INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: RESULTS OF A SURVEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00269R001300040001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 71
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 1, 1978
• Content Type: STUDY

State: JCS, DIA reviews completed. On file OMB release irnstr' ctions-apply.
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JCS review(s) completed.
INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:
Results of a Survey
May, 1978
SCHEDULE OF EXECUTIVE ORDER-119'5'9'--
EXEMPTION CATEGORY
AUTOMATICALLY DECLASSIFIED ON
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary
Page
i
I. Background
1
II. Methodology and Scope
4
III. Analysis of Responses
7
A. Overall Customer Assessments
7
B. Value of Intelligence Support
12
C. Interactions Between the Community and its Customers
14
D. Directions for Improvement
17
IV. Conclusions
21
V. Recommendations
21
Appendix A - Conversation Guide
23
Appendix B - Interview Results
26
1.
National Security Council Staff 27
2.
Department of Defense 31
a.
Office of Secretary of Defense,
International Security Affairs
31
b.
Office of Secretary of Defense, Research & Engineering
35
c.
Office of Secretary of Defense,'
Program Analysis and Evaluation
40
d.
Office of Secretary of Defense, Net Assessment
43
e.
Joint Staff
46
f.
Military Services' Headquarters, Analysis Groups
49
3.
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 54
4.
Department of State 57
5.
Common Responses 61
6.
Highly Critical Responses 64
7.
Lauditory Responses 67
Appendix C - _Codeword Annex (SI/TK/G) (1 page)
68
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
0 In recent years, there has been increasing criticism of the
product of the Intelligence Community - the end result of the Community's
major expenditures on collection, processing, and production activities.
Much of this criticism has focused on the alleged inability of the
Community to meet real customer needs. To more systematically ascertain
customers' opinions of the Community, OMB undertook a survey of about 90
political and military intelligence customers on the National Security."
Council Staff, in the Departments of State and Defense and in the Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency. This survey was conducted during the last
half of 1977.
0 The survey revealed an extremely wide range of opinions on
the Community's performance, ranging from perfect satisfaction to profound
disappointment. A number of causative factors influenced satisfaction,
including subject area and level of detail needed, and the extent of a
customer's direct contacts with various intelligence agencies. In the
eyes of customers, the Community performed best in the areas of Soviet
strategic forces and current political reporting and analyses on many areas
of the world. The Community did less well in providing intelligence on
conventional military forces and on some other political topics. In the
eyes of the customers, State's INR and DOD's DIA had some of the more
effective arrangements for serving customers, although the primary bene-
ficiaries were only a small fraction of all customers. CIA and NSA had
less effective arrangements for serving customers and relatively few were,
served well by these organizations. A major factor influencing customer
satisfaction was the degree of close, personal, working relationships be- ,
tween customers and intell-igence analysts throughout the Community. Where
these relationships existed, the customer was much better served. Overall
there were significant problems and limitations impeding effective dissemi-
nation of intelligence and customer communications with Community analysts.
In addition, available and relevant information would often not be absorbed
or would not be an obvious factor in decisionmaking.;
0 Directions for improvement seem to lay in significant
Community improvements in dissemination and communication with customers,
in improved identification of ways in which intelligence affects other
government programs, and in selective Community improvements in substantive
areas specified as needing improvement - conventional military forces and
political reporting and analyses. Recommendations are made to address these
areas
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I. Background
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The fundamental function of the Intelligence Community is to
provide information to those government customers who can usefully apply
it. This function today is carried out by almost all the agencies of the
Community; collectively, they provide their customers with a wide range
of finished and unfinished products including direct personnel support and
contact, briefings, cables, field reports, individual "think pieces," and
coordinated, multi-agency reports, all of which can be.produced at several.
different levels of classification and disseminated for the use of one or
many customers.
