A REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE ALERT MEMORANDA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B01027R000300030004-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2007
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: October 1, 1975
• Content Type: REPORT

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A Reiort on Intelligence Alert -Memoranda
Prepared by the
Product Review Division, Intelligence Community Staff
Secret
DCI/IC-75-3624
October 1975
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..TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
KEY FINDINGS ...................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION ................................................... 4
DISCUSSION ............. :..... ..................................... 6
The Threshold: A Fundamental Issue ............................... 6
Too Many or Too Few? ........................................... 7
Community Involvement .......................................... 8
Terminating the Warning ......................................... 9
Toward More Standardization? .................. _ .................. 9
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................... 10
ANNEX-Review of the Production Process for Individual
Alert Memoranda.. ........................ ................... 13
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A REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE ALERT
MEMORANDA
October 1975
This study, prepared: by the Product:' Review Division of the--
Intelligence Community Staff,_ responds to a. request by the Director of'
Central Intelligence. for, a .-review of Intelligence Alert Memoranda'
produced to date.. He wished to know both how well the system has served
him and. the-"-community..: and how well it . has served the high-level
consumer. This-'report has been circulated among USIB Principals, and
they have formally concurred in the review's findings. The document,
"Procedures for Alert Memoranda," dated, 9-January 1975, is being
revised to -reflect the recommendations noted in the study. -
KEY FINDINGS .
In view of the. numbers of persons who either were important
recipients or had some role in producing Alert- Memoranda, a unanimi-
ty of views on all. aspects of this intelligence medium was neither ex- -
pected nor achieved. There was, however, substantial agreement among
both producers and senior-level consumers on the following key points--
-The basic concept of the Alert Memorandum (AM) is sound.
Those that have been produced to date have by and large done
what they were designed to do.
-Alert Memoranda are being seen-and their message noted-by
principals and senior aides in the national security decision
process; they are not being short-stopped by lower-level staff
mechanisms. .
-The system is not being seriously abused by overuse. Given the
circumstances which led to their preparation, few of the fifteen
Alert Memoranda so far produced are-judged to have been hasty
or ill-advised. In general, those consulted judged this on the
whole to be a good record. -
-Conversely, no serious charges have been leveled at the com-
munity for neglecting the AM form when it might have been
.used. (One possible such case-the Mayaguez incident-was
mentioned by one respondent, and this point is discussed later in
the paper.)
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 -There was general recognition among most of those interviewed
that the production process has evolved-and improved-with
the passage of time and as experience in this form has been
gained.
Nevertheless, differences of view-some fundamental in
nature-surfaced on a number of points of form and substance.. The
more important of these are:
-There are:, varying. perceptions-of the==appropriate: criteria fors
selecting particular situations- to be. handled, by Alert.. M. emoran-.
da: This reflects 'a lack of consensus on the relative weights that =
should be placed on how important the subject is to US interests,
how quickly it needs to be addressed by policy councils, and how
likely. it is to occur.
-Some respondents suggested that it would be helpful to have a
more standardized format-one that had better attention-
getting qualities and ensuring that each AM uniformly addressed
certain questions. Others emphasized the, values of an un-
constrained form and style.
-Although the AM was designed as a. community mecha-
nism-and the- National Intelligence Officer (NIO) has sought
the views of other agencies when time permitted-the--Alert
Memorandum is-still . viewed by many, to be either a CIA product
or as-reflecting a:personal concern of the DCI rather than of the
community. Close involvement by other agencies in
recommending or participating in producing Alert Memoranda
has been minimal-far less than we judge to have been the goal
of the DCI and the USIB in establishing the system.
The findings are covered in greater detail in following sections, and
recommendations are set forth beginning on page 10.. The recommen-
dations themselves are relatively minor. Indeed, the flexibility of the
process has been important to its evolution and we see little need to in-
troduce major new restrictive or prescriptive provisions.
