PROPOSAL FOR A SENIOR SEMINAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00308A000100010019-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: November 16, 1970
• Content Type: MF

Approved Foelease 2002/05/02 : CIA-RDP80-00304000100010019-7
16 November 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR Executive Director- Comptroller
'THROUGH : Deputy Director for 'Support
SUBJECT : Pxoposal for a Senior Seminar
1. A study recently undertaken in the Office of Training points to
a need for a seminar for senior officers of this Agency - GS-15 and higher.
I urge that consideration'be given. now to its establishment.
2. Much attention has been given to improving and broadening
Agency training for junior and midcareer officers, with the general
objectives of deepening their undersa::anding of the intelligence profession
as it operates in a world of growing complexity, and, in the Midcareer
Course, helping to prepare them for higher responsibilities. These
objectives deserve at least equal emphasis at the senior officer level.
,"Ilt should now. be our aim to provide senior officers with the time and
resources to review the status of the intelligence profession; to comprehend'
developing trends and necessities of which they may be only partially
aware; to hear and discuss the most profound judgments available con-
cerning foreign and domestic affairs,, the relationships between them,
and the potential impact of events upon intelligence as a. major function
of government. Most of all, we should provide those officers who are
in the line of succession to senior managerial positions with. an'opportunity
to address themselves in the most sophisticated fashion to the organiza-
tional and management problems which they will be inheriting.
3. Some of the factors underlying this recommendation are these:
a. That senior officers are interested in training opportunities
for themselves is indicated by the number of competitors the Training.
Selection Board had to consider this year for the senior war colleges,
Approved For Release 2002/05/0 r ~k-, DP80-00308A000100010019-7
 Approved r Release 2002/05/02: CIA-RDP80-00, pA000100010019-7
the Senior Seminar of the Foreign Service, the Federal Executive
Institute, the Harvard Business School, etc. I do not know how many'*
applied, but their superiors nominated 58 of them for 26 places -
more than twice as many as could be accepted, though all 58 were
qualified for special recognition. This disparity is likely to grow.
It is also notable that several of these courses last up,to a year, so
It is clear that senior officers cain. be spared for advanced training.
'.Approved For Release 2002&i6~- O A-RDP80-00308A000100010019-7
b. There is certainly a market for the kind of training mentioned
in paragraph 2 above. The best single evidence is the Advanced
Intelligence Seminar, whose three successful runnings so far have
all been oversubscribed and have been repeatedly described in student
critiques as "the best course I've ever had,, " Excellent outside
speakers, student interest in dornestic problems and the future, and
free exchange of views among representatives of the four directorates
have all encouraged us to develop further training along these lines.
But that Seminar lasts only two weeks and the average grade of the
students has been GS-14. Similar changes have also been welcomed
in the Mideareer Course, the COS Seminar, and elsewhere, but we
are not yet reaching the near-future managers of the Agency. The
effort to :reach them in the Midcareer Course has led to such a
concentration of students in their middle and late 40's that I am
recommending that the course be restricted (with few exceptions)
to men and women in their 30's, and that older officers be entered
in other courses including the one I am proposing here.
c. Meanwhile the kind of senior training in intelligence I
propose is not available anywhere else. The senior war colleges
and the Foreign Service's Senior Seminar give only the most
peripheral attention to U. S. intelligence. The Federal Executive
Institute is of necessity aimed primarily at personal growth and
renewal, and cannot concentrate on the problems of a particular
activity within government. Outside management courses have to
generalize the problems of American business. All these are
recognized as valuable experiences for the few senior CIA officers
who can share them, but it ought to be possible to combine their
best attributes of broad scope, depth of attention, sabbatical refresh-
ment, and (not least) prestige i:,ito a course that focuses on CIA and
its leadership of U. S. intelligence.
 Approved rRelease 20Q2/05/Q~"?XIA..FkDP80-00@84p00100010019-7
d. The Agency's fair success with problem- solving seminars
suggests that the course I propose could serve that purpose as well.
For example, the first running could have as its unifying theme a
study and revision of that look at CIA's future which Lyman Kirkpatrick's
task force wrote in 1965. I-low much have times changed since 1965,
and why? and what further chanrxes are in prospect?
e. A properly developed, rational program of career develop-
ment training requires the establishment of this final, most sophis-
ticated segment. This remains especially true so long as scores
of senior CIA officers have had :Little or no training or experience
in any intelligence function outside their own immediate jobs, and
have only hazy or outdated notions of the work performed in other
directorates and offices. Even those who have had the Midcareer
Course (probably a number of years ago, if they are now in line of
succession to top jobs) would benefit from a new and deeper look;
they would be sharing their greater experience with a small number
of other comers more usefully than was possible at n-ddcareer.
