List of Key Substantive Intelligence Questions

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00506R000100080014-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2001
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: July 27, 1973
• Content Type: MF

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Approved For ReleiW 2001/12/04: CIA-RDP84B00506R00%@0080014-
MEMORANDUM
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
MEMORANDUM FOR GENERAL GRAHAM'
FROM: A. W. Marshaljrnt /"l
SUBJECT: List of Key Substantive Intelligence Questions
This is a quick response per your request and contains our first impression
of the list and some initial comments.
The list seems generally good. At the moment we do not have any specific
additions to suggest nor subtractions to Mcornmend. Given a longer period
of time we could try to get the next iddi,,,is of this list staffed through the
"list is extensive and the description of each item is fairly brief. In the
A ry effort I have launched for the NSCIC Working Group I.have been concerned
a;~'` ff One comment I would have, however, is the folk ing. Your
with trying to produce a short list; however, each topic is described in
some detail. The objective is to orient the community _as_ to why the issue
and associated set of questions are important, and to provide considerable
detail on the specific questions that the top-level people are most concerned
about. In other words, the attempt has been to try to increase the amount
of communication on a few items between the top-level people and the
community.
This approach is based on my view that one of the principal problems is
that, while the community people often know that a particular general
subject area is important, the thing that is often missing is a detailed
enough understanding of specifically what is important to the top-level
decisionmakers about that particular issue, what particular aspect of the
problem is most worrying them, etc. Also, there has been a problem in
the past with regard' to the character of the product produced by the
community in that it tends to focus on answering a limited number of
specific questions rather than trying to pull everything together and to
provide some new perspective and understanding for the top-level people
about broader aspect's of the problem.
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 Approved For Relea 2001/12/04: CIA-RDP84B00506R000 080014-2
This contrast between the nature of the list.you are preparing and the
effort I have been undertaking raises some questions as to the function
of the two efforts, how they can best be coordinated, what sort of
response one is trying to evoke from the community. We may need to
try to elaborate a joint strategy for the NSCIC effort and that of the DCI,
There are also a number of major resource and workload problems for
the intelligence community that are implied by this upsurge in guidance
from the tope Perhaps we need to discuss these problems and what
sorts of procedures one would suggest to provide guidance as to
priority, to mediate conflicting claims on sources within the community,
etc. Also, a flow of guidance is developing, but unless it is reinforced
by a continuous process of monitoring and control, over time the pro-
ducers will cease to respond to it. How are we to provide this monitoring?
Approved For Release 2001/12/04: CIA-RDP84B00506R000100080014-2