An exception involves a few practices that have grown out of ex-
perience in producing Alert Memoranda and that now have become
normative to the process. They should-in our view-be codified in the
USIB-approved "Procedures for Alert Memoranda," dated 9 January
1975. There are three of these:
-The practice of speedily notifying Washington area intelligence
operations centers as soon as a decision has been made to produce
an Alert Memorandum.
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-The practice-when time permits-of promptly notifying US
embassies and other appropriate field elements in the geographic
area discussed that an Alert Memorandum is in process, with an
invitation for comments and. suggestions.
-The practice of electrically disseminating the finished paper to-
those same embassies and field elements..
In addition, we believe community participation would be made
easier if-following close behind notification of other agencies that an
AM is being prepared-the responsible NIO would forward to those
same agencies an LDX statement briefly covering the salient facts of the
case, including critical source references, a statement of the intended
thrust of the paper; and an indication of the planned time of issuance
and the extent of coordination sought.
The remaining recommendations for the most part can be met if
the DCI and USIB place heavier emphasis on existing procedures to
try to meet problems seen by some of our respondents. USIB discussion,
for example, might help to clarify some of these issues. This particularly
applies to the question of how- toachieve greater community involve-
ment in initiating and producing Alert Memoranda.
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INTRODUCTION
In a memorandum to USIB Principals dated 28 August 1974, the Director of
Central Intelligence asked for early USIB consideration of a procedure for alerting the
national policymaker "to the potential danger of an unfolding situation as early as
possible in the unfolding process." Mr; -Colby went on to say that the purpose of such
an alerting mechanism would be "to put WSAG formally on notice that the com-
munity sees the possibility of a major problem, to inform it of steps taken to improve
intelligence collection;and, if appropriate, to recommend that WSAG meet on the
prooiem.
On 12 September the USIB agreed in principle to the idea
and the Intelli
ence
,
g
Community Staff was directed to produce and coordinate within the community a.
statement on procedures. The completed document, "Procedures. for Alert Memoran.
da," was approved by USIB and issued on 9 January 1975.
In the period since the subject was first raised at USIB, fifteen Alert Memoranda
have been prepared. The first three of these were issued before formal USIB approval
of the Procedures, but even those three were clearly responsive to the original DCI
memorandum, and in- accord with the USIB expression of approval. They have,
therefore, been included in this survey. In all, the list of Alert Memoranda to 1 August
include:
Alert Memoranda
Produced During. September 1974 to August 1975
A case study approach was used in this review. For each Alert Memorandum
produced we:
-interviewed those persons who were key to its initiation and production;
-reviewed with them the evidence and background circumstances relating to the
memorandum;
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-consulted with others in the community on their views on the production and
coordination process; and
-sought the views of consumers concerning the impact of the Alert Memoranda
and their value to the policymaking process.
Summary statements of the results of this survey of the individual Al
t
er
Memoranda are included in the Annex.
We were able to be more thorough in our coverage of the circumstances sur-
rounding the initiation, production, and issuance of the Alert Memoranda, relative to
what we could accomplish in the survey of the impact of the alerts on national security
policyntakers. But even on the consumer side we feel we have obtained fai
l
r
y accurate
-
reflections of the views of WSAG Principals on the general question of the utility of the
l
ti
i
a
er
ng system, largely through d
scussions with their senior aides.
We also considered major differences among Alert-Memoranda in form
coverage
,, ..
and objectives. And in discussions with both producers and consumers, we sought to
identify-with benefit of hindsight-any that seemed to have been ill-advised and-
hasty or altern
ti
l
b
a
ve
y any su
jects thtihtfitbl h bdd
,.a mg proayaveeen aressed by Alert.
M
d
b
emoran
a
ut were not
-.
And finally, we reviewed the procedures used to produce coordinate
d i
an
,,ssue
the Alert Memorandum to determine if changes in the USIB instructions-contained
in USIB-D-28.5/8, "Procedures for Alert Memoranda," 9 January 1975-might
usefully he made.
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