WARNING AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B01027R000200110001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 28, 1978
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM FOR: Mr. Lehman
The DDCI is requesting a study outlining
measures to improve warning and crisis
management procedures. He would like the
study coordinated with
I have not sent a copy of this to any of
the NFAC offices concerned with the
subject. Please let me know who you would
like to take the action.
The paper is due on 26 May.
25X1
25X1
- USE
'5'7'5" 101 EDITIONS PREVIOUS
Date 28 Apr 78
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 28 ,PR 1918
F_s
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
Deputy to the DCI for Collection Tasking
FROM : Frank C.: Carlucci
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT : Warning and Crisis Management
REFERENCES (a) Memo for DDCI from DD/NFAC dtd 21 April 78;
Subject, Crisis Management
(b) Memo for DDCI from D/NFAC dtd 6 February 78;
Subject, Crisis Management
1. In paragraph 5 of reference (a) above you requested my approval
"...not to change the existing DCI-NIO-NFAC task force arrangement before
the NITC is fully ready to take up its collection responsibilities.'', You
have my approval, for the interim, to continue the existing arrangements.
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2. Having had an opportunity to read your two memoranda to me, I am
concerned that the existing arrangements and processes you describe. are
inadequate to meet our needs under present conditions. Not enough attention
has been paid to the basic problem of converging intelligence across. the
community to cover all events, regardless of geographic origin, which might
have an impact on major U.S. policy in critical situations.
3. I recognize that each potential warning and crisis situation is
different, requiring different mixes of talent that exist in various community
organizations,and for that very reason I would like you and to 25X
prepare a coordinated study outlining options on how we are going to improve
the warning and crisis management procedures. The study should also address
the problems you raised in your memorandum to me and how you II plan 25X
to work together.
4. The study and action plan should be to me within 30 days - 26 May ,
25
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NATIONAL FOREIGN ASSESSMENT CENTER
21 April 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
FROM Sayre Stevens, Deputy Director
National Foreign Assessment Center
SUBJECT : Crisis Management
1. Bob Bowie sent you a memorandum on 6 February asking
for a review of the DCI's crisis management arrangements. While
I understand the reasons for your wishing to defer such a review,
there are two aspects of this subject on which I feel we are in
danger of being caught short should we suddenly find ourselves
again in the midst of a major crisis.
2. Under the arrangements that existed through the last
major crisis, the 1973 War, and for a couple of years thereafter,
we had an SOP for crisis support to the DCI that had been developed
from long experience. It was well understood by all concerned, and
it worked. It required the then DDT to create a task force, with
support from the other Directorates, and to issue periodic situation
reports. The NIO served as the DCI's principal staff officer and
link to the task force. Our sitreps were highly regarded not only
in the White House, but at senior levels in State and Defense. (Those
Agencies nonetheless continued to issue their own departmental sit-
reps, a fact that occasionally caused confusion downtown.) We here
at Langley still have the assets to follow the old SOP, but a number
of the organizational changes that have taken place since 1975 have
left us uncertain that we would still be free to adjust quickly and
efficiently to crisis conditions.
3. In about 1975, Bill Colby acceded to pressure from Scowcroft
and Hyland for the production of a single "national" situation report
series in crisis, to be produced by a single "national" task force.
Many of us thought that, however desirable this was in theory, it
would be exceedingly difficult in practice and would result in the
NSC apparatus receiving a less timely, less comprehensive, and less
responsive product. Inter alia, agencies would simply be unwilling
to give up their analysts when they needed them most. We hoped,
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t".. , W tv
therefore, to interpret this decision as meaning that the sitrep
normally produced by CIA would simply be designated the "national"
sitrep, with arrangements for contributions from and rudimentary co-
ordination with the other agencies of the Community.. DIA, the other
major player in the game, informally concurred.
