IKLE'S LETTER ON SOVIET STRATEGIC DOCTRINE AND POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000100030012-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 4, 2005
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: June 6, 1974
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
FROM : Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT : Ikle's Letter on Soviet Strategic
Doctrine and Policy
1. The letter from Ikle refers to an ad hoc group on
Soviet strategic doctrine and policy, says that the "consensus"
of the group was that CIA could be asked to make an assessment
of a particular question, and provides an enclosure which presents
several other questions of interest to the group. This memorandum
addresses each of these three aspects of Ikle's letter.
2. Ikle's letter was obviously written by John Newhouse who
recently joined ACDA. I attended one of the two meetings of the
so-called group chaired by Newhouse. Some of the people who
attended the second meeting had not attended the first and vice
versa. It was a very disorganized meeting with several of the
ACDA attendees coming in and going out. I got the feeling that
CIA people had been invited in order to get us to do research and
attend meetings for the primary purpose of educating John Newhouse.
3. It was also my impression that Newhouse and others in
ACDA were reacting to a feeling that they were not playing a
leading role in SALT and were looking for some way to get a
piece of the action. Because Newhouse had not made any serious
effort to read the classified work which had been done on the
subject, I suggested that he ask 1NR to supply him with what had
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been done. Bill Hyland who was present was not enthusiastic about
this. F- I invited Newhouse to his office to describe
what work had been done and what was under way. Near the end
of the meeting, I made the statement that our resources were too
involved in addressing important questions from important people
to be diverted to educating Newhouse. It was clear to me that
Newhouse really wants to run a series of seminars where people
present the results of research on topics Newhouse selects. In
the abstract I think this would be very useful to all concerned;
pragmatically, our people working on these subjects are so tied
up on direct support to SALT, NSSMs, and NIEs that we do not
have the time.
4. Even though I attended the meeting, I did not realize
that the group reached a "consensus" on anything. When the
question of why the Soviets have invested so little in heavy bomber
development and deployment came up, I did say that this topic
would be easier to handle than most of the others raised at the
meeting. I suppose this is the basis for Newhouse picking this
particular topic as an example of the research we might do for
him. If we were asked to discuss the question, we could do it,
but I don't think that question is important enough to invest our
scarce analytical resources in doing a thorough historical research
paper.
5. The questions presented in the enclosure to Ikle's letter
are really good. They are among the questions that we will be
working on in the Strategic Evaluation Center of OSR as we
increase the staffing of that new organization. But, at present
the SEC has far more immediate questions to address which
are directly related to urgent US policy considerations.
6. In sum, Ikle's proposal has much merit in principal,
but from a practical point of view our resources are already too
fully committed to support his proposal. Even beyond that, I see
no particular benefit to be gained by having John Newhouse control
the topics we work on or our approach to them.
-2-
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7. On the assumption that you did not discuss this matter
with 1kb earlier this week and if you feel his letter needs a
response, I have attached a proposed written response for your
consideration.
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i WARD W. PROCTOR
Deputy Director for Intelligence
Attachment
Distribution:
Original - Addressee w/att.
1 - DDCI w/att.
1 - ER w/att.
1 - DDS&T w/att.
I - D/DCI/IC w/att.
I - D/DCI/NIO w/att.
1 - CIA SALT Support Staff w/att.
1 - DDI w/att.
1 D/OSR w/att.
DDI Chrono w/att.
DDI file w/att.
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CONFIDE; TTAT,