ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT: THE AGENCY'S ROLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00967A001400010014-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2005
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: March 18, 1970
• Content Type: MEMO

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C E N T R A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A G E N C Y
18 March 1970
"E" MEMORANDUM NO. 1-70 (ONE Distribution Only)
SUBJECT: Ecology and Environment: The Agency's Role
1. Since World War II the concept of US national security
has been defined primarily in terms of defense against the Soviet
Union and international communism. More recently, China and the
possible spread of Chinese communism have also become part of the
national security equation.. The intensity of belief about the
threat is revealed in maxsy ways -- especially in the existence of
expensive and varied governmental and private organizations whose
job it has been to defend us with men and hardware, or to wargame
or anticipate the magnitude of losses which we could tolerate in
a nuclear conflagration. Indeed the very existence of this Agency
.is itself a reflection of our main postwar concern.
2. As an agency, our first mission has been to gain infor-
mation about Soviet (and Chinese) hostile intentions toward the
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US. Our second mission has been to detect (and if possible to
check) the spread of communism and those political movements
which might abet the communist cause wherever they might be found
and regardless of their peculiar local character. Reporting and
analysis flowed naturally from the main obligations of the Agency,
so that the magnitude of the threat at any given time, or changes
in its character, could be known or reasonably anticipated by the
highest officials and policies protective of US Interests could
be developed.
3. As a country and as an Agency we have generally done
our job well, even though at times we have tried so hard that our
efforts have been counterproductive. And to be sure, neither we
nor the rest of the non-communist world proved as vulnerable as we
originally had thought. It now seems unlikely the Soviet or
Chinese influence in the world will expand significantly or soon,
even though in some areas our own influence may decline consider-
ably in the years ahead. There is a strong predilection in many
countries to use the tensions between the great powers to their
own benefits rather than to let themselves be formed into "camps"
led by one or another of the great powers. And we have learned
that the superpowers have many similar problems and interests --
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some even held in common -- which can transcend their specialized
anxieties. Interest in big-power diplomacy,, at least on the well-
m:)rn life-death issues of the nuclear age, seems keen at the
moment; the phenomenon of inertia and trends of the times seem
to make of movement toward war-like militancy un-
likely.
4. But this apparent victory for reason, and the conven-
tional way in which we have defined our national concerns, have
diverted our attention from what may have been the real battle
all along. It now seems clear that whatever the threat to the
US has seemed to be, it is no longer military or ideological
alone. A real threat is posed by that vast and complicated new
worry: how to maintain a viable US society -- the quality of
life -- in a degraded environmental and ecological system.
5, As described by students of ecology, the threat is of
a magnitude unknown in world history -_ especially for the US
because we are at one and the same time the largest consumers
and
of the world's resources /the largest polluters of the planet.
Because of our advanced stage of technological and socio-
political development, we should have these problems in control,
or in much better control. But while we have actively worried
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about the more conventional threat to our society, and tried to
inspire imitation of our own way of life, we have grossly
neglected the condition of the earth and of man's relationship
to its resources. And our will and capacity to consume not
only threatens us (as the leading consumer and smug creator of
the "best" life) but it also threatens the rest of the world.
It is in the world context that the problems must ultimately be
resolved.
6. We do not have the option of ignoring or postponing
consideration of the problem -- and we have but little time to
study it. It is, after all, the genius of history which has
got us where we are; we can hardly expect that same happenstance
to solve the problems it has created. In taking action to reverse
the clock -- promoting population control programs, agricultural
reforms, exploitation of the oceanst resources, and other pro-
grams necessary merely to preserve the current conditions of life
in the world -- the US will implicitly be admitting that each
child born in the United States poses a~'__.a.
greater threat to eco-
logical balance than a child born anywhere else. If this reali-
zation spreads, it may have great impact upon other countries
whose economies and socio-political systems are based upon sup-
port for US consumption or are in other ways affected by it.
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7. If the past is prologue, on this problem as on others,
the uS will be expected to provide answers and programs for the
world -- both (Eour own citizens who have infinite faith in our
technological capabilities and by a world which expects us to
take on any "impossible" task. But the US will fail if it oper-
ates alone. We can probably "sell" the problem and the need for
international co-operation better than anyone else, but we cannot
implement courses of action in alien cultures. Indeed, the
biggest part of the problem may be to get the consumption-oriented
waste-producing US society to alter its own life style enough to
serve both itself and posterity.
8. Other nations, however, will undoubtedly expect the US
to make the greatest (relative) sacrifices for the common weal.
For reasons other than purely ecological ones they might even
hope for a decline in the US standard of living relative to their
own. They might even restrict
for ecological as well as po-
litical reasons -- the resources they make available to the US.
While such restrictions might now appear unlikely and irrational
in economic terms, this need not always be so, especially if
political and psychological disapproval of the US were super-
imposed upon world-wide alarm about population pressures, economic
and social problems, and ecological deterioration.
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9. The only reasonable way to address the problem of
ecology and environment is to establish useful parameters within
which to work -- to choose a path between the Cassandras (we hope
they are) and the optimists (wetre sure they are). The Agency,
and this office, need not be without a role in confronting this
problem. There are '"watch reports" and warnings of a new kind
to be prepared; the analytical staffs of this agency are well-
qualified to handle the data. For example, we can comment with
some authority on the relationship of population to food sup-
plies and arable land, and upon the likely meaning for the US and
other countries as the relationship becomes unbalanced in a par-
ticular country or region. We can report on and estimate the
likelihood that other nations will take the decisions necessary
to preserve their own environments, and anticipate their reac-
tions to any changes in US consumption patterns -- for instance
our petroleum, steel, or copper consumption. We already pay
attention to tensions arising over the definition of the limits
of the territorial seas -- the major point of dispute with dis-
sident nations being their asserted rights to the resources of
the ocean outside the limits subscribed to by the superpowers.
We could also report on such matters as the availability of fresh
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water worldwide.. on the quality of the atmosphere and the nature
of changes in i's, and on the likelihood that other nations will
extend and protect these resources by available scientific means.
The list of posuible studies is vast, and in many cases our work
could be based mainly on data already in hand.
10, Ir, short, if US concern about the quality of life is
likely to ,orce domestic decisions about what we can afford to
do withoa:it, or how we must alter the ways in which we live our
lives, such decisions will undoubtedly affect others in the
world, as well. We could make better decisions if we understood
both their likely impact abroad and the degree to which other
r. ations and regional economic groupings will'. be similarly con-
cerned. Through estimates, studies,, and memoranda, the intelli-
gence community could make a strong contribution toward an
understanding of the problem in its broadest frame of reference.
Ecologus
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