront the President late in November with a fait accompli in
Cuba, a vantage point from which Khrushchev could bargain for
a definitive settlement of the Berlin question and the question
of US foreign bases in general.]
Because of the adverse or skeptical press reaction to US
claims that the USSR had offensive missile bases in Cuba, the
Ambassador and the Public Affairs Officer were anxious to have
a press briefing as early as possible on Tuesday. At 5:00 p.m.,
Tuesday, a press conference was held for representatives of all
the dailies, BBC, and ITV. The conference was chaired by
Evans, the PAO, and. attended by Minister Jones and myself.
After indicating the ground rule ("backgrounder," no attribution,
etc.), Mr. Evans briefly described the situation in Cuba and
indicated that I, a Department of Defense consultant, would
show the photographs and explain some of the background of
the build-up. I did this, guided by the instructions I had
received from Washington. The questions which followed were
friendly and I had the feeling after the conference was over (it
lasted about an hour) that the press representatives were genu-
inely convinced of the US case. I released the photographs, with-
out the identification of their precise locations, to the press. (A
fuller description of the circumstances of the release of the
photographs is attached at Annex.)
Later Tuesday evening both the BBC and ITV had major
programs dealing with the Cuban crises. The BBC broadcast
the Foreign Minister's speech [which indicated strong support
for the US position and a condemnation of the Soviet Union]
and documented his remarks by the use of the photographs
which I had supplied to the BBC.
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Annex-Release of Pictures to Press 4
The following consideration influenced my decision to release
the photographs of the Soviet build-up to the British press:
Immediately following my briefing of the Prime Minister,
Philip De Zuluetta, the Prime Minister's Private Secretary,
expressed serious concern about the reception any strong Govern-
ment statement would have in the absence of incontrovertible
proof of the missile build-up.
0n Tuesday morning (23 October) the British press was
almost universally skeptical of the President's claim that the
USSR had established offensive bases in Cuba. References were
made to the forthcoming election and to the "failures" of past
US intelligence efforts re Cuba.
0n Tuesday morning, also, there was some uncertainty as to
whether, at the DOD press conference following the President's
broadcast, the press was shown the pictures or whether it was
given the pictures.
After my briefing of key Embassy officers at noon on 'T'uesday,
the PAO and the Minister urged the necessity of providing the
British press with a clear and authoritative story on the
build-up. I was asked to do this (the Ambassador subsequently
expressed his own desire that this be done) and was also urged to
show the pictures on a special BBC television program scheduled
4 Elie Abel (op. cit., p. 138) has the following comment on the release of the pictures
to the British press. The last line is in conflict with Cooper's testimony, as well as the
fact that the London TV of Tuesday night showed the photographs, and the London
press of Wednesday morning was loaded with them.
Sir David and Lady Ormsby Gore had received a pre-crisis invitation to join
the Kennedys that evening [Tuesday 23 October] for a private dinner-dance. The
dance, of course, had been canceled. But Mrs. Kennedy invited the Ormsby Gores
to bring to dinner some Embassy guests who had arrived from New York too late
to be forewarned of the cancellation. The British Ambassador found the President
in no mood for social chatter. The two went off together for a talk about the
day's events and what the morrow might bring. Sir David was worried about the
skeptical British press reaction. Even the President's friend, Hugh Gaitskell,
leader of the Labor Opposition, had talked of "so-called missiles" in Cuba. The
Ambassador felt it was most important that the missile-site photographs be pub-
lished, especially those that would most readily persuade laymen that the Soviet
missiles were indeed installed. The President sent for the photographs and together
the two re-examined them closely. Ormsby Gore's plea, reinforcing the direct
appeal of Ambassador Bruce in London, helped the President decide to publish
the pictures next day.
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for Tuesday night. I refused to appear on television, agreed to
participate (but not sponsor a press briefing) and requested
Headquarters' permission to have the pictures shown on BBC.
I received permission to have the pictures shown on television
on the basis of the Ambassador's urgent request. The localities
of the sites were to be removed and the press and the television
audiences were to be told that these were typical sites but were
not to be informed of the number of sites.
After consultation with Embassy officials, I agreed that
since the pictures were going to be shown on television (it
subsequently developed that ITV as well as BBC was going to
have a special Cuba program) we could release sanitized
versions of the photographs to the press for publication Wed-
nesday morning.
I informed Headquarters at my first opportunity (which was
after the Gaitskell briefing at 2100) of this release.
Sometime after midnight I was in telephone communication
with the White House (Forrestal) and explained briefly the
circumstances of release.
Air Force One which had left Cooper at Greenham Common Air
Force Base in the United Kingdom and had left Mr. Acheson and me
at Evreux, an air base in France used by the USAF-flew on to
Cologne in the Federal Republic and disembarked Ambassador
Dowling, Edward Enck the courier, and R. J. Smith. The time was
well on towards Monday's dawn (22 October).
The meeting with the Chancellor, who had been electioneering in
Hanover all day, did not take place until 1900. Herr Adenauer
received Dowling and Smith in the Chancellor's official residence. He
had provided the interpreter. As Smith remembers it, Ambassador
Dowling gave the Chancellor the personal letter from President
Kennedy, and with the reason for the meeting clear, introduced Mr.
Smith of the CIA who was to show the evidence for the President's
concern. The Chancellor's first response was characteristic: it showed
perhaps his amused annoyance at the Gehlen organization's habit of
using pseudonyms even within the official family and certainly
something more than a trace of his legendary suspicion of everything.
"Are you sure your name is Smith? Perhaps you have two names,"
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Missile Crisis
he said, just by way of getting things straight at the start .5 Unruffled,
Smith said that his name was really Smith and began the briefing
with the photographs, which were contained in an outsized carrying
case. The Chancellor asked him if he slept in it, but Smith pushed on.
They were seated at a low table, Smith and Herr Adenauer side by
side, with Ambassador Dowling across. As the dramatically illustrated
story unfolded, Adenauer was an attentive listener. Seemingly
concerned to indicate his general familiarity with the sort of military
intelligence being laid before him, he asked questions such as one
regarding the state of readiness of the surface-to-surface missiles.
(As it came through the interpreter, it was to the effect "were they
warm or cold?")
There was no question but that he was impressed with the
evidence. Far from showing any incredulity, he indicated that he
was not at all surprised to hear of these Soviet doings. His tone was
one of "this is what one must expect of them." Nor did he leave any
doubt in Ambassador Dowling's mind that he would support the
President's adopted course of action. "You may assure your President
that I will be useful" is the way Smith remembers his reassuring
comment s
Some three weeks after the dialogue in Bonn the Chancellor and key members of
the German government made a state visit to Washington. As R. J. Smith recounts
the incident,
the White House decided that one of the features of the program for the Germans
should be a briefing which would detail for Chancellor Adenauer precisely how
the Russian missiles were removed from Cuba. Smith was asked to perform this
chore, the venue for which was the Cabinet Room in full panoply. The German
Chancellor sat on one side of the table, flanked with his defense and foreign min-
isters; President Kennedy sat across from him, flanked by Secretaries Rusk and
McNamara. Smith sat behind the Chancellor and, on signal from the President to
begin the briefing, stood up and placed the first briefing board on the table before
Chancellor Adenauer. As he did so, he said, "Chancellor Adenauer, I am Mr.
Smith." Adenauer looked up, his ancient face impassive, and said, "Immer,"
which the translator rendered as "still." This cracked Smith up and the Chancellor
chuckled, whereupon Smith felt obliged to explain the joke to the distinguished
group. The President smiled frostily and urged Smith to continue.
6 High officers of our government thought that there would be no harm in reinforcing
the Chancellor's decision to be "helpful." Knowing of his warm personal friendship
with Mr. Acheson and his high respect for General de Gaulle, they asked Mr. Acheson
to pass through Bonn on his way home and discuss the situation anew and tell of de
Gaulle's reaction to the President's chosen course of action. This is worth a footnote
if for no other reason than to set a woefully confused chronology straight. Washington
sent a night action cable to Mr. Acheson Monday night 22 October; it reached his
attention in the small hours of Tuesday (23 October). He went to Bonn during that
very day, and with Mr. Dowling saw the Chancellor for two hours late in the after-
noon. Needless to say, the mission was a great success.
Neither the official memorandum of conversation, nor Mr. Acheson's memory of
the interview as reported in C. L. Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants (New York, 1970),
p. 931, mentions the photographic evidence.
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Mr. Acheson and I with Mr. Dowling and Smith flew on from our
UK stop to Evreux where we were met by Cecil Lyon, the charge in
Paris, Ambassador to NATO Mr. Finletter, and Edward Ryan,
I land an armed courier. It was then about 0130
local time. Mr. Acheson, with Messrs. Lyon and Finletter, proceeded
directly to Lyon's residence. Ryan, the courier, and I went to the
Embassy to put the materials in the vault.
About noon (Monday 22 October) there was an assembly at Mr.
Lyon's house of high-ranking officers from the Embassy, from our
delegation to the North Atlantic Council, and from among our
military men in France. I gave the intelligence briefing using the
photographs.
Meeting with President de Gaulle at the Elysee Palace
At 4:40 Laughlin Campbell, and I
again appeared at Mr. Lyon's residence where two modest auto-
mobiles from the Elysee Palace awaited us. Mr. Acheson and Mr.
Lyon, with a presidential escort officer, took one; Campbell and I
(with the photographs) the other. We entered the Elysee through the
regular entrance on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. Once within the
first courtyard we followed a tortuous course from court to inner
court to inner court and were finally brought up to an un-
prepossessing doorway under guard.8 We proceeded down small
7 The memo was dictated on 28 and 29 October 1962 and typed up a couple of
weeks later.
8 In short, the French neglected nothing in assuring that Mr. Acheson-a recognizable
man in almost any corner of the world-would not be recognized by a casual bystander.
His meeting with the President had to be kept secret until "A" hour which would have
been about midnight in Paris.
Mr. Acheson's well-known powers as a raconteur were stimulated by the route we
took; I kept getting playbacks from third parties which became harder and harder
to recognize. The penultimate version occurs in C. L. Sulzberger's book, already cited,
p. 930. He says he got it from Paul Nitze, who said he got it from Mr. Acheson, and it
involved "Acheson [being] smuggled into de Gaulle's office by an underground tunnel
from across the street." Apparently so high was the credibility of this unlikely story that
ace newsman Sulzberger who had lived in Paris some twenty years and knew the
environs of the Elysee as well as those of the White House swallowed that secret
tunnel without even a footnote.
If perchance the reader happens to be the studious sort who checks references, he
may be disturbed to read Sulzberger's two sentences following the one about the tunnel.
They go: "Acheson went in alone except for the Elysee interpreter. Not even Sherman
(See footnote on following page.)
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corridors, up small corridors, up small stairways, through more
corridors and stairways until we finally arrived at a large room
adjoining the President's private office. My guess is that if this were
not the Cabinet Room it served some such purpose. There was a
very large oval table which would have seated perhaps 20 people.
The four Americans and the escort officer were here joined by
another Frenchman who turned out to be an emergency interpreter.
After a few minutes' wait-which would have been a minute or so
after---Mr. Lyon and Mr. Acheson were ushered into the General's
office. Mr. Lyon has reported by cable on what took place.
Campbell and I waited for perhaps 20 minutes; then the two of us
were invited in. After I had completed the first draft of this
memorandum, I saw Mr. Acheson, who told me the following about
his discussion with de Gaulle. When he had conveyed his message he
told the General that there was an intelligence officer waiting outside
to brief him on the evidence. General de Gaulle's response was that
he needed no such evidence; he was satisfied with Mr. Acheson's
account; after all, President Kennedy obviously would not have sent
a man of Mr. Acheson's eminence to give him misinformation. Mr.
Acheson said he thought the General would be interested.9
The presidential presence was awesome. I was prepared for the
height but not for the bulk. At the moment of shock he seemed to be
about twice the size of normal men. His eyes too were somewhat
unnerving, shielded as they were behind the thick lenses made
necessary by the removal of cataracts. I can recall a feeling of
(Footnote 8 continued)
Kent was allowed." May I assert that this is another error (either Nitze's or
Sulzberger's--certainly not Mr. Acheson's); that I did go in; and that the memo for
the record which you are now reading is not a self-serving fabrication.
The peak occurs in Kenneth Harris' write-up of an interview with Mr. Acheson
(Life, 23 July 1971, p. 52). The operative passage runs thus:
"'-',o he I General de Gaullei sent two small French cars, and we drove down into
the garage basement of the palace and were led up through the basement past
the wine closets. There were all sorts of steel doors with little eyelet holes in them,
and people would look through and give a password. I had a very amusing CIA
friend along with the photographs. halfway through this, he said: "D'Artagnan,
is that saber loose in the scabbard?" And I said, "Aye, Porthos." And he said:
"Be on the alert. The Cardinal's men may be waiting." Finally, we were brought
up into the cabinet room, where an old friend of ours, whose name was Lebel,
greeted us....
9 Elie Abel (op. cit., p. 112) has a slightly different version whose primary source
was almost certainly Mr. Acheson. It goes: "Then Acheson offered to show the
photographs. De Gaulle swept them aside. 'A great government such as yours does
not act without evidence.' "
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despair that came with the realization that the evidence which we
were about to present was wholly visual evidence. (As it turned out
my fears were groundless.)
As Campbell and I entered, he rose from his small desk-not much
larger than our photographs-and gravely shook hands. He gave me
the nod to begin.
Campbell handed me the large photograph of the map of Cuba
which I put before the General. Still standing, he bent over it as
I began to talk about the defensive phase. I mentioned first the
arrival of large numbers of Soviet personnel, quantitites of
transportation, communications and electronic equipment. Next
I came to the SAM's, pointing out the SAM symbol on the map.
To my great comfort he at once identified the symbol and with
his own finger pointed to a number of the others. I then showed
him the photograph of a SAM site which he seemingly
identified at once. I passed on the photograph of Santa Clara
airfield, pointing out the MIG-21's. There was a reading glass
which he picked up and put into the proper position, looked at
the swept-wing aircraft, and indicated that this was a remarkable
photograph. I quickly showed him the Komars and the surface-
to-surface cruise missiles. The word "cruise" was the only
technical term [which the interpreter] did not cope with
instantly. He snapped a finger in annoyance and then realized
that salvation lay on the graphic itself for this photograph had
as an inset a diagram of the little winged missile.
I then [took up] the offensive phase, showed him the II-28
crates being carried as deck cargo, showed him the San Julian
airfield, pointed out the crates, the assembled IL-28 and the two
uncrated fuselages. Again he picked up the reading glass and ex-
amined the picture carefully. I then went to MR-1 [Medium
Range Ballistic Missile site called number one] at San Cristobal
and the MR site at Sagua la Grande. Next came the IR [Inter-
mediate Range Ballistic Missile] site at Guanajay. Coming back
to the map again I totted up the number of confirmed sites, the
number of probables plus the possibles at Remedios. I then went
over our estimates of degree of readiness and gave him a worst
case estimate as of the moment of speaking and another worst
case as of early 1963. I discussed briefly nuclear warheads, the
fact that we could not positively identify any but noted the high
degree of probability that they were in Cuba and the highly
suspicious storage areas being readied. I called his attention to
the storage site at Guanajay. I noted our estimate of the yield
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issI a rlsis
of these warheads as two to three megatons for the MR's and
three to five for the IR's. I closed with a reminder that as of early
1963 our worst case estimate could augment present Soviet first
strike capabilities with missiles by some 50%.
Not once in the course of my briefing was there any hint of
incredulity on the part of the General. If he was not perfectly
satisfied that the pictures were scenes from Cuba and the weapons
those which I asserted them to be, he gave me no inkling of
doubt. Furthermore, if he had expressed doubts to Mr. Acheson
and Mr. Lyon [after Campbell and I had left the room], I am
sure they would have reported it... .
During the day I Ireceived the USIB-approved brief-
ing note to be read to the NAC. Mr. Acheson got a copy and had
read it. Meanwhile we hopefully awaited the full text of the speech
which the President would deliver at midnight local time. The
NAC meeting was scheduled for 10 PM. By the time I had to
leave the Embassy only Part 1 of 4 had been received.
The Acting Chairman [of the North Atlantic Council] was
Colonna of Italy. He introduced Mr. Acheson as needing no intro-
duction to the group, noting that he was on a special mission for
the President of the US... . Mr. Acheson began by briefly dis-
cussing the nature of [his] mission, read some excerpts from the
portion of the President's speech that he had at hand and then in-
dicating that he wished to read a statement, introduced me as
Assistant Director, CIA, who was there to answer questions when
he finished reading his prepared text. He then read the text.
There were a few questions on the estimated performance of the
MR's and IR's, a general question about their state of readiness,
and after the meeting an aide of the German permanent repre-
sentative followed us to Mr. Finletter's office to ask the estimated
yield of the warheads. . . .
As per USIB instruction, I used no graphics whatever with one
exception. I passed around an unclassified map. It showed what por-
tions of North, Central, and South America the MR's and IR's could
reach. Among the metropolitan areas of the US under the gun were
New York, Philadelphia, the District of Columbia, Chicago, San
Francisco, etc., and in this distinguished company, one found Oxford,
Mississippi. It had been spotted on the map by a roguish CIA man to
show Robert Kennedy, who had wondered out loud if Oxford (then
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much on Mr. Kennedy's mind as the place where bitter racial con-
troversy had enveloped the state's university campus) was within
range. I never recovered the map and have often wondered how some
analyst of one of the NATO intelligence services explained how Ox-
ford, Mississippi came to be listed among the great metropolises.
From the council there were no questions about the sources of our
information and no questions whatever to indicate any doubt that
Mr. Acheson's story was not in fact a true story. The meeting ad-
journed just in time for the members to hear the President's speech
which began at midnight Paris time.
Next day, Tuesday 23 October, under instructions from Head-
quarters, Campbell and I made the trip to the SDECE (the French
secret intelligence service) and briefed the Director, General Jacquier,
and a few of his principal officers. Our experience was much like
Cooper's with the British JIC. There was great interest and no hint
of doubt with respect to the genuineness of the photographs. There
were no questions even about the pictures of the IR site and the
surface-to-surface cruise missiles, the identification of which re-
quired a lot more faith than simple good eyesight.
The Briefing of the French Press
We returned to the Embassy by about 3:30 to find that USIB had
authorized the briefing of the French Press, had supplied a briefing
text and instructions with respect to the use of the graphics. John
Mowinkle, the Public Affairs Officer, under instruction from the
charge called the press conference for 10:30 the next morning, Wednes-
day, 24 October. Mowinkle himself was not to do the briefing but
was to entrust the job to an assistant who had a greater familiarity
with military matters than Mowinkle himself. It was further decided,
and this was entirely satisfactory with me, that I would make no
appearance before the newspaper men but would confine my activities
to reading the assistant in on the subject and making sure that the
graphics were keyed into his spoken statement in fool-proof manner.
It will be recalled that USIB's instructions re this briefing
were as follows: the briefer was to follow a USIB-approved text
which was at hand. The briefer was to refer to certain stipulated
graphics. The number was perhaps no more than half of the total
number . . . in the kit. All place names, locational data, and
numbers were to be removed from the graphics. Members of the
press could study the graphics but could not reproduce them.
Graphics were not to be allowed outside the Embassy building.
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In the light of these instructions I personally selected the
graphics as indicated, cut off the headings at the top of the prints,
removed the little box in each photograph which contained the
orientation map of Cuba with its designating arrow, the classifi-
cation, and where indicated obliterated locational information
and numbers.
Two graphics had to be improvised. These were a map of the West-
ern Hemisphere showing approximate ranges of the MR's and IR's
(the map I had not recovered from the NAC) and a map of Cuba
showing what Cuban air space was under protection of the SAM's.
I went over the briefing notes carefully, patched up a needless ob-
scurity in one paragraph and keyed the graphics to the text.
With my breakfast arrived a copy of the International edition of
the New York Herald Tribune. To my very considerable surprise,
smack in the middle of the top half of the front page and three or four
columns wide, was the photograph of the SAM site referred to in the
briefing note. A few minutes later, upon arrival at the Embassy, I
was informed that the whole kit of photographs had been released to
the British press the night before, that they were appearing in the
London papers this morning and indeed had appeared on two British
TV programs last night. A few minutes later I was shown two Paris
morning papers, one of which carried the SAM site above mentioned,
the other, the picture of the SAM support area which I had not been
authorized even to show to the French Press.
I conferred with I as to the best procedure and we
agreed that I should call Washington for permission to release repro-
ductions of the graphics which were to be shown to the French Press
at 10:30 this morning. There was some difficulty in getting through to
Washington and it was not until about 9:50 AM local time that I
reached the CIA Watch Office. Ten or fifteen minutes later they called
back authorizing the release if statisfactory to the charge. Ile agreed
to the release of four pictures. An Embassy pressman accordingly
scotch-taped the four pictures in question (MR-1, 1R-1, the IL-28's
at San Julian and the MIG's at Santa Clara) to the floor and photo-
graphed them. Enlarged prints of these shots went to the French press.
