THE DCI'S ROLE IN WARNING AND CRISIS

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CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8
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December 17, 2004
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1
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June 22, 1978
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Approved Fbr RSse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F4b200070001-8 SECRET MEMORANDUM FOR: DDCI DD/NFA DD/CT SUBJECT : The DCI's Role in Warning and Crisis 1. In response to various requests by the DCI and DDCI, a working group of officers from NFAC and NITC has produced the attached study. At the working group level, the two organizations concur in the study and its recommendations. Inter alia these call for the DCI to appoint the DDCI as his senior overseer for warning and crisis for the Community, supported by an interagency committee and a full-time "Senior Warning Officer." 2. We believe the basic elements of overseer, com- mittee, and senior warning officer are required to support the DCI. While we recommend that the DDCI head this struc- ture, it could equally well be headed by the DCI himself. A decision on who is to head it can only be made by the principals themselves, after which the appropriate level and location of committee and warning officer can be sorted out. The next step, therefore, should be for the addressees of this memorandum to consult among themselves on the basis of our study as to what recommendation should be made to the DCI. 3. A list of working group members is attached. 25 xicnara a AD/NFAC/SS 25X SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-R 25X1 Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027 200070001-8 SECRET I&W Working Group Members Richard Lehman Theodore G. Shackley William K. Parmenter NFAC, Chairman NITC NITC NITC NFAC NFAC NFAC NFAC NFAC NFAC NFAC NFAC NFAC SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For RPse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027pv 200070001-8 SECRET THE ROLE OF THE DCI IN WARNING AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT 22 June 1978 i Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 SECRET Approved For Rose 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET The Role of the DCI in Warning and Crisis Management Page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................... Introduction ............................... iv Warning .................................... iv Crisis Management .......................... Vii Conclusion ................................. Viii I. INTRODUCTION ................................ 1 II. BACKGROUND .................................. 3 A. Current Intelligence and Warning: Definitions ............................ 3 B. The Defense Interest ................... 6 C. The DCI in Crisis .... .......... .. 8 D. Collection Tasking in Crisis and Warning 10 E. Criteria for a Warning and Crisis System ................................. 13 III. DISCUSSION .................................. 15 A. Permanent Management Arrangements ...... 16 The Problem of Accountability .......... 18 An Interagency Committee ............... 21 Staff Support .......................... 22 B. Mechanisms for Warning ................. 24 Warning and Current Intelligence: The Need for Challenge Mechanisms ......... 27 Criteria for a Warning System........... 32 C. Special Mechanisms for Strategic Warning 36 The Strategic Warning Staff ............ 36 Changes in the SWS ..................... 37 The Need for a "Network" ............... 39 Approved For Release 2005/AW. 1A-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Repse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET Contents (Continued) Page D. Arrangements for Support of the DCI in Crisis ............................. 41 Role of the Task Force ... 44 Role of the NIO 47 The Situation Report Problem ........... 47 A National Crisis Reporting Structure .. 51 Miscellaneous .......................... 53 E. DCI Arrangements for Collection Tasking in warning and in crisis .............. 55 F. The Knotty Problem of Location ......... 57 A. Management ............................. 61 B. Warning ................................ 62 C. Strategic Warning ...................... 62 D. Crisis Management ...................... 64 E. Collection Tasking ..................... 65 ANNEX: History of Warning in the Community ...... 68 CHARTS: I. National Organization for Warning: 1954-1974 II. Examples of Crises III. National Organization for warning: 1975-1978 IV. National Crisis Reporting Structure: Role of the DCI V. Alternate Task Force Locations and Their Merits VI. National Organization for Warning: Proposed 1978 VII. National Organization for Strategic Warning: Proposed 1978 VIII. National Crisis Reporting Structure: Elements Supporting the DCI SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Repse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction The prime function for the DCI always has been to provide warning and especially Strategic Warning. Many intelligence elements contribute to this, but the jointly manned Strategic Warning Staff (SWS) and the now vacant position for a Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning are the only national elements clearly responsible for warning. The DCI also has been responsible for sup- porting the President and NSC in crises, and arrangements have evolved in CIA to do this. This is the initial report of a joint NFAC/NITC work- ing group that has reexamined warning and crisis manage- ment in light of the Intelligence Community reorganization. The group also directed its work toward responding to the House Permanent Select Committee (HPSCI) on Community or- ganization for warning. This report sets a conceptual framework and then makes specific recommendations. Current intelligence is the reporting of events, ex- plaining their background and significance, and projecting events in the short term. Warning (small-w) is a principal mission of current intelligence and is in certain respects a subdiscipline of it. Strategic Warning (big-W) is even more specialized and focuses on the possibility of conflict with a major adversary. Warning Warning presents two major management problems. First, while it is the overriding responsibility of all line in- telligence organizations, it actually takes little of their time. Thus it is hard to translate a number one priority into isolable systems. One cannot anticipate beforehand all the information needed for warning or policymaking in all the situations that might take the US rapidly to crisis. For some Strategic Warning cases one can create scenarios of what the other side will likely do prior to Approved For Release 2005/01 II.W-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027R200070001-8 SECRET hostilities. For the most important scenarios one then can devise and carry out collection plans against Warn- ing indicators. However, if one tried to do so for all warning, the sheer number of scenarios would become an un- manageable burden. Where and how to strike the right balances are major management problems that must be ad- dressed often as the world changes. Second, Strategic Warning responsibilities are shared by the DCI, who is charged to give warning and by the SecDef who is charged to defend the country, implying a respon- sibility not to be taken by surprise. A management problem arises because the likely sequence is warning of minor war somewhere, followed by a perception that serious US inter- ests are at stake, leading to strategic warning. As the probability rises that US forces will fight SecDef's re- sponsibilities demand that he focus more narrowly on in- telligence needed to fight and win. The DCI must continue to assess the overall situation for the President and NSC. Supporting military plans and operations and supporting broader national policies and actions will compete increas- ingly for intelligence resources. Especially because the National Command Authority (NCA) which directs military preparations includes the President and SecDef, but not the Secretary of State and DCI, there is a danger that military considerations may dominate Presidential deci- sions to the exclusion of broader alternatives and that the DCI will not be aware of contemplated and ongoing US military and diplomatic actions so he can assess reactions. A critical decision in balancing these conflicting demands will come when the President is asked to shift tasking authority to SecDef. Although most of the elements for a warning system now exist, there are critical gaps. The one seen by the HPSCI is lack of a clear focus with lines of accountability to those existing elements. Another is that the function of regularly challenging the community's conventional wisdom is moribund. A third is that Community line organizations are not disciplined to perform their warning function. Most of the working group's detailed recommendations seek to fill these gaps. Approved For Release 2005/01 EFTA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For R.se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027R#200070001-8 SECRET Broadly the group recommends designating the DDCI, who is at the point where all warning organizational threads con- verge, as the Community overseer of warning. It further recommends a substructure under him consisting of a perma- nent Community warning management committee whose executive secretary will be the Community's Senior Warning Officer. This officer will also oversee the SWS which in turn will be supported by a "Warning Referent" network to provide communications channels stretching out and down to the analyst level throughout the Community. Apart from these organizational modifications the working group recommends reaffirming that the Community line organizations bear primary responsibility for all warning. In particular, while the referent network will provide channels for warning based on an analyst's or collector's first look, the NIOs will have explicit responsibility for second look warning in their areas; they will execute this partly by conducting a Community warning review of potential trouble spots in their areas at least monthly. Further, the NIOs SP, CF, and USSR-EE (with occasional NIO China & EAP help) will constitute an advisory board for the SWS to advise on its work program and to participate in the SWS' findings when required. As a third line of defense the working group proposes that the new management mechanisms intrude into substance to the extent that the committee will serve ad hoc as a court of appeal for an agency that feels a critical situa- tion is being neglected and the Senior warning officer will be the Community ombudsman for warning, open to maverick views, thinking ominously and generally promoting a "second look" philosophy. The working group also recommends reviving the Alert Memorandum, a mechanism which has fallen into disuse, as the means the DCI uses to galvanize both the Community and policymakers. It also recommends that the SWS charter and membership be broadened somewhat, and that its utility be reexamined after a test period under a new modus operandi. Approved For Release 2005/01I 66RITA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027~0200070001-8 SECRET Crisis Management There is a continuum stretching from routine current intelligence to urgent strategic warning with increasingly close collection-analysis links as one moves along the scale. Somewhere along it, surely no later than issuing strategic warning, national authorities will see themselves as in a crisis. Although the Administration has not con- fronted a crisis experience suggests that, at whatever point it sees the US as threatened, it will expect the DCI to participate and advise in frequent NSC and SCC meetings, to direct or coordinate Community actions in preparing situation reports, providing data and assess- ments, and adjusting collection, and to conduct paramilitary or political action operations. These will be the DCI's crisis management tasks. The management of collection during a crisis will also be an important concern for the DCI. Although less continuous than the requirement for reports, data, and assessment, collection tasking will demand time and attention of the DCI. The working group's recommendations for DCI crisis management arrangements are exemplified by the Horn of Africa Working Group arrangements. More generally they are based on the fact that in crisis the DCI needs: -- Immediate access to the President and White House Situation Room Close and continuous contact with his analytic task force -- Close contact with NITC -- Ability to draw on the SWS in the NMIC -- Operational information originating in State and the NMCC The working group recommends that the DCI confirm that he will operate in crisis from Langley, EOB, or the Pentagon, in that order of likelihood, but excluding none. Any real crisis will be run from the White House Situation Room. The DCI's day will be built around attending meetings there, preparing for them and on tasks arising out of them. The Approved For Release 2005/011GElA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fuse 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027I 200070001-8 SECRET DCI's need to be readily available to the President and NSC must be balanced against his need to keep close contact with his analysts and to a lesser extent, with his collec- tion tasking officers. Following from this basic recommenda- tion, the group recommends provision of secure communica- tions and conference facilities, including at least voice, teleprinter and facsimile, between Langley and the other two sites. In addition the working group recommends that in a crisis the DCI designate the NIO (with the NITO's assist- ance) as his principal task officer. He should also estab- lish at Langley a NFAC task force to support himself