THE STATUS OF WORK ON PRESIDENTIAL INTELLIGENCE PRIORITIES (TWENTY QUESTIONS)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M00165A001100020011-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 25, 2004
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: October 28, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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FROM Robert R. Bowie
Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
SUBJECT Presidential Intelligence Priorities
1. Action Requested: Your approval of the proposed procedure.
2. Under Presidential Directive 17, the Policy Review
Committee for Intelligence is charged to define and prioritize
substantive intelligence requirements. Clearly, both the Com-
munity and users will benefit if we can get genuine guidance from
the Committee, especially as to what policy issues are uppermost
in the minds of its members and what kinds of intelligence they
will want in the next six to nine months.
3. Since the members of the PRC(I) are extremely busy, the
risk is that they will turn the task over to staff officers,
rather than provide their own guidance. Our aim should be to
devise a procedure to involve the PRC(I) principals themselves
and convince them that it is in their interest to level with us.
4. At the same time PRC(I) members should confine them-
splves to defining their needs and priorities for information.
and not try to set priorities for the collection of intelligence.
Rather, the Intelligence Community should translate the guidance
we get from the PRC(I) into programs for production, research and
collection.
5. For the meeting of the PRC(I) on November 18th, it seems
to me that we need a document which will stimulate the members to
share their real policy concerns with us. As I explained in a
memorandum to you two weeks ago, I believe that document should
contain two lists. The first would be a list of long-term topics
on which the intelligence agencies should maintain the capability
to provide intelligence as and when needed, even though not required
for current policy decisions. I would hope that the PRC(I) would
simply ratify this list without spending too much time on it, and
alter it as and when a major shift occurs in concerns or direction.
The scope of this list should be quite broad so as to permit the
flexibility to pursue research and analysis on trends and under-
lying factors.
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6. The second list would be a series of questions
that
the
PRC(I) wishes intelligence to address in the near term
(6
to
9
months), and I would hope this list would be discussed
in
detail.
The list attached was arrived at through a rather arduous process.
Its outline reflects the contributions various departments made
to the NSC Staff when David Aaron was charged with this effort.
When the effort was turned over to me, I held two discussion
meetings on my approach to the problem with representatives from
the NSC Staff, State, Treasury, Defense, the JCS, and our own
analytical organization. This group appointed a working group,
which in turn gathered questions from all the organizations
above. The working group then held two meetings, after which the
chairman produced a synthesized list on the basis of the advice
he had received. Finally, I reviewed and simplified the chairman's
list. It is not an agreed list, and it does not conform to every-
one's preferences. I do think, however, that it will. serve our
purposes quite well.
7. 1 would hope that PRC(I) members would react to this
second list by telling us whether the individual questions are of
a low, medium, or high level of interest to them.. Perhaps they
might also suggest different directions in which a question might
be pointed to provide the sorts of answers they seek, or pose
questions we have not asked. We will want to get these reactions
at the PRC(I) meeting itself; if we allow the members to take a
document away for a later response, we will increase the risk of
getting a staff officer's reply. The document we put on the
table, therefore, will have to be of proportions that can he
worked through in an hour.
8. I would hope, finally, that the PRC(I) would return to
the list of current topics every two to three months. Once we
have completed the first review, I would think that subsequent
exercises could be accomplished rather expeditiously.
Director of Central Intelligence Date
Director of Central Iiytelligence Date
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
2 8 OCT 1977
FROM Robert R. Bowie
Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
The Status of Work on Presidential
Intelligence Priorities (Twenty
Questions)
1. Action Re nested: This memorandum is for your
information only.
2. Background: You will. recall that, back in the early
summer, the responsibility for this project rested with the
NSC Staff, to which you, State, OSD, and the JCS contributed
suggested subjects that might be included in the list. After
some six weeks of NSC Staff inaction, the responsibility was
passed to me. Repeated efforts on my part to get: a promised
contribution from David Aaron were unproductive.
3. In late August, we decided to go ahead without a
contribution from the NSC Staff. In approaching the problem,
it seemed to me that the PRC will wish to make sure that the
Intelligence Community devotes itself not only to furnishing
information of -immediate policy concern, but also to providing
basic research on subjects that will be of policy concern
over a protracted period of time. Consequently, I concluded
that a two-tiered approach was appropriate. My staff and I
set to work, accordingly, and developed a sample list of broad
topics of basic long-term interest, intended to guide our long-
range efforts in analysis and collection, and pointing the way
to more specific topics for basic National Intelligence Estimates.
We developed also a sample list of issues of immediate interest,
most of which were, in fact, subsets of the sample list of
the more basic topics.
4. These sample lists were circulated in late September
to those persons I was able to identify as the representatives
of OSD, JCS, State, Treasury, and the NSC Staff. After no
STAT-
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small effort, this group was finally convened twice in October
(minutes attached). The group agreed to the two-tiered approach,
but it wished the sample list of immediate issues to be posed
as questions. Accordingly, we appointed a working group to
collect and sift through these questions.
5. The working group ended up with some 120 sets of
questions. Unfortunately, the vast majority came from
State/INR; OSD did not contribute any; Treasury provided
only three; and the NSC Staff supplied us only with an internal
working document which was almost unintelligible. The working
group started working its way through this material on Thursday
and will finish its first look this afternoon. No NSC repre-
sentative was able to participate. The chairman plans this
weekend to produce a synthesized list that reflects the group's
comments. I will review it on Monday, at which point I will
have to decide whether the list is in decent enough shape to
take to my group, thus speeding up the process, or whether the
working group will have to give the list a second review next
week.