Briefing of Andre Fontaine of Le Monde
Andre Fontaine, one of the important feature writers of Le Monde
(France's leading afternoon paper)
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had had time to hear and study the President's speech of mid-
night, 22 October, and to write an unsympathetic front page
column on US policy toward Cuba.10 His articles are usually
signed; this one was not. The second paragraph banged into the
credibility of the evidence. "One would like to be sure of the ac-
curacy of the information" upon which the President has acted.
"But unhappily, experience shows that the American intelli-
gence services sometimes make mistakes." This set the tone.
Later on he again obliquely challenged the evidence in the fourth
paragraph which contains the sentence, "If the Russians have
not really delivered and do not have the intention of deliver-
ing... ." In short, M. Fontaine was from Missouri and had
rather persuasively set forth his doubts about the evidence and
his views-totally unsympathetic to the US-for the edification
of France's best educated and probably most conservative read-
ing elite.
Mowinkle who knew Fontaine well was most anxious that I
see [him] and go over the script and graphics with him. The
[charge] agreed. I was presented to Fontaine under a pseudo as a
Department of Defense civilian temporarily in Paris. Accordingly
I gave him the word.
I began by calling his attention to the fact that neither he nor
I were expert enough in the PI's art to identify the terrain as
Cuban or some of the weapons and sites as to what they really
were. I told him that if he thought that I was about to embark
upon a snow job with fabricated graphics I was prepared to call
it off right there; that if he were willing to take on faith the fact
this countryside was Cuban and the weapons in fact were what
I said they were, we would proceed. Interestingly, he then said,
"No. I am prepared to believe you because Castro himself in a
speech of yesterday proclaimed that American aircraft had been
violating Cuban air space. This is good enough evidence for me
to believe that you have been overflying Cuba and photographing
it from the air." With these formalities over, I ran through the
exercise with the sanitized pictures. Almost the only question he
asked was the altitude from which the pictures were taken. He
presumed that this was secret. I indicated that it was indeed
secret and let it go at that. I left Paris before Le Monde, dated 26
October, was printed.
10 This appeared in Le Monde of Tuesday afternoon 23 October. For reasons best
known to the publisher, the paper is dated one day ahead, thus this issue of Le Monde
is one bearing the date 24 October 1962.
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In this issue M. Fontaine grudgingly acknowledged that the mis-
siles were in fact in Cuba, citing that both the British government
and his colleagues of the British press believed the photographs and
furthermore Castro himself had lent credence to the matter by de-
nouncing American photo reconnaissance flights as violations of
Cuban air space.
Livingston Merchant, President Kennedy's special emissary to the
Canadian government, William Tidwell, the Agency officer told off
to do the intelligence briefing (with the photographs), along with our
charge d'affaires, and F_ :J met
at 1700 (22 October) with Prime Minister Diefenbaker and his Secre-
taries for External Affairs and Defense, Messrs. Green and Harkness.
Mr. Merchant described the situation in Cuba and handed the Prime
Minister the text of the President's speech (to be delivered in two
hours). Mr. Diefenbaker read it rapidly and passed it to these two
cabinet colleagues. He then asked Mr. Merchant to summarize the
main points, which Mr. Merchant did, and then he read the whole
speech aloud. Apparently two matters bothered the Prime Minister.
One was the use of two words "dishonest" and "dishonorable" which
in the draft speech were applied to Gromyko's statements to the
President when the two had met on 18 October; the other was the
credibility of the evidence of the missiles in Cuba. He made an abbre-
viated note to remind himself of the two points which read "I. Dis-
honest and dishonorable/ withdrawal of/Ambassador" [and] "2. How to
present proof of/threat to/UN or OAS." 11
'l.'he first of these he straightway took up and with repetitions and
some vehemence. They were unnecessary and provocative words;
they might result, for example, in the Soviet Union's withdrawal of
its ambassador in the United States, he thought. He hoped that they
would not be used. The second he seems not to have got around to.
Most likely the reason was his viewing of the photographs which
1' Mr. Tidwell wrote a memo to the Curator, Historical Intelligence Collection which
reads in part:
2. During the briefing session Mr. Diefenbaker made several notes as re-
minders to himself. At the conclusion of the briefing he tore up the notes and
threw them on the floor. In the course of my security check of the room after
the briefing, I picked up the fragments of his notes. They are forwarded with
this memorandum for retention in the Historical Intelligence Collection.
The notes read as I have rendered them above.
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Tidwell presented.12 The three Canadians were clearly impressed and
asked a range of questions which, far from indicating incredulity,
were of the sort which showed a ready acceptance of the evidence.
Indeed it seemed to the Americans that the photographs themselves
may have had much to do with a lightening of the Prime Minister's
mood, which at the beginning had been that of a worried and
harassed man. At the end, he left Mr. Merchant with the impression
that he would support the President and he complimented Tidwell on
the quality of the intelligence briefing.
Tidwell stayed behind to give the briefing to half a dozen of the
next most important officers of the Canadian government involved in
the foreign affairs of the country. Like similar groups in other friendly
states, they believed what they saw and they were impressed.
12 It may be, as Mr. Tidwell himself suggests in the memo, that Mr. Diefenbaker's
self-addressed query about "how to present proof of the threat to the UN or OAS"
derived from his half-formulated thought to ask a group from among the eight unaligned
members of the 18-nation disarmament committee to/make an on-site inspection and
to furnish "a full and complete understanding of what is taking place in Cuba." This
thought, which he quite fully developed only a few minutes later to the Canadian House
of Commons, he had not even hinted to the Americans. They noted that he had not
said that he would support the President in the chosen course, but they were very con-
siderably surprised at his presentation to the Commons.
It is perhaps noteworthy that his remarks to the Commons contained no mention of
any special audience, UN, OAS, or other. Nor did his remarks to the Commons next
day, when he did a little reconsidering:
In connection with the suggestion I made last evening that a group of na-
tions might be given the opportunity of making an on-site inspection in
Cuba, lest there be any doubt about my meaning in that connection, I was
not, of course, casting any doubts on the facts of the situation as outlined
by the President of the United States in his television address. The govern-
ment had been informed of and it believes that there is ample evidence
weapons have been constructed in Cuba and exist in sufficient quantities to
threaten the security of this hemisphere.
The purpose I had in mind in suggesting a United Nations [his remarks of the
previous day made no specific mention of the UN. The 18-nation disarma-
ment committee did, however, have an association with the UN] on-site in-
spection was to be ready to put in motion steps which could be taken in the
United Nations general assembly in the event of a Soviet veto, or if the
Soviet Union denies the existence in Cuba of offensive ballistic missile bases.
(Canada, Parliament, House of Commons Debates, 22 and 23 October :1962,
pp. 80&-6 and 821.)
In the light of these utterances, it seems to me that Diefenbaker's note about
convincing the UN and OAS more likely derived from a certain incredulous-
ness which possessed him before a look at the photographs dissipated it.
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The Credibility of Photographic Evidence
As a source of information, overhead photography has always
won high marks. From the nineteenth century, when daring men
Look cameras aloft in balloons, to our day with its more so-
phisticated approach, all who have worked at the intelligence calling
or used its findings have recognized the extraordinary virtues of
photographs taken from the air. The reception of the U-2's pictures
of Cuba in 1962 was proof of more of the same.
Any viewer of an air photo is likely to bring with him some asso-
ciative apparatus. For example, he has seen airfields from above and
he can tell the difference between a picture of an airfield and one of
of a freight yard; he may even be able to tell a parked transport
airplane from a puddle jumper. Some of the non-PI viewers of the
Cuban pictures had had a fairly rich experience with, say, air photos
of Soviet installations in East Germany and when they saw small air-
craft known to be Soviet models on Santa Clara airfield in Cuba,
they could tell the difference between the MIG-17's and the delta-
wing MIG-21's. When they saw a bit of the Cuban landscape marked
off in the design of a perfect six-pointed star, they instantly recognized
the unmistakable signature of the Soviet SAM-the second-generation
surface-to-air missile. All viewers, however, took on faith or on the say-
so of the purveyors that the pictures were what they claimed to be:
scenes from Cuba taken a few days past.
When it came to photos of less obvious things than the aircraft and
the SAM's all viewers but those indispensable middlemen, the photo-
interpreters, had to take virtually everything on faith. In the big
glossy prints of the surface-to-surface missile sites, the privileged but
nonetheless amateur viewer could discern a number of man-made
objects-some looked like long cylindrical tanks, some like oil trucks.
lfe could also see bits of equipment parked in or about what "appeared
to be no more than the clearing of a field for a farm or the basement of
a house." 13 More than this even the witness who could tell one MIG
from another could not possibly tell.
Of course, the PI could and did. To begin with, what he looked at
were better pictures. He had the duplicate positives printed on clear
acetate that carried what the camera lens had seen, minimally de-
graded by the processing. More, he could arrange these prints in
stereoscopic pairs on a light table and study them in three dimensions
through a multi-power stereoscopic viewer. When he found something
whose exact dimensions he had to know, he could turn to sensitive and
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complicated measuring devices and get the answer in feet and frac-
tions of feet.
Much more important than all of these was his experience. At a
glance he would know that some of the objects resembling common-
place things of everyday life just could not be what they seemed.
Such objects would never occur in these numbers and in this particular
constellation of physical surroundings. They had to be something else.
He might remember a similar puzzle in other photographs of another
time and place and the way it had been cracked. He might recall the
process by which he had reduced several competing hypotheses to two
and how the final solution had come, not with more photography, but
with a wholly different sort of information. With this, he had made a
confident estimate that the object in question was a large surface-to-
surface missile with its carrier. If such an experience had not been
his, perhaps one of his colleagues had a recollection that would help.
And if not, he could begin from scratch, summoning from the vitals
of a computer the vast wealth of its electronic memory. If in the
course of the history of his organization's work it had met cognate
puzzles, everything about them could be speedily put on the table.
With the deployment of the critical tools, the PI's moved from hy-
pothesis to tentative estimate, and, as they became more confident
that what they thought they might be seeing was indeed an all-but-
dead certainty, they were ready to take their judgment to their chief,
Arthur Lundahl. When they convinced him and he convinced him-
self, and when he could answer President Kennedy's question "Are
you sure that these are offensive missile sites?" with "Mr. President,
I am as sure of this as a photointerpreter can be sure of anything . . .,"
and when the President, reminded of the accuracy of past interpreta-
tions, accepted this one, that was it.
By their actions Mr. Macmillan and General de Gaulle underscored
this fact. As Cooper noted, Macmillan "did not spend more than a
few seconds on the photographs;" and except as Mr. Acheson urged
him to have a look, General de Gaulle would not have given the photo-
graphs even the "few seconds." Their credibility was not at issue:
what was was that of Ambassador Bruce and Mr. Acheson and es-
pecially that of the man who had sent them, President Kennedy
himself. Obviously this elite audience did not think that the President
was playing games with them.
From what we know of the reaction of civil officials a notch or two
below the chiefs of government, they were much the same as those
of their masters. For much the same reasons Ormsby Gore (the British
Ambassador in Washington), Lord Home, and Sir Burke Trend,
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Gaitskell, and Brown, and others in London, and Messrs. Green and
Harkness in Ottawa accepted the photographs at face. We know
nothing of the reactions of the officials in Paris and Bonn to whom de
Gaulle and Adenauer confided.
With highly placed foreign intelligence professionals the case was
much the same. They brought to the pictures a certain amount of
critical expertise (but still well below that of a card-carrying PI),
and practically to a man they were both amazed and convinced. Sir
Kenneth Strong, long Britain's first intelligence officer, General
Jacquier, Director of the French SDECE, Mr. McCardle, the Chair-
man of the Canadian Joint Intelligence Committee--none of them
queried the validity of what they looked at. As Cooper notes in his
memo, intelligence officers of the British Air Ministry apparently
wanted copies of the photos for their own PI's to examine. But,
Cooper assures us, there was nothing necessarily angular about their
request.
How different the response of those who spoke for others. Mr.
Zuluetta, the private secretary of Mr. Macmillan, according to
Cooper's testimony, was worried about how a statement of the British
government in support of the American decision would go down
"without incontrovertible proof of the missile build-up." Next morning
the skeptical tone of the British press showed him to have been on
the right track. After the release of the first batch of pictures to Brit-
ish newsmen, an important British intelligence officer besought
American officials in London to release more pictures and more infor-
mation about the first ones. He said he was confronted by a great
skepticism on the part of the press which was muttering about possible
forgeries and expressing doubt that the terrain was in fact Cuba.
He felt that the US government should release precise information
about the location of the missiles and show a photo of a missile even
if it were under canvas. All of this to make the case credible.
The Public Affairs officer in our embassy in Paris was worried
about the French press and had very much in mind those snide sen-
tences that Andre Fontaine had written in Le Monde. Mr. Diefen-
baker seemed to have been concerned about how proof of the missiles
could be demonstrated to the "world." 14
How much beseeching the press did in its own behalf and how much
in behalf of the "world," is another story. The press usually beseeches
14 The operative sentence in Mr. Diefenbaker's remarks of 22 October was: "As to the
presence of these offensive weapons, the only sure way that the world can secure the
facts would be through an independent inspection." (Canada, Parliament, House of
Commons Debates, p. 806.)
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most eloquently when it senses good front-page copy, and there could
be no doubt about the news appeal of this story.
The difference between what public relations men asked in behalf
of the press and what the press asked in behalf of its readership-
the difference between this and what it got, let alone what it gave-
is of course well-nigh incalculable. In the first place, the very best
prints of the most important installations in Cuba (those which chron-
icled the presence of the long-range surface-to-surface missiles) con-
veyed next to nothing in themselves. If you were to use a powerful
reading glass you might be sure that you perceived some things com-
mon to your range of normal experience (the context might offer some
passing difficulty, but only if you thought about it), but you would
have no valid appreciation of their size, let alone their ominous func-
tion. Who, for example among the uninitiated, could have identified
a thing resembling a big tent as the air-conditioned structure necessary
for the complicated check-out of the missiles?
Such being the case, what do you think of the chances of the British
subject who first got his information from his television set, a repor-
ductive process which had robbed the original glossy prints of at least
half their definition? Where do you rate the chances of the still less
fortunate Frenchman? He was introduced to the Soviet secrets in
Cuba via some half-tones in his morning paper. If you had made a
half-tone from the original negative, the loss of definition would
probably be as severe as that via TV. Still the Frenchman had no
such luck. His was the opportunity to look at half-tones made from
enlargements of 35 mm shots of the glossy prints. The amateur photog-
rapher who took the shots probably used a good camera with proper
lens and film, but he took them in the natural light that filtered
through an embassy window, and he did not use a tripod. In these
circumstances the man who saw the pictures in next morning's
Figaro, even if he were the country's leading photointerpreter, might
have had trouble telling whether the camera had been pointed down
at Cuba from a high-flying aircraft or pointed up a soundly-positioned
proctoscope.
No one can ever know how many of the people whose acquaintance
with the Cuban pictures was limited to television and press reproduc-
tions felt that they were being had. The one thing we do know is that
if there were any such people, there were not enough of them to cause
the slightest political ripple. All over the world the great majority of
people who knew and cared about such things must have looked at
the appallingly deficient copies of the original pictures and concluded
that their chiefs of government had acted on the basis of incontrovert-
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ible evidence. Those who disagreed with the course of action which
the US had adopted, did so because of the risks which it involved,
not because they did not believe the story that the pictures told.
Of the millions of people of many nations who saw the pictures
that fourth week of October, only a handful, and these were P1's,
knew exactly what it was that they were looking at. It was their
testimony which convinced the high officers of their government, and
from there on out the credibility of the photo evidence was established.
What happened in October of 1962 had happened many times before
and has happened many times since. To paraphrase once again a
famous remark-never have so many taken so much on the say-so
of so few.
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More on probability-I
BAYES' THEOREM FOR INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS*
Jack Zlotnick
The intelligence interest in probability theory stems from the
probabilistic character of customary intelligence judgment. Intel-
ligence analysis must usually be undertaken on the basis of
incomplete evidence. Intelligence conclusions are therefore char-
acteristically hedged by such words and phrases as "very likely,"
"possibly," "may," "better than even chance," and other qualifiers.
This manner of allowing for more than one possibility leaves intel-
ligence open to the charge of acting the oracle whose prophecies seek
to cover all contingencies. The apt reply to this charge is that
intelligence would do poor service by overstating its knowledge.
The very best that intelligence can do is to make the most of the
evidence without making more of the evidence than it deserves. The
best recourse is often to address the probabilities.
The professional focus on probabilities has led to some in-house
research on possible intelligence applications of Bayes' Theorem. At
the time of my participation in this research, I was an analyst in the
Central Intelligence Agency, which sponsored the scholarship but
took no position of its own on the issues under study. My personal
views on these issues, as elaborated in the following pages, have no
official character.
The Bayesian Approach
Bayes' Theorem in its odds-likelihood form served participants in
our test program as their diagnostic rule for appraising new evidence.
The odds-likelihood formulation of Bayes' Theorem is the equation
R is the revised estimate of the odds favoring one hypothesis over
another-the estimate of the odds after consideration of the latest
item of evidence. P is the prior estimate of the odds-the odds before
consideration of the latest item of evidence. There is no escaping some
starting estimate of P. However, after the starting estimate was in
*Paper presented at the Conference on The Diagnostic Process, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 18 June 1970.
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ayes eorem
hand, the participating analysts offered no judgments about P. It
was a value carried forward in machine memory from previous analy-
sis. R, the result of the mathematical processing, was what went back
into machine memory to become the value of P used in consideration
of the next item of evidence. The participating analysts offered judg-
ments only about L, the likelihood ratio.
The likelihood ratio was the analyst's evaluation of the diagnosticity
of an item of evidence. Evidence is diagnostic when the chances of
its appearing are different if one hypothesis is true than if another
hypothesis is true. Suppose intelligence is asked to estimate the
comparative merits of two hypotheses-one of imminent war, the other
of no imminent war. The estimate is to be expressed in terms of the
odds favoring or disfavoring the war hypothesis. The latest evidence
is deployment of foreign troops to a border area. Is the deployment
deemed to be say two times more likely if the war hypothesis is true
than if the no-war hypothesis is true? Then the evidence is certainly
diagnostic. The value of L, a judgment of the analyst communicated
to the machine processor, would in this case be the fraction 2/1.
Three principal features of Bayesian method distinguish it from con-
ventional intelligence analysis. The first is that the intelligence
analyst is required to quantify judgments which he does not ordinarily
express in numerical terms. This requirement to quantify probabilistic
judgment is the feature that perhaps draws most of the critical fire
against the Bayesian approach in intelligence analysis. A debating
point of the critics is that analysts are bound to disagree in their opin-
ions of the exact figure that should represent the diagnostic value of
an item of evidence. The Bayesian rebuttal is that disagreement among
analysts is just as much a characteristic of traditional method and is
no less serious for being implicit rather than explicit in the analysis.
The critic returns to the debate by observing that the typical analyst,
being a verbal and not a mathematical man, finds it inordinately
difficult to express his degree of belief to the precision implied by a
numerical value. The partisan of Bayes, for his part, takes the posi-
tion that people have been quantifying probabilistic judgments since
the beginning of time-whenever they offered or accepted betting
odds on the outcome of any doubtful issue.
The second distinguishing feature of Bayesian method is that the
analyst does not take the available evidence as given and draw there-
from his conclusions about the relative merits of opposing hypotheses.
Ile rather postulates, by turns, the truth of each hypothesis, address-
ing himself only to the likelihood that each item of evidence would
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appear, first under the assumption that one hypothesis is true and then
under the assumption that another hypothesis is true. The analyst is
under no ego-supporting need to hold to positions previously taken on
the merits of the respective hypotheses; he does not feel called upon
to reinforce his self-esteem by reaffirmation of opinions previously put
on the record.
The third distinctive feature of Bayesian method is that the analyst
makes his judgments about the bits and pieces of evidence. Be :does
not sum up the evidence as he would have to do if he had to judge
its meaning for final conclusions. The mathematics does the summing
up, telling the analyst in effect: "If these are your readings of the
individual items of evidence, then this is the conclusion that follows."
The research findings of some Bayesian psychologists seem to show
that people are generally better at appraising a single item of evidence
than at drawing inferences from the body of evidence considered in
the aggregate. If these are valid findings, then the Bayesian approach
calls for the intelligence analyst to do what he can do best and to leave
all the rest to the incorruptible logic of a dispassionate mathematics.
The Bayesian approach was not studied with any idea of its replac-
ing other approaches in intelligence analysis. The responsibility of
intelligence is to depict, as best it can, the current and prospective
state of international affairs. The intelligence estimate is a closely-
reasoned analysis of such important matters of interest as the top
political leadership of a foreign country, evolving popular attitudes
in that country, changing force structures in its military establish-
ment, its levels of scientific achievement, and the hard choices it is
making in allocation of resources to the guns and butter sectors of the
economy. The intelligence estimate is sketched in all the lights and
shadows of descriptive, narrative, and interpretive commentary. This
task is not reducible to terse statement of the odds favoring one
particular hypothesis over another.
