OFFICIAL ACTION ON TABLES OF CONTENTS VERSUS PERIODICAL ABSTRACTS OF SOVIET SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81-00706R000300110043-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2002
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: March 7, 1952
• Content Type: LIST

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SECURITY INFORMATION
OFFICIAL ACTION ON
TABLES OF CONTENTS VERSUS PERIODICAL ABSTRACTS
OF SOVIET SCDWTIFIC PERIODICALS
2 April 1947 "Periodical Abstracts" initiated, covering all fields.
6 August 1947 Periodical Abstracts (Scientific) first issued as a separate volume.
26 December 1947 PRC approved a project for a complete bibliography of Soviet periodicals
to be undertaken by 00 to fulfill ORE requirements 4b6~"@Sraphp @9
(bibliography to consist of translation of tables of contents of all
Soviet periodicals, including scientific and technical received in CIA).
14 January 1948 Requirements received from ORE.
12 May 1948 First "Bibliographies" issued (delay due to arguments about FDD's capa-
bilities, priorities, etc.). Published as an unclassified publication
without indication of CIA origin.
June 1948 State Department said to have requested "Bibliographies": memo not
four]
5 April 1949 Reproduction and dissemination of the FDD Bibliographies by the Library
of Congress (as part of their Monthly List of Russian Accessions)
authorized by the Executive of CIA.
18 April 1949 Official arrangement with the Library of Congress signed by the DCI
(FDD to provide typewritten drafts of translated tables of contents
to the Library of Congress. This system continued until 23 February
1950, see below) publication of separate "Bibliographies" by CIA/FDD
suspended.
30 November 1949
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23 February 1950
24 February 1950
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Late 1950
26 December 1950
18 January 1951
8 February 1951
PRC turns down OCD proposal, and indicates that the Monthly List is of
general public interest rather than "an intelligence function that CIA
would be obligated to perform."
Executive of CIA officially informs Librarian of Congress that:
a, demands on our linguists are such that "we must cease providing
translations as of this date."
Question was raised whether Periodical Abstracts (Scientific) best
served the purposes of scientific intelligence consumers and OSI
was asked to survey the Scientific Intelligence Committee to find out.
05I reports to AD/O
"The members of the SIC have indicated unanimously that a translated
list of titles of all scientific and technical items in Russian
periodicals would be preferable to the publication 'Periodical
Abstracts.' The agencies represented in this agreement are: Array,
Navy, Air Force, AEC and CIA."
FDD suspends publication of Periodical Abstracts on 18 January 1951
with issue No. 166.
Chief, Intelligence Division, for AC of S-G-2, Department of Army,
objects to discontinuance of Periodical Abstracts, saying:
"Although it has been stated that a 'Title' list will be published
covering generally the same material formerly covered by the
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'Periodical Abstracts,' it is felt that the interests of G-2
cannot be served adequately by this substitution. Likewise, the
intelligence interests of the Technical Services of the Department
of the Army are not adequately supplied by such a 'Title' list."
Says ONI and A-2 also want abstracts on electronics.
9 February 1951 AD/0 sends AD/SI a study on "Publication of Tables of Contents of
Soviet Periodicals" with enormous lists and appendices, showing that:
a. Total of 87 Soviet periodicals of value to scientific
intelligence are received in U.S.
25X6
b. Translations of tables of contents of 80 of these being
published in three available English publications issued by;
1. Brookhaven National Laboratory
2. Army Medical Library
c. These three publications don't present material in most
convenient form, and don't use standard transliteration system,
but titles are well-translated,
d. Possible solutions to "table of contents" needs;
1. Wider dissemination of three publications above.
2. Reassembly, retransliteration, publication and dissemina-
tion of these three in a more convenient form (could be done by
OSI or FDD).
3. Publication by FDD (independently) of a more standardized
"table of contents"-would require three linguists.
17 February 1951 AD/CD replies to G-2, saying Periodical Abstracts will be resumed
and a survey of IAC agencies will be undertaken to see what they
want in the way of abstracts, title lists, etc.
23 February 1951 FDD resumes publication of Periodical Abstracts with issue No. 167.
5 April 1951 AD/CD officially asks IAC agencies what they want, outlining the
background of the problem (Appendix A), indicating present form of
exploitation and possible alternatives (Appendix B). Specifically
requests survey of all scientific and technical units in each
Agency and of consumers under any "secondary dissemination."