The "production" component of the Community is the element most
directly involved in providing information to customers. According to
IC Staff data, these elements, in 1978, have about Opersonnel, down
about 4 percent'from the 1973 level, and now accounting for 11 percent of
total Intelligence Community personnel. By agency, these personnel are
distributed as follows:
CIA*'
State-INR
Energy
DIA
Army
Navy
Air Force
220
220
220
--
--
10
1,770
1,610
1,640
780
710
830
1,520
1,420
1,380
2,850
2,610
1,830
Notable trends are the-decline in DoD (especially Air Force) production
personnel offset to a degree by the increase in CIA* production personnel.
In addition to these personnel, there are over 1,000 people in NSA, CIA
(DD0), and the State Department who are directly involved in substantive
analysis, production, and communication of intelligence to customers.
The substantive focus and output of the Community as a whole has
always been centered heavily upon the principal potential military adver-
saries of the U.S. (the Soviet Union, East Europe, China, North Korea, and
North Vietnam). Information on the foreign policy, national security objec-
tives, and military capabilities of these countries is directly useful in
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developing, sizing, and operating U.S. military forces and in composing
overall foreign policy. Important secondary foci have been selected non-
communist world political and economic subjects (e.g., the Middle East,
energy, Southern Africa, nuclear proliferation) many of which have been
somewhat transitory (e.g., Southeast Asia, Portugal, Chile). The Community's
method of
ll
i
i
a
ocat
ng
ts total production effort among all of these subjects
begins with priority setting. The DCI's priorities are set forth in direct-
ive DCID 1/2, and the JCS's priorities are set forth in the Intelligence
Priorities for Strategic Planning issued to DIA and the Services. Although
a few topics e.g., human rights, nuclear proliferation) now receive.more
emphasis than in the past, current DCID priorities are, in the aggregate,
reasonably typical of those of the past few years, and a few country/subject
priorities are summarized below:
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This general guidance is supposed to "provide basic guidance to all
intelligence activities including .... production." A profound limitation
with priorities such as these, however, is that they provide, at the most,
very broad guidance; particularly significant difficulties are that they
are rather broad,-unbounded categories, and no distinctions are made between
collection, processing, and production or between the importance of differ-
ent quantities of information. in the same general subject area. Thus,,,..re-,
gardless of how much information is already available on Soviet ICBM's,
SLBM's, and strategic bombers, additional collection and production on these
r subjects is still priority 1; conversely, no matter how little information
is availabl
e on Tanzanian military aid, deployments, and warning of hostil-
ities, collection and production on these subjects is still priority 6.
Thus, in order to address the needs of customers interested in other than
the highest priority concern, Community production managers must interpret
and supplement these overall priorities, and the dynamics of the formal and
informal processes by which this is accomplished in the various agencies are
not clearly discernible.* Despite these subjective interpretations, however,
the general thrust of the overall DCID priorities is achieved; over 50 percent
of the Community's production resources are allocated to Communist World
military sbujects, seven percent to other Communist World subjects, less than
five percent of the production resources cover the rest of the world, while
a substantial share (almost 40 percent) cannot be targetted against any
specific geographic region or subject.
This allocation of production resources, as well as the ambiguous
processes by which the allocation is made, may explain some of the criti-
cisms that the Community has failed to anticipate significant developments
in the non-Communist World (e.g., Third World nuclear weapon programs).
Other criticisms (which cover a wide range of subjects and time) include
significant failures in indications and warning (e.g, the 1973 Mideast War),
in anticipating numerous developments during the Vietnam War, and in
correctly anticipating Soviet strategic weapons programs. More recently,
criticisms have been directed toward the "quality of analysis." The Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, in its report on the 1978 budget, sum-
marized these concerns as follows:
o "Lack of high quality analysis of complex or multi-disciplinary
analytical issues.
o Poor organizational procedures to identify, recruit, train,
and motivate high quality analytical personnel.
o Insufficient use of organizational techniques and managerial
guidance to insure adequate presentation of alternative views.
o Insufficient use of outside experts in dealing with analytical
problems."