There are, however, areas of intelligence analysis where Bayes'
Theorem might well complement other approaches. One crucially
important area is that of strategic warning-the analysis directed to
uncovering any pattern of activity by a foreign power suggestive of a
major and imminent threat to US security interests. The patterns of
events leading to Pearl Harbor in 1941 and to the Communist invasion
of South Korea in 1950 are cases in point. Strategic warning analysis
focuses primarily on just the problem that Bayes' Theorem addresses-
the odds favoring one hypothesis (say imminent attack) over another
hypothesis (no imminent attack).
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ayes eorem
One way to test the usefulness of Bayes' Theorem for intelligence
analysis is to replay intelligence history. This means going back to
international crises of years past. It means assembly of the evidence
which was available before the outcomes of the crises were known. It
means reading the old intelligence estimates and other studies in order
to find out how the analysts of the day interpreted the evidence. It
means assignment of L values--likelihood ratios-that honestly
reflect these analyst evaluations of the evidence at the time and not
our present hindsight knowledge.
Another way to test Bayes' Theorem is on current inflows of
evidence. The advantage of this kind of testing is that hindsight
knowledge does not intrude; Bayes' Theorem is pitted fairly and
squarely against the conventional modes of analysis. Offsetting this
advantage for honest research, however, is a disabling disadvantage.
The disadvantage derives from the very nature of the hypotheses
at interest in strategic warning. The alternative hypotheses are
commonly of two types. One stipulates continuation of the status quo.
The other stipulates sudden change from the status quo. Usually the
situation today is pretty much what it is going to be a week from
today. The status quo hypothesis, in other words, usually turns out
to be the true one in strategic warning analysis. But the main test of
strategic warning effectiveness is the capability to give forewarning
of the sudden changes that occasionally do occur in the status quo.
The intelligence interest in Bayes' Theorem is primarily in how well
the Bayesian approach to strategic warning would meet this main
test of performance in situations of general surprise, without chronic
resort to cry-wolf false alarms. Unfortunately, intelligence research
cannot be speeded up by focus on the particular current issues which
will turn into occasions of intelligence surprise. If intelligence could
pick out in advance the issues on which it was going to be surprised,
it would by definition never be surprised, and it would have no interest
in the possible contributions of Bayes' Theorem to improved analysis.
The outlook, then, is that many tests of Bayes' Theorem on current
inflows of evidence will be needed to get the few interesting occasions
that show Bayesian performance in circumstances of general intelli-
gence surprise. And just a few interesting examples are not enough
to make the case for or against the Bayesian approach, which may do
better than conventional method sometimes and not as well other
times. A large enough sample of interesting examples is needed to
justify confident findings of comparative performance on the average.
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The results of the testing so far have been interesting enough to make
a good case for further testing of Bayes' Theorem in intelligence
analysis. Among the interesting results has been an uncovering of
problem areas that flank the path of intelligence analysis and that are
not very easily outflanked.
The Life-Span of Evidence
One such problem area has been called nonstationarity. In situa-
tions of nonstationarity, that is, when hypotheses are being effectively
altered by the passage of time, evidence will have a limited life-span.
An intelligence hypothesis about current Soviet policy is not exactly
the same hypothesis on January 15 that it is on February 15. The
date has changed, so the hypothesis is to a degree different; and
evidence back in January which had a certain bearing on the hypoth-
esis of what was then current Soviet policy does not have the same
bearing on the hypothesis of what; is current Soviet policy a month
later.
Consider, for example, some evidence which was available to intelli-
gence and to the public at large in the summer of 1962, before photo-
graphic confirmation was received of missiles in Cuba that, could
reach targets deep in the United States. Soviet leaders gave public
assurances during this period that the expanding military aid to Cuba
was for defensive purposes only. Now an analyst's appraisal of this
kind of assurance will depend partly on how honorable or dishonorable
he believes Communists to be. But whatever his views about the honor
of Communists, he would certainly not consider any government's
assurances to constitute a commitment for all eternity. Governments
do make new decisions and reconsider old ones. This amounts to saying
that the diagnostic value of evidence bearing on hypotheses about
current government policy tends to erode over time. A mathematical
logic for strategic warning analysis has to be attentive to this erosion.
Perhaps the analyst can specify the expected rate of erosion when he
first encounters an item of evidence. If he cannot or prefers not to,
the Bayesian approach does not quite attain the mechanistic ideal
that would require of the analyst only his one-time attention to each
item of incoming evidence. The analyst instead finds himself looking
back from time to time at his whole body of past evidence, to consider
whether its diagnostic value, as recorded in machine memory, is still
valid and not out-dated.
Causal Evidence
Another problem area spotlighted in the testing is the occasional
reversal in cause and effect relationship between hypotheses and data.
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The disease generates the symptoms of the disease, and so the
physician can infer the disease from the symptoms. Similarly in his
surveillance of the Soviet scene, the intelligence analyst in Washington
can infer from Soviet actions a good deal about Soviet policy. But the
analyst also has his eye cocked for relevant data other than Soviet
actions, data which have less a derivative than a causal relationship
to Soviet policy. I draw again on the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 for
my historical example.
On several occasions that year, President Kennedy publicly warned
that the United States would take a grave view of strategic missile
emplacements in Cuba. How would a Bayesian analyst evaluate
President Kennedy's warnings for their relevance to opposing hypoth-
eses about Soviet missile shipments to Cuba? If the analyst were a
mechanical, uncritical Bayesian, he would say to himself: "President
Kennedy is more likely to issue these statements if the hypothesis of
imminent Soviet missile shipments to Cuba is true than if the hypoth-
esis of no such missile shipments to Cuba is true. My L in the Bayesian
equation H PL is greater than 1/1, and so my mathematics works out
to an increase in the odds favoring the missile hypothesis."
Well, the analyst in this case is surely not reasoning as President
Kennedy reasoned. The President no doubt felt that the clear com-
munication of American concern would either have no effect on
Moscow or, hopefully, would dissuade the Soviet leadership from ship-
ping strategic missiles to Cuba. He thought, in other words, that his
statements would tend to reduce, not increase, the odds favoring the
missile hypothesis.
The complication for the Bayesian analyst is the causal character
of President Kennedy's statements. Soviet actions are direct deriva-
tives of Soviet policy. President Kennedy's statements were not.
They were important primarily for the chance that they would affect,
not reflect, Soviet policy.
It can be shown that, in principle, Bayes' Theorem is as applicable
to causal evidence as to derivative evidence. In practice, Bayes'
Theorem often offers slippery ground to the analyst appraising causal
evidence. In practice, the analyst does better by putting a little sand
in his tracks. He gets better mental traction in this case by making a
direct judgment about the impact of the causal evidence on the com-
parative merits of his hypotheses. He says to himself: "If the odds
were even-money in favor of the missile hypothesis before receipt of
the causal evidence, what would the odds be now after receipt of this
evidence?" When the prior odds are even-money (that is, 1/1), the
revised odds equate to the likelihood ratio, according to the Bayesian
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equation R = PL. So, by making a direct judgment of revised odds
following a stipulation of even-money prior odds, the analyst obtains
an effective likelihood ratio to give the computer.
This is an approach which respects the mathematics of Bayes but
does violence to the spirit of Bayes. One of the attractive features about
Bayesian method in its pristine purity is that the analyst need address
himself to the merits of the hypotheses only at the very beginning of
his analysis. In principle, he does not thereafter reaffirm his first
opinion, admit to a change in opinion, or criticize anybody else's
opinion on the subject. He is supposed to make a judgment, instead,
of quite another sort, a judgment about the evidence which postulates
the truth of each hypothesis in turn, a judgment which does not in-
volve him again in debate about the merits of each hypothesis. His
encounters with causal evidence, however, often do not allow him to
keep quite this detachment from the hypotheses. He finds himself
addressing R, not L.
Catch-All Hypotheses
Another problem area encountered in our research has been
examined in Bayesian literature as the nonindependence issue. Non-
independence enters into analysis as a complicating feature when the
likelihood ratio-the L value of an item of evidence-is affected by
the previous pattern of evidence.
Nonindependence is an arcane subject to analysts who are new to
probability mathematics, mainly perhaps because items of evidence
which are independent if one hypothesis is assumed true can be
nonindependent if another hypothesis is taken as true. Analysis is
easier when items of evidence are independent (or to put it more
properly, conditionally independent)-that is to say, when the like-
lihoods of their being received do depend on which hypothesis is
assumed true but when these conditional likelihoods hold regardless
of the previous pattern of evidence. Intelligence analysts have their
way of reaching for conditional independence, whether or not they have
ever heard of the nonindependence issue. They reach for a new hypoth-
esis to do service for some hypothesis that no longer seems suitable as
originally worded.
Such an unsuitable hypothesis could be the one postulating continu-
ation of the status quo in the strategic warning problem. This catch-all
hypothesis can be divided into two or more subhypotheses (and it
can be divided different ways into different sets of subhypotheses).
For an illustrative example, take any case in history of a big power
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threatening its much smaller neighbor and finally invading the little
country when threats alone did not avail.
Suppose the invasion is preceded by reports that the big power is
moving its troops toward the border. Considered later in time from
the vantage point of hindsight, the troop movements certainly would
seem to be strong evidence, which ought to have tipped the odds sub-
stantially in favor of the invasion hypothesis. But the analyst of the
day would probably find himself reflecting on at least two relevant
subhypotheses of the no-invasion hypothesis. Subhypothesis A might
be that the big power will not invade the little country but will apply
very strong pressures-psychological, political, and other-just short
of military invasion. Subhypothesis B might be that the big power will
neither invade nor apply other extremes of pressure against the little
country.
Now the analyst using Bayes' Theorem introduces an initial opinion
about the hypotheses when he begins his analysis. He must similarly
introduce an opinion about the subhypotheses if he comes to make
them explicit elements in his analysis. By the time he receives the re-
ports of troop movements, the previous evidence will have inclined
him to the opinion that subhypothesis A-strong pressures against
the little country-is the only reasonable interpretation of the no-
invasion hypothesis. The events leading up to the troop movements
(the grim warnings, the shrill propaganda, the military alerts) will
constitute such virtual contradiction of subhypothesis B---no extremes
of pressure-as to give it a near-zero probability. If this is the analyst's
view, then the troop movements toward the border must seem almost
as likely under the no-invasion hypothesis as under the invasion
hypothesis. His L is just about 1/1. His Bayesian approach has done
virtually nothing to change his current odds.
This undiagnostic character of incoming evidence near the climax
of international crises may seem novel to novices; it is familiar enough
to experienced intelligence analysts. The more experienced they are,
the more rueful they are likely to be in their recollections of evidence
that was ambiguous to contemporaneous vision but became telling
in retrospective inquiries.
False Evidence
Perhaps the most difficult problem area is the suspect character of
some evidence. The intelligence analyst gets his information in
accounts from sources of varying reliability. He does not know for
sure which accounts to believe and which to disbelieve. So he has to
appraise his evidence, not only for its bearing on the hypotheses, but
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Bayes' Theorem UNCLASSIFIED
also for its probability of being accurate. The estimated probability
of accuracy will enter into the analysis and will affect final results.
Unfortunately, an analyst's opinion about a report's probable ac-
curacy or inaccuracy will be influenced by his current opinion about
the hypotheses. Does he find it hard to give credence to reports from
Cuban refugees who claim to have seen objects resembling medium-
range missiles near Havana? If he is skeptical, it may well be because
he finds it hard to give credence to the hypothesis that the USSR
will do anything so foolish as to ship such missiles to Cuba. So once
again, we have a case of information not doing the work which critics
later, in all the wisdom of hindsight, will say it should have done.
My exposition of these problem areas is not meant to imply that
they muddle only the Bayesian approach; they plague. with fine
impartiality all types of intelligence analysis-traditional method as
well as Bayesian method, verbal logic as well as mathematical logic.
Traditional method also must cope with the eroding diagnostic value
of past evidence as it recedes into history. Traditional method also
finds it harder to draw probabilistic conclusions about the state of
the world from causal evidence than from derivative evidence.
Traditional method also sometimes explains away evidence that can
be explained away by a favored subhypothesis of a catch-all hypoth-
esis. Traditional method also has to contend with the implausibility
of evidence that is not in character with the climate of prevailing
opinion.
My purpose in expanding on the problem areas is to show that
much of the difficulty in intelligence analysis is not the difficulty to
which the Bayesian approach is addressed. The Bayesian approach
seeks to insulate analysis from frailties of logic in aggregating the
evidence. The working world of intelligence, however, is concerned
not only about possible inconsistency in everyday thinking between
the conclusion drawn from the body of evidence considered as a whole
and the conclusion that should logically follow from judgments about
the evidence considered item by item. Intelligence views with concern
also the possibilities of mistaken judgments about individual items
of evidence. The intelligence pragmatist is wistful about evidence
which almost speaks for itself, evidence to which most people will
attribute much the same probability values because the values can
be documented by, say, actuarial statistics or other such extrinsic
authority. The pragmatist feels that an increase in the amount of
this kind of evidence would do more to help men reach sound conclu-
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UNCLASSIFIED Bayes' Theorem
sions than could any formal logic-Bayesian or other-for reasoning
from uncertain propositions about the evidence.
Conceding this point, the Bayesian responds that intelligence must
still do the best it can with what it has. In a world of fallible judgments
about evidence, the Bayesian approach is not a path to perfection;
it can be at best only a path to improvement. The promise of the
research on Bayesian method is a mathematical logic to which intelli-
gence can have recourse for substantiating or contradicting the verbal-
izations of the traditional analysis. When the different approaches
lead to discrepant conclusions, intelligence should perhaps undertake
to rethink, recalculate, and if possible reconcile. The research interest
at this time should be to find out whether such a Bayesian cross-check
on other reasoning would significantly improve the quality of analysis.
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More on probability-II.
THE SINO-SOVIET BORDER DISPUTE:
A COMPARISON OF THE CONVENTIONAL AND
BAYESIAN METHODS FOR INTELLIGENCE
WARNING
Problems of "indications analysis" or "intelligence warning" are
essentially questions of how to assign probabilities to hypotheses of
interest. For example, a problem of indications analysis occurred in
August 1969 when two hypotheses arose; namely, the conjecture
(Hi) that within the next month the USSR would attempt to destroy
China's nascent nuclear capabilities, and the alternative hypothesis
(H2) that such an attack would not occur.
A method of indications analysis is a rule for eliciting probability
judgments from intelligence analysts, and alternative methods for this
purpose have been studied within the Agency since 1967.1 The usual
and most direct method is simply that of asking analysts to make either
verbal or numerical probability judgments about hypotheses of inter-
est. As an alternative to the conventional approach, the so-called
Bayesian method does not require analysts to assign probabilities
to the main hypotheses of interest; instead, analysts are asked to
specify values for certain "conditional" probabilities, from which one
can infer judgments about the main hypotheses.
It has been argued 2 that the Bayesian method is better than the
conventional approach to problems of intelligence warning. This
article will illustrate the two alternatives, and will then explain the
results of an experiment that was designed to test the assertion of
the Bayesian method's superiority.
' Two examples of these studies are A Mathematical Model for Intelligence Warning
(Intelligence Report No. 1396/67, November 1967), and Bayes' Theorem in the Korean
War (Intelligence Report No. 0605/68, July 1968). For references to various studies
done outside the Agency, see A Bibliography of Research on Behavioral Decision Processes
by Ward Edwards (University of Michigan, Human Performance Center, Memorandum
Report No. 7, January 1969).
2 A detailed exposition of this argument is offered by Ward Edwards et al. in "Proba-
bilistic Information Processing Systems: Design and Evaluation," IEEE Transactions
on Systems Science and Cybernetics (Vo. SSC.4, No. 3) September 1968. Further exposi-
tions have been put forth by Jack Zlotnick in "A Theorem for Prediction," Studies in
Intelligence (Vol. 11, No. 4) Fall 1967.
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The Conventional Method of Intelligence Warning
The conventional approach to intelligence warning begins when a
set of hypotheses first comes under active scrutiny. For example,
during August 1969 several intelligence officers warned that the
USSR would probably launch a major attack against China within
the next month. This warning spawned various hypotheses, two of
which were (H1) that the USSR would begin the offensive during
September 1969, and (H2) that there would be no attack.
For a large class of hypotheses, the problem of indications analysis
remains essentially the same: certain Agency officials must first elicit
from qualified analysts judgments about the hypotheses, and then
must synthesize these judgments into a warning. The officials
obviously cannot pore over every bit of evidence observed by each
analyst, so analysts must focus and summarize their views.
Generally, then, the first step in the conventional method involves
the gathering of either verbal or numerical probability estimates. On
30 August 1969, for example, each of six senior analysts from six
Agency offices was asked to estimate the probability of the war
hypothesis Hi. Their estimates--i.e., values for P(Hi)-appear in
Table 1. As time passes, further estimates are elicited, and previous
warnings are either amplified or damped on the basis of the new esti-
mates. Clearly, then, a key question is how an official ought to elicit
probabilities from analysts. The conventional approach suggests that
an official should simply ask analysts to state the probabilities when-
ever the official wants to reconsider his warning.
As part of an experiment that was designed to compare the con-
ventional method with an alternative system (the Bayesian) for elicit-
The Probability of Hi
lualyst on 30 August 1969*
A .20
13 .85
C .40
I) .25
p; .35
F .20
*The symbol Hi denotes the hypothesis that
(luring September 1969, the USSR would
launch a nuclear attack against China.
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ing probabilities, each of the six analysts mentioned above was asked
on 5 September 1969 to re-estimate the probability that a Sino-Soviet
war would erupt before 29 September. On 12 September the analysts
were asked again, and so forth for each week in September. As a result
of this process of questioning, each analyst produced an "intuitive"
probability track such as the one shown in Figure 1. Each point on
the illustrated track denotes the best probability judgment that
Analyst D could offer after reading the all-source intelligence avail-
able to him.
On the basis of a considerable amount of research involving simu-
lated questions of intelligence warning, however, Edwards,3 Zlotnick,4
and other proponents 5 of the Bayesian method for eliciting probabil-
ities would argue that the sequence of estimates shown in Figure 1
was not the best sequence that Analyst D could have specified. They
claim that an official who had asked "the right questions" could have
obtained from Analyst D-and from each of the other analysts-a
better sequence of probabilities. This alternative method of question-
ing will be explained in the following section.
Analyst D's track of
intuitive probability
estimates
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 See the bibliography cited in Footnote 1.
Time
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ods
The Bayesian Method of Intelligence Warning
There is no unique "Bayesian method": dozens of systems, each
slightly different from its predecessors, have been proposed and tested
on simulated problems of intelligence warning. Most of these systems,
however, involve substantially similar steps. The steps taken in the
Sino-Soviet Experiment to obtain from each of the six analysts a
Bayesian track that could be compared with the analyst's intuitive
track are as follows:
(a) On 30 August 1969 each of the six analysts was asked to
estimate a value for P(H1), which at that time denoted the probability
that the war hypothesis Hl was true. This first step duplicated the
first step in the conventional method discussed above, so each analyst's
estimate for P(H1) appeared as in Table 1.
(b) In contrast to the conventional method, on 5 September the
Bayesian approach did not require the analysts to re-estimate P(H1 ).
Instead, each analyst was asked to list the major events whose occur-
rence during the previous week had influenced his opinion about the
war hypothesis. For example, during the week Analyst D might have
observed that no men in the Soviet reserve army had been called for
active duty. This event of "no calls" could have been denoted by E1.
And, since Analyst D might have believed that a call-up during the
previous week would precede the event of a Soviet attack in September,
the event El might have lowered his intuitive probability judgment
concerning the chance of war. Similarly, E2 might have denoted the
event of no increases in Soviet propaganda against the Chinese, and
so forth for other events that an analyst might have thought relevant
to the war hypothesis Hi.
(c) A majority of the analysts listed virtually the same set of
relevant events, although some analysts' views had been influenced
by events that other analysts had not listed. From the separate lists,
a master event list was compiled, such that the events E1, Es, .. . on
the master list exhibited two properties; namely, (i) each event pro-
posed by each analyst was reflected in the master list; and (ii) each
master event was, roughly speaking, independent of each other master
eve nt.6
6 The notion of independence can be illustrated as follows: suppose that Analyst D
has listed the event of "a high-level diplomatic probe by the USSR to ascertain prob-
able US reactions to a Sino-Soviet war," while Analyst E has listed "a war-related con-
tact between US and Soviet officials." These two events clearly refer to the same thing,
so the master list would contain only one event referring to a diplomatic probe. In
some cases, however, the two properties of inclusiveness and independence were diffi-
cult to achieve in compiling the master list.
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(d) When the master list had been compiled on 5 September 1969,
some of the analysts asserted that certain events suggested by other
analysts had not actually occurred. Such differences over raw intelli-
gence were recorded as each analyst estimated a probability of
occurrence for each of the events E1, E2,. - . on the master list.
(e) In addition to specifying probabilities of occurrence, each
analyst estimated various conditional probabilities on 5 September.