and use it to issue DCI Situation Reports. The DCI's major substantive support must be from this task force made up of people who will be familiar with his style. This task force must be at Langley because it is only the tip of an iceberg which may well include hundreds of professional and clerical people. DIA analysts will be too torn among OSD, JCS, and U&S Commanders military demands to support the DCI's broader responsibilities. The task force should have liaison officers from State and Defense, with secure communications, to link the task force with their depart- ments and to provide Community consultation and contribu- tions (but not full coordination). The group recommends that the NITO be the DCI's and NIO's focal point for collection tasking during a crisis. The NITO will translate requirements into specific collec- tion tasks and provide them to the collectors resolving any conflicts that arise. He will support the task force concerning collectors' status, capabilities, tasking and yield during the crisis including necessary inputs to the DCI's Situation Reports. Conclusion The working group believes that the proposed system for warning and crisis management will meet several require- ments. It will be flexible, as it must be because there is no way to predict how warning will come or a crisis will develop. It will have a well understood structure and explicit statements of responsibility to provide a clear focus and lines of accountability for the elements that Approved For Release 2005/0%g A-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 the DCI in extreme crisis. -- The long-term future of SWS. -- The DCI's responsibilities to the U&S Commands. -- The DCI role in wartime. -- The Command Relationships Agreement. -- The wartime status of NPIC. Approved For F ase 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B0102700200070001-8 SECRET already exist. The system will be comprehensive, allowing the DCI to oversee the full range of analysis and collec- tion. Economy requires that the system rely on existing organizations performing in a dual mode; the proposed sys- tem adds simple new wiring and procedures rather than elaborate and expensive systems and organizations. The system must accommodate the needs of SECDEF and his military commanders: the permanent committee provides the forum in which DCI and DoD equities can be balanced; the balance remains to be struck. Finally the system provides the DCI a support apparatus, largely analytic, that is fully re- sponsive to him. Once the DCI has set up the recommended management arrangements, he is in a position to inform the HPSCI that he has accepted its suggestions, and he should do so. He should then charge DDCI and the committee with the other recommendations. There are several crisis and warning topics not treated here that have gone too long unexamined. The new management machinery should take them on. They include: Relationship of the DCI to the NCA. -- Arrangements for relocation and support of S Approved For Release 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83130102790 200070001-8 SECRET I. INTRODUCTION 1. In 1947, Congress established the office of Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelli- gence Agency. A primary motive was to ensure that the United States was never again surprised as it had been at Pearl Harbor. Thus, from the beginning, the final responsi- bility of the DCI has been to provide "strategic warning." Over time, Community organizations for providing warning have varied; none of the arrangements have been totally satisfactory (see Chart I and Annex). Many elements of intelligence regard warning as part of their job. For example, the NIOs regard themselves as responsible in general terms for alerting policymakers to new develop- ments in their areas. At present, however, the only national elements clearly designated as responsible for warning are the Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning, a job now vacant and, answering to him, the jointly-manned Strategic Warning Staff. 2. The evolution of crisis management arrangements for the President and the NSC has defined an appropriate role for the DCI, and arrangements have evolved in CIA for supporting the DCI which earlier DCI's found effective. Approved For Release 2005/916 IA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027FO200070001-8 NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WARNING: 1954-74 National Indications Center INDICO* (warning referent) Command Current Intelligence Flow (includes warning) Strategic Warning Dotted lines indicate advice or participation. ?Parallel arrangements in other production organizations. Secret 576439 6-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For P& R se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET The series of reorganizations that the Community has under- gone require a reexamination of those arrangements. 3. Several recent developments have converged to re- quire a review of warning and "crisis management," two separate but related functions. ("Crisis management" as used in this paper refers to intelligence support of the national authorities in crisis.) Military officers have expressed uncertainty as to the DCI's concept of his role and the arrangements he endorsed for carrying out his re- sponsibilities. D/NFAC is concerned about crisis manage- ment arrangements and the risk of inadequate intelligence response in a sudden major crisis. The formation of a Col- lection Tasking Staff has provided for the first time a focal point for collection management in crisis and for warning; its place in the structure needs clear definition. Also, the House Permanent Select Committee does not see a clear focus for warning under the Director and has re- quested him to report to it by 1 August on the steps he is taking to provide one. 4. The DCI.and the DDCI directed that NFAC and NITC come up with recommendations for organization for warning and for crisis management under the DCI. This is being Approved For Release 2005/0~/9grTA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For F se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET carried out by a joint NFAC/NITC working group which also has assumed responsibility for the in-house phase of answer- ing the HPSCI. This study is the working group's initial report. In addition to making recommendations, it seeks to provide a conceptual framework for them. These recom- mendations for the most part call for new relationships among existing organizations to improve warning performance. For crisis, they call for arrangements patterned on those that have evolved to support the DCI in this Administration. II. BACKGROUND A. Current Intelligence and Warning: Definitions 5. Current Intelligence is the reporting of events abroad of interest to the US policymaker. It seeks to de- tail these events, to explain them, to provide background, to develop their significance for the United States, and to project in the short term the events likely to follow. The DCI by long-established practice is responsible for providing current intelligence to the President and the NSC. 6. Warning (sometimes called "small-w warning") is a subdiscipline of current intelligence. Many of the short- Approved For Release 2005/01/06ECIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fuse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027*200070001-8 SECRET term events projected in current intelligence reporting represent threats to US interests. Warning is more an analytic function than a "Paul Revere" alert. (See para- graphs 36 to 39.) The most important mission of current intelligence analysis is to warn; given the great range of US interests, warning is almost synonymous with current intelligence. Despite this virtual identity, the warning subdiscipline has characteristics of its own that are dis- cussed later in this paper. We warn of a change of govern- ment in an LDC that will affect US business interests; we warn of an OPEC price rise; we warn of the threatened out- break of hostilities. Because the DCI is responsible for current intelligence for the national authorities, he is responsible for warning in this generic sense. 7. Strategic Warning (sometimes called "big-W") is an extremely specialized form of current intelligence. It is a subdiscipline of warning, but is less easily defined. The JCS define it narrowly as "a notification that enemy- initiated hostilities may be imminent." Some defined it broadly as warning of events that may involve the United States in a major military or political confrontation with a Communist state, or even that events are taking place Approved For Release 2005/01SCRR -RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027F200070001-8 SECRET that might ultimately lead to such a confrontation. Most would agree that strategic warning deals with the possi- bility that the US and/or its allies will be deliberately attacked by or involved by escalation in hostilities with a major adversary, usually defined as the USSR, Warsaw Pact, China, or North Korea. 8. While it is difficult to say when warning becomes strategic warning, the distinction is useful. If there are differences between current intelligence and its warning subdiscipline, there are much greater ones between both of these and the subdiscipline strategic warning. The con- sequences of the events foreseen by strategic warning are critical to the national interest, the topic carries the highest priority, and some of the structured techniques for providing it diverge so far from current intelligence as to become almost a separate intelligence discipline. Nonetheless, strategic warning must remain an overriding responsibility for all line intelligence organizations and analysts, however little of their time it actually takes, a fact that makes for great difficulty for management in translating a "number one" intelligence priority into isolatable systems and assets. Approved For Release 2005/0'f/6~4-ciA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For RSse 2005/01/2?C RDP83BO1027P 200070001-8 B. The Defense Interest 9. The DCI?s responsibility to provide strategic warning to the President and the NSC is not exclusive. He is charged by the Congress and the public with preventing future Pearl Harbors, but the Secretary of Defense is re- sponsible by statute for the defense of the country and thus by implication for not allowing our forces to be taken by surprise. Moreover, the Department of Defense has de- veloped and controls most of the collection systems most likely to yield the intelligence needed for the issuance of short-term strategic warning. 10. It is generally agreed that neither the United States nor the USSR is likely deliberately to attack the other. More likely is a clash of interests in a war in the Third World which rises by unpredictable steps to confronta- tion. (We do not disregard the threat of deliberate North Korean attack on the South.) In terms of the definitions given above, current intelligence should report on the cir- cumstances leading to the outbreak of minor war and should warn (small-w) that it was about to break out and might have certain consequences. At some point, when these con- sequences begin to suggest that serious US interests are SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For False 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027VP 200070001-8 SECRET at stake, Strategic Warning should be issued. The DCI and SecDef share responsibility for this. The closer to the outbreak of hostilities, obviously, the greater the Defense interest in intelligence and the prospects of military action. But this interest also changes. 11. As the probability of hostilities increases, the initial Defense need to learn of enemy intentions becomes subordinated to the need to fight and win. On the other hand, the DCI must continue to assess the overall situa- tion for the President and the NSC, including the policies and actions of adversaries, allies, and the noncommitted. He must provide intelligence to support the entire range of Presidential decisions in a crisis, whereas, in directing US military-preparations, the SecDef is re- sponsible to what is called by the DoD the "National Command Authority," that includes the President but ex- cludes the Secretary of State and DCI. 12. In providing for the security of the United States and its forces, the SecDef must assume the worst and act accordingly. Thus requirements for intelligence to support national policies and actions will compete with requirements for intelligence to support US military plans and operations. Approved For Release 2005/04W6A-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027R200070001-8 SECRET There is a danger that, as the prospects for hostilities increase, Presidential deliberations may become dominated by military considerations to the exclusion of nonmilitary alternatives; the channel for intelligence support to the President may shift entirely from the DCI to the SecDef. Avoidance of this is made more difficult by the National Command Authority concept. 