The Key Intelligence Question/Defense Key Intelligence Question approach
was one Community innovation, but the effer.ts of stating these questions
upon production resource allocation or Community output was never clear,
and both efforts have subsequently been terminated.
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Over the years, the Community has attempted to respond to outside
criticisms in a variety of ways (e.g., through the establishment of Na-
tional Intelligence Officers (NIO's) and Defense Intelligence Officers
(DIO's) to facilitate high-level customer support, by the conduct of "experi-
ments" in NIE production designed to introduce a wider range of views
into intelligence products, and by modifications to many of the products
of at least DIA and CIA to make them more useful to outside customers).
These changes have not been sufficient to still the criticism, however.
Recognizing the continuing criticism and the continued questions of the
.Community product, OMB interviewed a sample of mid-senior level intel-
ligence customers in order to gain their views about the extent to which
the Community was performing a useful service and the ways in which it
should be improved.
II. Methodology and Scope
.The methodology was to personally interview mid to senior level
intelligence customers. Each interview, while designed to be short
(about 1 hour) covered these topics:
? -What kind of intelligence support do you receive?
? What agencies and offices provide this support?
? What, if any, are. the problems associated with this
support?
? ' What suggestions, if any, do you have for improving the
intelligence support provided to you?
Interviews were conducted during August-December of 1977. A "conversation
guide" (see Appendix A) was provided to each customer ahead to time so as
to indicate topics to be covered, and each interview was conducted by 1-2
people from OMB. Approximately one-third of the interviews were arranged
by DIA, and on these occasions a DIA representative was also involved.
The interviews themselves evolved along lines of interest to the indi-
vidual customers and, thus, were to a degree unstructured, even though
covering the five areas listed above. Follow-up discussions were held with
some customers to clarify points made during the interviews and a sample of
customers from all the major offices contacted provided comments on an early
draft of this report.
Customers interviewed were from those offices mentioned most fre-
quently by intelligence agency personnel asvmaj_or consumers of intelligence
support. Ninety-six separate customers contributed their views. These
customers were all located in the Washington, D.C., area, and their offices
are listed in Table I. The median grade levels were colonel-brigadier-
general for military customers and GS-16 or FS-02 for other customers.
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TABLE I
Intelligence Customer Offices Contacted
9 NSC Staff. (Program Analysis, North/South relations, Soviet Union, Global
Affairs, Mid-East, Office of the National Security Advisor)
(OSD) 7 ISA (Europe/NATO, Near East, Africa, South Asia, East Asia &
.Pacific Affairs; Policy and NSC Affairs)
7 DDR&E (Strategic & Space Systems, Strategic Offensive Systems,
Land Warfare, Tactical Air Warfare, Naval Warfare, Net
Technical Assessment)
11 PA&E (Strategic Planning and Arms Limitation, Strategic Forces,
Special Weapons and Support Systems, Regional Programs,
Europe, Land Forces, Naval Forces, Tactical Air Forces)
6 J3 (Operations), (Director, Strategic and General Operations,
WWMCCS and Telecommunications, Current Operations,
Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare)
8 J5 (Plans & Policy), (Director, International Negotiations,
SALT, Political/Military Affairs)
5 SAGA (Strategic Forces, Special Studies, Political/Military,
Scientific Advisor)
(Military Service Headquarters)
12 Force Analysis Groups (Army Concepts Analysis Agency, Navy
Systems Analysis Division, Air Force Assistant Chief of
Staff Studies and Analysis)
7 ACDA (Director's Intelligence Staff, Weapons Evaluation and
Control, International Security Programs)
19 State Department (Latin America, Africa, Europe, Central America, East
Coast (of South America), Korea, Japan, Republic of
China, Southeast Asia, PRC, USSR, Egypt, Iran, Israel,
Jordan, Office of the UN Ambassador)
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Although certainly not representative of all intelligence customers, this
sample represents an important subset, especially of those customers as-
sociated with overall foreign policy and national security affairs.*
Indeed, because of the responsibilities of these offices, the relative
seniority and experience of many of these customers, and simple physical
proximity to intelligence producers, it is to be expected that they would
receive close to, if not the very best, support the Community could provide.