For example, with respect to the event no reserve calls during El of
the previous week, Analyst D was asked to specify a value for
P(E1IH1), which denotes the probability that E1 would have occurred,
given the assumption that the war hypothesis (Hi) was true. More-
over, Analyst D was asked to estimate P(E11112), the probability of
E1 on the assumption that the no-war hypothesis (H2) was true. For
each of the other events on the master list Analyst D specified a
similar set of conditional probabilities, as did each of the other
analysts.
(f) A modified version of Bayes' Theorem was then used on
5 September 1969 to calculate for each analyst a "revised" probability
of war.7 This probabilty was called an analyst's Bayesian estimate,
and was plotted on the same graph as his intuitive probability.. Thus
for Analyst D in particular, on 5 September 1969 the two probability
tracks shown in Figure 2 had been obtained-one track by the con-
ventional method, and one by the Bayesian approach.
(g) On 12 September 1969 the Bayesian procedure outlined above
was repeated, with the exception that the "prior" probabilities used
in the revision process were the Bayesian probabilities of war that had
been obtained on 5 September 1969. Thus after two weeks, a typical
analyst's probability tracks appeared as in Figure 3.
(h) After the Bayesian procedure had been repeated at weekly
intervals during September, the Bayesian tracks derived from con-
ditional probabilities specified by Analysts A, B, and D appeared as
in Figure 4. The Bayesian and intuitive tracks compiled for Analysts
C, E, and F resembled the tracks shown for A and D, in the sense that
for five of the six analysts, the Bayesian track always fell below the
intuitive track.
A Criterion for Comparing Probability Estimates
A criterion for comparing methods of probability elicitation can be
illustrated with reference to Figure 3. In retrospect, we know that the
7 This method of calculating revised probabilities is sometimes called a "roll-back"
procedure. See Applied Statistical Decision Theory by II. Raiffa and R. Schlaifer
(Harvard Business School, Division of Research, 1961).
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SECRET Methods
Analyst D's intuitive probability
of war
r Analyst D's Bayesian probability
of war
8130 9/5 9/12 9/19 9/26
Figure 2
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Probabilities of
War
Analyst D's Intuitive
Probability Track
., _.
.10 D's Bayesian ~~--
Tra.dc t-------
8/30
i
Analyst B's Intuitive
Probability Track -
t
9/12
I t.
9j26 Time
Analyst A's Intuitive
Probability Track
J
-1-
9/26
Analyst B's Bayesian
Track
I
Analyst
A's Bayesian
Track
9/12
Figure 4
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SECRET Methods
hypothesis Ht was false: Russia did not attack China. Thus if an
analyst's "probability tracks" had actually appeared as in Figure 3,
then on 12 September 1969 an official would have acted more wisely
on the basis of the Bayesian sequence of estimates. In other words,
if one had been forced to gamble according to either the Bayesian or
the intuitive tracks shown in Figure 3, one would in retrospect have
preferred the Bayesian sequence.
Of course, if Russia had attacked China, and if a typical analyst's
probability tracks had appeared as in Figure 3, then one would have
preferred to have acted according to the analyst's intuitive track.
But according to the advocates of Bayesian analysis, such a preference
for an intuitive track will seldom occur: if Russia had attacked, then-
according to the Bayesian proponents-prior to the attack the
Bayesian track for a typical analyst would have been above his in-
tuitive track, such that in retrospect the Bayesian method would again
have been preferred. As is evident in Figure 4, Analyst B proved to be
an exception to this assertion: his Bayesian track always fell above his
sequence of intuitive estimates.
This criterion of "retrospective superiority" has served as the basis
for dozens of experiments 8 in which researchers have compared the
Bayesian method with alternative techniques for eliciting probabilities,
and in most cases the Bayesian approach has triumphed. But there is
no firmly established analytical justification for the method. Bayes'
Theorem is a mathematical truism, but there are no axioms from which
one can infer that repeated applications of the theorem to conditional
probabilities specified by analysts will yield superior intelligence
warnings. Thus, in the fall of 1969, it was of considerable interest to
review the Bayesian method's effectiveness in the context of the
actual intelligence problem posed by the chance of a Sino-Soviet war.
The Sino-Soviet Experiment
As explained above, the six analysts met at weekly intervals during
September 1969 in order to re-estimate the probability of the war
hypothesis Hl, and to specify the conditional probability estimates
that were processed according to the Bayesian method. In October
1969 (when the war hypothesis H1 was known to have been false) the
probability tracks derived from the two methods were compared as
in Figure 4. The primary result was that for five of the six analysts,
the Bayesian track had always been below the intuitive sequence of
probabilities. Thus in retrospect, an official would have preferred to
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have acted according to the Bayesian estimates, rather than accord-
ing to the analysts' best intuitive judgments concerning the war
hypothesis.
An Evaluation of the Bayesian Method
Several results of general interest emerged from the Sino-Soviet
experiment. First of all, when the experiment began the analysts
differed widely in their views concerning the chance of a war; but the
reasons for their differences were murky at best.
A typical argument between two analysts would arise when one
would accuse the other of having ignored certain crucial facts in esti-
mating the likelihood of war. The accused would then respond that he
had indeed considered all relevant information, and that his estimate
was based on facts that other analysts had overlooked. Such arguments
were difficult to evaluate, since there was no record of who had
considered what, or of how each analyst's probability estimate had
evolved over time.
Once the Sino-Soviet experiment had begun, however, one could
easily determine the relative importance that an analyst had assigned
to any given event. For example, it was evident from Analyst B's
conditional probability estimates that he had considered the event of
Kosygin's visit in September 1969 to Peking as being irrelevant to
the war hypothesis. In contrast, Analyst E had regarded the meeting
as a profound indicator that war would not occur. The issue of whether
Analyst B exercised good judgment in this respect remains an open
question; but at least his assessment of the Peking trip had been re-
corded and could be evaluated.
Thus the Bayesian approach provided a kind of accounting system
for intelligence analysis. If such a system were implemented for other
questions of indications analysis, a significant class of disagreements
among analysts might be resolved. And to the extent that such dis-
agreements would persist, an official who must synthesize warnings on
the basis of analysts' estimates could discern and evaluate causes for
the disagreements.
A second contribution of the accounting system was the fact that
after the system's inception, the analysts definitely did consider the
same relevant events. In particular, Analyst E wrote the following
review of the experiment.
In the case of Office E, interchanges with other offices are usually on an
unsystematic ad hoc basis. The Bayesian experiment afforded an opportunity
to bring these interchanges into focus on a systematic basis. Its particular
merit lies in the manner in which participants are led to identify the factors
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influencing their estimates and to present these for critical review by others
approaching the question from varying angles. I would emphasize the value
of focus, though perhaps no less valuable is the exposure of participants to
lines of analysis-as one analyst noted-of which they are dimly if at all
aware.
Similarly, Analyst C wrote:
The meeting was a useful forum for the interplay of ideas and the exchange
of information which might otherwise not occur. Interchanges would take
place in the absence of such a meeting; but they would be limited because
of their bilateral nature (in most cases).
In summary, an improved system of accounting for analytical judg-
ments is needed. Although it cannot be said categorically that the
Bayesian method excels as a forecasting device, the Sino-Soviet experi-
ment indicates that it might provide a means for such accounting.
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THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
ESTIMATING
Ludwell I,ee Montague*
Most of what I have to say on this subject is a matter of personal
recollection. I was "present at the creation," though without power
to control the event.
My story begins in October 1940, when I was ordered to active duty
in the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department General
Staff. At that time, now thirty years ago, there was no common con-
ception of any kind of an intelligence estimate, much less of a national
intelligence estimate.
In our language, the word "intelligence" originally meant communi-
cated information: that is, information reported from elsewhere, as
distinguished from information known by personal observation. You
will find the word used in that sense by Shakespeare. That was still
the prevailing sense of the word in 1940. Indeed, public comment shows
that, even today, most laymen regard us only as gatherers of informa-
tion. The Press, which is itself a primitive intelligence organization,
shows almost no comprehension of the function of estimating the
meaning of the information gathered, apart from the expression of
personal opinion by individual columnists whose "authority" varies
with their personal prestige.
In this primitive sense, the entire Department of State was, in 1940,
an intelligence organization. It had its own network of reporters who
sent it information from abroad-but the evaluation of that informa-
tion occurred only intuitively in the minds of the desk men who read
it. The Department had no conception of intelligence research, much
less of any organized process of estimating.
The Navy was one degree more sophisticated. It had an Office of
Naval Intelligence, the function of which was to compile NIS-type
information of Naval interest. Just the facts, man! Navy doctrine
strongly held that it was not a function of Intelligence to estimate the
meaning of the facts. Only the Admiral could do that-which may go
some way to explain Pearl Harbor.
*This article is the text of an address delivered by the late Dr. Montague, a retired
member of the Board of National Estimates, at the first meeting of the Intelligence
Forum, 11 May 1971.
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Only the Army conceived it to be a function of Intelligence to esti-
mate the capabilities and intentions of foreign powers. That was Army
doctrine, but the Military Intelligence Division did little to practice
that art. Like ONI, it spent the year before Pearl Harbor producing
"strategic handbooks," a primitive, single-service, NIS.
During that year "Wild Bill" Donovan burst upon the scene as
the President's Coordinator of Information. He was a man of many
pregnant ideas. Just one of them was that the President should be
better informed than the State, War, and Navy Departments, acting
separately, could possibly inform him. Donovan assembled a group of
eminent scholars, men knowledgeable of foreign affairs and practiced
in the techniques of research and analysis in a way that regular Army,
Navy, and Foreign Service officers could not be. Donovan's Research
and Analysis Branch would assemble all of the information in the
possession of the Government, not only in the State, War, and Navy
Departments, but also in the Library of Congress and other places,
and would prepare for the President a fully informed and thoughtful
analysis of any situation of interest to him.
Let me observe at this point that the analyses actually produced by
this R&A Branch were not estimates. They were academic studies,
descriptive rather than estimative, more like an NIS than NIE.
Donovan had no idea of coordinating these studies with anyone. He
was responsible only to the President. One can readily imagine how
professional Army, Navy, and Foreign Service officers reacted to the
idea that a lot of johnny-come-lately professors would be telling the
President what to think about political and strategic matters.
Gen. Raymond Lee, who had recently served as military attache in
London, proposed to head off Donovan's intrusion into the mysteries
of military intelligence by the creation of a Joint (Army and Navy)
Intelligence Committee, in imitation of the British JIC.
Significantly, the task of defining the functions of this US JIC was
assigned, not to the Chiefs of Intelligence, but to the Chiefs of Army
and Navy Plans. There arose at once a doctrinal controversy between
the Army and the Navy. The Army wished the JIC to "collate,
analyze, and interpret information with its implications, and to esti-
mate hostile capabilities and probable intentions." The Navy wished it
to present such factual evidence as might be available, but to make
no "estimate or other form of prediction." Inasmuch as the Army
desired to have a joint committee, for which the Navy's agreement was
indispensable, the Navy's view prevailed. Thus the first US inter-
departmental intelligence organization came into existence expressly
forbidden to make estimates!
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I dwell upon this episode because it has contemporary relevance.
Now, thirty years later, we hear again that in certain high quarters
the idea prevails that the function of Intelligence is to produce evi-
dence, not estimates. Conclusions as to the meaning of the evidence
will be drawn by the interested policymakers to suit their policy
predilections.
There was, of course, a scuffle between the Army and the Navy for
control of this new joint committee. Before the war, normal promotion
was faster in the Navy than in the Army. The Army was shocked to
learn that the senior Naval officer assigned to the joint committee,
a youngish commander, actually outranked the older lieutenant colonel
assigned by the Army. And that commander's mission was to see to
it that the joint committee did nothing except by direction, particu-
larly that it did no estimating. But the Army, in the midst of a massive
mobilization, had developed a faster system than the Navy's for
making spot promotions. The Army made the lieutenant colonel a
colonel before the Navy could make the commander a captain. And
the first thing that the new colonel did, on taking over from the
commander, was to order the immediate preparation of the first US
joint intelligence estimate, in flagrant violation of the JIC's charter!
The subject of that first US interdepartmental intelligence estimate
was the strategic consequences if the Japanese were permitted to seize
control of the Netherlands East Indies. (Singapore and Bataan were
then under attack, but had not yet fallen.) The answer was obvious:
that would be a Bad Thing. The policy implication was also clear: it
should be prevented. Since that policy implication suited the Navy,
it did not protest the illegality of making that estimate.
At this point, Mr. Winston Churchill came to town with two pur-
poses in mind. The first was to commit the United States to give the
war with Germany priority over the war with Japan, not an easy
proposition in the face of the US reaction to Pearl Harbor and Bataan:
The second was to establish the Combined Chiefs of Staff in order to
insure for Britain a more or less equal voice in the conduct of both
wars.
The Combined Chiefs of Staff organization included a Combined
Intelligence Committee modelled after the British JIC in London.
Since the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Economic Warfare
were important members of the British JIC, the US JIC, the US side
of the CIC, had to be enlarged to include representatives of the State
Department, the Board of Economic Warfare, and. the Office of
Strategic Services. Since the sole function of the CIC was to produce
combined "appreciations" as a basis for combined war planning, it
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Estimating
automatically became the primary function of the US JIC to produce
US joint intelligence estimates. Thus it was the Prime Minister of
Great Britain who created the wartime US JIC and put it into the
estimating business.
At that time, and for many years thereafter, the British JIC held
the highest reputation in Intelligence. Let me therefore say a word
about British joint intelligence estimates. They were joint only in the
sense that all of the members of the JIC subscribed to them. It would
never have occurred to a British Army officer to question the
political judgment of the Foreign Office, nor would it have occurred
to a Foreign Office representative to question the Army's order of
battle. Consequently British JIC estimates were nothing more than a
set of departmental estimates fastened together.
The situation was somewhat different in the US JIC. The State
Department was incapable of making any contribution, but felt free
to criticize the political contributions of OSS. The Foreign Economic
Administration (formerly BEW) generally deferred to OSS in economic
matters. The Air Force and the Navy generally stuck to their
technical specialties, although the Navy was ever ready to defend the
interests of Admiral Nimitz against any supposed Army favor toward
General MacArthur. But the Army and OSS both claimed a
universal competence: they would argue with anybody about any-
thing, and chiefly with each other. The Army had no hesitation about
contradicting an OSS political or economic estimate. OSS delighted
to expose deficiencies in the Army's order of battle.
In these circumstances, the Joint Intelligence Staff, the full-time
working staff of the JIC, performed a real service in working out an
agreed joint text from conflicting contributions, particularly those
of the Army and OSS. These were not split-the-difference com-
promises. Despite their different departmental origins, the members
of the JIS were a band of brothers who lived and worked together; they
could reach agreement amongst themselves on the basis of reasoned
consideration of the evidence. The estimates that they prepared were
truly joint estimates.
The trick then was, of course, to obtain the concurrence of the
members of the JIC, who were surrounded by advisers who had never
participated in joint consideration of the subject. But the members
of the JIS were the personal representatives of the members of the
JIC for this purpose. They had equal access to them, and could
generally persuade them to adopt the joint view.
The defect of the JIC system was that the Committee was
composed of six sovereign powers. No one represented the national
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interest, as distinguished from departmental interests. No one held
a power of decision in case of disagreement. Since there was no
acceptable way of registering a divergent view, unanimous agreement
was required. In the case of a real controversy, that could be
obtained only if someone backed down, or, as happened more often, if
someone could devise an ambiguous formulation acceptable to both
sides in the controversy. Thus, joint estimates tended to become vague
or meaningless precisely at points of critical importance.
The members of the JIS agreed that a headless joint committee
was the worst way of producing national intelligence estimates.
During the autumn of 1944 they developed their idea of a more
effective interdepartmental intelligence system. Since every depart-
ment would require its own intelligence organization to meet its
specialized departmental needs, there would have to be an inter-
departmental committee to bring together the heads of those
departmental organizations to deal with common (that is, national)
problems. But that committee should have an independent chairman,
appointed by the President and responsible only to him. And, in the
case of estimates, that chairman, having heard all of the evidence
and argument bearing on a disputed issue, should have the power to
decide what the text of the estimate would say, subject only to the
notation of the dissenting opinion of any chief of a departmental
intelligence agency. That idea, developed by the men who then had
the most personal experience in the coordination of interdepartmental
intelligence estimates, is the key to the present system for producing
national intelligence estimates.
In the autumn of 1944 others were thinking of a postwar
intelligence system. The Department of State had a plan. It was
premised upon the exclusive responsibility and authority of the
Secretary of State for the conduct of foreign relations, subject only to
the direction of the President. It assumed that the military intelligence
services would be interested only in technical military matters. It
contemplated the creation of an "American (i.e., National) Intelligence
Service" within the Department of State. This Service would
maintain "close liaison" with the military intelligence services and
would obtain through liaison whatever military inputs it required for
its own estimates. The military, however, would have no voice in
those estimates. Produced under the exclusive authority of the
Secretary of State, they would provide the intelligence foundation
for national policy.
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CONFIDENTIAL g
Somehow, a working copy of this State Department plan came
into the possession of General Donovan, the Director of Strategic
Services. He moved to forestall State by proposing to the President
the creation of a "Central Intelligence Service" in the Executive
Office of the President. His point was that departmental intelligence
estimates were by their nature self-serving. The President should
have in his service an intelligence organization wholly free of the
influence of departmental policy advocacy and special pleading. It
would make full use of departmental intelligence resources, but would
produce its own independent intelligence estimates, as the basis for
national policy and strategy.
Let me stress that neither the State Department Plan nor the
Donovan Plan contemplated any interdepartmental coordination of
these "national policy intelligence" estimates. The military intelligence
services would contribute "factual" data to them, but would have
no voice in their estimative judgments. They would be produced
under the sole authority of the Secretary of State, in the first case,
or of the Director of the Central Intelligence Service in the second.
The Donovan Plan was referred to the JIC for comment and the
fat was in the fire. After a month of fierce contention, the JIS
worked out a compromise plan, JIC 239/5, 1 January 1945. In that
paper the JIC recommended the establishment of a Central Intel-
ligence Agency which, among other things, would produce national
intelligence estimates. With regard to such estimates, however, the
Director of Central Intelligence was required to consult with a board
composed of the heads of the departmental intelligence agencies and
to report their individual concurrence or dissent. In short, this was
the scheme developed by the members of the JIS during the autumn
of 1944, to which reference was made above.
After a year of vicissitudes that I shall not take time to relate,
President Truman adopted the plan set forth in JIC 239/5. In January
1.946 he established the Central Intelligence Group which, in Sep-
tember 1947, became the Central Intelligence Agency.
It is true to say that without William Donovan's initiative, in 1941
and again in 1944, there would have been no Central Intelligence
Agency. All honor to him for that. But it is a mistake to suppose, as
is commonly done, that CIA was based on the Donovan Plan of 1944.
General Donovan himself knew better than that. Instead, CIA is
based on JIC 239/5, which General Donovan stubbornly opposed.
The Central Intelligence Group set out to produce national intel-
ligence estimates in accordance with the concept embodied in JIC
239/5. It was frustrated in that intention by the departmental agencies.
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For reasons that -I shall not take time to explain, they refused to con-
tribute to CIG estimates, or even to meet with CIG to discuss them.
The result was that CIG, later CIA, produced estimates based solely
or primarily upon its own research and sent them to the heads of the
departmental agencies for concurrence or dissent on a take it or leave
it basis. The IAC (the predecessor of USIB) never met to consider
an estimate.
That certainly was not what had been intended. In 1949 the Dulles
Committee blamed CIA for it.
This matter was not straightened out until General Walter Bedell
Smith became DCI, in October 1950. Through positive leadership,
he then developed a cooperative relationship with the IAC. He estab-
lished also the Office of National Estimates with the sole mission of
producing national intelligence estimates in the manner that had been
intended in JIC 239/5-that is, on the basis of departmental contribu-
tions, independent evaluation of those contributions, working level
consultation with the contributors, and final consideration by the
IAC (USIB).
In this context, the specialized research offices of CIA should be
regarded as contributors on the same basis as the departmental
agencies. ONE, working solely for the DCI as the Chairman of USIB,
has no more commitment to them than to, say, DIA. They are repre-
sented in USIB by the DDCI.
This system has now worked well for 20 years, which proves that
it is soundly conceived. Let me close by pointing out its particular
virtues from the point of view of the user of the NIE.
First, it assures him that all of the intelligence resources of the
Government have been brought to bear on the problem, and that
every intelligence authority in the Government has been consulted.
Nevertheless, the power of decision with regard to the content of
an estimate resides in one man, the DCI. This is, or should be, a pro-
tection against the evasions and obfuscations that characterize joint
estimates. It should work to clarify any real differences that may
exist among well informed men.
Third, any dissenter is forced to dissent within the context of a
generally agreed discussion-not in an ex parte paper circulated
separately.
Finally, the user has consequent assurance that all of the intelli-
gence considerations bearing on his problem are contained in this one
paper, under one cover.
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After 20 years, these virtues may seem commonplace-but some-
times I sense that they are not fully understood and appreciated nowa-
days. To appreciate them fully, one has to know what it was like 30,
or even 20, years ago. I have endeavored to give you some feeling for
the difference between the present system and what went before.
