COORDINATION OF CIA INFORMATION HANDLING ACTIVITIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81-00261R000500030057-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2002
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: June 1, 1978
• Content Type: REQ

l June 1978
Approved For Release 2003/04/17 : CIA-RDP81-00261 R000500030057-6
COORDINATION OF CIA INFORMATION HANDLING ACTIVITIES
GOAL:
Develop a comprehensive Information Handling Strategy
for CIA and a formal mechanism for coordination of the
Agency's ADP, communications, records management and word
processing activities.
PROBLEM:
1. The Executive Advisory Group has given considerable
attention to the problem of managing the automatic data pro-
cessing activities of CIA, recognizing the need for careful
control over the growth of this expensive resource. It is
becoming increasingly apparent, however, that to control ADP
is to control only one element in a family of activities all
of which involve the handling of information.
2. CIA collects, transmits, stores, retrieves, shares,
collates, transforms, produces and publishes information in
bewildering profusion. To facilitate these multiple processes
we have developed highly sophisticated and costly communica-
tions and ADP systems, related in various ways to our printing
and publication facilities and to the pervasive records man-
agement processes through which we identify and safeguard the
information we need to accomplish our intelligence tasks.
3. These various information handling tools are highly
interdependent. Computer data flows on communications lines;
communicated messages come to rest in computer data banks;
computerized records are converted to microfilm and micro-
fiche; filmed and paper records are scanned electronically
for communication to remote display terminals; word process-
ing techniques expand the computer data base or feed
computerized text-editing and printing processes, etc., etc.
A management program to control a single element in this
family of activities will be frustrated by the ways in which
decisions made in another area can generate new, unprogrammed
increases in workload. The managers of the larger informa-
tion service components are aware of the need for coordination
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and this awareness has protected us from major problems to
date, but a new element is entering the picture, threatening
organizational loss of control.
4. The emerging, as yet ill-defined techniques of "word
processing," are beginning to place in the hands of individual
officers or units the capacity to handle their information far
more effectively and efficiently. This new localized word
processing power is accompanied, however, by the ability to
generate new and unanticipated demands on the central ADP and
communication systems, and it threatens to have dramatic
impact on our records management programs. The Information
Systems Analysis Staff in the O/DDA is attempting to measure
the costs and benefits of these new techniques, but is find-
ing that without the ADP and communication factors the analy-
sis of word processing lacks significance. There are, to be
sure, "stand-alone" word processors, but the advantages of
interconnection are enticing and easily obtained in today's
market, and the use of computer terminals as word processors
(using software packages like SCRIPT) has the potential for
uncontrolled growth.
5. The new Office of Community Information Systems
(OCIS) will apparently be looking at some of these problems
as they relate to the Intelligence Community. CIA has no
counterpart to OCIS, no single voice speaking knowledgeably
about the way information is or should be managed in the
Agency. Indeed, as is noted at budget defense time every
year, CIA does not even have one focal point for all its ADP
effort. The Director of Data Processing manages and can
speak for only about half of the Agency's ADP resources.
6. One of the three DDA management goals for 1978,
along with the search for greater effectiveness and pro-
ficiency, was the enhancement of information management in
the directorate. As we attempt to achieve this goal, we are
continually reminded of the fact that in CIA the'sharing of
information and information-handling facilities makes a one-
directorate approach to this problem ineffective. We need
a mechanism to plan and coordinate our information-handling
activities on an Agency-wide basis.
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ACTION PROPOSED:
1. Establish a CIA Information Handling Board (IHB)
with a small permanent secretariat or Information Handling
Staff (IHS) to provide a senior-level mechanism for creating,
examining, coordinating and modifying Agency information-
handling policies, activities and plans. The Board, to be
chaired by the DDA, should include the DDS&T, DDO, D/NFAC,
and Comptroller, or their representatives. The Staff should
be headed by a senior officer (GS-15 or -16) and include two
other professionals, plus clerical support.