In addition, almost all of the customers possessed at least SI/TK/GAMMA
clearances and thus were better equipped than the majority of intelligence
customers to acquire information from the Community.
Two limitations on the results are obvious--direct conclusions are
limited to those offices contacted; no recording of the intelligence sup-
port needs and opinions of other types of customers (e.g., military opera-
tional commanders, hardware engineers, ambassadors, and noncodeword cleared
personnel) was accomplished. In addition, results are qualitative and are
sensitive to what these customers perceived and chose to express in the
limited time available. Despite these limitations, however, the interviews
were sufficiently comprehensive and demanding to capture salient opinions
in the target population sampled.
* There was no attempt to systematically sample economic intelligence customers.
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III. Analysis of Responses
The customer responses covered a wide range of topics and could usefully
be studied from many points of view; for this purpose major points made by
customers are summarized in Appendix B. For present purposes, attention will
be focussed on four topics:
-- Overall customer assessments of Community performance -
How well does the Community satisfy its customers and,what
are the principal factors affecting this satisfaction?
-- Value of this support - To what extent was it apparent how
intelligence information availability affects other government
operations?
-- Customer-Community interactions - How effective are existing
mechanisms for information transfer and guidance between
the Community and its customers?
-- Directions for improvement - In what ways can the Community and
its customers improve its performance and its value to the
government?
A. Overall Customer Assessments.
e It is clear that the Community is viewed as performing a valuable
function, notwithstanding criticisms by some elements of the public, congress-
ional leaders, and executive branch officials, including some of the customers
sampled by this survey. Virtually all customers interviewed credited the Community
with providing some basic but quite valuable intelligence - most notably techni-
cal characteristics of major Soviet weapons and weapons technologies, approxi-
mate nuclear and conventional force sizes for major potential opponents of the
U.S. and insights into current political developments in many areas of the
world. The value of this output was said to be easily overlooked because it
was so basic that it was part of the background environment within which day-
day and month-month political and military decisions were made; it was none-
theless thought quite valuable. In addition, customers in all offices could
cite specific valued intelligence products and contributions (many of these are
listed in Appendix B).
e There were some significant complementary (outside the Community)
sources of information and analysis for many customers and these greatly affected
many customers' assessments of the Community for if these other sources did not
exist, demands upon the Community would be altered and increased. The most
significant of these sources were:
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-- Extensive State Department political reporting from most
areas of the world.
-- Study contractors and consultants for military equipment
and force analyses, net assessments, and policy analysis.
-- Customers' in-house experience, expertise, personal
contacts, and access to many "open" sources.
The continued availability of these sources was presumed by most.
customers in their assessments of Community performance and directions
for improvement.
? Although almost all customers credited the Community with being
able to provide some extremely valuable information, there was still a wide
range of expressed opinions, ranging from almost perfect satisfaction to
profound frustration; the bulk of the customers sampled (80-85%) fell
between these extremes. As a generalization, the more satisfied customers
appeared to need basically the type of intelligence which the Community was
widely recognized as being able to provide (general weapon technologies,
military force sizes, current political reporting) while the less satisfied
customers'need deeper or broader coverage or both. The specific factors
which appeared most significant in explaining these differences in satis-
faction were:
-- -Customer. country/subject focus - some topics simply receive
much_..more.-Community..attention__than others and customers.
needing information on relatively neglected topics felt
relatively less well satisfied.
-- Customer responsibilities - customers actively engaged in
planning or designing political or military responses to
foreign developments needed more precision and specificity
than those who needed the same information for more general
background purposes. Similarly, customers engaged in long
term studies generally needed more comprehensive detail than
customers involved in more short-term, ad-hoc actions. In
both cases, customers needing the more comprehensive and
detailed information were relatively less well satisfied.
