COINS PRESSURES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000100110007-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 2, 2005
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: April 20, 1970
• Content Type: MF

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20 April 1970
MEMORANDUM POR: Assistant Deputy Director for Intelligence
SUBJECT: CCI1~T5 Pressures
1. This note responds to your note on my memorandum on
COINS pressures.
2. IYfy efforts at brevity seem to have been counterproductive.
My basic objection to the proposal marked ttDtt is that it is redundant
because it is contained in the proposal marked "A". "All calls for
a team evaluation on COINS files. The files are divided into three
categories. The most concerned agency furnishes a chairman and
other agencies appoint representatives to participate in evaluating
the existing files by I July 1970. The proposal in Tab B is a relatively
minor subset of the task in "All with different procedures and respon-
sibilities. lviy basic point is that one review effort is enough and that
the proposal in "ASP is the better conceived of the two. I proposed,
therefore, to cooperate with the proposal in Tab A and to reject that in
Tab
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b. Your second question concerns the size of the
effort required to implement the proposal in Tab E. We
agree with your observation that the evaluation per so
would probably not involve a great deal of work. The
point we were trying to make was that the evaluating.
agency was more than likely to ask the operating agency
to undertake large scale, costly improvements of the file,
your CRS biographic files for example.
4. I have asked o pull several OB records from COINS
and to get from O&R a statement o the work involved in the specific eval-
uation in the.Tab 13 proposal. It will be forthcoming as soon as available-
i.e., COINS must first cough up the necessary records.
5. The procedure discussed in your Paragraph 3--testing by the
individual user of the file in COINS-has generally already occurred.
This testing has been informal and uncoordinated and has resulted in the
reiterated conclusion that COINS is not very useful. These conclusions.
are, indeed, responsible for these four new F__ ICOINS proposals.
6. Once again, the workload required to implement the proposal
narked 11Br is not very large and the Agency "posture,' might be enhanced
by cooperating with this duplicative review. I believe, however, that the
examination will buy neither added knowledge or added utility for the
COIN" file, and it could add significantly to the COINS pressure on CR5
resources.
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.> - . VANGIel
Central Reference Service
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I have no problem with your proposed reaction to any of the
COINS proposals except item B (COINS/144-70, 02 April 1970). On
this one I would like a little more information.
1. On the question of the appropriateness of the organizations
designated to evaluate'the various files.--
I assume from the COINS proposal that the purpose is to
determine how useful and reliable the "user" finds the file.
If NSA were the prime user of the COINS bio files, it would be
quite appropriate for NSA to make a judgment on this matter.
If CIA were the prime user of the COINS OB file, it would
be similarly appropriate for CIA to evaluate the file for its
purposes. I presume this is not the case at present in both
instances. The question might be put in terms of the future--
Is NSA planning to become the primary user of the CIA and DIA
bio files? I presumeould say yes. But, NSA is now
planning with us to use our files, but not through the COINS
route. They have already made the judgment about the utility of
our files under the proposed arrangement. Need more be. done?
2. On the size of the effort to evaluate.--
The COINS proposal to evaluate more than ten records. If the
number were not much large than tete, say less than twenty, it
appears to be a relatively small job. You say no, so obviously
I don't uderstand what a complete record is or how many sets of
ten to twenty packages there would be. Tell me more.. I would
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like you also to let me know what kind of reaction OSR would
have. to evaluating the OB files and how much time it would take.
If NSA were to make an evaluation of your bio files as proposed,
could they do it unilaterally or would you have to supply them
with all the supplementary information necessary to make the
evaluation?
3. This leads me to a somewhat different approach. What
if NSA were to make the evaluation of 10 to 20 complete records
for each of the bio files in COINS wholly on itsown? This
approach could be appropriate in the sense that it is a user
(peesumably) and should determine for itself whether the bio
files in COINS are reliable and useful enough for NSA to
depend upon. Similarly, CIA (OSR) could do the same thing.
All this would be confined to the files now on COINS and
the evaluation would be in terms of what information other than
COINS would be available to the evaluator.
In sum, my problem with your reaction to the proposal is
that the job does not seem to be very large, that users should
be able to gauge for themselves how useful the files age to
them, and that they should also know how reliable the files
are for their purposes.
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