THE PROBLEM OF USIB

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01066A001400190010-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 7, 2006
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: April 27, 1973
• Content Type: MF

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27 JIPR 1973
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
1. At our 13 April meeting to review the SIGINT
Committee's Five Year Guidance Plan, you made some
comments on the usefulness of USIB and its Committees
and on the need to find better ways to task other
agencies. As I understand it, you feel that the jobs
now being done by USIB and by Committees like mine could
be better done by the IC Staff.
2. I disagree with this idea because I believe
the cure would wind up being worse than the disease.
There is no question that the USIB mechanism has defects.
But I believe it would be better to try to fix the things
that are wrong with USIB than to dismantle it and start
fresh. The remainder of this memorandum is my argument
in support of this view, and some suggestions for
improving the existing structure.
What are the pluses and minuses of the USrB and its
Committees?
3. They have many of the failings of committees
in general. That is, there is difficulty in responding
quickly to urgent tasks, judgments tend to be waffled,
parochialism tends to defeat objective analysis, and
seldom,is there an imaginative response to a difficult
question. These problems become noticeable whenever
a Committee is faced with an issue which has a major
budget impact. However, aren't these ills a result
of the basic structure of the intelligence community
itself? The community is composed of a group of
autonomous agencies, each with its own budget and
each with a chief owing primary allegiance to his own
department head. USIB and its Committees are reflections
of this structure, and so long as the structure remains
unchanged it will be very hard to make dramatic
improvements to USIB operations.
'DF
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SUBJECT: The Problem of USIB
4. In addition to these generic problems, the
USIB Committees have also suffered from the fact that
the agency representatives (including those from CIA)
Often turn out to be people who are mediocraties or
even downright inept.
5. Nevertheless, I submit that there are a
number of positive aspects to the USIB operations
which are often overlooked, as follows:
a. A useful mechanism is provided for
passing information on particular topics
across agency boundaries, and at all levels.
At the USIB meetings the DCI has a convenient
way to exchange views with the intelligence
chiefs and to receive information as well.
In the Committees and their working groups
senior management and the working level are
also provided with this opportunity.
b. A wide variety of problems which
range from being trivial to moderately
important are handled routinely. In general,
a standing committee provides a more effective
way to handle these problems than does the
creation of a fresh ad hoc group to deal with
each new problem.
c. Ready access is provided for user
organizations to air their particular concerns.
Conversely, the matters being discussed in
committee are routinely reported back to the
user organizations who thereby have a chance
to object to actions which they disagree with.
Both ways a mechanism exists to keep things
from falling between the cracks.
d. USIB and its Committees have an
institutional history which provides a useful
background against which to view incoming
action items. Members of ad hoc groups
convened to study new problems run the risk
of not knowing how related issues were dealt
with in the past.
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6. Another way to look at the performance of
USIB is to focus on the really egregious problems.
From my vantage point, the issue which has plagued
the community for years is the problem of getting
better collection and processing of radar and optical
data from missile reentries in the Pacific. Others
have told me that the community's approach to the
problems of narcotics and terrorism has been chaotic.
The thing these subjects all have in common is that
none of them are within the charter of any existing
USIB Committee. What this says is that however poorly
the Committees perform, in those areas where there are
no committees, things are worse.
What i there were no USIB?
7. The proposition is that the sort of work now
being done by the USIB Committees could be better
performed by the IC Staff. I don't think so. Even
though the IC Staff consists of people recruited from
all parts of the community, they owe their allegiance
to the D/DCI/IC. The present Committee representatives,
from the best to the worst, all have one thing in
common -- they represent their USIB principals directly.
I believe that each intelligence chief will insist on
nominating a man from his own organization to represent
him in any issues which concern him, whether handled by
the USIB or by the IC.
8. Thus, if the IC were to take over I would
foresee the creation of a number of "task forces" or
"working groups" or "ad hoc committees" to deal with
the problems as they arise. The members would be
nominated by the various intelligence chiefs. Over
the course of time some of these groups would become
institutionalized as standing committees dealing with
related problems. In short, a process much like that
in Orwell's Animal Farm is predicted.
9. The thing which would be missing from the new
set-up would be the regular "meetings at the summit"
between the DCI and the intelligence community chi;.-e=s.
Under the present system, each Committee chairman knows
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SUBJECT: The Problem of USIB
he will have to present his results in person at a
meeting of the DCI and other prestigious people.
This acts as a powerful deterrent to slipshod work.
Without the USIB forum, the caliber of people chosen
to represent the various agencies is more likely to
get worse than better. Also, the intelligence chiefs
would be tempted to end-run the IC and appeal directly
to the DCI whenever they were dissatisfied with the IC
proceedings. In the long run, the problem of inter-
agency coordination would be handled less efficiently
than is now the case.
What ought to be done to make USTB more e ectiye?
10. I have a number of suggestions, as follows:
a. The D/DCI/IC ought to take a more
active role in the coordination of the
activities of the USIB Committees. He
should see to it that the right groups are
working on the right problems and that
actions which absorb more than one Committee
are properly integrated. The authority to
do this exists, but it was seldom exercised
by the two previous incumbents.
b. The Committee chairmen should be
exhorted to be more flexible in getting the
work done. In particular, they should be
encouraged to draw on specialists to handle
issues which have a major budget impact.
They should work with the IC Staff to make
sure the problems are stated as precisely as
possible. In many cases, defining the
problem correctly is more than half the battle.
c. At the present time the USIB Committees
get staff support in haphazard fashion. Some
Committees have large staffs and others have
none. Staff support for the Committees should
be provided by the IC. This does not imply
that the IC Staff needs to get bigger; rather,
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that the IC Staff could serve as a conduit
for tasking the line organizations to do the
necessary work.
d. A conscious effort should be made to
upgrade the caliber of the chairmen and members
of the various Corun.ittees. I believe that the
best way to achieve this is to stipulate that
these people all be from the line organizations.
Furthermore, they should serve tSSIB only part
time so as to retain their links to the line
organizations.
e. The IC Staff is currently examining
the question of the adequacy of the mix of
the various Committees. It is anticipated
that their review will result in a new
spectrum of committees in which overlap is
minimized and gaps are ffilled. This action
was long overdue. Tt probably ought to be
redone at regular intervals, perhaps every
two years.
11. To recapitulate, I believe that the present
USIB mechanise can be rode to work better, and tha L it
would be a mistake to seek a new mechanism for community
coordination. But I things we should also recognize that.
so long as the structure of the community doesn't cha,=WINTL
there are limits to what can be achieved.
DAVID S. BPANDW .iniI
'7 i.ractor
Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center
Distribution:
Orig. & 1 - DCI
1 - DDCI
1. -- D/DC./IC
? - A/DD/S &T
b ((7731
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