EVALUATION OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WITH RESPECT TO THE FAR EAST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R000500040006-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 27, 2002
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: December 14, 1964
• Content Type: MEMO

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14 December 1964
DRAFT
SUBJECT: Evaluation of the Defense Intelligence Agency
With Respect to the Far East
1. Although sometimes commendable, DIA contributions and
participation on FE estimates have for the most part been poor.
In our view, DIA simply has not put the adequate stress on Far
East intelligence production to effect satisfactory results. In
result, the US intelligence community is woefully shaky on a myriad
of Far East military questions -- years behind the attention and
sophistication;:of the community's Soviet effort..
2. DIA's representatives usually lack a good knowledge of
the areas on which they are working and sometimes lack experience
in intelligence work. In fairness, these weaknesses are not to be
easily overcome because of the diversity and difficulty of the
intelligence problems encountered in work on the Far East, and
because of what we judge to be a DIA practice of generally assigning
their better people to EE projects. Furthermore, we emphasize that
there are shining exceptions to this generalization, and we should
also point out that our personal relationship with DIA people is
almost always gratifyingly congenial.
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Part of DIA's trouble, in our view, stems from its
bureaucratic dichotomy. The representatives with whom we deal
come from the "Estimates" part of DIA, while most of the detailed
research is done by the "Production" section. The "Estimates"
representatives are often not familiar with the details of the
facts and figures worked up by the "Production" section, ands; more-
over, seem -1 loath to question or challenge the work done by their
colleagues. In this connection, we have found that representatives
of the individual services (ONI, ACSI, and AFCIN) are often able to
make valuable contributions of information in their special fields.
4. A detailed evaluation of DIA's performance on Far East
problems can probably best be presented under three main headings:
Communist China, Indochina, and the rest of the area.
A. Communist China:
(l) DIA's competence on China has suffered from a
lack of sufficiently high claim on resources. For example,
DIA was asked for an all-source contribution to an estimate
on Communist China's military establishment, but the contribu-
tion submitted was at the SECRET level and reflected no serious
attempt to exploit our most valuable sources. In our effort at
a first draft on this paper, we used scarcely a line or phrase
from the DIA contribution. Recently, more attention has been
focused here and some progress has been made, but, in our opinion,
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job possible is being done with available information.
(2) As far as we know, little fresh and imaginative
analysis has been done on such broad topics as the Chinese
Communists' strategic military doctrine and their long-range
plans for development of China's military forces.
(3) On the Chicom order of battle DIA claims a high
level of confidence as to unit designation at the division level
and above, but admits little is known about the actual (as
opposed to formal) tables of organization and equipment or about
the levels of combat readiness of various units. In this con-
nection, DIA is reluctant to describe and explain the methodology
it uses in arriving at various OB estimates. While grant
this would be a tediously complicated process, its importance
is illustrated by the fact that DIA's decision earlier this year
to change its estimate of the size of the infantry division
resulted in an abrupt decrease of 300,000 in the estimate of
the manpower of the Chinese Communist Army. We are not qualified
to judge or challenge in detail DIA's OB estimates, but we believe
there are sufficient uncertainties to warrant a thorough airing
of the matter. We are not proposing an in_quis'itbrial:.:exp'osd of
DIA's work, but we do believe that the community would benefit
from a careful exchange of views which would highlight our
weaknesses and perhaps suggest fruitful avenues for improving
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our knowledge on this important topic. For example, intensive
exploitation of photography holds some promise, but so far only
the surface has been scratched.
(4+) For Estimates of the production of military
equipment we quite frankly have to turn to ORR. DIA has
continually served up estimates, many of which are dub:iat.s,
and some of which are demonstrably grossly in error.
(5) We are unable to judge DIA`s competence on
advanced weapons matters because whatever work they have turned
out in this field has thus far come to us through inter-agency
committees.
B. Indochina:
(1) Recently, papers produced on this crisis area
have generally been crash projects with short deadlines where
written contributions were infeasible. Hence the substantive
knowledge and ability of the representatives to contribute
constructively in coordination sessions has been of unusual
importance. Of the two DIA representatives who have attended
meetings on Indochina papers in the past few months, only one
has performed well.
(2) Despite private reservations, DIA representatives
have been prone to accept without challenge the data and assess-
ments of local military commanders. We have also detected a
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tendency on the part of DIA representatives to avoid assess-
ments which might run counter to policies and decisions which
they believe military planners and policymakers favor.
(1) DIA's work on Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines area
has been weak. Contributions have been inadequate even on such
"open" subjects as Commonwealth OB in the area. Contributions
on such matters as Soviet military aid to Indonesia have had to
be corrected and supplemented by ORR.
(2) We are tikeptical of the soundness of work on North
Korean military matters, but this subject has not been recently
given intensive study in national intelligence papers.
(3) Coverage of our military forces of South Korea and
Nationalist China is very good on gross matters of OB, less
satisfac.tOby, on matters of leadership, plans, and morale.
ONE/FE Staff
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