-- `1Cas't6mer_interest in current vs-_-future - customers needing
information and projections into the future tended to be
less satisfied than those interested in current developments.
Customer personal contacts - customers with more or more
widely distributed personal contacts within the Community
tended to be more satisfied than those with fewer or more
narrowly distributed contacts.
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-- Customer personal standards and circumstances - customers
with experience in particular substantive areas and/or
with relatively good information on U.S. systems, programs
or policies expected more of the Community than those less
favorably situated; they also tended to be less well
satisfied.
Availability of alternative sources - customers were not.
equally supplied with alternative (non-Community) sources
of information and analysis and those less well situated
were more dependent upon the Community and tended to be
less well satisfied.
These factors differed significantly among customers and combined in various
ways, sometimes compounding and sometimes offsetting each other, to produce
the very wide range of opinions encountered.
0 Of the 90+ customers interviewed, about 20 were principally inter-
ested in foreign strategic nuclear forces, about 35 with foreign conventional
military forces, and about 30 with foreign political developments with the
remainder being interested in multiple topics. Summaries of the views of
these customer aggregations are:
Strategic nuclear force customers on the Joint Staff, OSD
(PA&E and DDR&E), in Service headquarters (Air Force and
Navy), on the NSC staff and in ACDA indicated that their
needs were predominately for general trends and directions
in'Soviet nuclear weapons programs and related defensive
systems. As one customer put it, what was really important
were "trends in a few key variables" (numbers of launch
platforms, ranges, weapon yields, accuracies, etc.) from
today to about 5-10 years out. The general availability
of codeword clearances and products to this type of
customer and the Community's output in terms of products
(e.g., S&T publications and briefings, interagency esti-
mates and memoranda, SALT reports) and its participation
in-forums such as the SALT working group seemed to address
these-.customer concerns well and these customers were
generally very satisfied. (Nine of the DCI's top twelve
priorities address this topic area).
-- Conventional force customers on the Joint Staff, in OSD
(PA&E, DDR&E, Net Assessment, ISA), in all the Service head-
quarters, in ACDA and on the NSC staff indicated that their
needs were collectively more diverse, covering both equipment
quantities and characteristics for ground, air and naval forces
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but also considerable detail on how foreign forces would
likely operate under combat conditions. Interest centered
primarily on forces in the period 5-8 years in the future,
and those of today. General trends between these two periods
also were of interest. The restricted availability of code-
word clearances and products to this type of customer and the
Community's output on these subjects (although collectively
quite voluminous) did not address many of these customers'
concerns (e.g., Allied military capabilities, Warsaw4Pact
,logistics and sustainability) and these customers were only
partially satisfied. (The DCI's priorities for these topics
range from first to sixth).
Political customers in the State Department, on the NSC staff,
in OSD (ISA), on the Joint Staff and in ACDA indicated that
their needs were predomirantly for a steady stream of informed
purrent reporting supplemented by a few, occasional interpre-
tive analyses and projections covering the next few months.
The Community's output (together with State Department cables)
satisfied many customers but some areas (e.g., Southern Africa
and Southeast Asia) were poorly covered by existing sources and
longer-term analyses were said to be infrequent, poor, and/or
irrelevant. Thus, these customers were only partially satis-
-fied. (The DCI's priorities for these topics range from second
to seventh).
s Organization - specific arrangements for intelligence support also
influenced the degree of customer satisfaction because they affected the ease
with which useful intelligence could be obtained. The range of organizational
opinions (in decreasing order of satisfaction) were:
-- Joint Staff - very satisfied with the direct support
responsiveness of DIA.
-- State Department - mostly satisfied with the volume of State
Department and CIA cable traffic (and a few other intelligence
sources) and with the efficiency of INR in performing a liaison
function.
-- ACDA - mostly satisfied with the generally good access provided
to all intelligence agencies.
Military Service headquarters - mostly satisfied by intelligence
available from their parent Services and from DIA.
