TELLING THE INTELLIGENCE STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81-00261R000100050063-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2000
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: October 30, 1975
• Content Type: MF

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October 30, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT Telling the Intelligence Story
1. Problem
How can we tell the intelligence story better?
2. Position of the Congressional Committees
None anticipated.
3. Discussion
a. Publicity on the CIA in the last year has not
resulted in a rounded story. Much attention has been focused
on specific sensational bits and pieces of information. Agency
efforts to put these events into perspective generally have not
gotten the wide publicity given the original allegations and
revelations.
b. Altering this situation will require patience
and a gradual approach. It will also require a more open and
forthcoming attitude in the Agency's dealings with the media,
which provide our only significant access to the American
public. In large measure the Agency will have to await appro-
priate invitations and opportunities. We should then focus on
subjects that allow us to tell a rounded story.
c. There are several specific approaches we can
-- We can collaborate with the media when asked
to do so in developing feature articles, articles for publication
on selected topics, or television features. Sample topics
appear at Tab A. The Directorates should be polled for other
suitable subjects.
-- We can provide more backgrounders for columnists
and editorial writers. The present program for providing
substantive background briefings should be expanded as opportunities
arise. We should focus particularly on the subject of the future
of the CIA and the Intelligence Community.
Focusing on the future,
however, requires that there be an agreed upon Agency position
or, at a minimum, agreed upon options such as those presented
in the .Study Group Report.
E2 IMPDET
CL By 060236
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--We can plan a somewhat expanded rate of
acceptance of offers of public appearances and speeches by
senior Agency officials. Presentations can be tailored to fit
the occasion. Senior Agency officers other than the DCI and
DDCI should be made available more frequently to help carry
this load.
--We can make public unique CIA contributions to
the advancement of technology and keeping the peace. Already
extant film on "The Corona Story" could be cut and edited for
public showing or new film, stories, or features could be
produced. This reopens "the fact of" issue.
d. Two groups not related to the media could also
be used selectively to help tell the true story of intelligence.
--We can approach respected senior statesmen for L,
assistance either directly or indirectly through, for example,
people such as John McCone. Such assistance could take the o~-
f
form of statements indicating the important contribution o
intelligence in foreign policy formulation or the importance
of retaining an objective and unbiased source of national
intelligence. Alternatively, selected senior statesmen could
simply be briefed on the current difficulties without any direct
request for their help. A list of such people would have to be
developed in consultation with the Deputy Directors and the
approach to each person worked out on an individual basis.
,
tance to selected
i
ci
d
6'r
s
ous ass
i
--We can provide ju
former Agency employees and retirees who want to defend the
CIA in books, articles, or public appearances. "Judicious"
and "selected" are the operative words.
4. Recommendations
a. That.-the DCI decide which of the options listed
in paragraphs 3 c and d above should be pursued.
b. That the Assistant to the Director be instructed
to implement the selected programs in consultation with the
appropriate Directorates.
Samuel V. Wilson
Lieutenant General, USA
Chairman, Ad Hoc Task Group
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Sample Topics for Feature Articles, Backgrounders, or
Television Features
1. The 0 erations Center: The functioning of the CIA
Operations Center an its role in ensuring that the right in-
formation gets to the right people--fast--is not classified.
With proper security precautions, it should be possible to make
a genuinely interesting feature for television placement on a
have
el
ld lar
y
g
program such as Sixty Minutes. The feature wou
aT
to be developed by outsiders. -z cr
2. Personality Interviews: Interviews with senior
Agency of ici.als for personality profiles" could be arranged.
The interviewer, his intended audience, and the official would
have to be matched on a highly selective basis.
3. Current Intelligence: The process of producing
daily current intelligence is unclassified. A feature--
perhaps centered around a specific analyst--could be tailored
either for a scholarly publication or done in an upbeat manner
for film or television. The feature could be done by an out-
sider given access to appropriate DDI officers.
4. Academic Skills: A feature story could be prepared
by an outsi er on tie spread of academic skills in CIA. The
story could be done for a scholarly publication or could be
filmed for use in college recruitment.
5. Counter-intelligence: The CI Staff is developing
and coordinating an unclassified paper explaining the positive
side of counter-intelligence work, using a few sanitized
composite case studies. The paper can be used to develop a
feature article or as the basis for public presentations before
selected audiences, such as the Brookings Executive Seminar.
The Defector Program might also lend itself to such treatment.
6. Backgrounders: These will largely have to respond
to the issue o tTe- moment, e.g., Sam Adams' charges of in-
telligexice misfeasance or malfeasance regarding Vietnamese order
of battle figures; the notion that intelligence can be expected
to predict with precision coups or revolutions, particularly in
friendly countries; or the importance of maintaining access to
fragile communications intelligence and the damage that can be
done by revealing the seemingly harmless "four little words."
The DDs and ADDs and other senior officers could begin to
provide such backgrounders as quickly as: possible following
the development of the issue.
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MEMORANDUM FOR:
25X1A
For Friday meeting. No new ideas
here; proposing to forward to DCI.
25X1A
FROM: 1Fo4, Ha.
R1331, X7676
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