13. A corollary is that the DCI must have full know- ledge of contemplated and actual US actions, military and diplomatic, if he is to assess possible and actual reac- tions. There again the NCA concept, as well as the tra- ditional attitude of the J-3 to the J-2, gets in the way. C. The DCI in Crisis 14. As noted, crisis management in intelligence terms (and as used in this paper) means those special arrange- ments taken by the community in a crisis, i.e., a rapidly moving situation abroad which engages the extraordinary attention of senior US policy officers. The discussion of warning and strategic warning above makes clear that there is a continuum stretching from the most routine current intelligence to the most urgent strategic warning involving an increasingly immediate linkage between collection and Approved For Release 2005/OAA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET analysis as one moves along the scale. At some point on this scale, and certainly no later than the issuance of strategic warning, the national authorities will see them- selves as in a crisis. The precise point will be subjec- tively determined: the policy priorities of US leadership; its perceptions of Soviet (or other) activities; domestic political considerations; its assessment of the threat to US interests. Since the present Administration has not confronted a major crisis (see Chart II), we cannot be cer- tain what it will expect of the DCI. Nevertheless, if experience holds, at whatever point it sees the United States as seriously threatened, it will look to the DCI for: Participation and advice in NSC and SCC deliber- ations. -- Direction or coordination of the Community re- sponse, as appropriate, including: - Provision of assessments and data re- quested by the NSC/SCC. - Periodic situation reporting. - Adjustment of collection to meet crisis requirements. Approved For Release 2005/0 TOW A-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 CONFIDENTIAL Chart II EXAMPLES OF CRISES Intensity Scale 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis A 1962 China-India D 1964 Congo D 1964 Cyprus D 1964 Panama Canal Zone Riots C 1964 Tonkin Gulf B 1965 India-Pakistan C 1965 Vietnam crises C 1965 Dominican Republic C 1967-68 Nigerian Civil War D 1967 Cyprus D 1967 Liberty crisis D 1967 Mideast War B 1968 Tet Offensive B 1968 Soviets invade Czechoslovakia B 1968 Pueblo Captured C 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes D 1969 North Korea - EC-121 incident C 1970 Suez Air War C 1970 Jordan C 1971 India-Pakistan C 1972 Vietnamese Offensive B 1973 Mideast War B 1973 Chile D 1974 Portugal D 1974 Cyprus C 1975 Vietnam-Cambodian Withdrawal C 1975 Mayaguez D 1975 Angola D 1976 Lebanon-assassination-evacuation D 1976 Korean tree cutting C 1977 Shaba I D 1977-78 Horn of Africa C 1978 Shaba II D 9a CONFIDENTIAL Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01p-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 -- On occasion, conduct of paramilitary and political action operations. 15. These tasks, which constitute crisis management for the DCI, are quite distinct from warning or strategic warning, but engage the services of the same current in- telligence-related organizations and resources. Once adequate warning is given, the Community must posture it- self for crisis; at the same time, it must not relax its vigilance against other threats. This argues that the sys- tems for warning and for crisis management must not be con- fused; on the other hand they must be efficiently linked. D. Collection Tasking in Crisis and Warning 16. Clearly, the weight of DCI responsibility in warning and in crisis is on the provision of information and assessment; our experience with past crises bears this observation out. He also has important responsibilities for collection management, and is now explicitly respon- sible under E.O. 12036 for collection tasking. Again, as one goes up the scale from current reporting through warning to strategic warning and crisis; the need for col- lection adjustment also rises. Little distinction can be made, however, between those steps required as a result of SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027+0200070001-8 SECRET warning. and those that reflect the recognition of crisis. A series of discrete and gradually escalating measures are taken, often requiring extensive staffing in the Community. But the DCI's production responsibilities are continuous and intense, whereas these decisions, on changing collection tactics, however important, are ad hoc and sporadic. 17. There will be a problem, however, when the issue of transfer of tasking authority finally arises. As sug- gested above (Paras 10-12), there are good reasons for keeping tasking authority in the hands of the DCI as long as possible, but broad assessment of political factors as well as military should not be totally subordinated to tac- tical concerns in anticipation of war-fighting. This trans- fer should be recognized now as an extraordinarily difficult decision to ask the President to make. 18. Each crisis is unique. It is not possible to anticipate in normal times the specific information require- ments for warning or policy formulation in the full range of situations that might take the United States rapidly to crisis. The sheer number of scenarios would become an un- manageable burden on the system. For certain kinds of strategic warning, however, it is possible to develop a Approved For Release 2005/05M6RMt -RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fuse 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027O0200070001-8 SECRET limited number of scenarios, and hence "indicators," de- noting the things the other side has to do, or ought to do, prior to hostilities, e.g., Warsaw Pact mobilization in Europe, sending SSBN's to sea, attack, or evacuation of cities. If the subject is important enough, it is also possible to develop collection plans against these indi- cators and deploy collection resources to carry them out, e.g., WISP.* Such activity is continuous in periods of normalcy. Managing these collection operations, and the resultant routine analysis, is a DCI responsibility within his overall responsibility for strategic warning, but is of a different order from his fluid collection tasking in crisis. (As noted above, however, a system for reviewing indications of hostilities is only a partial answer to the strategic warning problem, and tends to become less useful as enemy readiness increases. (Paragraphs 36 to 39). Many believe that the most reliable warning will come from an assessment of political tensions and objectives, topics which are less yielding to a structured approach.) WISP: Warning Improvement Study and Plan; project initiated by ASD (C I) and DIA with Intelligence Community participation. Its ob- jective is to improve I&W collection and information processing through the use of all-source collection strategies and the appli- cation of statistical sampling theories. Approved For Release 2005/i . IA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fuse 2005/01 t1 1 f-RDP83B01027VP 200070001-8 19. The problem is to design a system by which the DCI can meet his responsibilities for warning and in crisis. In our experience, no two crises or warning situa- tions are alike. Warning may come from any collection sys- tem or any analytic desk. Each developing crisis requires the mobilization of a unique combination of analytic re- sources and the focus of a unique combination of collection assets. US national interests vary over time and region, as do the range of US policy options and the kind of ques- tions that are asked of intelligence. Thus the first re- quirement for such a system is that it be flexible. 20. The HPSCI says the Community lacks a clear focus for warning. It is correct. The Community also needs clear lines of accountability. Almost all the necessary elements for crisis and for warning now exist. What is lacking is a generally understood and agreed structure for the system, and explicit statements of responsibility. 21. A third requirement is that the system be com- prehensive. The DCI must oversee the continuous and struc- tured arrangements for warning, the immediate and ad hoc SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/ SECRET DP83B01027F200070001-8 (but not improvised) arrangements for crisis; the coordina- tion of collection with production; the range of current intelligence, warning, and crisis reporting; and the Com- munity and CIA. 22. Within limited resources, it might appear that the high priority of the warning function requires that resources be taken from other intelligence activities to support it. This need not be if we recognize that warning is a primary mission of those activities too (see para- graph 8), and it cannot be without damaging other intelli- gence activities. There is thus a requirement of economy, for reliance on existing organizations, and resources per- forming in a dual mode. For this and other reasons dis- cussed below, we should continue to depend on line responsi- bility for warning and crisis management in the Community. A corollary of this is that officers and organizations of the Community should have the same general functions in their crisis or emergency mode that they have in their normal mode, however different their procedures. 23. Fifth is the requirement that the system seek to accommodate the needs of the Secretary of Defense and his military commanders, as well as those of the DCI. It is apparent from earlier discussion that, in both warning and crisis terms, the SecDef's concern rises with the level of SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01 /5 f3D.I RDP83B01027F 200070001-8 national interest and the level of tension. Obviously, fundamental conflicts of interest can arise. No system can avoid these altogether, but mechanisms can be devised for preventing minor differences from becoming major, or triggering Presidential decision before it is essential that the President bite the bullet on whether or'not he is going to war. 24. Finally, in recognition that responsibilities and resources are shared with the SecDef, the DCI needs a support apparatus, largely analytic, fully responsive to him if he is to be confident of meeting his responsibili- ties. In practice, this means designing arrangements that permit free access to and primary reliance on NFAC. III. DISCUSSION 25. This section outlines a warning and crisis system under the DCI, using existing elements to the maximum. Although all parts of such a system must interlock, they are treated here, for convenience, in five separate cate- gories: permanent management arrangements; mechanisms for warning; special mechanisms for strategic warning; arrange- ments for support of the DCI in crisis; and collection task- ing arrangements in support of all of the above. Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/OQE gRDP83BO1027+0200070001-8 A. Permanent Management Arrangements 26. The language of the HPSCI, which is here quoted, is a fair statement of the problem. "The Committee finds that effective warning at the national level required drawing on the full resources of the Intelligence Community to produce its best judgment on a situation that may require decision. That judgment must be pre- sented in a sufficiently authoritative form to be heard clearly, without suppressing views into a bland consensus. The Committee has encountered concern--particularly in those elements of the Intelligence Community involved in indications and warning--over the absence of a point of accountability for warning. The Committee con- siders these concerns well founded. The DCI must establish a clearer focus for warning. It is recommended that this be accomplished by creating a full-time position with the following responsibilities: SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01 /0?Ea., DP83B01027F 200070001-8 (1) Provide the DCI with the judgments of all the Intelligence Community's organiza- tions on a situation that any one of them judges to be serious enough to receive the attention of top decisionmakers. (2) Ensure timely formation of inter- agency working groups to monitor emerging situations and form interagency crisis management groups as necessary. (3) Oversee the Strategic Warning Staff and enable it to play a less detached role. (4) Promote essential exchange of in- formation between intelligence and operations or policy elements, and manage the selection and adoption of interagency conferencing systems and alerting procedures. "The Committee recognizes that the necessary focus for warning cannot be achieved entirely by organizational means; equally important is the attitude displayed toward warning by intelligence management and analysts as well as by the user. [Emphasis added] SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For F*se 2005/01 /@ Vq RDP83B010271 D200070001-8 "Certain of the proposed functions outlined are now performed, but on an informal or ad hoc basis. The Committee asks that the DCI establish a clear focus of responsibility for warning and report to this Committee by 1 August 1978 on what actions have been taken." 27. As noted by the HPSCI, there is no point of focus at the national level. The only existing channel is through the "Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning." This is an awkward arrangement, regardless of the cooperation and effectiveness of the incumbent (see Chart III). In the absence of a command structure, departmental efforts in the warning field are going forward without full inte- gration into a coherent national effort. There is no link between the DCI and NFIB and the various Community efforts. More important, there is no manifest indication (outside the Department of Defense) that Community or CIA management takes seriously their specific responsibility for warning and communicates it downwards to the troops. The Problem of Accountability 28. HPSCI calls for creation of a full-time officer with certain duties, who is to be by implication "a point SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027F&200070001-8 III NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WARNING: 1975-78 A A Special Assistant (DIA) N10 Interagency Regional - - - - DDI Line Organizations* Working Groups Command Current Intelligence Flow (includes warning) Strategic Warning Dotted lines indicate advice or participation. *Parallel arrangements in other production organizations. Secret 576440 6-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R se 2005/01/00 E - DP83B01027F 200070001-8 of accountability" for warning. We see no objection to creation of a position with duties roughly corresponding to those suggested by the Committee--and indeed recommend one below (paragraphs 34 to 35)--but we disagree that a staff officer with these duties can be "accountable" for warning. As we emphasize throughout, warning is an in- tegral and primary responsibility of all intelligence organizations, whether engaged in collection or production, and hence of all analysts and collection officers and of managers at all echelons. Accountability for warning can- not somehow be divorced from accountability for assessment and estimating, from research and file-building, from cur- rent analysis and reporting. Nor should any officer in the Community be permitted the luxury of believing that he is free from this reponsibility. Pearl Harbor remains the alpha and potential omega for American intelligence. 