MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B00972A000100360008-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: January 9, 2003
• Content Type: MF

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NSA & DIA Declassification/Release Instructions on
File.
8 September 1969
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT: DCI Annual Report to the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB}
1, As you will recall, the Director is required to make an
annual report to the PFIAB on "Coordination of the U. S. Foreign
.Intelligence Effort." Last year you were very helpful in submitting
items to be included in this report and I would like to solicit your
assistance again this year.
2. The major headings of the report are:
a. Assessment of the organization and functioning of
the United States Intelligence Board and its committees,
b. Major problems existing in the coordination of
the intelligence community.
c. Significant gaps, deficiencies and undesirable dupli-
cation of the various U. S, intelligence agencies,
d. Specific, actions to strengthen the effectiveness of
the over-all intelligence effort.
3. We have -all agreed in the past that these reports should
be short and I am asking only for brief summaries of major items as
you see them. Rough notes will do if this will make things .easier and
quicker for you. In this connection, you might find it useful to review
last year's report as it finally went forward and I am attaching a copy.
Some of the material that you submitted to PPB for this year's Agency
report to the PFIAB might be pertinent to the community report.
JOHN A. BROSS
D/DCI/NIPE
Attachment
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.~ DDI Contribution to PFIAB Community Report
? The single most important existing problem in the .
.coordination of substantive intelligence is the disagreement
;.among CIA, DIA, MACV and CINCPAC, on estimates of enemy ?
f
strength in Vietnam. The CIA estimate of VC/NVA combat
forces at the end of June 1968 is some 40 percent higher
than the MACV estimate. In addition, CIA believes that
a meaningful estimate of enemy strengths should include ?
;other organized irregular elements; e.g. Self Defense
,Forces and Assult Youth. The military intelligence agencies
do not include these groups in their estimates.
The disagreements stem from many factors. A
fundamental difference arises from CIA use of estimative
technigues that result in higher numbers than those
derived by conventional Order-of-Battle techniques.
There are also differences on the types of personnel to
be included in the various categories of enemy personnel..
CIA, for example, includes an estimated 10,000-30,000
full-time staff personnel in the Political Infrastructure
that are excluded from the military holdings.- Finally,
there are serious deficiencies in the amount and reliability
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of data on the identification and personnel strengths of
enemy units. Most of the information used to estimate
enemy strengths -- KIA, losses, inf filtration, recruitment --
is soft and difficult to quantify.
A number of steps are being taken to resolve these,
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' problems. The collection effort is being restructured'
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and document exploitation is being intensified. New
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.basic studies of enemy forces are under way in CIA and
in Saigon. CIA and DIA working jointly have formulated
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new definitions and criteria that are now being negotiated.
.with MACV and CINCPAC. On the basis of these proposals
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CIA and DIA are also undertaking joint estimates of enemy
force elements and are attempting to formulate a new
;attrition study or estimative approach for discussion with
MACV and CINCPAC.
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II. DEFICIENCIES AND UNDESIRABLE DUPLICATION
,..
Intelligence on Vietnam
Thirty-two. separate scheduled daily and/or weekly
publications or other types of intelligence materials
that are devoted wholly or in large part to Vietnam are
disseminated within the community. Some of these are
largely compilations or summaries. At least half of
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them, however, contain some analytic judgments, and many
are heavily weighted toward the analytical.
,.
Some of the materials fulfills recognized needs for
,publications with different levels of classif ication,
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with different intended audiences and with different
terms of reference for content and even style. The
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overlap is, nevertheless, extensive as can be seen by a
few examples of the kind of topics that might be treated
in more than one of the titles listed in Annex A. A
military operation in South Vietnam (such as an attack
on Hue, the ambush of an allied column, or movement of
North Vietnamese troops) could be dealt with in as many
as 27 documents. Infiltration from North Vietnam is
regularly handled in 17; and a military supply, or
infiltration activity in Laos clearly related to Vietnam
would probably be treated in 13. A military development
within North Vietnam (such as movement of ground troops,
arrival of new naval units, and flight activity by MIG's)
could be treated in 16 different issues. Apolitical
development in South Vietnam would rate coverage in 16
different places, and inf ormation concerning Soviet or
Chinese supply efforts on Hanoi's behalf would stand a good
chance of being reported in 14 places. .
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It should .be emphasized that all the intelligence
materials just referred to represent only the regularly
scheduled daily or weekly output of the community. Total
.coverage on Vietnam would also include ad hoc memoranda
ion specific aspects of the problem (such as the Chinese
Communist presence in North Vietnam or Hanoi's military,
.strategy) or scheduled reports covering a longer period
(such as the monthly report of foreign shipping to North
,;
'Vietnam). There is additional overlap here:
CIA has discussed the duplication with the State
Department. It was agreed, however, that those publications
requested by and tailored for a specific readership --
such as the Special Daily Report on Vietnam and Indications
;of Vietnamese Communist Military Activity -- could not
easily be cut off, no matter how much duplication they contain.
Within CIA, there is a proposal to cease publication
of ;the Vietnam Weekly, with the proviso that material in
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it which is not duplicated elsewhere be included in the
daily Situation in Vietnam publication. Also, CIA attempts
to?reduce duplication by giving much shorter and more
selective treatment to subjects such as air strike damage
and tactical operations which are covered in great detail
in non-CIA publications.