-- NSC staff - partially satisfied with primarily CIA/NIO support
but many subject areas (especially political) were said to
need improvement.
OSD staff - partially satisfied by the limited responsiveness
of all Community agencies.
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Of all the agencies involved in substantive production, CIA and NSA (and
the DCI's interagency committees) appeared to have less extensive and
effective mechanisms for providing intelligence to customers. Only a hand-
ful of-the customers sampled knew how to utilize them but valued some of
their products highly. INR appeared to have an effective mechanism for
serving State Department customers, centering principally on daily, personal,
discussions at the all-source level. DIA had the most extensive mechanisms
for serving customers in all the organizations contacted but implementation
was reportedly very uneven, with only the Joint Staff being uniformly well
supported. (Extensive personal contact was an important factor here, also).
? The extremes of views expressed were:
-- Some customers (just over 1001 of those sampled) were
highly critical of aspects of the Community's performance
some going so far as to characterize the Community as
"a disaster area." The principal reasons for this high
degree of dissatisfaction appeared to be the inadequate
quality of analysis in many subject areas (attributed by
customers to poor Community personnel policies for substantive
analysts) and the lack of responsiveness by the Community
to repeated requests and guidance for different types of
analyses, and for coverage.of "neglected" subject areas.
These problems are quite similar to those cited by the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and were said to
be ultimately caused by the lack of attention of senior
Community managers to problems of substantive analysis
and production.
Other customers (just over 50/0 highly commended the
Community stating that in view of the inherent difficulties
of accurately discerning or anticipating what is happening
in either open or closed societies, the Community performs
surprisingly well.
? Although not directly interviewed, types of intelligence customers
not sampled would probably be less well served by the Community for, as a rule,-
they possess fewer of the factors influencing good support; e.g., they are
likely to be physically further from the Washington area, to have less partici-
pation in working groups with intelligence representatives, to have fewer
personal contacts in the various agencies and less storage space and fewer
clearances for codeword products. (Most of the "most valuable" products
mentioned by the customers sampled were codeword products). This speculation
is supported by a few of the customers surveyed, who had experience in other
types of positions and who indicated that intelligence support elsewhere was
usually worse. Thus, Community services to the customers contained within
this sample can be considered as an approximate upper bound in performance.
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B. Value of Intelligence Support.
s Although expressions of customer satisfaction may indicate that
the Community overall is performing some useful service, they provide little
guidance for allocating resources to the intelligence function or between
intelligence systems or programs. For these latter purposes it is necessary
to know how useful various aspects of intelligence support are or could be
and why, with the ultimate focus of interest being on decision-making. These
topics were pursued on a selective basis (partially due to time limitations)
during the customer interviews with quite limited results. Specifically,
customers queried on this subject could easily describe some of the theoretical
effects of having or not having particular types of information and a few
customers could identify specific uses that had actually been made, for
instance:
Using HUMINT information to foil assassination plots against
some foreign leaders.
-- Using imagery to support political initiatives to insure
Soviet compliance with the SALT treaty.
-- Using ELINT and all-source analysis information to route
peripheral reconnaissance aircraft.
-- .Using all-source analysis of Soviet air defenses to determine
the--scope of -the U.S. strategic. bomber program..
-- Using COMINT information to modify the positions of foreign
diplomatic representatives.
For the bulk.of the customers queried on this point, however, the principal
use of intelligence was simply "to know" the situation in some foreign subject
area, or to feed the information into issue papers, studies, and background
material for other decision makers. Subsequent actual experiences were quite
mixed with customers indicating that a number of decisions were made which
apparently ignored important intelligence. evidence and other decisions were
made without any intelligence inputs at all; in many cases, customers simply
had no way of knowing whether intelligence had affected some decisions.
A few indicated that some uses occurred only after considerable periods of
time (years). --Thus the use and ultimate value of many intelligence
products appeared to be quite diffused, unaudited, and uncertain.
s Very surprising in view of the public criticisms which have been
made was the lack of perceptible customer concern with some of the more recent
reputed "failures" of intelligence, for instance:
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-- Failure to anticipate the Indian and South African
nuclear programs.
