THE BIG MOVE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00951R000400020094-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 1998
• Sequence Number: 94
• Publication Date: April 11, 1952
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2001/07/27 : CIA-RDP84-00951 R000400020094-5
MEMORANDUM FOR: All Hands, OCD
SUBJECT: The Big Move
11 April-1952
1. Last weekend was a memorable ones We had chosen it as
offering the' best chance, though only a slim one, of getting staff,
equipment and files uprooted from M?-Building and transplanted in
the Stadium without seriously interrupting the services which we
must provide..
2. Most large offices, when they move, are able to lock up
their desks and file-cabinets, and sit back -with folded hands while
the appointed people move them into the new location and make all
things ready so that the work can start up again. But we could not
do this. Because. our job is' to provide a variety of services on. an
hour-to-hour.basis. If weed chosen to take the. weekend off while
the movers did the job, weed have found ourselves on Monday morning
in a state of chaos. Mailbags would have been piled high in cor-
ridors'ana corners; no one would have known where to find his desk,
typewriter and files; the In-Baskets in other'offices and staffs
would have been empty; and the telephones would have been ringing
wildly.` It seemed impossible, on Friday, that any amount of effort
could prevent us from finding ourselves in that condition by Monday
morning.' But, thanks to you, the seemingly inevitable was avoided.
25XIA1a
3. Of the_people,.more or less, who were involved in the
move I think that less than 50% just drifted with the tide. More
than half, surely, wrestled with chairs, desks, typewri Lers and
files in a manner never contemplated in their job descriptions;
while a smaller number of men and women, of all pay grades, sweated
voluntarily in dungarees and work clothes till. midnight each evening.
They, "certainly, were "Prime Movers", and the Agency owes them much.
By Monday noon we were organized in the new location, and operating
almost at usual efficiency. Several people with long experience in
government have said to me that they would not have believed it
possible if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes.
L,. By and large, conditions in the Stadium are better than I
had dared to, hope; but my expectations were certainly not high. and
it is a factthat there are many.defects to be corrected. Change,
in itself, i?s a defect when it breaks in upon the kind of concen-
trated reading and study which most of you are doing, and time and
a period of adjustment are the only remedies. But these will not
solve everything, and there are concrete defects which we will deal
with one by one and as fast as we cane I am exceedingly grateful
to the vast majority of you who have perceived that this painful
move was really the only immediately available solution to our space
problem, and who are having the patience to keep the wheels turning
while we work at correcting the defects.
5. You are an exceptionally fine group of people, and it will
always be a personal satisfaction to me that Ieva had the privilege 25X1A9a
of serving with you.
Approved For Release 2001/07/27: CIA-RDP84-00951R
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