LETTER TO THE HONORABLE DANIEL K. INOUYE FROM STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82M00345R000700020093-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 93
• Publication Date: April 14, 1977
• Content Type: LETTER

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THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20505
OLC: 77-0717/a
14 April 1977
Honorable Daniel K. Inouye, Chairman
Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Enclosed are those few answers to the questions you
submitted to me by your letter of 28 February 1977, R6616,
which require classification. They are classified Confidential.
Yours sincerely,
STANSFIELD TURNER
Admiral, U. S. Navy.
Distribution:
Original - Addressee w/enc.
1 - DCI w/enc.
I - DDCI w/o enc.
1 - ER w/enc.
1 - OLC Subject w/enc.
I - OLC Chrono w/o enc.
THIS LETTER IS UNCLASSIFIED
WHEN ENCLOSURE IS REMOVED
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D. 2. b. What should be the role of the intelligence agencies in
net asssessment?
ANSWER: The role of intelligence agencies should be to conduct:
--comprehensive net assessments on two or more foreign
nations such as on the Arab-Israeli balance.
-- Soviet-U.S. net assessments to estimate the capability of
Soviet weapon systems, to determine Soviet technical
requirements and to identify trends and estimate the
implications of Soviet programs.
Intelligence agencies should continue to participate in a variety of
U. S. -Soviet net assessments conducted by the DoD. Beyond that, I
believe a national net assessment mechanism- -perhaps at the NSC
staff level--should be identified. The role of the Intelligence Community
in this mechanism should be to provide the intelligence data and insights
necessary for its operation.
Intelligence organizations should not make comprehensive net assess-
ments of the U. S. -Soviet military balance; for example, the capabilities
of the two sides to damage each other in a nuclear war now and in the
period ten years hence. Such assessments are highly dependent on
scenarios for war initiation, U. S. operational plans and tactics and the
success of future U. S. programs, and would require expertise and
operational data on U. S. forces which intelligence does not now have.
Nor should intelligence conduct comprehensive U. S. -Soviet net assess -
ments of the overall "correlation of forces, " involving all military and
non-military aspects of national power.
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