Failure to anticipate the 1973 Middle East war.
Failure to anticipate some Soviet weapons
programs.
Very few customers sampled were seriously concerned with these typas of errors
because (they said) the lack of this type of information had not affected U.S.
decisions to any serious degree. In short, the real value of improvements in
these areas is uncertain.
? Other factors tending to cast doubt on the value of much of the
intelligence product were:
-- Many customers indicating that many products which they
received were highly discretionary for their purposes.
-- Some customers appearing to have a somewhat casual attitude
towards many products, as evidenced by their not absorbing
available material during busier periods.
-- Some customers indicating that they were constrained to use
only official or "validated" intelligence, regardless of
what other information might be available.
-- Some customers indicating that they "probably haven't done
all I could" to get some subjects of high personal interest
studied by the Community.
-- Many customers appearing to have few hard standards for what
information was required, especially on future needs. (The
type and level of information available on U.S. subjects
often served as an informal upper bound on what it was
reasonable to ask for, even though significantly different
means are used to observe foreign and domestic developments
and there are reasons for believing that information on some
foreign topics could be better than that routinely available
on comparable U.S. topics).
? Ideally, before decisions on major changes to the Intelligence
Community budget are made, it should be possible to identify the substantive
effects of the changes and the effects of these substantive changes upon
other government operations, for only in this way can it be determined whether
expansions or reductions in intelligence or in other government programs are
the most efficient way of improving overall government performance. This type
of systematic review is impeded by customers' inability to identify specific
actual uses that have been made of available intelligence and that really would
be made with improved, intelligence. In short, although expanded and improved
intelligence would probably produce more satisfaction, the ultimate significance
of significant additions or reductions in the quantity or quality of available
intelligence is not clear.
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C. Interactions Between the Community and its Customers.
I Most customers appeared to have very little knowledge of overall
Intelligence Community collection, processing or production capabilities,
of overall budget levels, systems capabilities, or even of current production
efforts or available products. Most customers' knowledge pertained to a small
element of one or two production agencies with which the customer dealt regu-
larly. This lack.of knowledge appeared to result from security restrictions
and the lack of good sources of information on these subjects. Asa result,
many customers: simply didn't know what it was reasonable to ask of the Com-
munity. Consequently, there was often a lack of informed customer requests
for products, customer guidance to the Community and customer assessments of
the Community's performance. Customers. generally under-estimated the quantity
of raw data available or potentially available to the Community. This lack of
knowledge may partially explain some of the attitudes described elsewhere
in this paper.
? Many customers indicated that in their experience, Intelligence
Community personnel had an inadequate appreciation of customers' particular
responsibilities and functions with the effect that available intelligence
products were often not directly relevant to their problems. This was re-
flected to a degree in a limited customer reliance on the products of the
Community.
0 The volume of general products available in some subject areas
(including some reports put out by customer organizations) was excessive.
Much of the material was duplicative (but partially inconsistent) descriptions
and unfocused analyses. The quantity was sufficient to overwhelm customers.
and to obscure the unique information contained in the various products. This
problem was mentioned by a number of customers and in follow-up discussions
it was suggested that there should be fewer separate products sent out but
that the separate views and analyses of different analysts and agencies should
be included in a more limited set of products.
s The highest degree of satisfaction was produced when customers
had close personal relationships with community analysts (e.g., the Joint
Staff, the SALT-working group). This type of arrangement was widely ac-
claimed by customers, many of whom desired to establish a wider range of
personal contacts--w-ithin-Community agencies. Direct personal contacts were
valuable because they:
-- Permitted an efficient two-way flow of information on
customer concerns and relevant intelligence.
-- Served as an indirect guide to ongoing intelligence analysis
and available products.
