PNIOS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00269R001100040009-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 3, 2003
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: January 3, 1968
• Content Type: MF

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'D'IJM FOR: Executive Assistant to a)DCI
I concur in the recc endations of
I __Js ad hoc committee, and in thf-y
proposed revision of DCID 1/3. 1 believe,
however, that it would be desirable to emine
a few points in detail at an SSG meting;
(1) the matter of D/NIPE chairmanship of the
group which is to recommend the CIA position;
(2) the wording of Par. 3 of the Foreword to the
proposed DCID 1/3.
EDWARD W. PROCT0 t
Assistant Deputy Director for Intelligence
Distribution:
Orig + 1 - Addressee
ER
1 - DDI Chrono
1 - PNIO File
1 - IRAG File
1 - TMN Chrono
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MEMORANDUM FOR : EA/JJDCI
SUBIECT : Draft PN-I0:3
REFERENCE Your memorandum of Jaruary 1`dbd,
transmitting the Ix-epoi t of the AU
Committee on the PNIOs, " ctated Z9
December 19e7
cur fully in the general approach to ken in
report of 29 December and the d rafts attached
to it. I think it would be useful, however, if further scrutiny were
given to some of the language in the draft PNIUs before they are
circulated outside the Agency.
2. I will mention only one point. In an ea-'Iior draft
which I Na.w and found generally acceptable, that of 0 December,
the third objective of the PNIOs began with the wore s The
strategi -military forces of the Soviet Union... ` (x:iy underscoring);
in the draft of 29 December this objective (now No. 4) reaas
simply "the military forces of the Soviet Union and of ;onaraunist
China... " My concern is not with the addition of China, which I
consider an improvement, but with the deletion of t: ie wora
strategic.
3. This question has many obvious ra nifi-ation:s, both
substantive and political. I wish only to note here that from the
standpoint of the Clandestine Services the inclusion as a. 1-riority
National Intelligence Objective, without limitations or qualifications,
of "the military forces of the Soviet. Union and of Communist China"
will subject us to intensive pressure from the military c epartments
to collect any and all kinds of military information on these two
countries, and that this pressure wilt inevitably be supported by
citation of the PNIOs as drafted within CIA on "national s+a.rvivai"
principles.
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4. I would not necessarily hold out for the uoro
strategic, which may limit the objective too narrowly. rut
it should be noted that the exulting PNIOs of 1966 are less sweeping
than the proposed draft. ' ney contain two pertinent objectives:
one on strategic military forces, the other on ma'Qr changes
in the capabilities of general purpose forces. dome phrase such
as "major changes" or "major aspects" might provi le the necessary
limitation.
Thomas t1. isaran essines
Deputy Director for Plans
rrr:r
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3 January 1968
MEMORANDUM FOR : DDP
DDI
DDS&T
Director of National Estimates
The ad hoc committee chaired by has completed
its recommendations for revision of DCID 1/3 -- Priority National
Intelligence Objectives. The committee report and a proposed new
draft of the DCID are attached.
The DDCI believes that the committee's recommendations are
sound. If you concur in the approach, he plans to use the committee's
work as an Agency position for USIB consideration. If you have reser-
vations, he expects to explore the matter in anE=neeting.
Please advise me of your views.
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EA DDCI
cc: Executive Director
D/DCI/NIPE
DDS
ES /USIB
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nucutive h..gistcy
9 December 1967
MEMORANDUM TO: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT . Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the PNIOs
1. We have drafted new Priority National Intelligence
Objectives for possible presentation by CIA to the USIB. In
accordance with your instructions, the list is limited to those
Objectives upon which our national survival depends, and is
preceded by a new foreword defining the purpose and nature of
the PNIOs more narrowly than has been customary.
2. The new draft is grounded in the following judgments:
a. The reason for reforming the PNIOs is not that they
are necessary or even useful, but that it is easier to rewrite
them than to abolish them. They might as well be abolished for
all the practical difference they make, but to do so would re-
quire political maneuver of a scope and intensity which ought to
be reserved for more crucial problems. In particular it would
require personal and sustained attention by both the Chairman and
the CIA member of the USIB beyond what the subject warrants.
b. At the same time it is important not to waste the
talents of large numbers of senior officers in the vain repetitions
and empty gestures which have characterized the community's
handling of the PNIOs ever since 1954, when they began to destroy
the meaning of priority by indiscriminate expansion of the list,
and especially since 1963, when USIB decided to repeat part of
the process every three months.
c. It follows, first, that the PNIOs should revive the
sense of priority which characterized them until 1954. Our hope
of accomplishing this lies not only in the narrow definition in
terms of national survival but in a thoroughly literal-minded
reminder of the purpose the NSC Intended the PNIOs to have.
Quotations from NSCID No. 1 are intended to emphasize that DCID
No. 1/3 covers the narrow ground which NSCID No. 1 laid out for it,
and no more -- i.e., general iiance for the production of
national and other intelligence. This is an advance over earlier
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S-E-C-R-E-T
forewords which either claimed from the PNIOs a directive force
they do not have, or apologized at tedious length for the lack of
such directive force, or encouraged an impression that drawing
up an imposing list was somehow equivalent to orderly management
of requirements and allocation of assets to satisfy them.
d. It also follows that revision of the PNIOs should
avoid that periodic scheduling which inevitably becomes per-
functory and stereotyped. Accordingly, we return both to the
wording of NSCID No. 1 and to that which used to appear in the
PNIOs: Revision should occur "from time to time." The old
practice of putting the initiative for revision on the individual
members of USIB is likely to insure much fresher and more
thoughtful attention to the process than has now teen the case
for years.
