SHORT AND LONG-TERM PROBLEMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600300068-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2004
• Sequence Number: 68
• Publication Date: September 1, 1978
• Content Type: MF

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1. .3
OLC: 78-4044
1 September 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Legislative Counsel
Assistant Legislative Counsel
SUBJECT : Short and Long-Term Problems
1. You asked for an evaluation of short and long-term problems
facing OLC. This memorandum responds to that request. It deals first
with the way the Office is organized to cope with the general types of
problems it handles. This section includes an assessment of some
operational difficulties and offers several suggestions for overcoming them.
The second section discusses a number of substantive problem areas.
OLC Organization
2. I believe that the three-staff structure makes sense and ought to be
maintained. The issue here is whether there is a need for a separate
Coordination and Review Staff. It is true that both the Liaison and C&R
Staffs have`seemingly similar liaison responsibilities, but there are important
differences between these liaison roles. Liaison Staff deals mainly
in continuing relationships with permanently established committees, while
C&R is engaged in liaison relationships with a group of transient investigative-
type committees and subcommittees whose composition varies over time.
The issues involved in dealings with these assorted investigatory groups tend to
be more legalistic (Memorandums of Understanding, Nondisclosure Agreements,
limits of access to Agency material, etc.) and less involved with ongoing
substantive intelligence production, the budget cycle, or real-time oversight
of the Agency. The complexity of the investigative issues requires full-
time management attention at the Staff Chief level. Combining the two Staffs
under one manager who would inevitably accord the investigative liaison
accounts secondary importance would be a risky proposition. What we
do need, I believe, are Staff designations that more accurately reflect
functional realities. I would suggest, therefore, that Liaison Staff be
renamed Oversight Liaison Staff (OLC /OLS) , and that C &R be renamed
Operations and Issues Staff (OLC/OIS).
3. C&R Staff also handles a number of other accounts, including
FOIA, preparation of the weekly book, referrals of inquiries by
Liaison Staff and special projects assigned by the Legislative Counsel and
his Deputy. C&R Staff was envisaged as the place where longer range
office planning and problem solving would take place, but this has not
fully materialized. This, I would submit, has been the case for two key
reasons:
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-- No staff can be both a full-time t ink tan and an operating
arm of the office;
-- It is unrealistic to expect one staff to perform forecasting
and planning functions for the entire office, especially
when realistic planning requires intimate familiarity with
current problems.
4. My point is that to a great extent each officer in OLC must be
responsible for thinking ahead and planning to cope with the problems
likely to arise in his own area of responsibility. A Staff like C&R
can be useful in such efforts, but it would be disasterous for its
existence to be viewed as an excuse for the rest of the Office not to
be concerned with planning for the future.
5. What C&R can do best is to take hold of issues that cut
across Staff lines; devise strategies for handling them; coordinate
these proposed solutions within and outside the Office; and see to it that
they are approved at appropriate levels and implemented. Recent work
done on the compartmented clearances issue is a case in point. What this
kind of work requires is a clear delegation of authority over a particular issue
area, even where this ostensibly conflicts with the responsibilities of
other Staffs. I believe that the tendency to deal with issues principally according
to the context in which they arise, rather than on the basis of their substance,
is one of the Office's weak points. There is little to be gained from having
issue "case officers" who have neither the information nor the bureaucratic
mandate to deal with all the ramifications of a problem. I must hasten
to say that I am not suggesting that such authority always be delegated
to C&R; on the contrary, the appointment of issue case officers should
always be made on the basis of subject expertise and degree of involvement
on the part of particular individuals and Staffs .
6. C&R can also do some longer range think tank type work.
For purposes of planning along these lines it would be well to keep
the following realities in mind.
-- The burden of dealing with investigative committees
and subcommittees will vary over time, but it will
never disappear completely. Some of the groups we
presently deal with are approaching the end of their
mandates and will soon expire. We would be fool-
hardy, however, to assume that no other issues and
committees will arise to take their place; in fact,
it is almost certain that this will happen.
C&R control over the use of its resources is limited by
its responsibility for handling referrals from Liaison
Staff, and the fact that special tasking from top
management usually involves items that must be
given high priority. Assuming the continued existence
of separate Liaison and C&R Staffs, I offer the following
suggestions regarding referrals:
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Staff to the Chief/C&R Staff to assure management over-
sight and control on both ends of the exchange .
-- Incoming inquiries likely to be answered by C&R should
be routed directly to the Chief/C&R. The present
system of routing through Liaison Staff serves no logical
purpose.
7. The only practical way to assure the maintenance of a broad long-
term planning capability may be the institution of a rotational system whereby
individual OLC officers would be relieved of their regular assignments for
specified periods to work on particular planning projects. These assignments
would vary in length from a few weeks to a few months depending on the
complexity of the subject matter involved.
8. OLC has suffered from a lack of attention to managerial
problems. It is unfair to ask a Deputy Legislative Counsel or
Staff Chief with enormous substantive responsibilities to also function
in what is essentially an Executive Officer capacity. Ideally, we
would have a full-time Executive Officer, but the Office to is probably
too small to justify such a position. There is a backlog of problems that
requires the full-time attention of a senior officer, however, and I would
recommend the assignment of a Staff Chief-level officer to the position of
temporary Executive Officer for such time as is necessary to put this
Office on a firm administrative footing.
9. The reading board provides an essential means of keeping
up with substantive issues being handled by colleagues, but there
are two key problems with this mechanism: it is neither timely
nor complete. I would suggest the establishment of a real-time
reading board in the Front Office, complete with copies of all
attachments to letters and memoranda.
10. A final suggestion regarding Office routine. When we prepare
letters for the signature of the Legislative Counsel or the DCI, why not
wait at least for Legislative Counsel sign-off before preparing and
addressing copies. A great deal of valuable secretarial time could be
saved if we were to eliminate the need to re-do distribution copies when
changes are made.
Substantive Problems
11. The following are some of the substantive issues that I believe
merit our attention:
-- Compartmented Clearances: Several problems remain in
getting the Guidelines and Procedures implemented. The
"S. Res. 4" issue is one of these. We will have, at some
point, to deal with the sticky problem of actually withdrawing
compartmented access approvals from some personal staffers.
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Community Memorandums of Understanding: You will recall
that we have experienced a notable lack of success in efforts
to work out Community-wide MOUs in relation to various
investigative- type committees' access to intelligence
information. The problems involved here will remain
pertinent even after the current group of investigative
committees are replaced by others.
Dissemination of Finished Intelligence to the Congress: I
believe that this is one of the most important longer range
problems we have. It involves questions relating to the
dissemination of both classified and unclassified Agency
intelligence production on the Hill. There are still serious
shortcomings in this Office's knowledge about finished
intelligence production, and OLC is not playing the role
that it could in helping to score points for the Director
through judicious distribution of finished intelligence.
I have taken some steps to improve this situation, but
a Front Office initiative will be needed eventually.
Potential Effect of the 1978 Election on our Congressional
Relationships: This is obviously something to which all
Staffs must contribute. I think we should be planning
for pre and post-election reports to the Director.
ST
Assistant Legislative Counsel
Distribution:
Original - Addressee
1 - OLC Subject
1 - OLC Chrono
OLC:GMC:mlg (1 Sept 78)
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