(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00283R000200100003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 24, 1998
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 22, 1961
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2000/05/24:
0200100003-2
AD/RR.
Executive Secretary, EIC
EIC Subcommittees
22 March 1961
1. Ted Nordbeck's imminent visit has prompted me, as I
stand here on the New Frontier, to draw my shooting iron and take
dead aim on some of the problems that relate to the EIC Subcom-
mittees.
2. It has been rather interesting to wander through some of
the EIC files and become acquainted with past attempts to solve the
problems connected with moribund Subcommittees. On 14 November
1955, for example, a staff study was written for the Ai?/RR in which
it was recommended that an Advisory Panel be established for the
purpose of giving general assistance to the EIC. This proposal was
advanced because of the inactive and unproductive life of the General
Economic Analysis Subcommittee (SEA). Here is a striking sentence
from the memorandum: "The SEA, which should have been the cap-
stone of the EIC Subcommittees, has been the most limited in its
activities. "
3. The Advisory Panel was either aborted or strangled in the
cradle so another review of the problems resulting from an inactive
SEA took place on i8 A ril 1957. A copy of the memo of 14 November
1955 was attached and wrote: "Both. Rush and I consider
this paper an appropriate starting paint for our discussion." The min-
utes of this ad hoc meeting have not been handed down to posterity but
the lasting e' fecT's of the meeting are all too apparent in reading SEA's
annual report for 1958. A few sentences will suffice to prove that the
meeting did not result in any frenzied activity on the part of SEA and
its Chairman:
111. No meetings were held during the year.
"2. No projects were undertaken by the members of
the Subcommittee.
:13. No substantive discussions of economic intelligence
were held by the Subcommittee. "
4. The moral of all this seems to be that no Subcommittee can
be very active if the various agencies around town have no competent
or appropriate members to contribute. In the case of SEA, only CIA
A. p 4 ~ 7"
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SUBJECT: EIC Subcommittees
and State are engaged in over-all economic analysis on the Bloc and
of course CIA now does almost all of it. Although the SEA has al-
ways led a quiet life it has never bothered anyone nor cost anything
for administrative upkeep. It does provide a convenient apparatus
for coordinating external research proposals as well as evaluating
the net intelligence advantage of some US-Soviet exchanges. If the
Subcommittee is abolished it will probably be more awkward and
time-consuming than it now is to coordinate external research proj-
ects. This seems to me to be sufficient reason to retain the com-
mittee.
S. Most of the other dormant committees probably possess
the potential for some degree of usefulness in time of a crisis. The
Petroleum brigade of the EIC, for example, sprang into action at
the time of the Suez affair and it seems likely that other Subcom-
mittees are capable of responding in a like manner to the hot-foot
of critical events.
6.. There seems little likelihood, however, of ever being able
to justify the Economic Defense Subcommittee. This group was or-
ganized after the demise of the EDIC. Since its formation it has
25X1A9a never transacted any business, so last summer and I
tried to give it a decent burial and would have succeeded if we hadn't
been thwarted by a protest from someone in the Defense Department.
He indicated that the Economic Defense Subcommittee had many pa-
triotic duties to perform, and requested a survey of intelligence
analysis on economic defense in order to find out how well off we ar$5X1A9a
in such a field. preliminary investigation revealed
that research on. matters o terest to the economic defense com-
snuntty are centered almost entirely in research on strategic com-
modities and are more properly the responsibility of commodity
25X1A9a specialists and their respective EIC Subcommittees. Then this De-
fense character wanted to know what was doing about economic
mobilization. No one can seriously believe that this Subcommittee on
Economic Defense is entitled to do anything independently on such a
subject. However, such questions interrupted a long overdue funeral.
Perhaps we can put the Committee on a stand-by basis. In this way
25X1A9awon't t have to go through the absurdity of making an annual
report.
7. This brings me back to the imminent visit of T. Nordbeck.
11 you tell me before he comes down to the EIC IS what the party
Distribution: Original - Addretsre 2 - EIC IS ORR/EIC /S: :em/3707 (22 Mar 61)
Approved For Release 2000/05/24:
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