It is written that those who disregard past experience are con-
demned to repeat it.
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No Foreign Dissem
INTELLIGENCE IMPLICATIONS OF DISEASE
Warren F. Carey and Myles Maxfield
Outbreaks of meningitis in China are not unusual, but the winter
of 1966-1967 was something else again It began innocently enough
with a few reports of school closings in Canton. News of this routine
precaution turned out to be the signal for one of the worst series of
epidemics to hit China in many years, and the beginning of
Project IMPACT. The concept of this project-forecasting disease
problems and epidemics, and the assessment of their effects on
military and civilian activities-had hardly scratched the surface of
implementation in the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI);
but the opportunity was present in December 1966. China was in
turmoil as millions of its people were participating in the Great
Cultural Revolution. The demonstrations, riots, large dislocations
of the population and general chaos attendant on this revolution
were, epidemiologically speaking, some of the best ingredients for a
successful epidemic. On the other hand, this mass upheaval had no
precedent, there was no up-to-date quantifiable disease information
of any sort on China and the status of China's public health
conditions and medical capabilities were uncertain to say the least.
In the early stages of the project there was even uncertainty
over the actual cause for the school closings in China.. Two
disease names, meningitis and Japanese B encephalitis, were being
cited in reports describing the same outbreak in Canton (some
reports combined both diseases into one-"Japanese B meningitis").
The confusion of reporting terminology was soon clarified. Distinct
but similar Chinese words were being used to describe the disease; but
which disease was it? Encephalitis is a viral disease, transmitted by
mosquitoes, and is usually associated with seasonal periodicity of
occurrence in warm weather. With the advent of colder weather the
mosquitoes die and the disease subsides. By contrast, meningitis is a
bacterial disease, having in temperate climates its greatest prevalence
during cooler weather; although large outbreaks have occurred in
hot, dry climates. The disease is mainly one of children and young
adults and is more common where living conditions are crowded, as
in barracks and institutions. The key to the correct diagnosis was a
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report that cited the specific use of antibiotic nosedrops to treat
encephalitis. The disease was thus remotely diagnosed as meningitis
because antibiotics are not effective against viral encephalitis.
Identification of the etiology of this outbreak was crucial to our
forecasting--meningitis had the greater potential for spreading
rapidly from person to person by discharges from the nose and throat
of infected persons. A significant point too was that the general
pattern of behavior of meningitis epidemics tends markedly to
repeat itself over a two to three year cycle. Thus it appeared that
China was going to have an extended disease crisis. The first
intelligence assessment was made in an OSI publication in January:
"It is becoming increasingly evident that Communist China is
being confronted with a serious disease control problem. Factors
suggest a breakdown of public health measures under the impact
of mass movement of people, and perhaps the beginning of a
series of new disease problems."
Subsequent reports on the magnitude of the epidemic exceeded
the prediction: travellers arriving in Hong Kong reported meningitis
raging throughout Kwangtung Province, Radio Canton repeatedly
advised people to guard against exposure to the disease-but it was
too late. By mid-January, the epidemic in Canton was out of
control, as supplies of sulfadiazine used in the prevention as well as
the treatment of the disease became depleted. Red Guards took over
the hospital facilities to care for their personnel only and some
additional 900,000 visitors in Canton with the Cultural Exchange
Program were exposed to meningitis. As the epidemic gained
momentum, the entire public health infrastructure began to collapse.
A pattern of spread began to develop primarily to the north of
Kwangtung Province. It became possible to predict a chronological
sequence from one province to the next by tracing the movements of
Red Guard units. In mid-January the epidemic was reported in Fu-
ch'ing, Fukien Province (bordering Kwangtung Province on the
northeast) and a Red Guard unit from Chi-mei diverted its march at
this time to avoid Fu-ch'ing. At Ching-kang Shan, over 60,000 Red
Guard each day were visiting the cradle of the Chinese Communist
Revolution. Following an outbreak of the disease, the area was placed
under quarantine. So it went---little being done to restrict mass move-
ments until an outbreak occurred. In almost perfect order, meningitis
infected one province after another all the way to the northeast Soviet
border, and, as it struck, the movement and activities of Red Guards
were hampered.
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At this point, OSI analysts knew the identity of the disease and
where it was going. The question now was how to quantitatively
estimate the impact on the Chinese population? The only reports
received were general descriptions such as "many sick and dying";
"many dead"; "no drugs"; "hospitals overcrowded"; "quarantines";
and "the most serious thing that has happened since the liberation."
An attempt was made to model the epidemic on paper based on an
analysis of outbreaks that have occurred in Western countries. In
such disease outbreaks a very high percentage of people are known
to carry the infection and about one-half to one percent of these will
become ill with the disease. Given the estimated Chinese population
in the infected provinces and also the ones in the path of the
epidemic, a range of about 2.5 to 5.0 million cases was arrived at.
It was an impressive range but descriptive accounts of the epidemic
still appeared to be in excess of calculations.
The medical situation was presented to analysts in the Office of
Economic Research (OER) who were able to complement the
analysis. Projected population figures showed that there were 130
million children in the 0-4 age group and in the 0-24 age group
about 500 million. Well over half of China's population consisted of
young people----the very ones most "at risk" in a meningitis epidemic.
It became apparent that in addition to the actual epidemic problems,
considerable alarm and panic was being generated which could impede
control of the disease. Real and imagined symptoms would initiate
frantic appeals for medical assistance and drugs, thereby disrupting
internal distribution systems. OER analysts also indicated that in
addition to producing sulfadiazine, China imports small amounts of
this drug to meet the normal requirements. Overall, there existed a
close balance between supply and demand. The amounts needed for
treatment based on the calculated incidence rate was small in compari-
son to that needed to provide broad prophylactic protection to a
large segment of the population.
State Department officials were advised of these new developments.
It was clear that an excellent opportunity was present to help "reduce
tensions" between the U.S. and Chinese Governments by rescinding
the U.S. ban on exports of drugs and other medical supplies. A
formal offer to assist China in controlling the epidemic was made by
the State Department. China did not respond to this gesture.
Nevertheless, by February, shortages of sulfadiazine began to occur,
with reports of many Chinese resorting to ineffective traditional
medicines and urgent calls for sulfadiazine being placed on higher
echelons by local health units. Soon thereafter China solicited
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isease
Western European and Asian pharmaceutical companies to make
available substantial quantities of sulfadiazine. An accounting of
the total amounts imported to China was attempted but much of
the information was related to negotiations on purchase prices. At
least several hundred metric tons were known to have been shipped
between February and April to supplement China's internal produc-
tion. Calculations based on chemoprophylactic dosage requirements
(0.5 grams for children, 1.0 grams for adults each 12 hours for four
doses) indicated that enough had been imported to protect about 100
million persons.
Chinese authorities broadcasted many appeals for "masses" of
doctors and nurses to act in halting the contagious disease that was
erupting and flowing from place to place. They then attributed the
epedemic to medical workers who had not followed Chairman Mao's
orders for the care of the country's 700 million persons. In
retrospect, the "barefoot doctors" program to provide medical
services and disease reporting in rural areas was a logical outgrowth
of this massive epidemic. Whether the ensuing decline of the disease
was due to the extensive use of sulfadiazine or to the normal decline
of the epidemic cycle was never ascertained. It was followed by other
predicted disease outbreaks (i.e., hepatitis, measles), and a recurrence
of a much less severe meningitis epidemic in the winter of 1967-1968.
Ns a postscript, China's failure to prevent and control the spread of
diseases was viewed by the USSR as a fundamental weakness of the
Chinese health services and the Soviet Ministry of Health abruptly
rescinded the 1960 Sino-Soviet agreement on mutual abolition of
vaccination requirements for travellers between these countries.
Project IMPACT went global in the summer of 1968 when a new
strain of influenza rolled out of China and within a short period of
time affected one out of every four persons in the world. The strain
was not an unusually lethal one but it was only by chance that it was
not. Again, various Agency sources provided the first indication of
the beginning of this worldwide pandemic when the disease moved
from China via travellers to Hong Kong in late June. An estimated
500,000 cases resulted in Hong Kong alone including 30 percent of
the personnel at the American Embassy. At this time a unique oppor-
tunity was available to review statistical data on influenza (a pro-
gram to computerize disease information to derive trends, cycles and
predictions had already been initiated under a CIA Project called
BLACKFLAG); the current epidemic in Hong Kong was causing the
highest incidence since the first Asian Type A2 epidemic of 1957.
While the epidemic appeared to be progressing in a new way, initial
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curiosity subsided when a laboratory report from Hong Kong identi-
fied the strain as the common Type A2 variety.
Soon, however, separate reports from laboratories in Japan, U.S.,
and England identified antigenic (genetic) changes in specimens iso-
lated in Hong Kong. Investigators at the Japanese National Institute
of Health identified the Hong Kong influenza virus as a new Asian
Type A3. In the U.S., isolates of the disease showed a magnitude of
antigenic dissimilarity which had not been observed previously with
Type A2 specimens. The World Health Influenza Center in London
also noted an antigenic shift from previous A2 strains. Summarized
findings noted: "the emergence of a new strain occurs every 10-15
years and together with rapid transportation, and in the absence of
specific vaccines, leads us to believe that the disease may cause exten-
sive outbreaks throughout the world in the coming months." Medical
members of the Scientific Intelligence Committee were informed of
these developments. The Defense Intelligence Agency member, in
turn, alerted representatives of the Army Surgeon General's Office
and following their conference with scientists at the Communicable
Disease Center, an overall emergency plan was approved. Orders
were issued to produce as rapidly as possible, large quantities of
vaccine to protect military, public health and Government personnel,
and civilians in high risk categories. The World Health Organization
in August officially designated the new virus strain as Hong Kong/
A2/68.
The race began in many countries to manufacture vaccine before
the disease struck. Data was available on earlier flu epidemics from
which could be derived a projected pattern of an eastward move-
ment across Europe enabling a forecast of this spread. The disease
would be in the Soviet Union about February, 1969, some two to
three months after it reached Europe. Thus, the Soviets had an esti-
mated seven month lead time, and reports on their progress in manu-
facturing and distributing Hong Kong flu vaccine were anticipated.
Instead, the Soviets continued to vaccinate the urban population
(about 75 percent) with the standard A2 vaccine which was shown
even in August, to have very little protective value against Hong
Kong flu (this decision later was reported to be based on their inability
to make the new vaccine in less than a year and their gamble that A2
vaccine would help). By late January, the flu was present in many
Soviet cities and incidence rates began to increase sharply. Central
Asian areas also were facing their worst winter in 90 years as record
snow fall and cold temperatures helped to disrupt medical assistance
plans. A massive educational campaign on TV and local news media
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was initiated in Soviet cities on how to avoid the disease. "Flu sta-
tions" were set up on corners to dispense cold remedies, but in the
absence of specific prophylaxis, this effort was largely academic.
Workers were given an extra day of sick leave in addition to the
usual five days granted for flu cases. About 25 percent of the Moscow
population was stricken (about 30 percent in Leningrad) and it was
assumed that comparable figures occurred in most other population
centers known to have been infected. The disease produced an ever
widening ripple of effects on military and civilian activities (i.e., dis-
ruption of military training and industrial production schedules,
which were clostly in terms of sick relief payments, medical assistance,
etc.). As the effects were felt in the Soviet Union they called the dis-
ease "Mao's flu." The direct and indirect cost of the epidemic was
calculated to be several billion rubles.
Soviet health officials were criticized for their inept handling of
the epidemic which caused considerable harm to the economy and to
the health of the people. It caused five to six times as much illness as
the total of all other infections. In response, health officials in the
USSR recommended that they be freed from "petty supervision by
dozens of incompetent authorities." The Soviet Medical Gazette in
an excellent review of the controversy noted that in the absence of
more specific preventive measures, scientists, doctors, and particularly
the Soviet population, are still indebted to the practical health workers.
Influenza also reached Southeast Asia and project IMPACT was
applied to forecast, and quantify the effects upon Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese Army (VC/NVA) forces. A chronology of the times and
locations of outbreaks was made from reports over the 1968-1970
period including any quantifiable figures on the rates of sickness and
the frequency of VC/NVA requests for drugs and other medical sup-
plies. There evolved a pattern which showed that the occurrence of
influenza was a function of traffic density and personnel moving south
from North Vietnam and coincided with the dry season when the
bulk of all military supplies moved down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Incapacitation rates ranged from about 40 to 70 percent and there was
very good evidence that except for the isolation and quarantine of
patients, no capability existed to specifically protect their military
personnel by mass vaccinations. In December 1970, reports of out-
breaks among VC/NVA forces in North Vietnam Laos border area
began to be noted with increased frequency-the stage was set for
the beginning of the 1971 influenza epidemic there.
Staff personnel of the Special Assistant/ Vietnam Affairs (SA/VA)
were consulted, and together with their data on traffic routes, troop
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concentration, and locations of waystations (Binh Trams), made it
possible to construct a model of the direction of the influenza epidemic.
Tchepone was a key junction on the Communist roadnet which ex-
tends into Southern Laos-if Tchepone became infected, the disease
would move from Binh Tram to Binh Tram north and south in Laos
and back to North Vietnam (see Figure 2). In late December there
were indications that the NVA 4th and 16th AAA Battalions at Tche-
pone had become infected. It was estimated that in the primary in-
fected area of Quang Binh Province the epidemic peak would occur
about 30 January 1971 and in the secondary infected area south of
Tchepone the peak would be about mid-February 1971. An overall
50 percent infection rate was calculated for VC/NVA personnel in
those areas and it was estimated that one-half of those infected would
be incapable of performing normal duties for about a week.
A warning was sent to indigenous intelligence teams operating in
Laos and Cambodia to take special precautions during these peak
influenza periods. Inasmuch as vaccination was not practical, an anti-
flu drug, amantadine HCL, which had been shown to help prevent
the disease was recommended for these teams. During February 1971,
South Vietnamese army units entered Laos and conducted extensive
operations near Tchepone and other areas in and near the primary
infectious zone. Unfortunately, these operations took place just after
the predicted time for the peak incidence. Combat effectiveness of
committed VC/NVA forces probably was affected to a lesser degree
by the declining incidence rate of influenza during February. This
aspect was, however, difficult to quantitate.
The Future
Keeping ahead of meningitis and influenza required an extended
all-out effort to assess, in each case, the disease with its special condi-
tions so that the epidemic consequences could be projected. Analysts
in what appeared to be completely unrelated fields of interest, all
had significant bits of data to support and extend the forecasts.
Disease intelligence can provide an initiating and vital role in the more
familiar political, military and economic categories of intelligence.
Project IMPACT clearly indicated that nothing is more interna-
tional than diseases which recognize no political boundaries and few
natural ones. Human diseases move freely across national frontiers
and spread as conditions permit from one area to another. Even in
the case of diseases of plants and animals, there is little doubt today
that pathogenic organisms themselves are either already globally dis-
tributed or can rapidly become so. The appearance of something new
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like Hong Kong influenza or the recent and costly spread of Vene-
zuelan equine encephalomyelitis into the U.S. from Mexico can have
demonstrable intelligence implications. Such disease events un-
doubtedly will occur in the future, and they will be much nastier to
all facets of human activity.
Disease impact predictions require the retrieval and analysis of im-
mense amounts of unclassified and classified data. This must be
done in a very short time period if it is to be responsive to the current
world disease situation. The techniques learned in working out the
basic approaches on a few selected situations has led the Office of
Scientific intelligence to initiate an extensive effort to develop com-
puter assisted working tools to retrieve the desired data quickly and
to calculate statistical summaries and the probability of an epidemic
spread. Mathematical models also are being designed for a multitude
of epidemic diseases to give a rapid up-date and display capability.
Project IMPACT depends upon such systems, but its best asset is
still the cooperation of analysts in varied disciplines who help in the
predictive processes.
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No Foreign Dissern
On assessing timing
STRATEGIC WARNING:
THE PROBLEM OF TIMING'
Cynthia M. Grabo
A widely held concept about warning is that, as the hour of the
enemy attack draws near, there will be more and better evidence
that enemy action is both probable and imminent. From this, the
idea follows naturally that intelligence will be better able to provide
warning in the short term and will, in the few hours or at most days
prior to the attack, issue its most definitive and positive warning judg-
ments. Moreover-since there is presumed to be accumulating evi-
dence that the enemy is engaged in his last-minute preparations for
the attack-this concept holds that intelligence will likely be able to
estimate the approximate if not the exact time of the attack. There-
fore, if we can judge at all that the attack is probable, we can also tell
when it is coming.
This concept of warning-as a judgment of imminence of attack-
has strongly influenced US thinking on the subject for years.. As of
this writing, the official definition of strategic warning in the JCS
Dictionary is, "A notification that enemy-initiated hostilities may be
imminent." More explicitly, the US national warning estimate of
1966 concluded: "Intelligence is not likely to give warning of probable
Soviet intent to attack until a few hours before the attack, if at all.
Warning of increased Soviet readiness, implying a possible intent to
attack, might be given somewhat earlier."
However logical these suppositions may appear in theory, they are
not supported either by the history of warfare nor the experience of
warning analysts, and in recent years more realistic assessments of
this problem have begun to appear in warning papers and estimates.
For the fact is that warning judgments are not necessarily more
accurate or positive in the short term and that assessing the timing of
attack is often the most elusive, difficult and uncertain problem which
we have to face. It is simply not true that the last few days or hours
1 This article is adapted from a chapter of A Handbook of Warning Intelligence
which the author is preparing for the training of intelligence personnel in analytical
problems of strategic warning.
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prior to the initiation of hostilities are likely to bring more and more
specific indications of impending attack which will permit a better or
more confident judgment that attack is likely or imminent. In many
eases experience shows that the reverse will be true, and that there
will be fewer indications that the attack is coming and even an
apparent lull in enemy preparations. This can be quite deceptive,
even for those who know from experience not to relax their vigilance
in such circumstances. Those who do not understand this principle
are likely to be totally surprised by the timing--or even the oc-
currence-of the enemy action. They will probably feel aggrieved
that their collection has failed them and they will tend to believe
that the remedy for the intelligence "failure" is to speed up the col-
lection and reporting process, not appreciating that the earlier collec-
tion and analysis were more important and that a judgment of proba-
bility of attack could have been reached much earlier and should not
have been dependent on highly uncertain and last-minute collection
breakthroughs.
Principal Factors in the Timing of Attacks and the Attainment of
Surprise
Nearly all nations, except in unfavorable or unusual circumstances,
have shown themselves able to achieve tactical surprise in warfare.
[hstory is replete with instances in which the adversary was caught
unawares by the timing, strength or location of the attack-even
when the attack itself had been expected or considered a likelihood.
I+:ven democracies, with their notoriously lax security in comparison
with closed societies, have often had striking success in concealing the
details (including the timing) of their operations. To cite the most con-
spicuous example, the greatest military operation in history achieved
tactical surprise even though it was fully expected by an enemy who
potentially had hours of tactical warning that the massive invasion
force was approaching. It was the Normandy invasion, in which de-
ception played a major role in misleading the Germans.
It is not only by deception, however, that tactical surprise is so
often achieved and that last-minute preparations for the attack can
be concealed. A more important and more usual reason is that the
indications of attack which are most obvious.and discernible to us
are the major deployments of forces and large-scale logistic prepara-
tions which are often begun weeks or even months before the attack
itself. Once these are completed, or nearly so, the enemy will have
attained a capability for attack more or less at the time of his choosing,
and the additional preparations which must be accomplished shortly
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arning
prior to the attack are much less likely to be discernible to us or may
be ambiguous in nature. Staff conferences, inspections, the issuance
of basic loads of ammunition and other supplies, and the final orders
for the attack all are measures which require little overt activity and
are not likely to be detected in time except by extraordinarily fine
collection and rapid reporting-such as a well-placed agent in the
enemy's headquarters with access to some rapid means of communica-
tions, or the fortuitous arrival of a knowledgeable defector. Even the
final deployments of major ground force units to jumpoff positions
for the assault may be successfully concealed by the measures which
most nations take to insure tactical surprise--including rigid com-
munications security and night movements. Thus, unlike the major
deployments of troops and equipment which almost never can be en-
tirely concealed, the short-term preparations have a good chance of
being concealed, and quite often are. And, even if detected, there
will often be minimal time in which to alert or redeploy forces for the
now imminent attack, still less to issue warning judgments at the
national level. Such tactical warning usually is an operational problem
for the commander. Ten minutes or even three hours warning does
not allow much time for the political leadership to come to new de-
cisions and implement them.
Another facet of the problem of assessing the timing of attack is
the difficulty of determining when the enemy's preparations are in
fact completed, and when he himself will judge that his military forces
are ready. It will often be particularly difficult to make this judgment
with regard to logistic preparations. In fact, I can recall no instance
in my experience in which it could be clearly determined that the
logistic preparations for attack were complete, particularly since
heavy supply movements usually continue uninterrupted even after
the attack is launched. There has often been a tendency for intelli-
gence to believe that all military preparations are completed earlier
than in fact is the case-the discrepancy usually being attributable
to the fact that the major and most obvious troop deployments had
apparently been completed. Thus, even when intelligence has come
to the right judgment on enemy intentions, it has sometimes been too
early in its assessment of the possible timing of the attack.