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The Inf ormation Explosion ~
In last year's report, the information explosion
was identif ied as a complex and important problem for the
community. Also discussed were related problems: the
substantial increases in costs of technologically advanced,
camplex and massive collection systems, the collection of
large amounts of marginal data by these systems, ands
.means far strengthening the intelligence program review
process in terms of judging the value of certain information
and the worth of the collection program which produces it.
The lack of an effective mechanism for evaluation
of the total continues to be a factor in each of these
problems and a major weakness in the program review process.
T~outines do exist within each USIB member agency for
analyst evaluation of selected collectors' products; but
many of these efforts are autonomous undertakings which :in
the collective analysts conclude that almost all data produced
by a specific collector is of same "value" to someone's
individual "priority" needs. These results are often used
for little more than justification for continuation. of the
collection effort being evaluated, ?
In the meantime, the composite collection effort is
unable to obtain the information needed to answer directly
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the critical questions. This inability generates the
collection of vast amounts of information that is either
indirectly pertinent or at best marginally indicative of
the answers to important intelligence problems.
with '~ view to establishing the rolative worth.of each.
As a means of strengthening the intelligence program
review process, the community is now developing a display
,of the allocation of intelligence resources in relation
to :t he problems against which they are .targeted. Useful
as it will be, however, the display is only a first step
in ,developing management-tools for control of the information
explosion and rising collection costs. The review process
in the end must identify-those collection programs which:
should be increased, continued or terminated. Information
on which to base these decisions can come only from an
intensive and systematic community-wide means for assessments
ofcollection resources targeted against the same problec~s,
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III, SPECIFIC ACTIONS TO STRENGTHEN THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
THE OVER-ALL INTELLIGENCE EFFORT
The Coordination of Finished Intelligence
Progress has been made in the past year towards
community coordination of finished intelligence. Currently
a large part of the CIA product receives that coordination.
In April, the Central Intelligence Bulletin was
.revised in order to expand significantly the information
coverage and availability of the only coordinated daily
produced within the community. The Bulletin is now published
in three editions known as the Black, Red, and White Books.
The Red Book is essentially the same
as the.pre-April Bulletin. The Black Book attempts to be
a true "all-source" daily and is designed to meet the
needs of about three dozen of the government's senior
advisers on foreign policy. It contains the more choice
items from the Red Book supplemented by information
The SECRET White Book is designed for the "working
level", is disseminated in about 1000 copies and is a more
useful and timely replacement for the discontinued un-
coordinated Current Intelligence Digest. The items in all
three-.are coordinated in the same manner.
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Coordination of Studies on Vietnam '`~;~'
Formal DIA coordination of published CIA studies on
the Vietnam War has become increasingly common. These
include such subjects as North Vietnamese manpower
attrition, military aid to North Vietnam, and logistic
activities in Laos. CIA and DIA have jointly produced ~~ '~
.quarterly analysis of the effects.of US bombing programs
.and a joint report on military aid deliveries to North
Vietnam. In the particularly important area of:~the'extent
of Viet Cong use of Cambodia as a source of supplies~~or
a sanctuary, CIA has produced two reports that were
.coordinated with both DIA and Department of State.
Joint working groups have enabled CIA and~DlA to
,resolve some contentious problems concerning the Vietnam
War. These include VC/NVA logistic requirements, the
expenditure of anti-aircraft ammunition in North Vietnam,
the extent of damage to bridges in North Vietnam, and
the valuation of military aid received by North Vietnam.
Ad 'hoc working groups now convene regularly on such questions
as the strength of VC/NVA logistics and truck-kill totals.
Coordination of General Reports
Notable progress in economic intelligence coordination
also occured during the past year on areas other than
Viet.:~m. "Informal coordination with the Department of
State was achieved for CIA reports on such diverse subjects
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as problems caused:by the Nigerian War; Rhodesian ability
to withstand sanctions, economic.prospects:in Tsrael,_.
and the impact of US curtailment of aid in Turkey. The:
Interdepartmental Regional~Group (IRG) structure was used
to resolve conf licts. For example, divergent views of AID,
State, and CIA on the economic impact of Iranian military
aid programs were resolved. in this forum., :~ ~~~ _
CIA-DIA collaboration on military intelligence includes
the continuing joint study of Soviet capabilities to
x~einf orce in Central Europe. This study involves cooperative
:pioneering efforts to apply new techniques for reaching
'high-conf idence estimates of the combat readiness and
mobility of Soviet line divisions in the western USSR and
Eastern Europe. The joint study has stimulated cooperative
efforts in related areas. Common methodologies have been
adopted, collection and processing
requirements have been shared increasingly on ,subjects
outside the narrow area of capability to reinforce in
Central Europe.
The establishment of ad hoc working groups to reach
agreement on identifiable problem areas has proved an
exceptionally successful device. The remaining problem
concerns the occasional unilateral publication of an
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uncoordinated report on matters of common concern toy
DIA and CIA. Both Agencies are attempting to eliminate
even this inf requent happening by an:inf ormal exchange
between production supervisors at the office!~l:evel on
.research projects scheduled and under way.
CIA and DIA recently reaffirmed the 1965 .agreement
assigning to CIA prime responsibility.f or military costing
for national intelligence. This centralization assures
use of uniform costing methods and factors. The agreement
also assures that differences in study results reflect
real differences in foreign programs, not simply. differences
in analytic techniques.
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