NIC MEETING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00363R000501000001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 19, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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19 January 1983
NIC Meeting
-- Very important meeting - discuss some changes - comments on our
performance - review last year's schedule - discuss 1983 program
-- Fred Hutchinson is being reassigned - Herb Meyer has been appointed
Vice Chairman of the NIC - my prime purpose in this is to get more
editorial abioity into the process to curb a recent tendency toward
extended and turgid estimates. I have been impressed with Herb's eye for
policy relevance and believe that he will help to see that terms of
reference are worked over until it is clear what the estimate is expected
to do, why it is needed and that it will address live policy needs in a
useful way - see that Senior Review Panel and Community input is obtained
at that stage - too many terms of reference have been mere laundry lists.
-- Last year was a very productive one - great number of estimates - some very
sharp, to the point timely and relevant.
-- But we fell off toward end of year - too many were delayed to the point
of being less useful, too long, not sufficiently sharp, concise, relevant.
-- Too many estimates have turned out to be long research papers and
essays. There are some estimates which we will want to use to make
available hard to get data - strategic forces, Warsaw Pact data, as well
as judgments, but for the most part I want short, pointed, crisp, sharp
judgments designed to warn and point up issues and to assist in addressing
them. I want to know early on if an estimate is not moving in that
direction. It is unacceptable to have estimates wander around for
months only to find a great amount of work is put into something which
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isn't going to be useful or has in some other way drifted down a
blind alley. Sometimes the problem may be that the subject doesn't
really lend itself to a useful estimate in which case the assignment
should never have been made - we want to discover that early and change
signals.
-- I understand that some of the delays have come from difficulty in
getting assigned drafters and people with relevant knowledge to put enough
time into an estimative product. If we get them better designed at the
outset and shape them up as briefer, more concise undertakings, that
alone will tend to mitigate this problem. There will still be the 50-page
estimates here and there but we will have to see that the.DeoDle -are
anX
dedicated, most of them t,Q gto 1h page estimatesI We will get
more interest in doing them and they will be less of a burden and a better
product will result from making them briefer and sharper.
-- Now I would like to review where we stand on estimates which were
scheduled for last year and carried over,
y &44w-get a reading on the problems
that were encountered in doing them and where we are going on them now.
It looks to me as though most of the estimates on the first three pages
are carryovers.
-- Now I would like to talk about the 1983 production schedule. I would
be interested in knowing how that was put together, where did the subjects
come from, in a general sort of way? T have drafters
Q k*,j
-- Now I'd like to have a little discussion on what we see as policy and
problems to be confronted in 1983. That should certainly be the
background ju4qoe4ts formulatdrfan estimate program, recognizing
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that adaption will have to be made as new circumstances develop.
-- There is virtually nothing in the program on international financial
and economic problems. We certainly need to look at financial implications
of protectionist and austerity negotiations - we would particularly want
to look at where the debt burden, the IMF austerity requirements, low
commodity prices are likely to boil over into political pressures. I think
we should look at both where in the Third World these potentials seem
to be most explosive and at the attitude of major advanced industrial
nations to slipping up and assuming responsibilities to reduce the risk
that would otherwise have to be faced.
-- We certainly have to assess the German posture in the aftermath of the
election and the French posture in the aftermath of municipal elections
and any steps which Mitterrand takes to disassociate from the Communists.
There are assessments scheduled on forces in West European countries but
nothing on how they plan to use those forces, the direction of defense
thinking in the European countries, how they perceive military aspects
of the alliance, etc.
-- The estimate on political instability is an annual one and I don't
see it there. Particularly we will need to look at Saudi Arabia and the
situation in Iran and Iraq and the entire Persian Gulf sometime during
the year. The Soviet program is focussed on military affairs. We will
want to look at the economy and the outlook for defense spending sometime
during the year.
-- It is time for a look at the relationship of the Soviet Union and Cuba
in terms of the level of Soviet economic and military support, integration
and military planning, common political purposes and initiatives.
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-- The African section seems kind of skimpy, particularly in the light
of indication of renewed Libyan activity in Central Africa and probable
activity involving Namibia, Angola, South African pressure or Mozambique
and Zimbabwe, Zaire that is very fragile, and possible Cuban and Soviet
reactions.
-- I think the estimates should be concentrated as much as possible on
regional and transregional perspectives and the impact of broad forces
and trends at work in specific countries and regions.
-- Somewhere we should take a broader look at the narcotics problem
and the specific one scheduled under Colombia Drug Trade.
-- The DDI research program has been one which took in a context that the
strategic problems facing us is our hope that the NIC production would
be developed, both in the context of the strategic problems we are facing
with a view to drawing on the DDI research which most of our analytical
resource will be invested to shape that work into estimative products.
-- I would like to get some comment around the room on how we are doing
and how we can improve contribution of policymakers and Intelligence
Community components in formulation of the estimates' production schedule.
-- I have attended two meetings which NIOs have had with their counterparts
with the Community and was impressed in both cases by the way views were
),," changed on matters of high policy concerns, counterintelligence assessments
which were contributed yearly with those issues and what needs to be done
to improve collection in order to address those issues more actively. I
would like to hear how a view of the other NIOs function in this regard.
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