In addition, the enemy command for various reasons may not go
through with an attack as soon as the forces are fully prepared, or
may change the date of the attack even after it has been set. A recent
study has compiled some data concerning the frequency with which
D-Days are not met, and the effects of this on the adversary's judg-
ments. Of 162 cases analyzed where D-Days applied, almost half
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(about 44 per cent) were delayed, about five per cent went ahead of
schedule, and only slightly more than half (about 51 per cent) remained
on schedule. The most common reasons for delay were weather and
administrative problems, presumably in completing or synchronizing
all preparations. Some attacks have had to be postponed repeatedly.
For example, the Germans' Verdun offensive of 21 February 1916
was postponed no less than nine times by unfavorable weather?
Such changes in plans have sometimes had notable effects on the
opponent's assessments, particularly when he has gone through one
or more alerts of impending attack which failed to materialize. Whaley
notes that the finding that procrastination can help to generate
surprise is explainable by the "cry-wolf" syndrome-whereby the
false alert, and particularly a series of them, breeds skepticism or
downright disbelief of the authentic warning when it is in fact re-
ceived. "Moreover, the trend is that the greater the number of false
alerts, the greater the chance of their being associated with sur-
prise.. . . [The] Aesopian moral seemingly holds . . ., the false alarms
serving mainly to undermine the credibility of the source and dull the
effect of subsequent warnings. . . . It is ironic that . . . some of the
1)-Day warnings were quite authentic, the enemy having merely un-
expectedly deferred the operation. The consequence was, of course,
that several superb intelligence sources including Colonel Oster, Sorge
and Rossler received undeserved black marks on the eve of their sub-
sequent definitive alerts." 3
Of all aspects of operational planning, the easiest to change and
most flexible is probably timing. Once troops are in position to go,
orders to attack usually need be issued no more than a few hours
ahead, and the postponement of even major operations rarely presents
great difficulties to the commander. Attacks have been postponed-
or advanced-simply because there was reason to believe that the
enemy had learned of the scheduled date. Obviously, among the
simplest of deception ruses is the planting of false information concern-
ing the date of operations with the enemy's intelligence services.
In addition to general preparedness, tactical factors and surprise,
operations may be delayed for doctrinal reasons or to induce enemy
forces to extend their lines of communication or to walk into entrap-
ments in which they can be surrounded and annihilated. The delayed
counteroffensive, designed to suck enemy forces into untenable ad-
vanced positions, is a tactic which the Communists have employed
2 Barton Whaley, Stratagem: Deception and Surprise in War (Cambridge, Mass.,
MIT Center for International Studies, April 1969), pp. 177-78, and A--69.
I I bid, pp. 187-188.
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with devastating effect. Obviously, misjudgments of the enemy's
intentions in such cases have been heavily influenced by the seeming
delay in his response, which induces a false sense of security that he
will not respond at all.
Political factors also may weigh heavily or even decisively in the
timing of operations. This, of course, will be particularly true when
(as is often the case) the nation in question intends to resort to mili-
tary operations only as a last resort and hopes that the threat of such
action will induce the opponent to capitulate. Obviously, in such
cases, the decision of the national leadership that the political options
have run out and that only force will succeed will be the determining
factor in when the military operation is launched. In this event,
operations may be deferred for weeks beyond the date when mili-
tary preparations are completed, and the assessment of the timing of
the attack may be almost exclusively dependent on knowledge of the
political situation and insight into the enemy's decision-making
process.
Still another political variant which may affect the timing of attack
is when one nation is attempting to induce the other to strike the first
major blow and thus appear as the aggressor. In this case, a series of
harassments, border violations and various clandestine tactics may be
employed as the conflict gradually escalates until one or the other
power decides to make an overt attack. Clearly, the point at which
this may happen will be very difficult to predict.
Apart from the various reasons noted above, there may be other
largely tactical considerations which will affect the timing of attack.
Weather, as already mentioned, is one of these-not only visibility,
but in some cases winds, tides, moonlight or lack of it. Conditions of
roads and terrain of course have been a major determining factor in
when some operations will be launched. Military operations and
logistic movements of Communist forces in Southeast Asia have tra-
ditionally been greatly slowed, if not halted altogether, at the height
of the rainy season, and spring thaws on the plains of central Europe
have delayed many operations. In cases where weather effectively
precludes overland movement, it is of course highly probable that
attacks will not occur. Nonetheless, there is always a chance that an
enemy may choose to attack even in highly adverse conditions in the
interests of achieving surprise.
As is well known, many attacks are initiated near dawn, for two
reasons: the nighttime cloaks the final deployments of the attacking
units, and the hours of daylight are desirable to pursue the opera-
tion. Several Communist nations, however, have shown a marked
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favoritism for attacks in the dead of night. This has been particularly
true of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, which have shown
themselves highly adept in night penetration operations and assaults.
The USSR also has often launched attacks or other operations hours
before dawn: the operation to crush the Hungarian revolt began be-
tween about midnight and 0330; the Berlin sector borders were sealed
about 0300; the invasion of Czechoslovakia began shortly before
midnight.
The USSR also has shown some favoritism for Sunday, both the
Hungarian and Berlin operations having occurred in the early hours of
a Sunday morning. It would be dangerous, however, to assume that
this would be the case. The invasion of Czechoslovakia occurred, for
instance, on a Tuesday night, slightly to the surprise of some who had
come to expect Soviet operations to begin on Sundays. Whaley has
found some preference for Sunday operations among Communist
states but not in a majority of cases; it was true in only about one-
fourth of the operations which he studied .4 Among other nations, there
does not appear to be any evident preference for particular days of
the week. In cases where Sunday is chosen, it is not for any anti-
religious reason, but because the alert status of most Western nations
is then usually lowest. The Japanese selected Sunday for the Pearl
Harbor attack because their observations had shown that most US
ships would then normally be in port.
& me Examples of Problems in Assessing Timing
Because of space limitations, discussion of more than a few
examples is precluded, and even these must be covered briefly.
There is considerable military historical writing, particularly on
World War II, which may be consulted by those who wish to study
this aspect in more detail, as well as the many examples in Whaley's
previously cited work. Since much of this material is readily
available, the examples below include only two from World War 11
with the remainder drawn from more recent intelligence experience.
The German Attack on Holland, Belgium and France, May 1940
World War II had been under way for eight months before Hitler
finally launched his offensive against Western Europe in May 1940,
the long delay in the opening of the western front having generated
the phrase "phony war." All three victims of the final assault had
ample and repeated warnings, and indeed it was the redundancy of
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warnings which in large part induced the reluctance to accept the
final warnings when they were received. The "cry-wolf" phenomenon
has rarely been more clearly demonstrated-Hitler is said to have
postponed the attack on the West 29 times, often at the last minute.
Owing to their access to one of the best-placed intelligence sources
of modern times, the Dutch had been correctly informed of nearly
every one of these plans to attack them, from the first date selected
by Hitler, 12 November 1939, to the last, 10 May 1940. Their
source was Colonel Hans Oster, the Deputy Chief of German
Counterintelligence, who regularly apprised the Dutch Military
Attache in Berlin of Hitler's plans-and of their postponements.
Although in the end Oster provided one week's warning of the 10
May date, and there was much other evidence as well that the
German attack was probably imminent, the Dutch ignored the
warnings and failed even to alert their forces prior to the German
attack. The Belgians, more heedful of. the numerous warnings
received, did place their forces on a general alert. The French, having
also experienced several false alarms of a German attack, seem to
have ignored the repeated warnings of their own intelligence in
early May, including a firm advisory on 9 May that the attack would
occur the following day. These instances also illustrate two fun-
damental precepts of indications intelligence: "more facts" and
first-rate sources do not necessarily produce "more warning," and
intelligence warnings are useless unless some action is taken on them.
The Soviet Attack on Japanese Forces, August 1945
This is one of the lesser studied World War II examples, but
clearly shows the difference between strategic and tactical warning.
The Japanese watched the buildup of Soviet forces in the Far East
for about seven months (December 1944 through July 1945). They
correctly judged that the USSR would attack the Japanese Kwantung
Army in Manchuria, and they were: able by July to conclude, also
correctly, that the status of Soviet military preparations indicated
that the USSR would be ready to attack at any time after 1 August.
Despite this expectation which almost certainly must have resulted
in a high degree of alert of the Japanese forces in Manchuria, the
Kwantung Army had no immediate warning of the timing of the
attack, which occurred about midnight on the night of 8-9 August.
The North Korean Attack on South Korea, June 1950
. This was a notable example of both strategic and tactical surprise,
and indeed one of the few operations of this century which truly may
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be described as a surprise attack. Neither US intelligence, at least in
its official publications, nor policy and command levels had expected
the attack to occur, as a result of which there had been no military
preparations for it. The South Koreans, despite many previously
expressed fears of such an attack, also were not prepared and had
not alerted their forces. Since strategic warning had been lacking, the
short-term final preparations of the North Korean forces (insofar as
they were detected) were misinterpreted as "exercises" rather than
bona fide combat deployments. In considerable part, the warning
failure was attributable to inadequate collection on North Korea-
but the failure to have allocated more collection effort in turn was due
primarily to the disbelief that the attack would occur. In addition,
the "cry-wolf" phenomenon had in part inured the community-for
at least a year, there had been about one report per month alleging
that North Korea would attack on such-and-such a date. When
another was received for June, it was given no more credence than the
previous ones-nor, in view of the uncertain reliability and sourcing
of all these reports, was there any reason that it should have been
given greater weight. Although we can never know, most and perhaps
all of these reports may have been planted by the North Korean or
Soviet intelligence services in the first place. The attack is a notable
example of the importance of correct prior assessments of the likeli-
hood of attack if the short-term tactical intelligence is to be correctly
interpreted.
Chinese Intervention in the Korean War, October-November 1950
Among the several problems in judging Chinese intentions in the
late summer and fall of 1950 was the question of the timing of their
intervention. Based on the premise that the less territory one gives up
to the enemy, the less one's own forces will have to recover, the Chinese
can be said to have intervened much "too late" in the conflict. And
this conception of the optimum time for Chinese intervention strongly
influenced US judgments of their intentions. From the time the first
direct political warning of the Chinese intention to intervene was
issued on 3 October (to the Indian Ambassador in Peking) until the
first contact with Chinese forces in Korea on 26 October, all Com-
munist resistance in Korea was rapidly collapsing as the US/UN forces
were driving toward the Yalu. As the Chinese failed to react and the
Communist prospects for recouping their losses appeared increasingly
unfavorable, the Washington intelligence community (and probably
the Far East Command as well) became increasingly convinced that
the time for effective Communist intervention had passed. In the
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week prior to the first contact with Chinese forces, the US national
warning committee (then known as the Joint Intelligence Indications
Committee, the predecessor of the Watch Committee) actually went
on record as stating that there was an increasing probability that a
decision against overt intervention had been taken.
Once the Chinese forces had actually been engaged, there was an
interval of a month before they became militarily effective and
launched their massive attacks in late November. Thus in this period
the intelligence process again was confronted with the problem of
assessing the timing of any future Chinese operations, as well of course
as their scope. The four-week period produced many hard indications,
both military and political, that the Chinese in fact were preparing
for major military action. But there was virtually no available evidence
when such action might be launched, and even those who believed
that the coming offensive was a high probability were somewhat per-
plexed by the delay and were unable to adduce any conclusive indica-
tions of when the attack would occur. As is well known, tactical
surprise was indeed achieved.
Even in retrospect, we cannot be sure whether the Chinese delayed
their intervention and their subsequent offensive because of political
indecision, the need for more time to complete their military prepara-
tions, or as a tactical device to entrap as many UN forces as possible
near the Yalu. I believe that military rather than political factors
probably delayed the initial intervention and that both preparedness
and tactical considerations accounted for the delay in the offensive,
but I cannot prove it. Others may argue-and they cannot be proved
wrong-that the Chinese may not have decided inevitably on inter-
vention by 3 October, and/or that negotiations with the USSR and
North Korea may have delayed the intervention as much as military
factors.
The Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, June 1967
There were many indications of the coming of this conflict. From
22 May, when Nasser closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping,
tensions had been mounting, and the possibility of war was universally
recognized. Both sides had mobilized and taken numerous other mili-
tary preparedness measures. Before 1 June US intelligence was on
record that Israel was capable of and ready to launch a preemptive
and successful attack with little or no warning, and that there was no
indication that the UAR was planning to take the military initiative.
The US predictions of the likelihood and probable success of an :Israeli
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assault were highly accurate, although the precise timing and tactics
of the operation, of course, were not known to us .5
The Israelis nonetheless achieved almost total tactical surprise
against the Arabs in their attacks on the morning of 5 June, particu-
larly in the decisively effective air strikes. The Israelis screened their
plans by a combination of rigid security (there was no leak of their
decisions or final military preparations) and an exceptionally well-
planned and effective deception campaign. There were several facets
of the deception plan, one of which was to lead Egypt to believe that
the attack, if it occurred, would be in the southern Sinai rather than
the north. In addition, numerous measures were taken in the several
days prior to the attack to create the impression that attack was not
imminent. These included public statements by newly appointed
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that Israel would rely on diplomacy
for the present, the issuance of leave to several thousand Israeli
soldiers over the weekend of 3-4 June, public announcements that
concurrent Israeli cabinet meetings were concerned only with routine
matters, and so forth. In addition, the attack was planned for an hour
of the morning when most Egyptian officials would be on their way to
work and when the chief of the Egyptian Air Force usually took his
daily morning flight.6
The Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 20-21 August 1968
This case well demonstrates the impact on intelligence assessments
of the seeming deferral of a military operation beyond the date when
the forces appear to be ready, and when the intelligence community
is psychologically most ready to accept the likelihood of such action.
As will be recalled, the major deployments of the Soviet and Warsaw
Pact forces for the invasion had largely been completed by 1 August,
and it was at this time that US intelligence reached its firmest judg-
ments-i.e., that Soviet forces were in a high state of readiness to
invade if it was deemed necessary. When the Soviet Union did not
invade in early August but instead reached a tenuous political agree-
ment with Czechoslovakia, a letdown occurred and intelligence assess-
ments almost immediately began placing less stress on the Soviet
capability to invade. In fact, that capability was being maintained
See J. L. Freshwater, "Policy and Intelligence: The Arab-Israeli War," Studies in
Intelligence, Winter 1969, for a discussion of the assessments made by the US intelli-
gence community prior to the outbreak of this conflict.
6 A great deal of material on the Israeli planning has been brought to light, much of
it unclassified. An excellent, unclassified summary of the techniques of deception and
tactical surprise has been prepared by the Syracuse University Research Corporation,
Syracuse, New York.
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and actually was increasing. Logistic activity was continuing at a
high level-the USSR did not announce until 10 August the conclusion
of its so-called rear services "exercise" which served as the cover story
for the mobilization and forward deployment of the invasion forces.
Moreover, substantial additional forces from the Baltic and Belorus-
sian Military Districts were continuing to deploy into Poland in the
first half of August. So long as this buildup continued, or was being
maintained, the possibility of course was in no way reduced that the
USSR sooner or later would exercise its military capability. Nonethe-
less, the psychological peak of our readiness for the invasion had
passed well before it occurred. Since there was very little last-minute
warning (such indications as there were mostly reached us too late),
the USSR achieved effective tactical surprise against both the Czech-
oslovaks and ourselves.
The Czechoslovak case provides an outstanding illustration of the
critical importance for warning of the judgment of probability of
attack and of the lesser likelihood that intelligence will be able to as-
sess the timing or imminence of attack. US intelligence in this instance,
as in others, placed too great weight on short-term or tactical warning,
and too little on the excellent strategic intelligence which it already
had. Moreover, many persons (including some at the policy level who
were aggrieved that they had not been more specifically warned)
tended to place the blame on the collection system which in fact had
performed outstandingly in reporting a truly impressive amount of
military and political evidence, much of it of high quality and validity,
bearing on the Soviet intention. The intelligence community, while
clearly reporting the USSR's capability to invade, deferred a judgment
of whether or not it would invade in seeming expectation that, some
more specific or unequivocal evidence would be received if invasion
was imminent. On the basis of historical precedent and the experience
derived from numerous warning problems, this was a doubtful
expectation; an invasion remained a grave danger, if not probable,
so long as the military deployments were maintained, while the
timing was far less predictable. The history of warfare, and of warning,
demonstrates that tactical evidence of impending attack is dubious
at best, that we cannot have confidence that we will receive such
evidence, and that judgments of the probable course of enemy action
must be made prior to this or it may be too late to make them at all.
North Vietnamese Attacks in Laos and South Vietnam, 1969-70, 1971-72
As a final example of problems in timing, three instances of North
Vietnamese attacks in Laos and South Vietnam provide quite striking
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evidence of the problems of assessing timing of attacks even when the
preparatory steps are quite evident and firm judgments of probable
attack have been made.
Traditionally, in the seesaw war in northern Laos, the Laotian
government forces have made gains in the Plaine des Jarres area dur-
ing the rainy season, and the Communist forces (almost entirely
North Vietnamese invaders) have launched offensives during the dry
season (November to May) to regain most of the lost territory and
sometimes more. In the fall of 1969, evidence began to be received
unusually early of North Vietnamese troop movements toward the
Plaine des Jarres, including major elements of a division which had
not previously been committed in the area. As a result, the US
Watch Report beginning the first week of October unequivocally
forecast a major Communist counteroffensive. After eight consecutive
weeks of this conclusion (qualified in later weeks by the proviso "when
the Communists have solved their logistic problems"), it was decided
to drop it-not because it was considered wrong, but because con-
sumers were beginning to question repeated forecasts of an enemy
offensive which had not materialized yet, and the impact of the
warning was beginning to fade. In mid-January, evidence began to
become available that preparations for an attack were being intensi-
fied, and a forecast of an impending major offensive was renewed.
The long-expected offensive finally came off in mid-February, or
four months after the troop buildup and the initial prediction of the
attacks. The delay was not a surprise to experienced students of the
area, who had learned that the North Vietnamese meticulously plan
and rehearse in detail each offensive operation and that their attacks
almost always were slow in coming.
Two years later in the fall of 1971, a very similar repetition of the
North Vietnamese buildup in northern Laos began, again in October
and again involving the same division, although this time there were
indications (such as the introduction of heavy artillery) that an even
stronger military effort would be made. Intelligence assessments again
forecast major North Vietnamese attacks in the Plaine des Jarres but
for the most part avoided any firm judgment that they were necessarily
imminent. There was almost no tactical warning of the attacks which
this time were launched in mid-December in unprecedented strength
and intensity. Within a few days, all Laotian government forces were
driven from the Plaine, and within three weeks thereafter, the North
Vietnamese launched an offensive against government bases south-
west of the Plaine.
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Concurrently, the North Vietnamese were preparing for their major
offensive against South Vietnam which finally kicked off on 30 March
1972 after months of buildup and intelligence and public predictions
that an offensive was coming. Initial expectations, however, had been
that the attacks most likely would come some time after mid-February,
possibly to coincide with President Nixon's visit to China later that
month. Once again, timing proved one of the most uncertain aspects of
the offensive, and we remain uncertain whether Hanoi originally in-
tended to launch the attacks earlier and was unable to meet its
schedule, or never intended the operation to come off until the end of
March. In retrospect, it appears that the forecasts of another "Tet
offensive" in mid-February probably were somewhat premature, since
the deployments of main force units and other preparations continued
through March. Nonetheless, the intelligence forecasts were essentially
right, and it could have been dangerous on the basis of the evidence
available in mid-February to suggest that the attacks would not come
off for another six weeks.
Growing Recognition that Warning is Not a Forecast of Imminence
It is from experiences like these (which are truly representative
and not selected as unusual cases) that veteran warning analysts have
become extremely chary of forecasting the timing of attacks. They
have learned from repeated instances, in some of which the timing of
operations appeared quite a simple or obvious problem, that this was
not the case. In most instances, attacks have come later and sometimes
much later than one might have expected, but even this cannot be
depended on-sometimes they have come sooner. But except in rare
cases any forecast of the precise timing of attack carries a high prob-
ability of being wrong. There are just too many unpredictable factors-
military and political-which may influence the enemy's decision on
the timing and a multitude of ways in which he may deceive you
when he has decided.
This experience has finally borne fruit at the national estimative
level. The last estimate to address possible warning of Soviet attack in
Europe reversed the previous estimate (cited on the first page of this
article) that warning of probable attack could not be given until a
few hours before. It concluded instead that, once deployments and
other military preparations had been largely completed, the chance of
obtaining evidence of further military preparations would be greatly
reduced, and that final warning that attack was imminent could likely
be dependent largely on chance or other unpredictable factors.
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arning
For strategic warning, the key problem is not when attack may oc-
cur, but whether the enemy is preparing to attack at all--a judgment
which we have a good and sometimes excellent chance of making with
accuracy. Judgments often can be made, with less confidence in most
cases, that all necessary preparations have probably been completed.