29. How then to provide accountability, to bring the threads of line responsibility in the Community and Agency together? They obviously center in the DCI, but the problem is to support him, to find a point of focus under him. Within the Community, this involves all the major agencies; within the Director's own domain it-involves NFAC and CTS as major players, and other organizations as well. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01 ~ - E+A-RDP83B01027*0200070001-8 30. We believe the DCI needs a clearly defined and specialized structure leading down from him to the Com- iaunity and Agency, using as much as possible existing organizations and preserving line responsibility. We be- lieve these threads should be brought together in the DDCI. Under the DCI, only the DDCI is at the point where they naturally converge and thus can preserve the true chain of accountability, both for Community and Agency. Moreover, his appointment by the DCI as his overseer for warning and crisis would reaffirm the importance attached to this func- tion, however much of it tends to be subordinated under more pressing day-to-day concerns. (There is ample prece- dent for this in the appointments of DDCI's Cabell, Carter, Taylor, and Cushman to the Chairmanship of the Watch Com- mittee.) 31. The DDCI would thus have new and important respon- sibilities. It is unrealistic, however, to believe that he can or should devote a major part of his time to these responsibilities, or exercise day-to-day operational control. Rather, his designation would symbolize the DCI's recog- nition of a critical responsibility and at the same time ease some difficult management problems. We propose in SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For F*se 2005/01/g ~ C -RDP83B010271D200070001-8 subsequent paragraphs a substructure designed to free him of necessity for daily involvement, while preserving his ability to oversee and to intervene. An Interagency Committee 32. The now missing linkage between the DCI and Com- munity warning and crisis activities should be provided by a permanent committee constituted to balance the DoD and DCI interests and to coordinate collection and production. It should be chaired by the DDCI and include DD/NFA, DD/CT, DD/RM, D/DIA, D/NSA, D/INR, and an OSD representa- tive. Committees at this level always need working groups to do their business; we assume this one will need one or more as well. 33. Our reference to the Watch Committee does not mean that this new Committee should have substantive re- sponsibilities. Rather we see it as the chairman's mechanism for exercising supervision over Community arrange- ments and procedures for crisis and warning, for management of the community's "steady-state" warning operations, for assuring that the transition to emergency and crisis takes place smoothly, and for seeking improvements in all. It will oversee such enterprises as WISP and direct studies SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For RSse 2005/01/OSiCQT DP83B01027F200070001-8 of promising new sources of warning. It could serve as a court of appeal for agencies that feel critical situations have not been given.adequate emphasis. In these cases it would trespass on the substantive, but only ad hoc; it would not be in the intelligence production business as the Watch Committee was. Staff Support 34. HPSCI has recommended that the DCI appoint a full- time officer responsible for warning matters. We think this makes sense. [A Senior Warning Officer, answering to the DDCI and with direct access to the DCI, would serve as executive secretary of the committee, as the DCI's and DDCI's eyes and ears in the warning and crisis community, and as the Community's "conscience" for warning. Certain other of his functions will emerge from the discussions of warning and crisis arrangements below, but are listed here for completeness. Acting for the DDCI, he would: -- Serve as a focal point for Community problems, suggestions, and complaints concerning the DCI's role in the field of indications and warning/ crisis management. He would use the various existing community organizations and mechanisms unless these are patently lacking. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027 200070001-8 pop SECRET Instill and promote "second look" philosophy on the part of Community analysts, through command channels (see paras 40-46). Provide occasional forums for discussions of indications and warning/ crisis management issues, ideas, and idea exchange. -- Act as community and Agency "ombudsman" for warning. -- Encourage and promote better warning and crisis procedures and technology aimed at better inte- gration and utilization of Community-wide warning and crisis facilities, including interagency con- ference systems. -- Oversee the operation of the Strategic Warning Staff in lieu of the Special Assistant for Warning. -- Serve as Executive Secretary to the committee on warning and crisis, and share its working group should one be formed 35. This officer might come either from CIA or DoD, while his deputy, should he need one, should be drawn from DoD if he is from CIA, and vice versa. Beyond this the crisis experience. -- Maintain contact with NIOs, and NITOs on Alert Memoranda and during periods of impending and actual crisis; assistlthe DDCI in analyzing Approved For Release 20051 fTCIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 ? Approved For Fuse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027S0200070001-8 SECRET Senior Warning Officer should be expected to rely on existing Community institutions for his support. We do not envision the emergence of yet another major staff element. B. Mechanisms for Warning 36. Throughout this paper, we speak of the spectrum running from current intelligence to strategic warning and crisis. This concept is important to an understanding of the warning problem. Characteristically, warning gradually emerges from current intelligence analysis, rather than from any single "Paul Revere" message or report. Warning of Soviet and Cuban intervention in the Horn was developed initially from analytic consideration of the likely con- sequences of the Somali expulsion of the Soviets. These judgments set the stage for the accumulation of evidence that the intervention was under way--high level visits, communications links, airlift, ship movements, etc. 37. In 1962, in the most serious military confronta- tion between the US and USSR that has arisen, the Soviets attempted to create a strategic attack capability in Cuba and bring it to readiness before the US discovered it. Despite extreme security measures and considerable hindrance from the weather, the operation was discovered. Under these Approved For Release 2005/01/06CA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For,ease 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B0102 00200070001-8 SECRET circumstances, the first photography of the missile sites might qualify as a "Paul Revere's ride." Even here, however, the successful reconnaissance flight had been targeted as a result of analyst concern over the scale of the Soviet operation, the large-scale deployment of SA-2s, and initial reports of missiles that did not fit the description of SA-2s. 38. Many other examples could be cited, but they virtually all add up to the gradual emergence of a pattern of events in current reporting which ultimately leads to crisis. A common sequence is: 1) An issue arises concerning major national in- terests of two countries. 2) Political tension develops between them. 3) Some military forces are alerted on one side and the other reciprocates. 4) Minor military incidents occur as a result of trigger-happiness, generating a higher level of readiness on both sides. 5) After efforts at diplomatic intervention fail, one side makes a decision to play the military card. Approved For Release 2005/01/0e~ADP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B0102770200070001-8 47 'of SECRET 39. In warning terms, analytic identification of the potential problem will usually appear in current reporting about at Step 2, and this warning can be made much more ex- plicit as Steps 3 and 4 are passed. After Step 4, however, it is rarely possible to give further warning based on mili- tary indicators because both sides have by then done all they could do to prepare, in the absence of a final decision to attack. That decision, Step 5, is likely to be made at the last minute and to be detected only by the movement of forces across the border. Thus the intelligence officer will usually have given his strongest and most useful warn- ing by Step 4, but that warning can only point to the strong possibility of hostilities. After that point the situation is in effect frozen pending decision. A statement that hostilities are probable depends on analytic assessment of the interplay of political factors and personalities, and intellectual honesty will require that it be hedged; it may not help the policy consumer. The final warning that forces are moving an hour or so before they strike is even less useful. The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 is a classic example, the only departure from this pattern being the Czechs' prudence in not alerting their forces. Approved For Release 2005/01/06SEE& DP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For,ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027100200070001-8 SECRET Warning and Current Intelligence: The Need for Challenge Mechanisms 40. Dealing with this topic requires confronting the question whether warning is a distinct intelligence disci- pline or is not. The answer is not easy. There are, as noted above, measurable "indicators," and there is a recogniz- able discipline required for their assessment. Indicators often provide the first suggestion of actions under way, but such suggestions tend to be ambiguous. In our view making these indicators meaningful to the national author- ities means putting them in the context of the larger play of international relations, a task that requires more judg- ment and less quantifiable comparison. The review of indi- cators is also a useful technique against which to check broader judgments, in some ways more useful as reassurance that war is not going to break out than as a tripwire to tell us that it is. 41. The concept that warning is a totally separate profession from that of current intelligence, as some argue, would obviously lead to overwhelming costs, both in money and in bureaucratic wear-and-tear between competing systems. Moreover, no organization can maintain its integrity if it demonstrates lack of faith in its line organizations by Approved For Release 2005/01/DP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP8313010270200070001-8 SECRET diluting their responsibility for their most important single function. It has repeatedly been demonstrated, however, that there are intrinsic weaknesses in total reliance on the line. Most current intelligence analysts unavoidably have a built-in bias toward the analytic framework they have Conceived to explain the course of events in the area of their responsibility. To guard against surprise requires an ability to stand aside from, if not to discard, this framework. But the current analyst is forced to be conservative; to elaborate every possible interpretation of every event would be unmanageable. He therefore tends to fit each event into a tested framework. Thus is created a built-in obstacle to his recognizing the one event in a hundred that will not fit the framework and forces him to consider whether it should be modified or discarded. Ana- lysts not similarly burdened with day-to-day responsibility for current reporting and with a greater depth in their specialty, can be quicker to pick up deviations from normal patterns. Approved For Release 2005/01/06 SA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027S0200070001-8 SECRET 42. The current analyst also tends to emphasize in his reporting the probable course of events as he sees them. This means that he tends to de-emphasize the less probable outcome, sometimes even when that outcome would be quite important; this is precisely where the warning function is the most critical. In October 1973, virtually all analysts felt that an Egyptian attack was a possibility to be reckoned with; virtually none felt that it was a probability. 43. There is an obvious requirement for insurance against these tendencies. If primary responsibility is to be on the line organizations as it must, there must be "rec- ord book"or challenge mechanisms alert to the less probable outcome and to the traps of conventional wisdom. A number of Community elements now play or are capable of playing such a role: -- The various operations centers (for the DCI, the CIA Operations Center) have a dual function. If the line analyst bears primary responsibility for warning within his field when he is on duty, he delegates this to his supporting 24-hour watch apparatus when he is not. When he is on duty, moreover, his operations center is scanning the same traffic as he--from a less sophisticated SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F&200070001-8 SECRET viewpoint but also from one less committed to a particular interpretation of events. The Operations Center is responsible not only to alert him, but to alert his superiors. -- It has always been, and remains, the responsi- bility of the analyst's superiors--his branch, division, and office chiefs--to worry whether he is locked into a particular analysis and to challenge his thinking. They often respond to operations center alerting by challenging lines of analysis. -- The interplay between agencies, giving institu- tionally different responses to sources and situations, can provide an additional check on analytic conservatism. 