3. With respect to the effort to use national survival as a
criterion, we should make these observations:
a. We received much help in narrowing old definitions
from the "Classification of Major U. S. Intelligence Objectives"
published by the Critical Collection Problems Committee of USIB
under date of 27 September 1967. This listing is of special
interest to us for two reasons: (1) The CCPC found it possible
to list more than two hundred intelligence objectives and yet
label only six of them as "critical to U. S. national survival."
The six did not include the Soviet ground forces, and to that
degree is notably narrower than any PNIOs ever written including
our own. (2) The fact that Gen. Reynolds's task force included
representatives from DIA and other parts of the community gives
us some hope that our own narrow definition may become acceptable
to the rest of the community as it now is inside CIA.
b. Our principal statement of the total military
intelligence problem (Item Four) is comprehensive and general,
not because it is impossible to define the national-survival
aspects more precisely, but because it seemed necessary to
recognize the political realities. A more exclusive, less
compromising earlier draft struck a number of readers as
guaranteed to cause maximum opposition.
c. Two of the five items (Three and Five) were con-
structed to emphasize the importance of other questions than those
exclusively military matters which to many members of the community
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would seem synonymous with national survival. Item Two is an
attempt to distinguish the most crucial long-range aspect of
the Vietnamese War without equating the North Vietnamese with the
Soviets or Chinese or implying that what is most important about
Vietnam now will also be the most important about it several
years hence. It can be argued that Item Five is vague and not
necessarily crucial; we find it useful., however, both because
some such questions er~.`"fucial than appears on the surface and
because it is a reminder how much of our concern is other than
exclusively military.
i. After an earlier look at the possibility of doing away
altogether with short-range supplements to the PNIOs, as
recommended in the IG Survey, we now propose that they be
continued with certain important :modifications. Our reasons are
two:
a. A short-range supplement may in fact be more
responsive to the total intention of NSCID No. 1 than our
criterion of national survival. At any rate it can respond more
clearly to the requirement that objectives be stated "on a current
basis" and "with respect to specific countries."
b. Such a supplement, again revised on the initiative
of any member of USIB and divorced from the stultification of
periodic deadlines, should encourage broad and serious participa-
tion in the PNIO process, but at the same time attract attention
to the value of keeping the supplement up to date without
constant fiddling with the PNIOs themselves. Thus the basic
purpose is again political: to encourage a sense of participation
in keeping current a list of important subjects which should be
much easier to devise than the fundamental PNIOs.
5. At the same time, our draft makes it clear that the
subjects to be treated in the supplement are not PNIOs, Priority
II; they are not PNIOs at all, but "Other Questions of Unusual
Current Interest." Both the definition and the list are efforts
to distinguish between the abiding and the transitory. In this
context, the only Latin American country mentioned in the supple-
ment is Panama -- not because it is necessarily the most important
or critical to US interests, but because it is clear in advance
that the fate of the Canal treaties will be one of the most
crucial matters around the world for US policy in 1968. Similarly,
the item which names Southeast Asia is meant to draw attention
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to a matter of great current, short-range importance in addition
to the long-range crucial matter which involves the same area in
the PNIOs. The definition of subjects suitable for the supple-
ment is intended to rule out (a) lists of predictions of crises
to come; (b) secondary and tertiary etc. orders of priority, and
(c) long lists of present and prospective anxieties.
6. In addition to dropping the periodic deadlines for
revision, we believe that from now on the responsibility for
reaching a CIA position on revisions should be broadened. We
propose that whenever a revision is asked for by any member of
USIB, or seems advisable to any office of CIA, the CIA position
be formulated by representatives of the same senior officials who
have been represented on this Ad Hoc Committee: that is. the DDI,
the DDS&T, the DDP, the D/NIPE, and the DONE. But with one
difference: It would be appropriate for such a committee to be
chaired by the representative of the D/NIPE, as most familiar
with the total intelligence activities of the community across
the board. After the CIA position had been reached, it would be
appropriate for the chairman to carry out such pre-USIB coordina-
tion as would be required, and again the Office of the D/NI.PE
would be an appropriate focus for such coordination, with whatever
help from elsewhere in CIA might be useful.
7. Meanwhile the attached draft has the general concurrence
of the members of the present Ad Hoc Committee- flor
ONE, Mr. Lehman for DDI, II for DDS&2, for DDP,
and Mr. Parrott for D/NIPE. This does not amount to complete
and final coordination; for one thing, the three last items in
the supplement have been added since our last meeting at the
suggestion of Mr. Lehman and Mr. Godfrey. The points treated in
the foregoing report have also been discussed by the committee,
most of them at some length, but this report itself has not been
formally signed off. The committee felt that it would be useful
to engage the collective attention, of the senior officers we
have been representing individually, and that to that end it might
be useful to convene the Senior Executive Group It. order to reach
a final CIA position on the PNIOs.
C1 airman
Hoc ortn _ e or PNIOs
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