MEMORANDUM FOR DCI FROM DR. (Sanitized) ON NEW INTELLIGENCE PRESENTATION MEANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01082A000200010015-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 23
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 19, 2004
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: May 22, 1974
• Content Type: MF

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INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION HANDLING COMMITTEE
of the
UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE BOARD
IHC-MM-10/74
22 May 1974
MEMORANDUM FOR: Intelligence Information Handling Committee (IHC)
New Intelligence Presentation Means
1. At the IHC meeting on 24 April 74,1 ~ offered
to share with the Committee his memorandum to the on New Intel-
ligence Presentation Means. That memorandum, dated 1 May 1974, is
attached.
2. Included are the handwritten comments made-by the DCI
to on this subject. I think you will be very interested
to note the personal attention that Mr. Colby is giving to this
subject and his willingness to focus rather specifically on these
matters.
3. I am sure that will be interested in any comments
you may care to offer i i with his further exploration
of this general topic. You may communicate with him direct or
through me, as you prefer. This subject will be a matter of con-
tinuing interest for the IHC.
Acting Chairman, IHC
Att
Distribution:
1 - IHC Reps. F Alts.
1 - IC Registry
1 - IHC Reading
1 - IHC-MM File
1 - NCF Chrono
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
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1 May 19 74
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT , . _ : New Intelligence Presentation Means
This describes the rationale by which I am approaching
the subject.
Problem
To discover new approaches to the way in which information
media techniques and technology and related ongoing R&D could
be employed to extend user and analyst capacity for analyzing,
perceiving and understanding intelligence.
Introduction
It has some utility to restate the problem so that through
redundancy-there is refinement. What I anticipate is that through
understanding the relationship among
1) the process of organization of concepts,
ideas and facts,
2) the analytical methods which give new
insights to these, and .
3) the applicability of media techniques
and technology,
the Intelligence Community can lessen the impedance
? to the flow of intelligence between analyst
and user, and
? to the understanding of the data processor's
facts by the analyst.
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These three interact in what I would call a "feasibility equation,"
which I will describe subsequently. I anticipate that what is being
reported here will be a demonstration of the plausibility of the
course which is recommended, i. e. , the "strategic" view of how
to go at solving the "problem. " In practice, i. e., "taeticaNy" the
problem will be treated by meeting presentation needs in an
iterative way on a one-by-one basis -- at least till more
sophistication develops regarding "concept transfer" between
intellects.
I anticipate also that there will be few, if any, truly
unique, optimum solutions to presenting information but that
there will be a spectrum of possibilities any one of which might
be optimized to the needs of a particular intelligence user or
analyst. What ought to develop then if we are successful is
1) some primitive approaches to giving really
new insights to structually non-trivial concepts and
to complicated aggregation of facts, and
2) a management approach to satisfying user
preferences for gaining those insights when the
extant "bag of.tricks" is inadequate.
. The essence of developing new means of presentation
intelligence lies, I believe, in the skein that must be found
between
? the finished intelligence producer's
analytical construct or approach to finding the
meaning of facts, and .
? the media by which his conclusions can be
transmitted to the user.
If the producers use conventional approaches, then conventional use
of media will result. If, however, his approaches are conditioned
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by the full capabilities of available media, then the analytical
approach itself will foster the new presentation means. The
skein between facts to be analyzed and intelligence to be
presented is to be found -- I assert -- in the analytical
methodologies which are employed. In fact, depending upon
user or analyst preference many analytical methodologies
might link a given set of facts and a given medium of pre-
sentation.
To avoid being unremittingly theoretical, there follows
a listing of some
Q relevant problems of analysis,
r analytical methodologies, and
? media technical capabilities.
Problems of Analysis
Problems of analysis means those kinds of tasks faced
in certain offices of CIA, DDI and DDS&T; in DIA, DI and DE;
and in State, INR. As other departments of government
evolve their understanding of the role which intelligence can
play in supporting national interest activities perhaps new
tasks or new perspectives of old tasks will develop. Table 1
lists a number of problems, some specific in nature, other
general.
All of the problems listed in Table I are familiar. All
of them suggest or require a quantification of the facts involved.