4. This arrangement has only been tested once, in the Korean
tree-cutting episode (hardly a crisis). Unfortunately, George Bush
at that time designated DIA -- for reasons still unclear -- as his
executive agent to form a national task force and issue the National
Situation Report. The effort was not a success. No one in NFAC
would like to repeat it and there are suggestions that DIA feels the
same way. It is inconceivable to us that in a real crisis a DCI,
and especially this one, could do without the support of his own
task force located here at Langley, or that he could permit a national
report to be issued except under his own supervision. We are left,
however, with a standing agreement and confusion in the Community as
to its continuing validity. We would. therefore like to give Colby's
decision a quiet burial. This does not require any formal action,
but merely an understanding on the part of all concerned that %,,,e in
NFAC will be permitted to pick up this ball at the initiation of a
crisis. We doubt that other agencies will fight for it. In each
case we will invite State and DIA to send liaison officers and make
contributions to give the product a national dimension. These
features can be added without radically disturbing the basic arrange-
ment as it existed prior to 1975,
5. Our second major concern is the role of the NITC. In the
past, the coordination of both collection and production-for the DCI
in crisis has been carried:out by the appropriate NIO. In our ex-
perience, this work has been perhaps 80% production and 20% or less
collection, but we now see an emerging tendency to think of the NITC
as the DCI's primary arm for crisis management. Especially under
present conditions, when the NITC exists on paper but is not actually
in;business, this could lead to improvised and unworkable arrange-
ments at the beginning of a flap that would not well serve the DCI.
They might place-the weight of responsibility in.the wrong place,
both literally and organizationally. Ideally, when an NITO exists,
he and his organization should be expected to assist in the crisis
effort by relieving the NIO of his responsibilities for coordination
of collection. Until the NITO is in place and functioning, however,
we run a substantial risk that the NITC will suddenly be called on
in crisis to deliver services.that it is not yet ready to provide
or that in some cases NFAC can provide better. Here again we do not
need formal action. Rather, all concerned should be aware of the need
not to change the existing DCI-NIO-NFAC task force arrangement before
.the NITC is fully ready to take up its collection responsibilities.
25X
Sayre Stevens
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Distribution:
Orig - Addressee
1 - ER
1 - DD/NFAC Chrono
1 - NFAC File
1 - AD-SS/NFAC
1 - NFAC/Reg
1 - NFAC/ RES
1 - AD-M/NFAC
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WHEN DETACHED FROM ENCLOSURE TREAT AS UNCLASSIFIED
0 6 FEB 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: Ambassador Carlucci
FROM . Robert R. Bowie
Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
SUBJECT Crisis Management
1. Crisis management is a topic that needs to be addressed soon from
the standpoint of intelligence support to the President and cabinet officers
in crisis situations. There is some ambiguity about the specific role of
the DCI in those situations as well as the support he requires from the
Intelligence Community and the Agency.
2. The.attached papers (Outline of Intelligence Communi_Actions
During Crises, draft 6 October 1976, and Checklist of Intelli ence Community
Action During Crises, draft 6 October 1976) are the result of careful
ode 1i berations- by . an Agency .-committee.- ---But, my _concern i s tha.t__no: further,-..
year and a half ago.
3. My personal knowledge of what has been done to study this problem
is, of course, limited by the short time I have been here. I did note that
the last chairman of a committee to study this issue was a Special Assistant
to the DDCI. My judgment is that the subject deserves your attention.
4. Some of the issues requiring discussion, if not immediate resolution
- CIA task force arrangements to support DCI
in crisis management situations
-- interagency or National Task Force procedures
to marshal Community resources in support of
DCI -- and conflicts with departmental
responsibilities
- Role of National Intelligence Tasking Center
- CIA relationship with State and Defense in
either single agency or interagency task force
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WHEN DETA HECK FROM ENCLOSURE TREAT AS UNCL SSIFIED
- CIA procedures to support DCI in PRC and
SCC roles during crisis situations
Procedures for moving from crisis management
situations (Korea tree-cutting exercise,
October War, evacuation from Beirut) to major
emergency action. procedures such as displacing
intelligence support to follow President to
alternate command sites.
5. We are reviewing our procedures in NFAC to follow the checklist of
October, 1976, and I am confident that we can do a creditable job of providing
support to you and the DCI in the event of a crisis: But, I will feel better
about this after we have considered the roles of other elements of the Agency
Robert R. Bowie
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and the Community. My representative on this matter will be 25X1
and he is available to provide you the background of the problem you wish
to discuss it.
 25X1 Approved For Release 2004/12/22 : CIA-RDP83BO1027R000200110001-3
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