44. However effective all these measures can be, the record shows that they are less than perfect. Opera- tions Center personnel tend to be junior and inexperienced; they can wave pieces of paper, but they cannot stand up to experienced analysts. Moreover, their lack of experi- ence tends to make them more, rather than less, comfort- able with conventional wisdom. Managers have a clear Approved For Release 2005/01/SF'-~G1 TRDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For P*se 2005/01/06 CR.-RDP83B01027,0200070001-8 responsibility to challenge, but they usually are overwhelmed with the responsibilities of managing. They have to give primary attention to the need to keep the desk manned by a first-rate analyst; once. he is there, their attention goes to replacing the second-rate analyst at the next desk rather than second-quessing the analysts they respect. Finally, intelligence agencies do compete, but they usually share the same information and tend to assess it in parallel ways. It is more typical for them to share the same basic judgments with differing reservations, or come to the same judgment a few days apart, than for them to differ fundamentally. In the latter case, of course, one can stimulate the other to reexamine his views. 45. Current intelligence, backed by these mechanisms, will warn adequately of the bulk of events that matter a little and the majority of those that matter a lot. But there will be, as in the past, some spectacular failures when it matters most. We will never be perfect, but we have not done all we could reasonably and efficiently do to avoid surprise. In short, the challenge function must be strengthened and explicitly recognized. 46. An additional problem is that of ensuring that the policy officer knows he is being warned, if the forseen SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/gie ;RDP83B0102*0200070001-8 event is of enough importance to justify special steps. The flow of current intelligence is broad and rapid and the sentence or paragraph of warning floating on its surface is often past the reader's eye before he focuses on it. He is prone after the event to proclaim an "intelligence failure," and no citing of obscure paragraphs will dissuade him. Criteria for a Warning System 47. So-called small-w warning is so broad and so amorphous that complicated arrangements would be exclusive and musclebound. Even a decision as to topics on which the national authorities should be warned will not be the same from one day to the next. Therefore, the DCI needs simple, flexible, inexpensive and self-policing, mechanisms that will give him some confidence that analyst judgment on issues that matter is being regularly and systematically challenged and that the results of this challenge are avail- able for him to review. 48. Four things are needed. First, analysts must be regularly sensitized to their warning responsibilities. Second, consensus views must be systematically challenged. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027f0200070001-8 SECRET Third, in certain circumstances the DCI must have a special device for conveying warning so as to focus attention on the fact that he is doing so. Fourth, ways must be found to ensure that maverick views are fully considered. 49. The NIOs should be charged with the first three of these tasks. Each has his own sub-Community of substan- tive officers, drawn from all appropriate member agencies, with which he works. He should convene them periodically, at least monthly, for the express purpose of worrying about possible future events that would be seriously damaging to US interests, and of challenging the conventional analysis. (The NIO/SP, NIO/CF, NIO/USSR-EE and sometimes NIO/EA and NIO/CH have additional responsibilities for strategic warn- ing. See below paragraph 63.) If the system is working properly, these meetings would not often generate warning themselves; the system would already have generated it in the normal course of events. Rather, they would serve to maintain the sensitivity of analysts and their managers to the need for warning and foster an awareness of the dangers of conventional thinking. The NIO would report his findings to the DCI, DDCI and Senior Warning Officer. (They might also form the basis for a different DCI periodical issuance replacing the CIWR.) Approved For Release 2005/011iT6~ CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/SECRET RDP83B0102770200070001-8 50. The Alert Memorandum, the DCI's special alerting device, has fallen into disuse. It should be revived. The Alert Memorandum is a warning, usually prepared by the NIO with some Community consultation, and issued by the DCI to the President and the NSC. (It also serves to alert officers in the field to Washington's concern and to facili- tate dialogue between them and Washington analysts.) It does not predict an event, or analyze it, but points out that such an event is possible and that its consequences would be serious. (And it does, of course, contain any alternate views.) The more serious the potential conse- quences, the lower the level of probability required to trigger issuance. It also notes the steps taken by the Community in reaction. 51. The NIOs have gradually ceased to issue Alert Memoranda for two reasons. They are aware that the policy officers with whom they deal know the facts on clearly im- portant matters already, and they are reluctant to debase the currency by issuing alert memoranda on any matter that is not obviously important. The NIO's circle of contacts, however, is normally an echelon or two below the DCI's primary consumers. Moreover, whether or not the DCI's SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B0102770200070001-8 SECRET audience is alert, the energizing effect on policy and in- telligence communities of specific DCI warning is clearly lacking. As to debasement of the currency, the DCI, the D/NFA, the particular NIO, and the Senior Warning Officer are well placed and equipped to judge whether an event will be seen as critical by the policy community. Nonetheless, we should be willing to misjudge a few in favor of issuance. 52. The Senior Warning Officer should be seen through- out the Community as a sort of "ombudsman for warning." Those who hold maverick views should have access to him, and he should be able to require the system to give ob- jective consideration to their theses or to seek inde- pendent assessment. He should also attempt himself to play devil's advocate in a modest way, to "think ominously" when he believes it useful. In this we are not inching up on the idea of a full-time devil's advocate staff, a super- ficially tempting device. Effective devil's advocacy re- quires a firm foundation in accepted views. The advocate must be respected by his peers. As a full-time trade it leads to make-work and stultification, to endless time- wasting wrangles, and to excessive human wear and tear. Finally, people good enough to do it well would rather do God's work than the Devil's. Approved For Release 2005/01/065 2&P831301027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/ C RDP83BO1027F 200070001-8 C. Special Mechanisms for Strategic Warning 53. The importance of strategic warning, or more accurately, of those activities at the critically important end of the warning continuum, has traditionally required special Community arrangements, and ones in which the DoD concerns are given due weight. Treatment must be more focused, intensive, and sustained, but in conceptual terms the requirements are fundamentally the same as for "small-w warning: sensitization of the system, second-look, chal- lenge to the consensus, a vehicle by which the DCI warns. All but the first of these theoretically exist in the present Strategic Warning Staff and in the authority of the unappointed Special Assistant to issue the Strategic Warning Notice, a specialized form of Alert Memorandum, in the DCI's name. The Strategic Warning staff 54. The Strategic Warning Staff is located adjacent to the National Military Intelligence Center in the Penta- gon. It is headed by a CIA officer who is by Charter subordi- nate to the Special Assistant and is de facto subordinate at present to the DIA's Vice Director for Production. He has seven analysts, drawn from CIA, DIA, NSA, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/0gi 4ZDP83BO1027FJ200070001-8 55. The SWS is rather narrowly focused on warning of hostilities between the United States and/or its allies and the USSR, Warsaw Pact, China, or North Korea. Its mis- sion is to provide a national focus for strategic warning, to provide the second look at events from a warning point of view, and to conduct, or to arrange for, research on warning matters. It is not a 24-hour operation, although augmentation to do this is contemplated in crisis. It re- lies instead on continuous coverage by Community operations centers, particularly by the NMIC and DoD's I&W system. It would be, for instance, a consumer of the WISP product, with the mission of assessing WISP data against the broader background of political and economic events. Changes in the SWS 56. The concept of the SWS as the central node in the national strategic warning system is a valid one as inexpensive insurance against future Pearl Harbors. But in its present circumstances, it cannot perform this mis- sion adequately and we cannot judge whether it is the right solution to the problem. It needs a clear link to the DCI, it needs a somewhat broader charter, it needs to be fully manned with personnel of high quality; it needs greater Approved For Release 2005/01 /&6 F&I RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ,ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027IN 0200070001-8 SECRET authority in the Community, and it needs to be linked more closely day-to-day to Community analysis. Of these require- ments, the first and the last are the most important. These measures and others proposed in this paper could allow the SWS to function in its originally conceived role, and thus provide the context for an assessment of its effectiveness and utility. 57. The link to the DCI can be achieved through the arrangements suggested in paragraphs 28-35 above. At least on paper, these would appear to reduce the DoD role, but this disadvantage can be partially overcome by double- hatting the Director/SWS as adviser to the VD/DIA for stra- tegic warning, by the role of Defense in the proposed com- mittee, and by its location in and close relationship with the NMIC. The SWS should remain linked to the NMIC, and, as long as it is located there, it should continue to be headed by a CIA officer. 58. The SWS charter should be broadened to permit it to concern itself with broader political confrontations of US and Soviet interests out of which the threat of hostilities might arise. This does not mean that it should compete with other intelligence production or follow minor crises in detail, but only that it should not be hampered in its SSECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : IA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For False 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027FW200070001-8 SECRET clearly. established main mission by too restrictive a charter. 59. The SWS should remain at approximately its present size. This will serve to check duplication of current in- telligence and to spur it to commission research elsewhere (but it needs greater authority to do this). It should be staffed by trained professionals on rotation from the present agencies, and from State and Navy. The length of tour should be set to balance the desirability of fresh blood against the need for background and expertise. In normal times 24-hour operations are not needed. The Need for a "Network" 60. If SWS is to be a "central node" it cannot operate in its present isolation. Its links to Community analysts are informal and depend far too much on persuasion and indi- vidual interest. In short, few in authority in the Community (except in DIA) are very aware of SWS or believe they have any responsibility to it. There should be an established structure linking it to every Community element that can contribute to the strategic warning problem. 61. Such a structure can be found in the network of referents that supported the Watch Committee and in the Approved For Release 2005/01 /c .CtRAU 2DP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO102710 0200070001-8 SECRET discipline imposed through them. Each agency had a staff officer, often full-time, assigned to strategic warning and Watch Committee support. He in turn was supported by referents at each echelon down through his agency. Thus there were channels of communication stretching out from the Watch Committee and its secretariat down to analyst level through which system business could be conducted, and through which analyst concerns could flow upward. Equally important was the weekly discipline of preparation for Watch Committee meetings. Through the referent network every analyst throughout the Community was required to think in warning terms once a week, if only for five minutes. The loss of this discipline is as great a weakness for the Community as the absence of focus under the DCI. 62. We propose that the network be restored and that the weekly exercise be revived. Each referent, after a weekly canvass of his agency, would render a report to the SWS of those developments and trends that concern his analysts in the warning sense. The SWS would not, however, issue a weekly report, which would quickly become stereotyped and would be widely unread in the absence of serious crisis. The real benefit of this routine is the repeated sensiti- zation of the analyst rather than his usually (and rightly) Approved For Release 2005/01/0E&IARET -RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Pie ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B0102700200070001-8 SECRET negative comment. To this end, the referent should also be responsible for training of analysts in the special re- sponsibilities of warning. 