2. The CIA Information Handling Board would:
a. Develop and coordinate definitions of and broad
Agency policy for information-handling activities.
b. Develop and maintain a comprehensive inventory
of Agency information-handling activities.
c. Review plans and proposals for new activities
to identify major systems implications, and to ensure
compliance with general information-handling policy.
d. Monitor significant trends in information
handling.
e. Assist in the preparation of program and budget
submissions relating to information handling.
f. Coordinate Agency efforts to identify new and
useful techniques, anticipate new requirements, and
plan for new systems for handling information.
g. Maintain familiarity with the plans and guidance
developed by OCIS and the IHC for the Intelligence
Community.
h. Appoint and support the CIA representative to
OCIS and the IHC.
i. Refer to the Executive Advisory Group (EAG) such
information as may be particularly useful to the EAG in
its role as overseer of ADP management.
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 D. May 6/1/78
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Examples of current problems.
1. At least eight systems or devices, currently being
planned in the Agency, are intended to perform or are capable
of.performing word processing functions. Included are the
following:
OC Automatic Field Terminal (AFT)
DDO CRAFT Terminal
DDI SAFE
ODP-sponsored standard soft copy terminal
SCRIPT on the ODP VM system
Composing and dispatching cables using the ODP VM system
OL ETECS system
Interconnecting ETECS and VM
Etc.
There is no central planning or review process in the Agency
to determine whether these parallel efforts are needed and
to ensure that they are carried out in a coordinated manner.
2. The IHC plans to undertake a study to identify all Com-
munity data bases and the need for access thereto by analysts
in the Community. The OCIS will prepare a Community-wide
five year information system resource plan based on input
from Community members. The Agency does not have a central
.focal point to deal with these and other Agency-wide issues
emerging from the IHC, OCIS, OMB, or the Congress.
3. There seems to be a high degree of similarity between the
concepts and requirements driving the SAFE development project
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and parts of the CRAFT program proposed by the DDO. These
two programs must be rationalized in the Agency to ensure
that full advantage is taken of opportunities for commonality.
There is currently no Agency mechanism to examine these
programs in an Agency-wide context.
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 1 6/1/78
Approved For Release 2003/04/17 : CIA-RDP81-00261 KUUUOUUU;JUUO -
Information Handling Policy Questions
- What word processing links exist between non-ODP computer
installations and their customers? What are the resource
implications of these links?
What control do we have (should we have) over customer-
initiated, unprogrammed expansion of on-line computer
applications?
- What kinds of distributed processing networks should we
be developing?
- How much systems survivability can we afford?-Do we need?
To what extent will (can, should) IC standards in communi-
cations and data processing apply in CIA? Do we need
separate CIA standards?
What mini-computer applications can we identify? defend?
What parts of our automated data bases are records? How
should they be scheduled and protected as records? Are
any of our data bases vulnerable to inadvertent destruc-
tion?
- What role should records management play when a new auto-
mated information-handling application is adopted?
STAT
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 ^ UNCLASSIFIED
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
Coordination of CIA Information Handling Activities
EXTENSION
NO
FROM:
.
Al/ LJUA
STAT
DATE
1 JUN 1978
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
1.
DDA
Attached is a final(?)
2
version of the talking paper on
.
Information Handling. The
revision of the Action portion
'
3
s input
reflects this morning
from Danny May.
Also attached, for use as
4
appropriate during the discus-
sion of the proposal, are Danny's
"
"
5
examples of current problems
and a few "policy questions"
which I prepared, incorporating
6.
suggestions from OC. None of
us believes these specific items
should be in the talking paper,/kit
7.
we give parochial opponents
to*
specific targets to shoot at
before they consider the broad
8.
question of the need for better
coordination.
9.
10.
Atts: a/s
11,
cc: ADDA (via EO/DDA)
D/ODP
D/OC
12.
13.
14.
15.
^ IILFERAnimly L _ 2, ONFIDENTIAL ^ SECRET-
STAT
FORM USE PREVIOUS INTERNAL
3-62 610 EDITIONS ^ SECRET ^ CONFIDENTIAL ^ USE ONLY ^ UNCLASSIFIED