This is a necessity for analytical methodologies any one of which
by its nature excludes intuition, i. e. , a given set of facts must
give rise to results which are invariant as to analyst. One can,.
of course, change results by changing analytical methods,
hypotheses in analyses or in tolerating varying levels of confidence.
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TABLE 1
Problems of Analysis
W
1. Indications and warning "thermometer"
2. Weapon systems' measures and portrayal.
3. Uncertainty measures and portrayal
4. Military economics analysis
5. Trade-off measures and portrayal
6. Crisis situation analysis
7. Current intelligence (and cable) dissemination
8. Prediction - elections, deployments, etc.
9. Verification (SALT/MBFR) measures of confidence
10. Decision-making process
11. Projection of trends
12. Succession analysis
13. Transaction analysis
14. Multi-parameter data analysis
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Analytical Methodologies
y
Analytical, methodologies abound. Table 2 probably onl
scratches the surface. The table clearly indicates a richness of
opportunity for trying new approaches to analysis and therefore
perhaps to presentation of results. Some of these methodologies
are being employed presently in CIA and DIA., possibly elsewhere
in the community. All of these are quantitatively based, most
require high-speed computers for practicality, and all have
potential for giving new insights to old problems. Some
methodologies by their nature will demand new media for
meaningful presentation of results, others could permit analysts
new, clearer or even differing insights.
:ra>-?r
Technique and Technol l/J' ,
Ste-
In my experience -- and from the research I have don
in recent weeks -- technique and technology are the least
ti
ibilit
t
f th
f
y equa
on,
eas
e
s o
developed or exploited aspec
especially with respect to reducing impedance to concept
of intelligence-presentations as a way both of understanding t!~ ~d
our current means of presentation and of stimulating new means.
The parameters which' presently appear adequate are five*:
.e
., ~ ~n _ m , ...~....E'____.. _..___--___, - f
2) Symbols vs charts (i. e. , digital vs analog);
3) Dimensionability (e. g. , B&W vs color);
4) Static (stationary) vs dynamic display; and
5) Interactive capability.
The number and categorization might change,
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SGME UNUSUAL "00111" 1v1EANS OF CONVEYING IDEAS
This Appendix is really just a primitive start at
a snore thorough survey of symbolic, textual and graphical
means of conveying ideas. The means are unusual only in
the sense that they are not commonly used in Intelligence
Community publications. As the illustrations which are
,used have been borrowed from a large number of sources
and are out of context, both of the original source and of
possible intelligence context, they suffer somewhat.
However, some brief comment is given opposite each
as a way of showing some relevance.
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The illustration opposite was produced by
cooperation between DDI/OBGI/Cartographic and
IC/MPRRG. It is a map of Africa in which dollars
expended on intelligence in given countries is dis-
played in vertical extend above the country.- The
technique could be applied to any of a number of
geographic variables of social, demographic,
economic or political activity.
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The illustration opposite is typical of
perspect*,ve in graphic plots. The logo beneath
the illustration explains what is being described
here; this presentation means might have utility
in trying to. show the movement of an entity in
which three dimensions are significant. One
example of this would be the absolute amount
of dollar resources which a given country ex-
pends on defense and social programs both
plotted as a function of time. One might use
the same type of plot for descriptions of re-
sources expended on PHOTINT, SIGINT and
HUMINT as a function of time in which hash
marks for fiscal years could be employed.
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This illustration opposite is the final
example of the use of perspective which might
aid in conveying a concept. One might imagine
that in some type of operations such a view could
be very useful during the preparatory stage.
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3~ iL~'9 ~'~~.~:~i~ ~~ i. cf :.
The illus ation opposite describes a way
of producing a n wspaper at a distance, and in
principle is al in use in the intelligence
community through LDX~
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The illustration opposite gives a schematic
of some of the branch points in arriving at a decision.
If, in regard to the DDIf OPR bayesian estimate of
conflict possibility, each analyst were to make a
decision tree, then after the fact the use of the
decision tree could help them to illustrate their
understanding of their colleagues' thinking and
a subsequent time-series analysis might indicate
significant events which changed thought processes.
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The illustration opposite makes two points:
(1) that there are a variety of unusual graph papers
which might aid readers in an understanding of
statistical data, and (2) that statistical data can be
smoothed somewhat as an aid to an under standing
of data. The model opposite summarizes a table
which had about $0 entries.
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