63. Finally, the special responsibilities of NIO/SP, NIO/CF, NIO/USSR, NIO/CH, and NIO/EA for strategic warning should be recognized. Reports of their monthly interagency warning meetings should be directed to the Director, SWS as well as the Senior Assistant. They should be thought of as a board of directors for the non-crisis work of the SWS and the body through which warning research is organized on a Community basis. Should a warning situation arise, the concerned NIOs and the Director, SWS should work together to advise the DCI, DDCI, and Senior Assistant. The NIO-SWS relationship is a subject that needs further study. D. Arrangements for Support of the DCI in crisis* 64. We have referred (paragraph 14) to several DCI responsibilities in crisis. To help him meet them in a major crisis, it is necessary to mobilize a broad range of Community resources, especially in CIA. In past crises of this scale, Directors have been well served; the immediate We are speaking in this section of full-blown crises. There are of course a variety of lesser perturbations requiring a lesser response. Approved For Release 2005/01/06 58IAP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fuse 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027*200070001-8 SECRET problem is to see that recent Community reorganizations have not inadvertently reduced this capability. The present organization of the community offers in fact an opportunity to improve it. Some improvements are suggested below, along with certain perennial problems that remain far from solution. 65. The DCI's primary job is analytic, to provide the substantive assessments on which US policy is based. Almost as important, but less continuously demanding, is his responsibility to adjust collection to the priorities of the crisis. (Collection is treated in Section E below). Production requirements are of three kinds: -- Situation reporting distills from the mass of incoming paper a continuous coherent account of events which is issued periodically. Its purpose is to organize and evaluate, not to project or to seek deeper meaning. If the DCI's consumers are on the same information base when they meet, confusion is avoided and policy deliberations are more effective. (See below for practical limitations on this goal.) -- Data refers to the factual material, to be found in intelligence files or quickly collected by existing sources, needed as a basis for decision Approved For Release 2005/01/0%4 -I2DP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B010270200070001-8 SECRET or for the conduct of operations. The DCI is expected to and can provide much but by no means all of this material. -- Assessment refers to the short-term projection of events, estimation of the intentions of in- terested parties, analytic examination of other powers' capabilities vis-a-vis the crisis, etc. Such assessments are often best done on a Com- munity basis. They and data may well be con- veyed to consumers in an attachment to a situation report, but they are quite different from situation reporting. 66. Until 1974, it was customary in crisis for a CIA task force to be formed, usually under the leadership of the appropriate OCI Division Chief, drawing on the full range of DDI resources. The Task Force was installed in and supported by the CIA Operations Center, with suitable liaison links to DDO and DDS&T. Its chief reported through the DDI to the DCI. It of course produced situation reports, but shared the responsibility for assessment with correspond- ing elements of the Office of National Estimates. We see no reason to depart from a procedure which worked. Approved For Release 2005/01/0$IiDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ,ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027?0200070001-8 SECRET 67. In fact, the recent hostilities between Ethiopia and Somalia, and the Soviet-Cuban intervention therein, may have set a pattern for crisis activities in this Ad- ministration and for the DCI's role. While by no means a major crisis by standards of the past, these events showed that this Administration would handle rapidly-moving prob- lem situations much as did its predecessors, and would have similar--and insatiable--needs for analytic product. It introduced a new wrinkle, however, in a "Horn of Africa Working Group," an interagency subcommittee of the SCC. The DCI evidently found himself comfortable with these support arrangements. The NIO for Africa served as his principal staff officer, as his representative on the SCC Working Group, and as his link to the Horn intelligence working group or task force set up by NFAC. The NITC, while in its infancy, handled the necessary staffing of collection arrangements. Role of the Task Force 68. No intelligence agency is ever adequately manned on a particular area or subject to cope with the demands of a major crisis, and it is almost always thin in analytic strength on a minor one. The costs of being free of this SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Vase 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO102700200070001-8 SECRET problem are both budgetary and cultural: one must keep people unhappily with noses to the grindstone covering areas where lightning strikes rarely and indiscriminately. It is there- fore necessary to organize, the skills necessary in an ad hoc task force that overrides normal command lines. Major crises, or even minor ones with a strong US involvement, require 24-hour manning, which demands that the task forces grow by a factor of two to three, with a corresponding de- mand for managerial personnel. Analytic organizations are stretched to their limit, and a number of analysts who have only marginal concern with the situation at issue, or whose experience is dated, are sucked into task force operations. 69. The analysts assigned to the task force are moved from their desks to a central area. This facilitates direc- tion and exchange, information handling, and dealing with requests. It provides a single point to which the DCI and consumers can refer and with which other agencies' task forces can coordinate intelligence support. Task force analysts are handicapped by separation from their files, so these must remain accessible. The task force remains heavily dependent on its parent organizations. It must draw continually on the work of related and supporting Approved For Release 2005/01/065:Ft1DP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/96CPi=RDP83B01027F*200070001-8 analytic organizations. It must receive promptly and ef- ficiently the full flow of traffic it needs. Finally it needs the reference, graphics, and printing services and specialized expertise that its analysts are accustomed to having available. In a major crisis these connecting links reach out into most of the parent organizations. The task force itself is the tip of an iceberg; the unseen part may include hundreds of professional and clerical personnel. 70. To illustrate, the minor problem of the Shaba invasion, with no direct Soviet involvement, drew in from NFAC: the NIOs for Africa, Europe, Latin America and the USSR; half the ORPA African Division, reinforced by analysts seconded by other divisions; the ORPA desks on Cuba, Soviet foreign policy, France, Belgium, and UN Affairs; the OSR analysts covering Africa; the OER analysts on Africa and on commodities (metals); large segments of the CIA Opera- tions Center; and elements of the Collection Tasking Staff, Cartography Division, OGCR and OIA. Each of these officers in turn relied on the analysts and files of his present organization. 71. The Task Force is always responsible for periodic situation reporting and ordinarily organizes the response to requests for data. It participates in the production SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027F&200070001-8 SECRET of assessments but, especially when a Community product is involved, NIO leadership is essential. As a general rule task force personnel are too pressed to break themselves loose for objective contemplation of the implications of a rapidly moving situation. Special arrangements are necessary to protect the highly qualified officers who can do this well from being consumed in task force activity. Role of the NIO 72. The establishment of the National Intelligence Officers also refined the old task force arrangements. The NIOs inherited ONE's responsibility for Community assessments, and in addition became the DCI's senior staff officers for the full range of crisis activities. The NIO accompanied the DCI to NSC and WSAG meetings. He knew what was going on and what was wanted. He was able to pass the DCI's tasks on to producers and collectors. He was able to shape assessments accurately to meet policy needs. He became, in short, a vital link in the communications chain. The Situation Report Problem 73. The DCI's task force has in the past produced situation reports of high quality, generally accepted as Approved For Release 2005/01/0?1~ "DP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For F&se 2005/01/n29f RDP83BO1027F200070001-8 the most comprehensive available. It has been standard practice, however, for the Departments of State and Defense to produce situation reports of their own, partly to report for their own departmental intelligence needs and partly to report for their operations to the White House. These, as well as all the limited periodic reports issued by mis- sions and commands overseas and all the raw reports of what- ever description issued by any arm of the US Government, flood in on the national authorities in crisis. In 1975 General Scowcroft ordered the DCI to bring order out of this chaos by producing in crisis a single "national situa- tion report," encompassing both intelligence and operations material. 74. Mr. Colby responded by negotiating with the Com- munity an agreement for the DCI in a crisis to designate one agency as Executive Agent for formation of a "National Intelligence Task Force" that would produce such a situation report. The negotiators informally agreed that normally CIA would be Executive Agent. 75. In the only test of this arrangement, however, Mr. Bush designated DIA as Executive Agent. The occasion was the Korean tree-cutting episode, hardly a crisis by, say, 1973 standards. The experiment failed. Agencies SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/QiEMU-3flA-RDP83BO1027F9200070001-8 resisted to giving up their qualified analysts because they needed them for their own purposes. They also argued that detached analysts, cut off from their files and interdis- ciplinary support, could not function effectively. (See paragraphs 69-70.) Situation reports were bland and delayed by cumbersome coordination processes and DIA clearances. The JCS refused to furnish advance sensitive operational information, even to DIA.* All those involved were left DIA in its "after action report" to the DCI stated that: "Involvement of military operators was limited. No operators were assigned to serve with the Task Group. Ground rules of the Task Group excluded publication of military plans or options being considered. Perhaps even more important, the information which had originally been expected of the operators, i.e., eyes only planning data for the Task Group but not for publication, never materialized. Getting information from the NMCC Crisis Action Team was physically difficult. The working level officers had obviously not been briefed on the existence of the NISR Task Group or its function, and therefore felt no obligation to provide it data. We should note that improve- ment was made, however; during the latter few days of the op- eration, J-3 assigned points of contact to work with the Task Force. These officers were cooperative and helpful." The senior CIA representative on the task force added: "The military [operations officers] failed to provide the promised flow of background information on US plans and operations. . . . Indeed, at the moment of maximum tension--at 1800 EDT, Friday the 20th--the DCI's personal effort to secure details of the tree-cutting operation exposed the J-3 area's clear unwillingness to cut the intelligence community into the action. Persistent effort by CIA's representative at J-3 did not change this situation through the week. . . ." SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For FSpse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027q*0200070001-8 SECRET with a bad taste in their mouths. There is now in fact a notable distaste for characterizing a crisis organization as an intelligence "task force" lest this agreement be again invoked, as in the case of NFAC's recent "Zaire Working Group." 76. The experiment should be quietly buried. It is unrealistic to think that any of the three major agencies involved will give up its analysts when it needs them most, or abstain from pouring its material into the White House through a wide-mouth funnel, as long as the White House does not refuse to receive it. And it is just as unrealis- tic to visualize any White House officer rejecting a flow of information. 