RESPONSE TO SECDEF C3I QUESTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003300310006-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: December 27, 1978
• Content Type: MF

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27 December 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Strategic Research
Presidential Briefing Coordinator
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Response to SecDef C31 Question
REFERENCE: Memo to DCI from D/OSR, dated 5 December 1978,
same subject
1. I read Sid's memo of the 5th on responding to SecDef's request
for a Community study of Soviet C31. I don't want to start. something
that will throw your work program off; at the same time, after reading
the ten enclosures to your paper, I don't think, in themselves, they
would come close to satisfying SecDef's desires. Since he is one of
our principal consumers, I'd like to provide him whatever service we
can.
y suggestion is that we beef up the proposed briefing 0 25X1
and try that on the SecDef to see where he thinks we should go
next and what portion of that the proposed DOD net assessment study will
undertake, or what portion has already been done by some of the field
commanders, particularly SAC. I know that General Ellis puts a great
deal of attention on Soviet command and control. 0 25X1
3. I think the SecDef is much more interested in their doctrine
than in just their multiple avenues for transmitting data. Hence, I
think we ought to redo the proposed briefing by expanding and emphasizing
the command structure. First, how do the national authorities interface 25X1
with the military? At what levels and with what authority? It seems to
me we could compare this with the command line from the President to the
SecDef and then directly to the unified commanders, by-passing the JCS. ^
4. I was intrigued by Tab 3 to your paper on the theater commands
in the Warsaw Pact. In short, I think we could develop another set of
comparisons here showing the top-heavy permanent command structure of
NATO and the apparently very lean command structure of the Warsaw Pact
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with some implication that it would be fleshed out in wartime. It is
my recollection that even the fronts don't have a peacetime command
structure, let alone all the intermediate theater commanders that we
have in NATO.
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5. I think the briefing ought to look at Soviet doctrine. What
do we know from their exercises as to what degree of authority is
exercised at different levels? How do we think that compares with us?
(We don't really know--I spent my year and a half as CINCSOUTH trying
to delineate what I would do in wartime as opposed to my component
commanders and yet I was almost certain that General Hai staff
would do all of it for both of us when the time came!) 25X1
6. Next we could look at the physical means of communication
that cover each level of command, i.e., how many ways are there for
the national command authority to get down to whatever level it goes
to, etc.? Included in this would be indications of increasing trends
like the development of the IL-22. In that connection I would like to
7. In short, let's start with the restructuring of
briefing with more emphasis on doctrine and command structure, pointing
out where we are vague because we lack information. I will then take
this to SecDef to get the comparisons with the United States and to find
out where his interests truly lie. If, as we go along at. each section
of the briefing, we indicate what our own sense of confidence is, we can
then also at the end determine where and how much effort will be needed
to fulfill the SecDef's desires when he indicates them.
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STANSFIELD TURNER
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