"a. Whether our present methods of exploitation are satisfactory
and should be continued unchanged.
b. What changes in these present methods would make them fulfill
the needs of a majority of the using agencies more adequately.
c. 'What additional methods should be undertaken (within personnel
limitations) to meet the unfulfilled common needs of more than one
using agency.
d. Which of the alternative methods of exploitation should be
undertaken at the expense of present activities (i.e., whether pub-
lication of a "Title List" should be substituted for "Periodical
Abstracts," or tether they should both be dropped and the effort
expended on ether types o] exploitation as indicated in ippendix ]."
30 April 1951 G-2 replies that "present methods of exploitation are satisfactory
anU should be continued unchaned." Lists subject fields to be
covered by Periodical Abstracts
1 May 1951 ONI replies that:
a. any modification should be in the direction of "fulfilling
requests for specific subject searches and translations."
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b* publication of tables of contents would be a duplication,
but FDD should perhaps cover the few titles not included in
listings from Brookhaven, etc,
c. Periodical Abstracts should be continued.
19 June 1951
State replies that it is not a "user," since it has no scientific
units as such, but that it:
a* gets the Soviet periodicals for everyone.
b. believes that research and industrial needs should be
served as well as intelligence needs*
co suggests greater use of Chemical Abstracts and similar
services or possible public dissemination of FDD abstracts perhaps
through Office of Technical Services (Commerce).
9 August 1951 AEC replies that "present method of exploitation of foreign documents
is satisfactory to us."
17 October 1951 A-2 replies that present methods are satisfact no changes or
a itional methods seem to be necessary, Periodical Abstracts
should be continued. Also lists fields which Periodical Abstracts
should cover. Says Air Targets Division has special requirements,
and would like part of the effort now spent on Periodical Abstracts
used for preparing "short well-documented reports on specialized
subjects in response to specific requests."
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S'ECUR!TY - 'np ~
PART II - Events and Projects related directly or indirectly to the Periodical
Abstracts problems.
6 May 1948 Informal arrangement between FDD and Chemical Abstracts to avoid
duplication in abstracting.
30 December 1948 Upgrading of classification of material from Soviet publications.
Periodical Abstracts (Scientific) made SECRET on cover; individual
cards not classified when cut up and separated from cover.
4 November 1949 Meeting between OSI and 00/FDD on abstracting problems (as a
result of OSI publication of a paper "Abstracting services as an
intelligence tool for assessing Soviet chemical research"--which
said that a time-lag of 9 to 17 months between appearance of an
article and its English abstracting did not matter). Decision
reached that:
25X1 C
b. OSI divisions to supply FDD with lists of journals to be covered
by FDD.
13 January
1950
25X1A approved. Information to be developed
25X1A
23 October 1951
2 5X1A
from Soviet periodicals and semi-evaluated by individual abstractors,
(Project was continued in 1951, but it is believed to have had
inadequate results and to have been discontinued).
IOSI, informally present paper to AD/O on "Russian
Overt Material and the way to its maximum exploitation" indicating
that present methods are completely unsatisfactory and proposing
a Center, staffed with qualified DP's and defectors to study the
literature and produce summaries and semi-evaluated studies. Paper
discussed by Chief, FDD and returned to for presentation
to AD/SI and possible presentation of a project.
Early fall 1951 Librarian of Congress proposes to DCI: 25X1 A
a. Change in format of Monthly List-to include subject, indexing
and translation of titles of tables of contents-new arrangement to
cover 200 periodicals.
25X1A
25X1A
10 October 1951
29 October 1951
b. Reorganization of Slavic Union Catalogue-to include trans-
lated book titles and new cards.
c. More comprehensive coverage of participating s
of Soviet literature.
OSI publishes CIA/SI 77-S I "A Listing of Russian Periodic Publica-
tions since 1939" (including lists of political, historical and other
non-scientific categories of serial publications).
AD/O suggests that OSI should coordinate such efforts with FDD and
says Library of Congress just covered the same field, listing 6000
titles in "Serial Publications of the USSR."
4 December 1951 AD/SI replies that the publication was started while
working in FDD and finished after his transfer to . Ads that
it doesn't really duplicate the Library of Congress listing, and
that the latter had only 3049 titles, the other "entries repre-
senting very good cross-referencing."
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SECRET
OSI Projecti
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$MATON
Around or before DCI approves
1 January 1952
25X1A
Economic Intelligence Committee backed the project; OCD Librarian to
monitor it.
(New format and arrangement of Monthly List
to appear with March issue which will probably come out on 1 April!)
SECRET
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25X1A
Library of Congress project:
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FOF1,11 NO. 55-5 5 ^ ~~
NOV. 1950
INTERN?:iL RCL;IING AND P.E8ORD SLIP
Office of Operations
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FROi,: TO
? ir. Carey
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RET:i'iY IZS :
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