EVALUATION OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R000500040011-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 27, 2002
• Sequence Number: 11
• Content Type: MF

SECRET
Approved For Release 2002/CI 91:f1 - BQ QJ6L00500040011-3
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy to DCI for NIPE
SUBJECT: Evaluation of the Defense Intelligence
Agency
This memorandum was prepared as a result of the action
memorandum No. A-437, dated 30 November 1964. As Chairman
of the Guided Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee
(GMAIC)), I have frequent contact with representatives of
DIA, but since my contacts are limited to a relatively
small segment of the organization, I do not consider that
I am in a good position to provide any overall evaluation
of its performance. However, the following comments might
be helpful in such an evaluation.
Based on a USIB decision, the membership of GMAIC was
not changed as a result of the change in Board structure,
thus the military departments as well as DIA still have
full membership. The DIA member is highly competent, but
he is handicapped in that there is no appreciable missile
and space analysis capability within the DIA. He must
therefore rely on analysis performed by the military depart-
ments. Since I have direct access to that analysis capa-
bility through the military department members, it is un-
usual that the DIA member can really make a direct contri-
bution to our activities. In a couple of cases, senior
individuals in DIA attempted to interfere with committee
actions, particularly when the analytical organizations in
the military departments were requested to undertake a
special study in direct support of GMAIC requirements.
Some rather blunt conversation between myself and these
officials seemed to solve the problem, and there has been
no difficulty in the past several months
DIA has been studying the overall Defense Department
missile and space analysis function for the past year, and
I understand it has, recently decided to considerably reduce
the amount of duplication now existing between the various
agencies involved. For example, the tentative decision
has been reached to largely eliminate Army analysis of
CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
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 Approved For Release 2002/05/0 IG T80B01676R000500040011-3
CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
SUBJECT: Evaluation of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Soviet ICBM and space vehicles and to leave primary re-
sponsibility to the Air Force. If this decision is final
and such action.is taken, it will tend to reduce the
effectiveness of GMAIC. Past performance has indicated
that no one agency has consistently arrived at the right
answer, and in some of the more crucial questions, such as
size of Soviet ICBM"s, the Air Force batting average isn't
too good. I believe GMAIC has been fairly effective in
resolving some of these issues since it had free access
to the views of all organizations. I have considerable
concern that DIA intends to channel more and more of the
analysis effort through their staff, making it more diffi-
cult for the committee to get the benefit of minority views.
If this, in fact, comes about, it will deprive the committee
of much of the technical support needed to perform its
mission.
If I put myself in the position of a user of DIA
missile and space information, I consider their in-house
capability very limited and of marginal value in solving
the highest priority technical problems. Representatives
of the DIA Production Center serve on a number of the com-
mittee working groups but seem to have detailed knowledge
only in the areas of Soviet missile production and non-
Soviet missile problems, particularly China. In other
areas, such as technical characteristics of weapon systems,
DIA working group members rely entirely on military de-
partment information, and since these departments are also
on the working groups, DIA adds little, if anything, to
the working group product.
It is recognized that some of the potential problems
discussed above are treated from a rather selfish GMAIC
point of view and that the proposed DIA actions may, in
fact, be justified from the point of view of economy and
efficiency.
25X1
CARL E. DUCKETT
Chairman
Guided Missile and Astronautics
Intelligence Committee
CIA INTERNAL U 3~~'00
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