f. The burden which training puts upon the topmost officers
of the Agency is heavy, but I believe that much of it could most
appropriately be devoted to those in the line of succession, while
some of their customary appearances-before more junior audiences
could be handled by, subordinates. One somewhat invidious reason
for the prestige of the Midcareer Course is that in many cases the
midcareerists have had more, or more recent, exposure to the
top of the Agency than their own superiors have had. A senior
course ought to strengthen the c annection between the top men
and their eventual successors, not just in their own directorates
but throughout the Agency.
g. Finally, I am convinced we must devote more attention to
the growing complexity and accelerated change in our situation both
at home and abroad, and especially to their implications for the
25X1A
intelligence profession and the function of CIA. We should act on
the suggestions made by I article, "The Agency
and the Future, " in Studies in Intelligence (Spring, 1970) - one of
which was for an OTR seminar Cu the future.
Apptove.d For Release 2002/05/9,;~.:~ GJtRDP80-00308A000100010019-7
 Its relationship as an agency to the White I-louse, Congress,
and American society, plus its internal developments, prospects,
and problems. For example, how have the successive Presidents,
their advisers on foreign affairs, and the DCIs influenced its
development?
The National Securi Machinery
How the NSC and the special committees and groups work,
now and prospectively; their impact on CIA and vice versa.
d. The Intelligence Communi.
A frank review of relations and problems, the impact
of various types of collection and analysis upon one another,
requirements, jurisdictions, responsibilities, successes and
:`Approved For Release 2002/05/02: CIA-RDP80-00308A000100010019-7
Appro d.or Release 2002) 5{c2;-FIA-RDP8 - 08A000100010019-7
".l 4.
4. Here, then, is what. I propose: a seminar of three months'
duration conducted twice a year, each for twenty officers of minimum
grade GS- 15. It would include a wide variety of speakers, the best we
could find both inside and outside the Agency, but would also seek
considerable variety of reading, some writing, much discussion, films,
debates, student presentations, roundta.blcs, and perhaps some domestic
travel patterned after that of the Midcarcer Course and the DD/S&T
training program. Some of it would be fairly free- swinging, but the
structured blocs would include the following:
b. Management/Planning
Something of the personal approach of the Federal Executive
Institute; something from one of the good management programs
that could supplement the Grid or planning courses the students
may already have had; possibly an updated Brookings week of the
kind that used to be included in the Midcareer Course. This
segment would be tailored as closely as possible to CIA problems,
not to management in the abstract.
failures.
 Approved For e1Qase 2002/05/02 :440L0-0030800010019-7
e. The U. S. Domestic Scene
Aimed not only at the concerned citizen but especially
at the professional intelligence officer who must be attuned to
the relationship between domestic and national security affairs,
and sensitive to the ways in which they coincide or conflict.
f. The U. S. and the World of the 1970s
The most penetrating assessment of future foreign relations
and problems thq guest speakers and student body can come up
with. We would hope for some publishable writing.
g. The Impact of Science and Technology
A broad consideration of the societal consequences of
technological developments, narrowing down to their profound
consequences for intelligence.
h. Strategic Military Equations
A view or series of views by experts on nuclear relation-
ships, SALT, deterrence, the role of war in modern society, the
problems of military estimates.
Prppraued For Release 2002/05/ t., 4pDP8000308A000100010019-7
other senior course in the government. We could plan for a course
to have as great educational value and prestige as they now get from any
senior officers who took it, it could come
vehicle for CIA's exercise of leadership and influence over the whole
levels of the whole intelligence community. It could become an important
course into a National Senior Intelligence Seminar open to the upper
5. That will do for openers, and I believe that with the necessary
support from the rest of the Agency QTR can present such a course in
the Fall of 1971. But once such a course is' successfully under way I
believe we ought to consider and plan for a second stage: turning the
 Approved For Release 2002/05/02 : CIA-RDP80-003081 QW0010019-7
completely open to the community or alternatively for one part open and
a later part reserved- to CIA..
J
HUG -I T. CUNNINGII M
Director of Training
1 5 DEC i9i0
TO: Director of Training
1. The proposal outlined in paragraph 4 is approved. In
preparing the seminar, the Director of Training should give careful
attention to the constructive comments about the proposal which were
made at the Deputies Meeting on 2 December 1970.
Z. We shall defer a decision on whether this seminar will
become a. permanent part of our training program pending an evalua-
tion of the first experience, and we shall of course reserve judgment
on the second stage, as mentioned in paragraph 5.
L. K. White
Executive Director -Comptroller
CUT
Approved For Release 2002/05/02 : CIA-RDP80-00308A000100010019-7