77. There are good reasons for this. Even if information were totally shared (almost all is but some important frag- ments are not), there remain differences in time of receipt of particular pieces and in analyst judgment as to what is worth reporting. Agency A, simply in picking illustrative detail to support a conclusion, may select a different report than Agency B. Although A and B share the conclusion, the difference may strike Consumer C as somehow significant. Overall there is the very human tendency to be Johnny-at- rathole. It is a rare senior officer who can resist Approved For Release 2005/01 /065 t 4TDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Rose 2005/01119 p, 5 -RDP83BO1027F 200070001-8 treasuring a unique nugget to be deposited proudly on the White House Situation Room conference table. And in any case, one officer will always receive the last minute re- port before the others do. A National Crisis Reporting Structure 78. Scowcroft's problem is still here and, for the reasons stated above, has no easy solution. The need for orderly intelligence support in crisis must be balanced against timeliness and bureaucratic realities. Such a balance can produce a system with some of the benefits of "national status" and without the pitfalls just described. 79. The DCI's responsibility in a major crisis is to provide the most comprehensive and concise description of the situation that all intelligence sources can provide. He can and should,. to the extent he can, report on Allied operations, and if he is asked to include reporting on US operations he should try to do so, but he should recognize that he cannot do this on a complete or timely basis. None- theless, his intelligence reporting should be informed reporting; his task force needs to know what the US is doing or planning. The proposals of this study are not going to SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fuse 2005/01/9?tRDP83B010271-0200070001-8 alter dramatically the reluctance of State and Defense to tell their plans to intelligence officers. It is worth noting, however, that both State and Defense are, on their track record, more willing to reveal sensitive operational matters to the DCI than to each other, i.e., NODIS. Con- ceptually, and oversimplified, the national crisis report- ing structure is shown on Chart IV. 80. Sensitive operational information of the kind the DCI needs will never flow to him routinely. He will learn some of it through his participation in the NSC and SCC. Beyond that, he must designate officers of appro- priate rank to be his accredited personal representatives to State and the JCS in crisis. The latter is particularly important. 81. In this Administration, there was at the outset a tendency to view the most concerned department as the center for crisis management of minor crises. This has not held up under such tests as there have been (paragraph 67) and no major crisis in our experience has been run from any place but the WHSR since it was created in 1961. Thus we believe the DCI must be prepared to furnish na- tional intelligence situation reporting on call. And even if a policy agency takes the lead, his responsibility to SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Release 2005101106 ? C:IA-RDP83B01027R000200070001 8 IV NATIONAL CRISIS REPORTING STRUCTURE Role of the DCI Command Operations and Planning Intelligence Collection Tasking Secret 576565 7-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 = Approved For Vase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027of 0200070001-8 SECRET the President is to provide an independent intelligence as- sessment. 82. In either case, he must rely on the analysts under his own control to do this. Defense and State understandably have their own priorities in crisis. Still it is possible to make the DCI's situation reporting more "national" than it has been in the past. Qualified liaison officers from other agencies are easier to find than analysts, and secure conferencing techniques are now available. It should be possible to canvass the Community for late information, to incorporate unique contributions of other agency task forces-- there is ample work to go around--and to coordinate certain important judgments, without allowing cumbersome interagency procedures to delay publication. The primary requirement is timeliness, and this must not be sacrificed to bureau- cratic neatness. Miscellaneous 83. The now established role of the NIO as the channel of communication among the SCC, the DCI, the Task Force, the Community, and other elements of CIA need not be changed. He and his assistants should be the people who know every- thing that is going on. The creation of the Collection Approved For Release 2005/0T/OERETA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For P& Fa se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027I D200070001-8 SECRET Tasking Staff and the NITC adds a new dimension, however. We do not mean that the NIO should serve the DCI, or ac- company him to the SCC, to the exclusion of his correspond- ing NITO, or the corresponding DDO officer if DDO action is contemplated. Rather we see these three officers as a consortium, with the NIO as first among equals keeping each other informed and working each in his own field to keep CIA and the Community responding effectively to crisis re- quirements. 84. For the assessment side of crisis production, the NIO should continue to call upon the Task Force, his own sub-Community, and CIA elements peripherally involved. These requirements are ad hoc and unpredictable, and new or special arrangements are not required. 85. Other than noting the potential need for employ- ment in crisis, political and paramilitary action is out- side the scope of this paper. It lies in the line of authority from the SCC to the DCI to the DDO. 86. The role of the Senior Warning officer is to monitor Community performance. If the NIO believes he or the task force is not being properly supported, he should turn to the Senior Warning Officer in the first instance. The latter Approved For Release 2005/01/06~UYA- P83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Iase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027&0200070001-8 SECRET should, however, stay out of substantive matters as long as the machinery is functioning satisfactorily. His job is to see that it does. E. DCI Arrangements for Collection Tasking in Warning and in Crisis 87. Observations about this subject are necessarily tentative, given the nascent state of the Collection Tasking Staff. For this reason, we will not attempt here to suggest detailed procedures. For the same reasons we have chosen to deal with them together, across the range of warning and crisis, rather than under the separate headings used above. 88. If a crisis comes suddenly on the heels of warning, the effect on collection is the same as on production. In general, however, the effects are different. The more specific warning becomes, the higher the probability of the event, and the greater its importance to the United States, the more collection must depart from normal coverage to concen- trate on the potential crisis. Before and after this break point, however, there will be a gradual shift of collection resources, accompanied by planning for and debate over shifts until finally, in the full press of a major crisis, almost all Community assets that can help are focused on SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For P *se 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET the immediate issues. (The "almost" is used because the need to hedge against additional bad news is still present.) 89. In small-w or generic warning the key collection figure is the NITO directly involved. Given the breadth of the problem,. his job should primarily be one of planning and anticipation. He should be in close liaison with the NIO and attend his periodic warning meetings. On the basis of what he learns he should survey available collection re- sources, suggest changes to sharpen warning, and prepare schema in anticipation of a higher degree of alert or of ensuing crisis. 90. The NITO for I&W is primarily responsible for strategic warning. In particular he participates in planning structured indications collection systems such as WISP. In addition, while the NITOs concentrate on small-w warn- ing, they all share responsibility with the NITO for I&W for strategic warning. Together they plan for responses to serious military confrontation. 91. In crisis, the responsible NITO works directly with the NIO in support of the DCI. He is closely linked with the NITO for I&W at the Pentagon, to whom he is able to pass the DCI's immediate tasking requirements. Further- more he is the staff officer responsible for negotiating Approved For Release 2005/0~kgA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027~0200070001-8 SECRET the unpredictable ad hoc arrangements for crisis coverage: redirection of intercept, redeployment of ground and air assets, etc. He must also obtain from the Task Force a continual evaluation of the returns and adjust coverage in response. In essence, he serves as the NIO's agent for tasking and coordinating Community collection operations, resolving tasking disputes, and providing reports on the status of collection activities. In addition to tasking NFIB collection organizations and systems, the NITO develops tasking of non-NFIB departments and agencies with collection capabilities through the Collection Coordination Facility in the NMIC and similar organizations. F. The Knotty Problem of Location 92. As stated above, we are confident that any crisis that commands the attention of the President and NSC, and hence of the DCI, will be run from the White House Situa- tion Room. The DCI's day will be built around attendance at meetings there, often more than once a day, on prepara- tions for them, and on tasks arising out of them. Moreover, we are confident that the bulk of these preparations and tasks will involve information and assessment. The DCI SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For.ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027WO200070001-8 SECRET must "soak himself in substance." The geographic arrange- ments for support of the DCI must balance his need to maintain close contact with his supporting analysts and collection tasking officers and his need to be readily available to the President and NSC. 93. We believe the DCI's substantive support must come from his NFAC task force, and that it must remain at Langley. The DCI has raised the question whether, if he were operating from the Pentagon, an NFAC team could be installed there or alternatively he could draw his support from DIA. For the reasons stated in paragraphs 69-70 above, we believe an NFAC team orphaned from its base of analysis and support would be ineffective; the real work would still have to be done at Langley. We also doubt the practicality of DIA support for the DCI. In our experience DIA, torn among the demands of OSD, JCS, and the U&S Commands, has been unable to serve any of them very well. It is hard to see, even if the question of authority did not arise, how DIA could meet the extensive requirements of the DCI as well. The DCI would be isolated from the extensive pro- fessional apparatus designed for his support, including many other elements as well as analysis, and dependent in- stead on an analytic organization unaccustomed to his style. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For RWse 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027F~200070001-8 SECRET When the DCI is in the Pentagon, we would suggest instead that he be linked to the task force at Langley and his other staffs by secure voice circuits, facsimile, and teleprinter. These facilities can and should be installed; they would provide service less flexible than the DCI's presence at Langley would permit, but they would make it feasible for him to operate from the Pentagon. (They can be operated in a conference mode.) 94. For the same reasons, operation from the DCI's EOB offices or the Community Headquarters Building would require similar communications in place. The advantage of these locations is, of course, ease of access to the WHSR, but against this must be weighed the total absence of relevant supporting apparatus. 95. To summarize, in crisis the DCI needs: -- Immediate access to the President and WHSR. -- Close and continuous contact with his NFAC task force at Langley. -- Close contact with NITC, at Langley with a crisis offshoot in the NMIC. -- The ability to draw on and receive advice from SWS, also in NMIC. Approved For Release 2005/(IA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For,ase 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027QP0200070001-8 SECRET -- Operational information originating in State and in the NMCC. (His presence in the Pentagon would greatly facilitate the latter.) He has four potential locations: Langley, the Pentagon, EOB,.and CHB. None satisfies all the desiderata, but we urge the establishment of Langley as the primary one, with secure communications installed to his Pentagon office (in the NITC unit or SWS?) and to one of the downtown locations. (See Chart V.) Langley's advantages, the presence of NFAC and NITC and their supporting elements, greatly outweigh those of the Pentagon: SWS, the NITO for I&W, and--for a DCI-- proximity to the NMCC. Langley's greatest disadvantage, its relative distance from the White House, might be to some extent overcome by a standing arrangement for dedi- cated helicopter service, especially in bad traffic hours. IV. RECOMMENDATIONS 96. The package of recommendations below, we believe, is a sensible and inexpensive response to a pressing need. By linking together existing institutions through new pro- cedures, the proposals provide the missing skeleton to the DCI's warning structure. They establish a clear chain of communication and command from him down to analyst level SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For Fase 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO10270200070001-8 3 C C Y O O O O / .N t 1 G C y 4[ N ?C c C~ O Q E r ~0 o o V L E t U m 0 U ? Q O o o a U' i- 2 00 0 < uo. o U) Major + Major - :5 CD Analytic Talent Location DCI/TG rapport J 0 Q Elaborate display & Conflicting demands in ~J u Comms facilities military-related crisis v a * Proximity to Space 0 President & NSC No in-place talent Secret 576442 6-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO10270200070001-8 SECRET throughout the Community for this critical function. For crisis they provide arrangements modeled on those evolved to support the DCI on the Horn of Africa. And they lay the foundation for future improvements in the Community's substantive performance. A. Management 1. Designate the DDCI as overseer of warning for the Community and the Agency, under the DCI. 2. Create a permanent committee for warning and crisis, chaired by the DDCI and including D/INR, D/DIA, D/NSA, or their deputies, DD/NFA, DD/CT, DD/RM, and a representative of SecDef. 