CODIB CONTRIBUTION ON OBJECTIVE 3

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01139A000200130010-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 13, 2004
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: August 19, 1963
• Content Type: MF

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UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE BOARD
COMMITTEE ON DOCUMENTATION
COM -D-107/3
19 August 1963
MEMORANDUM FOR.- Inspector Gen,3ral of CIA
SUBJECT o CODIB Contribution on Objective 3
REFERENCE s Memorandum from DDCI, Sub acts United States
Foreign Intelligence Objective , Top Secret,
dated 8 July 1963
There are forwarded herewith 7 oopies of a condetued version of the
ccordinated CODIB reeponse on Objective 3 as eubmittad to you on 5 August
1963. The condensation was prepared in the office of the 10airman of
CODIB. While it does not bear the approval of the member agenoiea in its
present wording, It does not depart ir, substance from the most recent
version developed by your steering committee. It is my view that the
statement suffers some as a result of its having been coordinated, but
short of coming up with some dissentF3, it is the best we can do.
Paul A . Borel
Cluti.rman
GROUP I
Exclur ed from automatic
S-E-C-R-E_T de'wngading and
f reclassification
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Stag tement eothves
"That research be intensified to determine the usefulness of data processing
techniques, incir_ding mechanized title or summary sentence permutation, to
facilitate review and assessment of the great volume of material that must
be dealt with in the intelligence community."
Praararas and Plans for Action
A. The Problem in Perspective
1. As of today, only man possesses the intelligence and Insight to ask questions,
to exercise Judgement, and to recognize a good solution when it turns up; the machine
will never replace the intelligence analyst, but it can provide a powerful tool of analysis.
Research and development work in intelligence automation is currently at a high level
and is expected to tnoreasa in the years immediately ahead; the gate of progress, however.
will be governed more by availability of first-rate research workers than by the supply
of funds. And to further complicate the task, automation equipment is designed,
essentially, to handle numerical data, while most Intelligence ADP efforts an aimed
at the much more difficult problem of programming non-numerical Information processing,
2. Each USIB meatier agency has Interest in, and is mating continuing efforts to,
improve its own information handling systems. Within DOD, theme activities are
coordinated and guided by the Director of Defense Research and Engineering; within the
Intelligence Community the coordinating body is the U
B Committee on Documentation (CODIB),
which in the recent past has been concerned with such specific problems as the compromising
emanations of machines uaed in Information handling, and such general interests as a
Comw+inity survey of Information procassiing capabilities.
GROUP I
S-E-C-R-E-T Excluded from automatic
downgrading aar-?l
declassification
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B. Geaionalioaal and Development Program
1. Recently acquired mass collection techniques have produced volumes of
electronic. photographic, acoustic and hard copy information beyond the processing
capability of manual systems. Beginning in the early 1950's and steadily since,
machine-support applications have been sought.
2. In the field of document storage and retrieval most intelligence organizations
today operate machine supported systems tailored to their specific requirements. CIA
indexes about 175,000 incoming items per year according to a comprehensive subject
classification scheme developed by the intelligence Community. The index records are
controlled on punched cards and the hard copy is recorded on film mounted in aperture
trds for easy access and reproduction. Air Force Intelligence in 1956 Introduced a
partially automated document storage and retrieval system (MINICARD) aimed at over-
coming some of the basic limitations of punched cards in this field.
3. Currently, the Air Force, NSA, and the Department of State have major projects
underway in the field of mechanized title or summary sentence permutation. The Air
Force system called "Key Word in Context (KWIC) Indexing' seeks to combine key words
Into meaningful key terms as a basis for more effective indexing. The NSA experiment
also provides for automatic capturing of the titles of reports as well as their permutation
by computer. A pilot system under development by the Department of State in the area
of Cuban affairs is being designed to produce permuted Me ct indexes for the analyst.
4. The CIA central information system currently is the subject of a major systems
Judy to investigate the application of computers. The study is now completing an
examination of analyst needs and is expected to proceed with detailed system design
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and Implementation of initial segments over the next three years. The proposed system
would cover all document sources of significance to the analyst, all categories of
information (persons, organisations, places, things, subjects), and all geographic areas,
with minimum handling during processing.
5. In the field of military intelligence support computers are providing essential
services In the production of radar order-of-battle f:-'om ELINT; in the preparation of
air, naval and ground forces order-of-battle; in following current air and merchant
shipping activity; in compiling damage assessment Information; in intelligence support
to war gaming; and In performing various mathematical comptions. Computers support
to overhead reconnaissance has increased significantly during the past two years both
min CIA and DIA in the following areas: (a) determining what to collect; (b) technical
support of operations; (c) Information and technical support of photographic Interpretation.
8. All three military services and CIA have been sponsoring research in machine
translation of foreign language documents. The present level of Government support
to machine translation is about $3 million annually. A Joint Advisory Group on Automatic
Language Processing has been established to coordinate Government-supported machine
translation research, evaluate its results, and guide its course In order to accelerate
progress in this field.
7. CIA's WALNUT egstem is a large scale project for the employment of ADP in
biographic intelligence support. Automated document storage and retrieval equipment
has been installed, a sophisticated name-searching technique has been designed, and
,development of very large random access computer memory equipment to store the
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entire biographic index: is at an advanced stage. Development of a name tracing
communications network in the Intelligence Community is under study.
D. Plans Under Development
1. Three areas of research posing special problems include:
as Conversion of Hard Cci y to Machinable Form ADP application to the bulk
of the huge historic data bases extant and to the volumes of current intelligence materials
received will probably not occur until data conversion to machine language is realized.
Solution of this problem, at least in large part, may well depend on development of an
optical son mer to provide such conversion automatically; such development is underway.
b. DeeloMnt of Massive Random Access Memories. The enormous
quantities of intelligence have created a need for massive random access memories.
Present equipment Is either too slow in processing rate or too limited in storage
capacity; disc memories withmulti-millionlbit capacities are becoming available. A
real breakthrough is required to achieve a multi-billion bit magnetic memory; DOD and
others Q:USIB and non-USlB have R&D money in this field.
c. Non-numerical Intelligence Data Structuring and Processipg. The most
promising non-numerical techniques are dependent, in varying degrees, on "associative
memory techniques", under which concept, machine selection of information is by context
rather than indexing location, thereby allowing all of the memory to be searched at
one time. Little work to date has gone into such techniques; within the Community DOD
has about $1 million of FT 1964 funds marked for research in this area.
2. Shortage of ADP personnel is acute; this, itself:. Is a critical problem best tackled
through the National Science Foundation which can Influence university and specialized
training programs. Steps to Initiate action along this line will be taken with NSF.
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