AGENCY TRAINING OFFICERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81-00896R000100300030-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 27, 2001
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: February 23, 1972
• Content Type: MEMO

ADMiUISiP1Ai VE--EN E 1,1 L C E ' "1 Y
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23 February 1972
Agency Training Officers:
I. Present Situation
There are at present some 48 component Training Officers,
plus five Senior Training Officers. These individuals range
in grades from GS-08 through GS-16, hold varying types of
jobs, with wide arcs of responsibility, and with extremely
different "charters" from the Office Director and/or
Division Chief as the case may be. These people wear
other hats in many instances; they serve as Personnel
Officer, Personnel Assistant, Deputy or Chief of Support,
Operations Officer, Executive Officer, Administrative
Assistant, etc. There are only a few full-time Training
Officers, with training as their sole responsibility.
STATINTL
In most of these cases, the officers
named are responsible for conducting training programs as
well as being a component Training Officer.
II. Problem Areas
The largest problem area is in the Clandestine Service.
There is lack of continuity in Training Officer assignments.
Not only do we see constant changes in those assigned to
the Training Officer function, but most of those so named
are S or SP careerists, with little or no knowledge of
operations and operational training, the major source of
training for D careerists. The problem is also magnified
by the rather different managerial hierarchy in the CS,
when compared to the other Directorates. Complete chaos
is prevented by the location of the Senior Training Officer,
STATINTL , on the C/OPSERV's Staff and his directive
to components to route all external training requests to
him, and internal training requests for selected Operations
STATINTL School and courses. DDP/TRO also selects the CS
nominees for BOC, AOC, etc., and serves as the CS repre-
sentative on the Agency's Training Selection Board.
III. The Close to Ideal Situation
I believe a component Training Officer is most effective
when attached, T/O wise, to the Administrative Staff, privy
to the Career Board deliberations and decisions, and a
person who speaks with authority and has some "clout".
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STATINTL
STATINTL
The latter results from a close association with top manage-
ment of his Division or Office. Examples are found in the
Support and Intelligence Directorates: (a) OL: the Training
Officer is located in OL's'Personnel and Training Staff".
He is given full rein in training matters and has direct
access to the Director of Logistics. He is brought in on
the Career Board decisions, and with D/OL's backing has
drawn up training guidelines for all OL Divisions and
Branches, thus giving equitable treatment to training
sponsorship. (b) OC: here the Training Officer is located
in the Career Management Staff , the Chief of which, STATINTL
-, is the D/OC's Special Assistant on all training
and personnel matters. The same situation prevails as
mentioned above in OL's training set-up. Here, of course,
OC must have several Training Officers, one handling OTR
and external training, one for correspondence course
training, and others over-seeing OC's technical training
assignments (we are purposely omitting the large installation
- since this is not pertinent to the subject at hand).
(c) DDI/Central Reference Staff: here again the Training
Officer is located in the Personnel Office, directly under
the Administrative Officer, and is brought in on all Career
Board decisions. Although rather junior in grade, she
has the backing of the Director/CRS and is effective as
a Training Officer.
IV. Suggestions for Improvement
Since it is difficult to initiate changes in a system
over which OTR has no direct control, here are a few
suggestions for improvement:
(a) We would encourage the Senior Training
Officers, in particular the DDP/TRO and DDS/TRO, to
reinstate the old precedure of having a, monthly, or
quarterly, meeting with their Training Officers,
perhaps inviting a few from other Directorates, e.g.,
OC and OS Training Officers to the CS meetings, etc.
This would provide a forum for the Training Officers to
discuss their problems, ask for guidance, etc. Selected
OTR Personnel could attend and present topics of current
training interest, e.g., changes in course content,
prerequisites, changes in location, language develop-
ments, etc. (I believe DDS has started such a. practice
on a, small scale.)
(b) More training and orientation is needed;
here ISS can run another one-day Orientation for
Training Officers in the near future. (This will
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still only scratch the surface; past experience has
shown a maximum enrollment of 20-25; a minimum of
10-15.) e are at the moment offering "ad hoc"
briefings to new Training Officers and Training
Assistants.
(c) We might consider the advisability of
assigning individuals who have served a tour with
OTR, or are actually ST Careerists, to the Senior
Training Officer positions. STATINTL
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ADMINISTRATIVE