3. Designate a qualified officer as fulltime Senior Warning Officer and Executive Secretary of the committee recommended in A2, to serve as the DCI's focal point for these matters in the Community. He should have ready access to the DCI, and be readily available to substantive officers at all levels in the Community. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R&se 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 SECRET B. Warning (See Chart VI.) 1. Confirm, as a matter of policy, that line analytic organizations, line managers, and their supporting operations centers have primary responsibility for warning, including strategic warning. 2. Assign to each NIO explicit responsibility for second-look warning within his field. (Certain NIOs will in fact be dealing with strategic warning.) 3. In fulfillment of B2, direct each NIO to conduct, at least monthly, a Community review of potential problem areas. 4. Revive the Alert Memorandum, with the NIOs having primary responsibility for recommending issuance. 5. Designate the Senior Warning Officer as "ombudsman for warning." C. Strategic Warning (See Chart VII.) 1. (See B1) 2. (See B2) 3. Assign the functions of the Special Assistant for Strategic Warning to the Senior Warning of- ficer and eliminate the Special Assistant arrangement. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WARNING: Proposed 1978 Interagency Regional Working Groups Command Current Intelligence Flow (includes warning) Senior Warning Officer Dashed lines indicate advice or participation. `Parallel arrangements in other production organizations. Secret 576566 7-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved or Release - 0200070001-8 12005/01/06 : C1112k (11 NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WARNING: Proposed 1978 Elements Dedicated to Strategic Warning DD/CT Committee on - - - - - - Warning and Crisis Senior Warning Officer L NITO I&W if Warning Referents* Command Current Intelligence Flow (includes warning) Collection Tasking Strategic Warning Dashed lines indicate advice or participation. *Parallel arrangements in other production organizations. Secret 576567 7-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8- Approved For Fuse 2005/0110 IA-RDP83B01027IW200070001-8 RET 4. Resubordinate the Strategic Warning Staff from the Special Assistant to the Senior Warning Officer; assign the Director/SWS the additional duty of Adviser on Strategic Warning to the VD/DIA. 5. Defer decision on the long-term future of the Strategic Warning Staff, or a replacement for it, for a test period of 18 months from date of approval of these recommendations. 6. In order to assess the SWS at that time, take the following steps now: a. Extend the SWS charter to include any confrontation that could lead to major US involvement, especially with the USSR. b. Constitute the NIO/SP, NIO/CF, and NIO/ USSR-EE as an advisory board for the SWS. (NIO/CH and NIO/EAP should participate as appropriate.) In normal times they should advise on its work program; in abnormal, they should participate in its findings. c. Provide State and Navy representation in the SWS. Upgrade representation from other agencies and establish standards for length of tour. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B0102770200070001-8 SECRET 7. Reestablish the "warning referent" network throughout the Community, with the SWS and the Senior Warning officer as its center. 8. Use the network in C7 above to provide weekly reviews of strategic warning matters to the SWS. D. Crisis Arrangements (See Chart VIII.) 1. Confirm that the DCI will operate in crisis from Langley, EOB, or the Pentagon, in that order of likelihood but excluding none. 2. Provide secure communications and conference fa- cilities, including at least voice, teleprinter, and facsimile, between Langley and the other two sites. 3. Establish at Langley an NFAC task force to support the DCI and use it to issue a DCI Situa- tion Report series. 4. Provide liaison officers from State and Defense, with secure communications, to link the task force with their departments, and provide Community consultation and contributions (but not full co- ordination). SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 V111 NATIONAL CRISIS REPORTING STRUCTURE Elements Supporting the DCI PRESIDENT Secretary of DCI Secretary of NITO ------- NIO I I II I IL------------- L - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Command Operations and Planning Intelligence Collection Tasking DCI Task Force Secret 576568 7-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001 Approved For Release 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 NATIONAL CRISIS REPORTING STRUCTURE Elements Supporting the DCI Secretary of Defense NITO i n I l Collection Task Force --------------------0 --------------------- Command Operations and Planning Intelligence Collection Tasking DCI Task Force Secretary of State Secret 576445 6-78 CIA Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For .ase 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B0102770200070001-8 SECRET 5. Designate the NIO as the DCI's principal task officer in crisis, with the assistance of the NITO. E. Collection Tasking 1. Designate the appropriate NITO as the DCI's and NIO's focal point for collection tasking during a crisis. The National Intelligence Tasking Officer would: -- Ensure that national foreign intelligence requirements are translated into specific collection tasks. -- Provide tasking to collection organizations and systems. -- Resolve conflicts in tasking. -- Prepare daily reports on the status of collection systems for the DCI and for inclusion in the National Situation Report if needed. -- Develop tasking of non-NFIB departments and agencies which have information collection capabilities through existing instrumental- ities. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ase 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027 0200070001-8 SECRET -- Provide timely support to the task force concerning the status, capabilities, tasking, and yield of collection resources during the crisis. 2. Conduct a program of training exercises, including transfer of tasking authority to SecDef, as called for in E.O. 12036. 97. Once the DCI has set up the arrangements recommended in 96A above, he is in a position to inform the HPSCI that he has accepted its suggestions, and he should do so. He should then charge the DDCI and the new committee with adjust- ing and effecting the remainder of the recommendations, but it will need his authority and backing to do so. 98. There are several topics related to crisis and warning that are not treated here; some have gone too long unexamined. The new management machinery should be asked to take them on. Among them are: -- Relationship of the DCI to the NCA. -- Arrangements for relocation and support of the DCI in extreme crisis. -- Means for.making the DCI's sitrep more compre- hensive and more "national" without sacrificing timeliness. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B01027I200070001-8 SECRET Integration of the efforts of NIO/SP, NIO/CF1 and NIO/USSR with SWS. The long-term future of SWS. The DCI's responsibilities to the U and S Com- mands. The DCI role in wartime. The Command Relationships Agreement. The wartime status of NPIC. Approved For Release 2005/0~/69A-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 ~- Approved For Fuse 2005/015ECREA-RDP83B01027F200070001-8 HISTORY OF WARNING IN THE COMMUNITY 1. The Watch Committee of the US Intelligence Board was formed in January 1951 following the Chinese interven- tion in the Korean war. Its mission was to provide USIB with the earliest possible warning of Soviet, Warsaw Pact, or Chinese intentions to initiate military action or to provide military support to any other nation to an extent that US security interests were affected. The highest pri- ority was assigned to warning of Soviet nuclear attack on the United States, US forces or bases overseas, or US allies. The chairman of the Watch Committee throughout most of its existence was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. The committee was composed of two members each from CIA, DIA, NSA and State, and one each from the FBI and the Atomic Energy Commission. 2. The Watch Committee was supported by an interagency staff called the National Indications Center. The NIC, established in 1954 and located in the Pentagon, had a staff of approximately 30, including 12 analysts and ten people who manned a 24-hour Watch Center. The principal functions of the NIC analysis staff were to review all-source indica- tions intelligence and to draft weekly Watch Reports. These SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83B010270200070001-8 SECRET reports were reviewed by the Watch Committee and submitted to USIB for approval. Watch Reports were disseminated through- out the Washington policy and intelligence communities and cabled to some field stations by CIA and to various major commands by DIA. Sanitized versions of the Watch Reports were passed to Commonwealth liaison officers. 3. From 1951 to 1974, the Office of Current Intelli- gence was the focal point for CIA's role in the Watch Com- mittee. An OCI officer served as director of the NIC, and the CIA contingent in the NIC included three OCI analysts. Within OCI, an Indications Control staff (INDICO) composed of three officers managed the agency's participation in the Watch Committee mechanism. INDICO coordinated draft Watch Reports with CIA production offices, briefed the chairman of the Watch Committee on all current items of I&W significance, and maintained liaison with the NIC and with warning analysts in other USIB agencies. 4. In 1973-74, USIB authorized a study of the com- munity's warning mechanism and performance. This study concluded that the Watch Committee process was outmoded and should be restructured to meet the needs of policy- makers in the 1970s, particularly in the light of improved SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83B01027R000200070001-8 Approved For ease 2005/01/g?e}/RDP83B01027+0200070001-8 collection systems. By the late 1960s, the weekly Watch Reports had gradually expanded to cover such areas as the Middle East, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In treating this wide range of subjects, the Watch Committee became increas- ingly preoccupied with tactical details and its ability to perform its original mission was impaired. Procedures had grown increasingly ponderous and the coordination process was delayed by lengthy debates over minor textual points and semantics. The value of the Watch Reports to senior policymakers was diluted by the need to negotiate bland compromise language which often blurred the clarity of judgments. Divergent agency evaluations were not ade- quately reflected, and the provision for recording clearly defined dissenting views was seldom used. 5. USIB decided in early 1975 to replace the Watch Committee and the NIC with a Special Assistant to the DCI for Strategic Warning and a Strategic Warning Staff. The DCI appointed the Special Assistant in consultation with the Director, DIA. The first Special Assistant was Air Force Major General Lincoln D. Faurer, DIA's Vice Director for Production. The SWS was directed by a CIA officer ap- pointed by the DCI. The SWS director is responsible to SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For ase 2005/01/SEC IA-RDP831301027190200070001-8 the Special Assistant and serves as his deputy for stra- tegic warning. 6. In contrast to the expanding scope of subjects and areas covered by the Watch Committee, the mission of the Special Assistant and the SWS was narrowed to providing the earliest possible warning that the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, China, or North Korea is considering using military capabilities beyond its borders in ways that might threaten military confrontations with the United States. In contrast to the deliberations and time-consuming nego- tiations on compromise language which impaired the effect- iveness of the Watch Committee, the SWS was to concentrate on in-depth analysis and the preparation of clearly articu- lated warning judgments. The SWS was intended to provide a devil's advocate and second-look function, and to prod NFIB production offices into addressing specific develop- ments of potential warning significance. It was not to duplicate the work of operations centers and current in- telligence offices. 7. DCID 1/5 authorized the Special Assistant and the SWS to take the lead in initiating and, when appropriate, drafting strategic warning notices to the DCI who, at his SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8 Approved For R*se 2005/01/06: CIA-RDP83BO1027F200070001-8 SECRET discretion, would notify the President and the NSC. The Special Assistant and the SWS were also directed to submit to the DCI and NFIB principals studies and recommendations for improving the community's strategic warning capa- bilities. SECRET Approved For Release 2005/01/06 : IA-RDP83BO1027R000200070001-8