Distribution:
Original & 1 - Addressee
"l)- ER
1 - A/DDCI
1 - D/NFAC Chrono
1 - Registry Chrono
1 SA-NIO Support--File
JO Support--Chrono
28 Oct 77)
-2-
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 Now
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MEMO1 ANI)i i1 FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Meeting of the Presidential Priorities Group,
11 October 1977
1. Mr. Bowie chaired the meeting, which was attended by
Dr. Stevens and Mr. Lehman, CIA; Mr. Saunders, State; 2M1r.. Bergnten
and Mrs. Collins, Treasury; Mr. Bader, OSD; Lt:. Gen. Smith, JCS;
and Mr. Hoskinson, NSC.
2. The Group agreed that a two-list approach to setting
Presidential Priorities is in order. List A would contain subjects
on which policy makers expect the Intelligence Community to maintain
a capability to be called upon as required. The PRC(I) right bless
List A essentially as presented, though it would add to and delete
from the list when major shifts in emphasis occur.
3. List B would contain topics which pold:cy makers wish the
Intelligence Community to address in the next sip: to nine months.
The Group views its/own List B essentially as a device to stimu-
late policy makers to define just which issues should be included
in final List B.
4. The-Group was agreed that List B, particularly, would not
be considered a restraint on bringing to policy makers' attention
matters that deserved their attention, but about which they have
not expressed interest.
5. The Group recognized that the PRC(I) should not attempt to
do more than define what information it wishes. It will remain
for the intelligence agencies to refine Lists A and B Into tasking
for the producers of finished intelligence estimates and assess-
ments, for program managers who must establish and nourish intel-
ligence capabilities, and for the collectors of intelligence_
6. Lt. Gen. Smith asked Mr. Bowie if a link was envisaged
between Lists A and B and resource issues. Mr. Bowie responded
that. he thought the DCI might, from time to time, report to the
PRC(I) on the resource implications of its information requests.
Mr. Bowie saw the process as one of mutual education.
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'I. rlt ;: r::. Saunders and Stevens recommended that List: B,
part:icul.arly, be expressed in the for;: of questions. Mr, S:.unders
has convo.rted List. A into a series of questions, which he distributed_
Mr. 13~n; i.e invi ted all members of the Group to make similar contribut ions,
especi.aLly for. hi_sL B, preferably prior to the Group's next meeting.
8. Mr. Saunders distributed a list of suggested additions to
List 11. Treasury had previously suggested additions to both
lists, which were also distributed at the meeting.
STAT
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SUBJECT: Meeting of the Presidential Intelligence
Priorities Group, 1.7 October 1977
1. Mr. Bowie chaired the meeting, which was attended by
Mr. Saunders, State; Mr. Bader, OSD; Lt. Gen. Smith, JCS; Mr.. Long,
Treasury; Mr. Ilosk:i_nson, NSC; and Dr. Stevens, CIA.
2. The Group was agreed that List A should provide the framework
for the questions that would make up List B, thus making it possible
to move from one list to the other without confusion.
3. The PRC(I) members, when they are presented with List B,
should be asked to check whether a specific question is of low,
medium, or high interest, or of no concern to their part.: ular areas
of interest. There should be no limit on the number of cams tions
submitted, but an effort should be made to ke&p the list as short as
possible. The questions will concern only items of national interest,
not of narrow dcpartmentai interest. Questions as a rule, moreover,
will deal only with substance, not with such areas of activity as
counterintelligence.
6. The procedure for changing the lists will be for the PRC(I)
to address the lists periodically and change them as it deems appropriate.
Once the PRC(I) has done its work with the lists, it will remain
for Intelligence to decide which questions need to be addressed in
finished intelligence products, which require the develop-gent of new
analytical capabilities through basic research, and wn.i.c require
collection efforts.
5. There followed a discussion about the sorts of ra uirements
the PRC(I) would have to address in order to make sensible decisions
on resource issues. The Group recognized that it as pro`-ably deal-
ing with only one facet of the work the PRC(I) will under-_ake. It
was further recognized that lists A and I, will be probably only one
of several sorts of requirements and priorities that different sorts
of producers, processors, and coil cc tors will require---e.g., the
DCII) 1/2 attachmcent:.
STAT
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6. Vi nril.ty, tLe Croup aidel:ed the forma Li on of a work.i.ng, group
to conipi]c, a 1.i.,;t. B, drawing on thcu contributions of the various
parti.C1p,:1CI Ls . U slog List A as an oIii:].'toe, the work tug group will
group
a. when it encounters more than one version Of a
question ,
Se.Iect the 1)e.-5L for.mulnt:ton.
b. when it. encounters overlapping questions, combine and
Consolidate them.
c. compile a list of question to be dropped.
The working group was asked to complete its work as expeditiously as
possible under the chairmanship of the undersigned.
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TFFANSMITTAL SLIP DATE 19 Nov
TO:
D/DCI/NFAC R>gl3trl
ROOM NO.
BUILDING
REMARKS:
This material on "priorities" (which
the common man still calls 1120
Questions") comes from the DCI' s
out box. I assume yjru will be
collecting and serving him whatever
he will need for the upcoming PRC(I)
on the subject.
FROM:
CI
ROOM NO. BUILDING EXTENSION
I FFEB ORM 55.24 I REPLACES FORM 36-8
WEIICH MAY BE USED.
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