A little less confidence still should be placed in forecasts as to when
in the future all necessary preparations may be completed. At the
bottom, and least reliable of all, will be the prediction of when the
adversary may plan to strike.
Strategic warning is not a forecast of imminent attack. Strategic
warning is a forecast of probable attack and it is this above all which the
policy official and commander need to know. If we recognize the un-
certainties of timing, we will also be less likely to relax our vigilance
or alerts because the enemy has not yet attacked even though he is
seemingly ready.
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No Foreign Dissem
INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO THE US SALT
DELEGATION
SALT, as readers will know, means Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks. The talks, which are now under way between the US and the
USSR, represent an effort to put a brake on the competition in
nuclear delivery systems which has been a major aspect of the arms
race between the two countries over the past quarter of a century.
The SALT talks began in November 1969, and many of the people
involved have been at it almost continuously since then. On 20 May
1971, after the most searching discussions ever held between the US
and USSR on subjects of such vital importance to their national sur-
vival, the two governments agreed to concentrate for the rest of this
year on working out an agreement to limit ABM systems, and, to-
gether with concluding such an agreement, to agree on certain measures
with respect to the limitation of strategic offensive arms.
In the session now under way here in Helsinki, the two delegations
are seeking to carry out this guidance. The present session, called
SALT V to signify the fifth round, began in July. It has now lasted
nearly eleven weeks and is almost over. We will soon have a recess of
perhaps a month for consultation in capitals, and will then reconvene
at the alternate site of the talks in Vienna for yet another round.
There are a number of considerations which have brought the two
countries to the conference table to discuss strategic arms limitation.
Among the most important are: first, the emergence on each side of
a perception of mutual deterrence and rough strategic parity; secondly,
an awareness on each side that another round in the arms race, while
costly in terms of human and material resources, would almost cer-
tainly not bring greater security to either country; third, the avail-
ability on each side of intelligence collection systems capable of moni-
toring the military programs of the other country without infringing
on its territory. At SALT, intelligence resources fitting the foregoing
description are called "national technical means of verification." In
the SALT context, such systems appear to be tolerable to the USSR,
whereas aerial overflight and on-site inspection continue to be a.nath-
MORI/HRP PAGES 93-105
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ema to the Soviet leadership. Thus developments in intelligence
techniques and capabilities, required by the imperatives of the race
in strategic armaments, have helped create conditions in which the
two sides can move toward verifiable limitations on such armaments.
I am not at liberty to discuss the substantive details of the SALT
negotiations. Respect for the privacy of the talks by all participants
on both sides has been one of the characteristics which signify the
serious and business-like way in which the two sides have proceeded.
When the outcome is known, readers will be able to judge the results
for themselves. My purpose in this report is to describe the delega-
tions, the negotiating procedures, and the role of the CIA representa-
tion.
Someone around here once said "This isn't a delegation, it's a con-
vention." By that he meant that the various members of the US
delegation represent the several constituencies in the US government
which have an interest in strategic defense programs and policies. He
also meant that these constituencies have a certain independence
(based on their statutory responsibilities), have certain points of view,
and very definitely do not agree on certain issues. Participation by
more than one constituency also characterizes the Soviet delegation.
The head of the US delegation, Ambassador Gerard C. Smith, is a
lawyer with long experience in atomic energy and arms control matters.
Smith is Director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
The four other presently active delegates are: Ambassador J. Graham
Parsons, a career foreign service officer from the Department of
State; Mr. Paul H. Nitze, former Secretary of the Navy and Deputy
Secretary of Defense and now a consultant to the Secretary of Defense;
Lt. Gen. Royal B. Allison (USAF), Assistant to the Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff, for Strategic Arms Negotiations; Dr. Harold Brown,
president of Cal Tech, former Secretary of the Air Force and now a
member of the General Advisory Committee of ACDA. There are
two inactive members: Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, former
US ambassador to the USSR; and Mr. Philip Farley, Ambassador
Smith's deputy at ACDA.
On the USSR side, the head of the delegation is Minister
V. S. Semenov, the senior Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. (There
is a first deputy, so Semenov is number 3 in seniority in the MFA.)
The four other active delegates are: R. M. Timerbaev, a Deputy
Chief of the International Organizations Division of the MFA and
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head of its U.N. component, who has taken over the SALT responsi-
bilities of the ailing chief of the disarmament component of that
division (there is no independent agency in the USSR equivalent to
ACDA, and arms control matters are handled within the MFA);
Lt. Gen. K. A. Trusov, a member of the Soviet General Staff; A. N.
Shchukin, member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and chairman
of its Scientific Council for the Propagation of Radio Waves; P. S.
Pleshakov, a Deputy Minister of the USSR Radio Industry. There
are two inactive members, Col. Gen. N. N. Alekseyev, a Deputy
Minister of Defense, and Col. Gen. N. V. Ogarkov, First Deputy
Chief of the Soviet General Staff.
The delegations are teams representing their governments, but as
their positions indicate, each delegate can also be said to represent a
constituency and point of view within his government. This is also true
of the advisors. On the US delegation at Helsinki there are 21 advisors
and four interpreters. Six of the advisors are from ACDA, 3 from State,
5 from OSD, 4 from JCS, and 3 from CIA. That is to say, 3 of the 6
listed as State are from CIA-at the outset of the SALT talks serious
consideration was given to acknowledging the CIA representation
openly, but it was decided that it would be preferable not to do so,
taking into account both Soviet sensitivities and CIA's general policy
with respect to its employees overseas. The USSR delegation at Hel-
sinki has 17 advisors and 4 interpreters; of the advisors, 12 are listed as
MFA and 5 as Ministry of Defense. No one is listed as KGB or GRU,
but our records show that two advisors are known or believed to be
from these organizations.
The two leaders of the US advisory group are Ray Garthoff, an
authority on Soviet strategic affairs who is Deputy Director of the
Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs at State, and Sid Graybeal, a
missile expert who is Deputy Assistant Director, Bureau of Science
and Technology, ACDA. These men are, respectively, Executive
Officer and Alternate Executive Officer of the delegation. Both were
once employed by CIA, where they dealt mainly with estimates and
analysis of Soviet strategic capabilities and policy. Incidentally, the
general secretary of the Soviet delegation, N. S. Kishilov, whose role
corresponds to Garthoff's is a former military attache and GRU officer.
The foregoing sounds like a couple of pretty compact little groups,
30 on the American side and 26 on the Russian. Readers may be
surprised to learn that the American contingent at SALT in Helsinki
actually comprises 85 people, counting all those others without whom
the delegates, advisors and interpreters could not function. There are
secretaries, administrative and security officers, documents officers,
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communicators, Marine guards who provide 24-hour protection for
our offices, and even a press officer whose job is to fend 'em off. The
Russian contingent is somewhat smaller. This is mainly because the
US delegation runs an office complex which is independent of the
US embassy in Helsinki (and about 5 miles from it), whereas the USSR
delegation moves into the large and very well staffed Soviet embassy,
making use of its space and supporting personnel. Also, for some
reason, the Russians do not seem to feel any need for a press officer.
The Negotiations
The fate of nations may once have been decided by ministers
plenipotentiary, but not any more. The US delegation receives its
guidance directly from Washington on an almost daily basis. This
extremely close contact is attributable to the importance of the sub-
ject, the participation of various constituencies in Washington, the
NSC system as operated by the President and Dr. Kissinger, and the
efficiency of modern communications. We have three separate com-
munication setups here-State commo serving the delegation as a
whole, and in addition State and ACDA; JCS commo serving JCS
and OSD; and CIA commo serving CIA, the head of delegation, and
the White House. Through these communications means, which in-
clude an excellent secure voice telephone link manned by State but
available to us all, we keep in constant touch with our masters and
helpers back in Washington.
The US delegation negotiates on the basis of both broad and detailed
guidance in the form of National Security Decision Memoranda staffed
through the NSC system and approved by the President. The
Washington staffing is performed by the same agencies that are
represented here, and CIA has an active role in that work. The
role of the delegation here is to carry out the guidance, make the best
possible case for the US point of view (talking to the USSR delegation
and through it to Moscow), receive and interpret and where necessary
rebut the Soviet arguments, expand areas of agreement and narrow
areas of difference in the positions of the two sides, and, on all impor-
tant issues, report to Washington and get new guidance. The delega-
tion recommends to Washington that the US stick, compromise, fall
back, or try a new tack as it considers appropriate.
All of this takes time, in varying amounts depending on the difficulty
and importance of the issue, the unanimity or lack of it within the dele-
gation and among the various agencies in Washington, the need for
homework, and the competition of non-SALT matters for the time
and attention of the top US policymakers. These factors are at work
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on the other side as well. A Soviet representative once said it took
Moscow at least three weeks to respond to a major new proposal.
Once recently, when we had every reason to believe the USSR dele-
gation already had a prepared response in its pocket, they delivered
it in a week. We have the impression that the Russians here limit
their activities a bit more strictly to negotiating than we do, and that
they rely more exclusively on staffing from Moscow. (One indication
is that nine of the US advisors have scientific degrees, whereas at most
three of the Soviet advisors have such training.) On the other hand,
the USSR delegation once made clear that a new proposal they tabled
had been originated by the delegation and approved by Moscow. Be
that as it may, they are certainly skilled negotiators.
Until recently, the meetings themselves have been held two or three
times a week in plenary session. At a plenary session the heads of
delegations each make formal set-piece statements, often on unrelated
topics because varying time intervals are required for staffing. Such
a session is always followed by informal discussion in which ideas
and argumentation are swapped by all participants. This technique
alleviates the problem caused by the fact that the formal speeches
tend to pass each other like ships in the night. Much of the business of
the negotiations is thus conducted in informal conversation, with
everybody rushing back to the office afterwards to write up his
memorandum of conversation.
Formal sessions are invariably handled through interpreters, as
are informal discussions between Smith and Semenov. The other
informal discussions use a fascinating combination of methods to
bridge the communications gap. The military delegates and advisors
congregate in one corner using military interpreters. Nitze, Brown and
Shchukin use French, Parsons and Timerbaev English, Garthoff and
Kishilov Russian, and the rest of us patch a conversation together
with whichever language we can. Ten of the Soviet advisors speak Eng-
lish (a consideration in their appointment?) while only four of the
American advisors speak Russian well enough to use it in conversation,
so English is used most of the time. At each of the plenary meetings
just described, the CIA advisory group has a seat, mostly for purposes
of observing and self-fulfillment, and we have shared this opportunity
among us.
Recently, to break the formality and get more accomplished at this
stage of the negotiations, the heads of delegations have tended to
replace the plenaries with more frequent, smaller meetings of dele-
gates (called "mini-plenaries" and "troikas") and working groups.
Representation at such meetings has been limited to delegates and
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advisors from the policymaking agencies. While we CIA representa-
tives have not been invited to attend the meetings, we participate
actively in the preparation of papers and provide intelligence support
to those attending. The pace has become quite intense as the Helsinki
session draws to a close: in the past two weeks there have been 13
scheduled meetings with the USSR side, plus a number of unscheduled
preparatory and cleanup meetings.
The fact is that some of the most important negotiating has oc-
curred not in scheduled meetings at all, but in private meetings
between Smith and Semenov, including some held during recreational
trips arranged for the two delegations by the governments of Austria
and Finland. Key exchanges between our two chiefs have occurred on
a railroad train in Finland, on a boat trip in the Carinthian Alps in
Austria, and on another boat trip on Lake Saimaa in Finland. In
Carinthia the exchange was so important that the heads of delegation
requested that the boat, with the rest of the delegations and our
Austrian hosts aboard, make another loop around the lake, so they
could keep talking. This prompted one member of our delegation to
remark that he had heard of a negotiation going in circles but this was
the first time he had literally engaged in one. It illustrates, however,
the dedication of Smith and Semenov to their task and one of the
many contributions made by the host governments.
CIA Representation
We comprise three intelligence officers, a secretary, and three TDY
communicators. The communicators man the shack at the office and
beef up the capability to handle the volume of
relay traffic.
At SALT I, the first of the five sessions held so far, CIA was repre-
sented by one intelligence officer who was accredited as an advisor
and one who was assigned TDY I and acted in support.
Later, the two participating directorates, DDI and DDS&T, each
sent co-equal advisors. A watch officer was added to handle incoming
current intelligence materials and other reports. The representatives
were changed at each session, and also in the middle of the very long
second session. The present pattern evolved from this background
during SALT III and obtains now at SALT V.
T. am a DDI officer and am the senior CIA representative. I am
signed on for the duration. There is an experienced DDS&T officer,
chosen for his knowledge of SALT and of the scientific fields expected
to be at issue in this session, and an OCI officer with a background in
Soviet affairs who has previously supported the SALT effort from the
25X1
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Washington end. These individuals will be exchanged for others at
the next session. This combination seems to work well; it represents
the interests and capabilities of the participating directorates, it main-
tains continuity of senior representation, and through the rotation it
allows a number of people to feel the pulse of the negotiations.
Intelligence support to the delegation does not begin and end here
in Helsinki. The CIA communications I have described lead back to
the SALT support unit in Langley, presided over by an assistant to
the director of OSR. This unit comprises an OSR officer, a ]DDS&T
officer, and an OCI officer, who are the funnel through which passes
our requests for support and the information and analysis generated
for our use by the analytical and estimative components at head-
quarters. The headquarters unit also coordinates CIA's staffing of
SALT-related studies within the NSC system in Washington.
Role of CIA Representatives
The CIA advisors here at the site of the negotiations perform four
main functions: we report to the delegation on the latest intelligence
information and analysis; we respond to requests by delegates or
advisors for intelligence backup; we provide advice and assistance to
the delegation in its general work, including the preparation of state-
ments, talking points and other negotiating material; we keep our
headquarters in Washington informed about what is going on here.
In addition, we have certain special responsibilities in the fields of
security and communications.
In carrying out these functions, we take as our model the role
CIA plays within the NSC system in Washington. In the NSC, the
agency is a participant with limited and clearly-defined responsibil-
ities, not to make or recommend policy, but to contribute an objective
view of the facts, to project from the facts to estimates of present and
future capabilities and intentions, and to evaluate the consequences
of given courses of action. We play it down the middle and we try where
possible to represent the views of the intelligence community as a
whole. This is in keeping with the DCI's role and reflects the special
responsibility we bear as the only intelligence representatives here
with the delegation.
While CIA does not make policy, it has a role in carrying it out, and
this obtains with special force in the field of strategic arms limitation.
The prerequisite for Soviet participation in any agreement is that
compliance will be monitored by "national technical means of veri-
fication." This makes it essential that the terms of any agreement be
consistent with the actual capabilities of US intelligence to monitor
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Soviet activities without the aid of any on-site inspection within Soviet
territory. Nobody expects intelligence to be able to supply 100 percent
assurance of compliance with an agreement-the requirement is rea-
sonable assurance that non-compliance could be detected and
recognized in sufficient time so that US security would not be
jeopardized. But in a game where the stakes are as high as in this
one, reasonable assurance needs to be high assurance indeed. On this
matter, we too represent a vitally interested constituency and reflect
its point of view.
To fulfill the task of reporting information and analysis, we receive
a daily flow of current intelligence issuances electrically, we receive
twice-weekly pouches containing analytical reports selected by the
Langley support team, and we receive pertinent NIE's (conclusions
electrically, full texts by pouch). Our day starts with a rush. We
screen the Central Intelligence Bulletin (CIB) and other current
support traffic, select items of importance, and hand-carry a briefing
book to the delegates and the two leaders of the advisory group. The
hand-carrying is partly to provide prompt, personal service, partly to
permit an opportunity for dialogue, and partly to retain physical cus-
tody over the most highly classified materials. The briefing rounds
start when Ambassador Smith arrives, usually at 0830, with the object-
ive of getting to all recipients before the first delegation meeting of
the day, usually at 1000. For what it's worth, the time difference
(Helsinki is six hours ahead of Washington) means that the US SALT
delegates see the day's CIB long before their colleagues at home.
For the daily briefing we choose items related to strategic arms and
arms limitation, items dealing with the USSR and China generally,
L,urope and the Mid-East, and occasionally other items of interest.
We aim not to overload and not to duplicate the excellent State daily
summaries and the press services. The Finnish News Bureau, for
example, supplies both delegations with excellent four-page summaries
of press highlights in English and Russian, which are delivered to our
hotels each morning before breakfast. We aim, however, to keep the
delegates abreast of developments they are specially interested in
and of the intelligence reports their colleagues and superiors back
home will be reading when they arrive in their offices.
Using the less highly-classified materials, we publish a Daily Intel-
ligence Summary for delegates and advisors each morning. FBIS
transmissions of key Soviet statements and articles are also culled
for this publication. The FBIS Washington and London offices keep
us in mind when we are in the field, and have given us fast service on
such things as a recent Red Star series on US military programs and
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a recent article by the head of the USSR's American Institute evalu-
ating the new departure in US-Chinese relations. The more highly
classified materials, both current intelligence and intelligence memos
and reports, are kept on a reading table in our offices for use as needed
by other advisors.
One other current reporting service we perform is to brief the dele-
gates and advisors promptly on an all-source basis on the products
of US technical intelligence collection programs as they are acquired,
using the CIA preliminary assessments of the intelligence significance
of the acquisitions together with supplementary materials supplied
in response to our specific questions. These briefings serve to keep
the US delegation up to the minute on the strategic situation. They
also serve to keep the delegation aware of what intelligence can and
cannot do in collection and analysis corresponding to that which would
be used in monitoring a strategic arms limitation agreement. The
briefings are real case studies-not just staff studies-of our unilateral
verification capabilities.
In responding to requests, we burn up the wires to Washington. Many
needs can be met with our own resources--we brought 450 pounds of
files with us to Helsinki, and between the three of us we have a, pretty
good collective memory. But in the eleven weeks of this session we have
cabled 51 messages to the Langley support team and received 69
messages from headquarters in addition to the regular flow of current
intelligence materials. One reason for the discrepancy in numbers is
that the Langley group anticipates some of our needs and some of
our requests are phoned in.
The topics covered in these exchanges range from the trivial to the
crucial. For example, a recent day's traffic to headquarters included a
request for an aerial photograph of the town of Grand Forks, North
Dakota (near a US Safeguard ABM site under construction), a re-
quest for comments on a self-initiated analysis of a new Soviet proposal
on ABM limitations, and a warning that we will soon need new
guidance about whether or not CIA can live with a restriction the
USSR delegation insists be included in the draft provision on verify-
ing an agreement. Our policy is to accept most any request with an
intelligence flavor, and to initiate some ourselves, in order to be of
maximum assistance to the delegates and advisors from the other agen-
cies. We take full advantage of the fact that CIA is an incomparable
storehouse of information, its analytical capability is unsurpassed,
and the rapidity of its response is unbelievable. (Here the time differ-
ence works in our favor we can send in a request in the afternoon at
Helsinki, it can be researched all day at headquarters, and we can have
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the answer at opening of business the next day.) Our aim is to stay a
couple of jumps ahead of the negotiations, to anticipate likely needs,
and to have the answer available when the question arises.
Providing intelligence advice and assistance to representatives of
policymaking agencies is a tricky business. Every intelligence officer
who has dealt with policymakers has faced the question of when to
speak as an intelligence representative, when to speak as an individual,
and when to keep silent. The distinction between intelligence support
and policymaking must be consciously maintained by the intelligence
representative. One's judgment about the proper role of the agency
plays a part, as does one's personality. It should also be noted that
there is a difference between the DCI's credentials at the NSC and ours
here. The DCI is appointed by the President and by decision of the
NSC stands in the relationship of permanent advisor to that body.
The SALT delegates were appointed by the President, but the senior
CIA representative at SALT was not, and the fact of CIA representa-
tion is not acknowledged to the other side. So we stick pretty close to
our knitting and remain in the background.
In providing general advice and assistance to the delegation, the
('IA group here at Helsinki divides its tasks as follows: Ron Stivers,
the OCI man, handles the current intelligence account; Maury Lipton,
the DDS&T man, represents us at meetings of the advisors' working
groups; I represent us at delegates' meetings. The advisors' working
groups draft and polish speeches and talking points for use in negoti-
ating with the other side. The delegates' meetings initiate these papers,
give them a final review, and review delegation proposals or requests
for guidance to Washington (these are drafted mostly by Garthoff).
We CIA representatives frequently draft and always comment on
papers dealing with Soviet capabilities and programs and papers deal-
ing with monitoring compliance with an agreement. As members of
the delegation with experience in SALT matters, we comment and
make suggestions on papers dealing with other subjects as well.
I am not included in those delegates' meetings which deal with the
tactics of the negotiations (neither are other advisors, except Garthoff).
I don't really think CIA should devote much attention to tactics,
especially in light of the fact that the US SALT delegates are by
now much more familiar than anyone else with the attitudes and
reactions of their Soviet counterparts. But I am bound to say that
meetings which start out on tactics often end up covering a very broad
range of topics on which I think afterwards that a CIA contribution
might have been helpful. This exclusion is also a potential handicap
in that if we don't watch out, we can get left behind on delegation
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thinking about important issues. We guard against this danger by
hustling and maintaining good contacts.
