NFAC CONTRIBUTION TO DCI ANNUAL REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M00596A000300020004-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 11, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 30, 1978
• Content Type: PAPER

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Approved For Release 2004/03/23 : CIA-RDP80M00596A000300020004-8
30 NOV 1978
NFAC CONTRIBUTION TO DCI ANNUAL REPORT
I. 1978 in Intelligence
A. 1. a. NFAC's first full year
The year began with the establishment of the National Foreign
Assessment Center (NFAC) as a new organizational home for analytic
components directly supporting the DCI. The principal. effect of this
restructuring was to bring together the National Intelligence Officers
.and CIA's analytic offices under a single chief,.the Deputy Director
for National Foreign Assessment. The move underscored the DCI's respon-
sibility for coordinating the intelligence production activities of
the entire Community, and NFAC's role as his principal agent in this
area.
NFAC's dual role, incorporating both CIA and Community responsi-
bilities, was highlighted-during 1978 in the process of institutionalizing
the National Intelligence Topics (NITs). These lists of long-term and
short-term substantive requirements and priorities, which had been
developed by the policymakers late in 1977 at the President's request,
were coordinated by an interagency Steering Group led by DD/NFA. Both
the questions and the priorities were reviewed on several occasions by
the NSC Policy Review Committee (Intelligence); they were approved and
published as Community guidance in August.
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/Executive Order 12036 made clear the consumers' primary responsi-
bility to set priorities for the Intelligence Community. The NITS are
the formal expression of these consumer priorities. The big difference
between the NIT process and those it replaced--such as the Key Intelli-
gence Questions (KIQs)--is that guidance in the past has been prepared
by the Intelligence Community based on what it assumed were the policy-
makers' needs.
The NITs actually include two separate sets of priorities:
--l Topics of Basic Interest intended to guide the
development of capabilities for collection,
research, and analysis over the longer term;
-- the more- specific Current Interest topics that
tell intelligence collectors and producers what
top policymakers need over the next six to nine
months.
The lists are reviewed and updated by the PRC(I) every four months
to keep them. current. The principal voice in the updating process is,
again, that of the policymaker.
Since their inception, the NITs have served as a basis for reviewing
analytical production programs to ensure that the output is responsive
to the policymakers1 questions. The NITs are also guiding the preparation.
of more specific and detailed intelligence requirements, particularly
those contained inI in order to give the collectors!as precise
guidance as possible./
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The NFAC Production Board has been the primary mechanism for
developing our own production program by bringing together the NIOs
and Office Directors on defined problems. Once the NITs were formu-
lated, the Production Board served as the vehicle for reviewing and
adapting production plans to ensure responsiveness to the policy-
makers' requirements.
The Steering Group composed of the Directors of INR and DIA and
DD/NFA (Chairman) was reactivated to coordinate the focusing of Commu-
nity production on the NITs. The various NIOs, working with their
F~ubstantivee colleagues in the other agencies, took on the responsi-
bility of sorting out the details of an integrated Community effort
to satisfy consumers' needs.
By the end of the year the procedures for reviewing, updating,
and evaluating the NITs were being worked out on an interagency basis,
and preparations were under way to report to the PRC(I) on the results
of the first four-month period.
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