THOUGHTS ON RATIONALIZING THE REQUIREMENTS AND COLLECTION TASKING PROCESSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00171R002300070008-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 2002
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: June 4, 1974
• Content Type: PAPER

Approved Release 2002/05/09: CIA-RDP83M 1 R002300070008-8
Thoughts on Rationalizing the
Requirements and Collection Tasking Processes
The President, in his letter of 22. March, stated: "TI am
particularly concerned that the link between substantive
intelligence needs and intelligence resources be clearly under-
stood and evaluated". The most difficult problem facing the
DCI in meeting this charge is that there is no such link. The
main reason the Intelligence Community could never have had
an effective evaluation process (assuming it wanted one) is the
tremendously wide gulf between the establishment of require-
ments and priorities on the one hand and the allocation of
resources and evaluation on the other: never the twain meet.
This is a pervasive problem. It is reflected in attitudes, thought
processes and even organizationally, with one group--USIB--
concerned with "substance" and another- -IRAC--concerned with
resources.
The KEP, of course, was designed mainly to bridge this
gulf and, in effect, to. provide the link which so rightly concerns
the President. But even when operational, the KEP will address
only the tip of the iceberg, and there are major problems ahead
in making it work at all.
Beneath this overall problem are other closely related
obstacles to effective community management. One is the nature
25X1A of the requirements process. has written on that
aspect. Another, which threatens the success of the KEP itself,
is the absence on the collection side of the community of any
capability to review the total collection task, which, bad enough
in itself, leads to still another lack: there is no structure
allowing for an integrated interface between the production and
collection sides of the community.
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Looking at the KEP alone for a moment, this void on the
collection side is perhaps the single most serious obstacle to
successful implementation. Recognizing the fact that all twelve
NIO's cannot effectively provide for the essential interface with
collection managers, the IC Staff has provided a KEP monitor
to perform this task, among others. This has worked fairly
well in the relatively simple Job of preparing the Baseline Reports
in the pilot run. It is highly unlikely that it will work even for
the Performance Reports in the pilot run and almost certain that
it will not for a fully operating, steady-state KEP.
The larger problem, of course, .is the lack of any meaningful
overview of all collection efforts. Combined with the lack of a
systematic formulation of requirements, and in the context of the
overall separation between "substance" and resources/evaluation,
one can hardly avoid the conclusion that as presently structured
the Intelligence Community "can't get there from here". Without
a soundly-based set of requirements linked to collection tasks,
production output and the associated costs, it is difficult to see
how the DCI can even know in any coherent way what the community
is doing, why. it is doing it, and how the resources are being used--
much less evaluate overall performance.
overall Requirements Committee. A good proposal but more is
needed. As I see it, there are several approaches one could take:
has addressed the requirements dimension and recommended an
Clearly some structural changes are needed.
(1) Establish a DCI Executive Committee responsible
for reviewing and validating community-wide requirements
and the resultant collection tasking. The community would
report directly to the DCI and be composed as follows:
D/DCI/IC - Chairman
Senior Representative from DIA - Vice Chairman
D/DCI/NIO
Chairman, SIGINT Committee
Chairman, COMIREX
Chairman, Human Sources Committee
Chairman, Requirements Committee (if formed)
(2) Establish a USIB Requirements and Collection
Committee (same responsibilities as in 1 above) composed
as follonvs:
25X14
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D/DCI/IC - Chairman
Senior Representative from DIA - Vice Chaz-rrian
D/DCI/NIO
Chairman, SIGINT Committee
Chairman, COMIREX
Chairman, Human Sources Committee
Chairman, Requirements Committee (if formed)
(3) Establish two separate committees, one on Requirements
and one on Collection, composed as follows:
Requirements Committee
Chairman designated by
DCI with USIB advice
Members representing
USIB members/Mil Depts
(4) Rely on the NIO's per
memo on this subject.
suggestion in his 25X1A
25X1A
25X1 A Attachment: (1)
(2)
Collection Committee
Chairman designated by
DCI with USIB advice
Members representing
USIB members/Mil Depts
Requirements paper
paper on "Collection
System Trade-offs"
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