We keep headquarters informed about what is going on here by sup-
plementing the flow of communications which the delegation sends to
Washington via State channels for distribution to the NSC agencies.
The cabled output of the delegation is very rich: there is always a
cable summarizing each plenary or mini-plenary meeting, cables are
prepared on each Smith-Semenov informal discussion and on other
informal discussions of substantive importance, and delegation think-
ing about the state of play is often summarized in cables requesting
further guidance from Washington. We alert headquarters to partic-
ularly urgent or sensitive delegation cables, send selected memos of
conversation electrically to speed up their receipt by the agency, add
nuances about issues and views gleaned from our participation in
meetings or talking with participants afterwards, and offer our own
opinions about important developments.
In performing this service, we are looking after the interests of our
constituency. The aim is to help our colleagues at home participate as
effectively as possible in the ongoing work on SALT within the NSC
machinery, and to alert them to developments which affect CIA's
very special interests in the verification of an agreement.
In this connection, it should be noted that we have no intelligence
collection assignments here, nor do any other delegates or advisors.
Of course the very process of discussing strategic arms limitations
with the Soviet delegation is a source of information about Soviet
strategic thinking, policy, and technology, and we keep on the alert
for revelations of potential intelligence significance. But we are here
to assist in the negotiations, not to service collection requirements.
With respect to security of classified information, in addition to
routine duties like maintaining physical custody of sensitive intelli-
gence documents, we have the special responsibility of advising the
delegation about what intelligence information can be disclosed to the
other side. With our help the delegation strikes a careful balance be-
tween the need to protect US intelligence sources and methods (for
example, by being circumspect about precisely what we know and
don't know) and the need to conduct a dialogue which will lead to
verifiable arms limitation.
It must be obvious that consideration of the ability of the two sides
to monitor various activities by using "national technical means of
verification" has had to play a part in the dialogue about what is to
be included in an agreement. It is equally obvious that a dialogue re-
quires a base of common understanding and terminology. The USSR's
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pathological concern for security allows the Soviet delegation almost
no latitude in these matters. They cannot disclose state secrets, which
include even such things as the names the USSR gives its missiles.
The two delegations therefore discuss Minuteman and SS--9 ICBM's,
BMEW's and Hen House radars, and Spartan and Galosh ABM's,
using the US terms for the Soviet systems. When necessary, the US
side gets facts about Soviet forces and programs onto the table, to
help make our points or to ensure common understanding by both
delegations. The other side never confirms these facts, and there is
strong evidence that our information about the USSR's forces is often
news to the civilian members of the Soviet delegation.
So the responsibilities of the CIA representatives include making
judgments-in consultation with headquarters when necessary
about the gains and risks of disclosing various items of intelligence
information before they are released. In this connection, we review
and clear all statements provided to the Soviet side by the US dele-
gation. We sometimes tease that the texts we approve for release should
be reclassified "SECRET NOFORN EXCEPT USSR."
Finally, CIA communications serve the head of delegation by pro-
viding him with a direct, secure link to the White House. Since mes-
sages on this link are EYES ONLY and are not read by the CIA
advisors, we are involved only peripherally-for example, when the
communicator wants advice about how to handle an IMMEDIATE
which arrives in the wee hours. This communications link, however,
is an important supporting service and one for which Ambassador
Smith gives CIA high marks.
Why are we here? Because CIA has committed itself just as firmly
to contributing to verifiable arms limitation as it has been committed
over the years to providing intelligence support for adequate defense
programs. Because it is understood that the national interest requires
the US negotiating team to be armed with up-to-date information and
objective analysis of Soviet capabilities, programs and policy. Because
it is essential that the terms of any SALT agreement be compatible
with the collection and analysis capabilities of US intelligence.
What will be the outcome? The arms race will not be stopped by any
measures we agree on in this phase of the negotiations. There is a good
chance, however, that after 25 years of strategic arms competition
between the US and the USSR, the SALT talks will result in the appli-
cation of a brake. If this is the outcome, the investment of time and
energy will have been worth it.
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What will be the implications for CIA? Intelligence will have
acquired still another responsibility-that of monitoring the USSR's
compliance with a set of agreed limitations on strategic armaments.
In the agreement, the USSR will have acknowledged explicitly the
acceptability of "national technical means of verification" and will
have pledged not to interfere with the use of such means. The actual
task of monitoring will probably not require much adjustment in our
collection and analytical priorities, which are already designed to
maintain close watch on those Soviet military programs that will be
the subject of any SALT agreement. But intelligence will be confronted
with the difficult challenge of being able to advise the policymaker
with high assurance as to whether or not the USSR is complying with
the terms of the agreement.
My article, written in September 1971 during SALT V, does not
accurately reflect the situation at SALT VII, the session which con-
cluded with the signing of the ABM Treaty and Interim Offensive
Agreement in Moscow on 26 May 1972.
At SALT VII, the US Delegation functioned as a unified team, and
a highly effective one at that. In the final stages of the negotiations,
the differences among constituencies within the Delegation and in
Washington were minimal. This trend was actually emerging before
September 1971, but I failed to recognize it at that time.
Also, at SALT VII the senior CIA advisor was invited to participate
in virtually all deliberations of the US delegates. The minor problems
I felt earlier, arising from my exclusion from certain meetings, no
longer existed.
Finally, in the last days of the negotiations, the role of CIA commu-
nications became much more important than indicated in the article.
Helsinki, 31 May 1972
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No Foreign Dissem
NOTES AND COMMENTS
MEMORANDUM FOR: Editor, Studies in Intelligence
SUBJECT: CIA's Role in Combatting the Desert
Locust in Africa and the Middle East
REFERENCE: "Intelligence in the Ecological Battle,"
Studies in Intelligence, Vol 14, No 2,
Fall 1970, p 123-126
Having read the article, "Intelligence in the Ecological Battle," I
must commend the OCI analysts for describing how CIA can make a
significant contribution to an environmental problem. On the other
hand, I was chagrined at the major oversight of recognizing some of
the major contributors to the intelligence effort. While I do not wish
to discredit OCI, I feel the role of all those that contributed should
be placed in proper perspective.
The major significance of this particular episode was the excellent
example of how the intelligence community can work together through
USIB with CIA as the focal point. This demonstrated the ability of
the intelligence community to react to a problem requiring a coordi-
nated input of scientific, economic and political information. It also
established a mechanism for formal and informal workable coopera-
tion with non-USIB Government Agencies.
OCT. did write the fortuitous item which initiated the subsequent
fervor the authors described. The subsequent events, however, were
shaped mainly through the combined coordinated efforts of CIA,
Air Force, State Department and the Department of Agriculture.
This work was accomplished through the aegis of the Scientific Intelli-
gence Committee/USIB, and in particular the Biomedical Intelligence
Subcommittee/SIC. Because of this, the Life Sciences Division/Office
of Scientific Intelligence/ DDS&T played the role of coordinator of
this intelligence activity. This role was served from the time the US
Air Force became interested through the period of actual Air Force
spraying operations in Saudi Arabia. BMIS designated OCI as the
coordinator of cable traffic for community use. OCI also wrote further
timely OCI Weekly items staying abreast of the current situation.
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es Ommen
Summary of significant events relating to the problem:
a. 23 May 1968-Gordon Torrey/OCI published initial item in
the Central Intelligence Bulletin.
b. Early June 1968-The Undersecretary of the Air Force
requested, through the Office of the Surgeon General, that the
intelligence community assess the desert locust problem.
c. 17 June 1968-First of a series of meetings of BMIS/SIC/
USIB in response to the Undersecretary. Participants included
selected BMIS members who had a direct interest plus invited
guests from DDI/CIA, USDA, State and AID.
d. June 1968--Intelligence Memorandum--"The Desert Lo-
cust Threat"---CIA/BGI/GM 68-5.
e. 22 July 1968-OSI-STIR/68-17, "The Desert Locust Threat
in the Middle East and North Africa." Substantive contributions
came from OBGI and OER. This served as the intelligence com-
munity's response to the Undersecretary's request.
f. 13 January 1969-Special briefing for USAF Desert Locust
Survey Team assigned to Saudi Arabia. Briefers were from OSI/
DDS&T and USDA.
g. 19 February 1969--OSI participated in debriefing of USAF
Survey Team.
ti. March 1969-USAF spray team conducted a successful
spraying operation in Saudi Arabia.
It should also be pointed out that while OCI indicated in October
1968 that Saudi Arabia was the major obstacle to the antilocust effort,
the coordinated OSI--STIR described the importance of Saudi Arabia
in July 1968.
Again, OCI should take its credit due; however, the coordinated
community effort was by far the most significant in terms of elucidat-
ing the problem and getting the job done. It is unfortunate that this
point was not made clear in the published Studies in Intelligence article.
I hope this information will serve to set the record straight.
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MORE ON "LUCY"
The article "The Rote Drei: Getting Behind the Lucy Myth"*
is an admirable contribution to the literature of an important case.
However, it is unlikely that its readers will feel that they have been
taken very far behind the myth; instead, the article's effect is to per-
petuate it. Even the author seems to entertain doubts, since a sentence
on his penultimate page would tend to dismiss much of his previous
argument. (I will return to this sentence later.)
Part of the article's argument, and symptoms of its weakness, are
to be found in three phrases:
(1) "The record clearly shows that Lucy had four important
sources." (P. 63).
The author is, of course, referring to the record of the trans-
missions from Switzerland, which however bulky is still in-
adequate for any such conclusion. There is no record of the trans-
missions from Germany to Switzerland, which would offer a more
solid base from which to speculate on the identity of the sources.
Any material received from Germany-in whatever form---could
have been edited in Switzerland, perhaps partly to hide the
identity of the source or sources.
(2) "Rudolf Roessler did divulge the identity of his sources . . . to
a trusted friend." (P. 64).
In addition to the author's apparent assumption that the four
"divulged" by Roessler are identical with the four "clearly shown
by the record," other assumptions underlie this phrase, some of
them perhaps naive:
- the assumption that (Roessler) had sources,
- the assumption that he knew their identities, and
- the assumption that he divulged them truthfully.
Note the coincidence that those "divulged" were, with one
(unidentified) exception, well-known resistance figures who had
been the subject of guesswork concerning "Lucy's sources,"
probably for years before Roessler revealed their identities to his
intimate friend: Even without this coincidence, one should be more
skeptical than the author about Roessler's own statements.
Roessler's postwar silence and relative obscurity are well known;
the motives for his silence, which stands out oddly in an era of
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memoirs and revelations about the very network with which he
worked, must have been strong ones; such motives might have
led him to throw out red herrings.
(3) ". . . the characteristics of the Lucy messages and of their trans-
mission from Germany to Switzerland suggest that Werther and the
others probably had Abwehr communications channels at their dis-
posal. There seems to be no plausible alternative theory." (P. 67).
One searches the article in vain for any substantiation of this
theory. It would seem to be more guesswork, although one must
admit that it is at least more acceptable than the inference, in
some published books, that the refugee Roessler and his sources
must individually have operated agent transmitters and receivers.
There seems to he equally little justification for attributing as
much as the article does to Gisevius' travels (and why would
Gisevius' information go to the refugee Roessler?).
I would suggest that we examine, as the article does not despite its
title, the possibility that "Lucy" really was a myth, and a purposeful
one. This might help explain why the secret of his sources has never
been nosed out despite a generation of publicity and journalistic
curiosity, and might also lead us to the "plausible alternative theory"
which the article denies on page 67.
I refer to a possibility alluded to (in passing, surprisingly) on
page 88, the penultimate page of the article: "Only the Swiss know
today whether the vital information coming from Germany went
first to Lucy and then, via Haussmann, to Masson, or whether the
Swiss received the bulk of the information from their sources in
Germany and passed it to Sedlacek for relay to the British and to
Lucy for relay to the Russians." The article also allows, on the
preceding page, that Bureau Ha might have been created to free the
operation from the shackles of neutrality.
More of the truth about "Lucy," I think, lies in these two
sentences than in all the rest of this long article. If so, much of the
rest of the article loses its pertinence.
The following would seem more plausible, professionally:
That the "Lucy" sources were reporting to Swiss intelligence
in Berlin, not to Roessler in Switzerland.
That there is no compelling reason, given the large number of
dissident, anti-Hitler officers in Berlin, to believe that the
"Lucy" sources were involved in known resistance groups
such as Oster's.
That the information was transmitted from Berlin to Switzer-
land not by agent transmitters or agent couriers (nor by
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Abwehr communications) but by Swiss staff communications
channels.
-That Roessler was nothing more than a front man "created"
along with Bureau Ha by Swiss Intelligence as a mechanism
to pass the information to the Allies while preserving Swiss
neutrality.
That Roessler neither had sources of his own (at least not the
key sources in Berlin) nor knew their identity nor controlled
their commo.
--And that Roessler was inclined or compelled to hide these
facts. (I believe he was paid again for his silence by the
light punishment he received for his later espionage in 1953,
to which the article does not pay enough attention.)
Even the opening words of the sentence on p. 88, which I cite
above, is probably misleading: one cannot assume that "only the
Swiss know." The Soviets might also know: they got all the
messages, and with their capture of Berlin and informed interrogations
of key individuals, they could have identified the sources.
Switzerland's continued interest in preserving a neutral history,
and the well proven discipline of its people, do not offer much hope for
disclosures. But I agree with the article's contention that our
continued interest in this case goes beyond our duty to Clio. Among
other reasons, we should try to identify the Lucy sources because if
the Soviets did, they may have been able, by pressure, to gain,
assets who might have provided later access to sensitive levels in
postwar West Germany. The version above might offer new and
promising lines of investigation. (For example, who were the Swiss
MA's, in prewar and wartime Berlin? Who were their closest
German friends?) But the Lucy myth will only lead us into dead ends.
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INTELLIGENCE IN PUBLIC LITERATURE
In Quest of Justice, Abraham Brumberg, editor. Protest and Dis-
sent in the Soviet Union Today. Praeger, New York, 1970. 477
pages. Short biographical notes on 83 individuals taking part in
protests and on officials denouncing them are appended.
A compilation of documents in support of any socio-political thesis,
regardless of how well organized and representatively selected, fre-
quently constitutes a tedious exercise for the reader. When the as-
sembled papers interweave the pros and cons of an issue, repetition
is less likely; when their bulk is chosen to elaborate and support one
set of ideas, repetition normally crowds the compilation. Papers
written to uphold the same principles, regardless of the intellectual
levels of the authors, tend to reiterate essentially the same story.
Brumberg's sizable and interesting assembly of documents illus-
trates the open and secret, at times only latent, growth of dissent-
literary, social, and to a very feeble degree political-in the Soviet
Union in the 1960's. Commentaries on the documents are written by
Brumberg himself, perhaps best known as the former editor of Prob-
lems of Communism; Sidney Monas, of the University of Rochester;
Stephen Weiner, a lawyer and former teaching fellow at Boston
College Law School; George Luckyj, of the University of Toronto,
who specialized in Ukrainian literature; and Peter Reddaway of the
London School of Economics and Political Science, who has been
deeply involved with the analysis and presentation of Russian "under-
ground" literature for several years now. These literary efforts are
technically neither "underground" nor "illegal" in terms of the
Soviet constitution, which guarantees freedom of communication.
They are, however, mainly unauthorized; and, as we all know, ad-
ministrative regulations are often broken with greater risk than legal
ones.
Unfortunately, from our point of view, none of the commentators
takes up the question of even the possibility of KGB control of any
of the underground authors, their samizdat or self-publishing facilities,
or their channels of transmission to Western outlets. When the KGB
is mentioned at all, it is simply as a repressive police force, with no
apparent thought of KGB use of the well-known techniques of pene-
tration, provocation, manipulation, etc. Monas does point out that
"to some degree each poet has become his own KGB," because the
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repression of the past has been so deep that it is hard for today's
writer to rise above it, but that is a different concept. It is obvious
from the material concerning trials (above 100 pages) that the KGB
has penetrated these "underground" circles. It follows that some of
its agents must be producing some of the literature and helping in
its dissemination, just as the agents of the Tsarist Okhrana helped
man the revolutionary printing presses in order to collect evidence for
arrest. Its task may be made more difficult by the wider availability
of typewriters and carbon paper, but it is hard to believe that it is
beyond KGB resources. It seems more likely that what the West is
seeing in samizdat is to a great extent what the Soviet government
has decided we should see, the decision being a political one balancing
the danger of the literature to the internal stability of the USSR on
the one hand against the danger of the people's reaction to KGB
repression on the other. After all, as Brumberg points out, dissent
in the Soviet Union in 1968-69 not only lacked an organizational
framework, it did not seek one; "still relatively small, it confronts
not only a hostile regime but also a largely indifferent population,
vast segments of which are imbued with a traditional suspicion of
`smart-alecky' intellectuals and `Jews'. It would therefore be wrong .. .
to see it as a serious political challenge to the regime."
Most Soviet apparatchiki probably still see the literature of dissent,
when they see it at all, as the predictable and unfortunate result of
the opening of Pandora's box that came with Khrushchev's "secret
speech" criticizing Stalin, rather than as any great threat to the
Soviet state. In addition, the number of its readers may well be greater
outside the USSR than inside. This fact creates a time-tested ideal
situation for the KGB: the appearance of resistance, vis-a-vis the
West, without the substance of resistance, or little of it, inside the
USSR. This condition has perhaps been best achieved in the past by
such Soviet fictions as the Trust and Win, designed to fulfill the two-
fold function of leading the West to believe internal resistance would
bloom soon enough if only let alone, while attracting to them some
Western attention and support. Most of Brumberg's selections date
from 1968, with a few in 1969 (they originally appeared in Problems
of Communism). At that time The Chronicle of Current Events was
just beginning to appear in the West and, as noted above, there was
little if any evidence of organization within the dissent and its litera-
ture, although several trials involving small groups had been reported.
Of course, intelligence approaches from the samizdat milieu may
have been made on the covert level unbeknownst to Brumberg (and
this reviewer). In any case, it will be surprising if the KGB does not
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0o s
at least take advantage of the opportunity, if indeed it is not partly
creating it, to offer the West the organizational framework the move-
ment ostensibly now lacks. In fact, some manifestations of this possi-
bility have appeared since Brumberg's book was written, perhaps
setting the stage for the entrance of players whose attraction will be
hard for the West to resist, the minds of its political leaders having
been conditioned by the "literature of dissent."
The ninety documents included in the book in no sense suggest that
the protesters are non-communists or adverse to communism as a
basic principle of governmental structure of the USSR. They protest
against the revival of Stalinism and its harsh methods of repression.
In their descriptions of court trials of writers, poets, artists, demon-
strators, or religious and national minority oppositionists, they appeal
for justice as guaranteed in the civil rights of the Stalinist constitu-
tion. They condemn illegal searches, long detentions, and harsh in-
terrogations as identical with the excesses under Stalin; and they
expose the court procedures as illegal and contrary to constitutional
guarantees.
The protest literature engendered by the political trials (Sinyavsky,
Ginsburg, et al.) focused for the most part on "constitutionality."
The judges and the entire judicial machinery were accused of acting
according to habitual party policy in total disregard for the legal
rights of the accused. Stephen Weiner, concentrates on "Socialist
Legality on Trial." After discussing the volume of protests about the
handling of political offenses by the Soviet courts, he suggests that the
protesters, by constantly harping on constitutionalism, have aimed at
preventing the Party from ideological interpretation of the existing
statues on civil rights. He concludes that the ability of the Soviet
system to produce an independent judiciary without radical political
change may depend upon gradual development of this type of "myth-
ical" (constitutional) restraint on political power.
One set of documents covers dissent in the Ukraine. George Luckyj
comments on this group, while Peter Reddaway discusses the authors
or origins of the open and underground documents on "Freedom of
Worship and the Law." In each instance, the two writers point to a
return to the old Stalinist practices of persecution. The latter is a bit
optimistic in stating that the dissent has achieved much toward moder-
ating persecution and state interference in internal church affairs.
He believes that dissent on this score is apt to grow unless the regime
makes very large concessions. "As the spiritual vacuum of Soviet
life becomes more intolerable," he writes, "religious dissent, along
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with other forms of social defiance, might increase in both scope and
intensity."
The documents appeared predominantly in western publications
which received them through clandestine deliveries from the Soviet
Union. Only a few stem from underground or illegal press and open
publications in Russia. Added also are a few short stories ridiculing
Stalin's regime, and a score of poems. The substance of most of the
latter could be considered as dissent in some transcendental sense,
but Brumberg obviously included them as literary samples from for-
bidden publications in Russia.
The volume is no doubt worth reading by students of contemporary
social history of Russia. It is not, however, very encouraging. The
documents dealing with court procedures and sentences meted out
reveal clearly that at this stage dissent in the USSR can still not be
considered as much more than so many isolated cries in the wilderness.
Approved For Release 2005/02/17: CIA-RDP78T031YYk d5Y0013-8
 Approved For Release 2005/02/17 : CIA-RDP78TO3194A000300010013-8
SECRET
ISECRET
Approved For Release 2 05/02/17 - - 4A000300010013-8
25X1
25X1