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e A surprising and critical problem was that customers often would not
be using or even be completely aware of available, relevant information. The
extent of this problem was surprising because many of the customers went to
some trouble to try and locate information and some were even served by
intelligence support offices. From the interview responses and follow-up
questions, however, it appears that no customer and probably no member of
the Intelligence Community knows what products are available in given subject
areas. This lack of knowledge is caused by:
r
-- :Little Community effort to market its products (DIA is
.apparently the only agency with a significant effort in
this area).
-- Lack of good indices to the products of the various agencies
(the only indices which are available to customers are very
incomplete and most are quite dated).
-- Limited personal relationships between analysts in the
various agencies and customers (e.g., DIA and INR are the
only agencies where customers can locate substantive offices
in readily available telephone directories).
-- Inadequate dissemination of information between intelligence
agencies (e.g., restricted dissemination from NSA and the
Navy to CIA and-DIA,-between-DIA-and CIA, and between-INR/
State and DIA).
-- Inadequate dissemination of information to customers (e.g.,
NIO denial of a report on Soviet SALT perspectives to cus-
tomers involved in the negotiations).
-- An apparent reluctance by at least some Community representa.-
tives to disclose the existence of many codeword or specially-
.produced reports to many customers.
-- Restricted availability of codeword clearances among some
customers, greatly restricting access to products and pre-
venting candid discussions with intelligence analysts.
Product dissemination was so irregular that it was possible for OMB staff, on
the basis of a quite limited knowledge of available products, to make some
customers in all organizations aware of products which they subsequently found
to be of significant usefulness. Most of these addressed topics which
customers said needed improvement (Soviet politics, African Politics,
Soviet advanced weapon developments, Warsaw Pact plans for employment of
military forces,, indications and warning prospects in
Europe). A signs scan and indicative peculiarity of all of these products
was that almost all of them were codeword products of CIA, NSA, the Scientific
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and Technical Intelligence Committee*, the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence
Committee*, the Weapons and Space Systems Intelligence Committee*, the
Strategic Warning Staff*, and the National Intelligence Officer structure*.
They appeared in no index available to the affected customers. Word of
mouth was the only means of discoverinq the existence of the specific
products.
? Customer guidance to the Community on what substantive products
were desired was extremely limited. Many customers indicated that they re-
sponded to periodic questionnaires (especially from DIA) but that there was
essentially no-feedback from the Community and that few if any apparent changes
made on the basis of their responses. A few customers provided inputs to JCS
and DCI priority setting exercises but indicated that the relevance of these
priorities was unknown. Requests for specific products or support were
significant but Community reactions had been mixed and most of these requests
affected only the short-run (a year or less); in any case, the bulk of the
intelligence which was available was in the form of multiple-customer reports
and briefings. Most customers wanted to put their faith in informal guidance -
developing rapport with Community analysis or managers so that the latter could
anticipate what customers would find of use.
? There were two areas in which disagreements between customers could
be affecting Community perceptions of the types of products which are desired:
Net assessments and estimates of performance - virtually all
military intelligence customers wanted more than simple
physical descriptions of military forces and equipment; in
particular, estimates of performance, weapons effectiveness,
and force capabilities were, in the abstract, desired.
Analyses such as these usually require a countervailing
force against which foreign forces are supposed to fight,
however, and this often involves U.S. forces. Some customers
would like the Community to perform such analyses, taking
into account U.S. force capabilities; other customers,
however, object to such analyses, pointing out that good
information on U.S. forces and plans is not generally avail-
able in the Community. In addition, there are few intelligence
anal-ysts trained to perform or review such analyses, such
analyses are performed (to a degree) by and for customer
organizations, and additional analyses would inevitably use
different models, assumptions, and data and would merely
confuse decisionmakers. One suggestion was to perform
intelligence net assessments using foreign perceptions of
the U.S. threat rather than the "real" U.S. threat. In
-addition, inter-nation comparisons not involving the U.S.
were said to be useful.
* Many of the customers sampled were not familiar with any of the products
of these Community elements (other than the Soviet Nuclear NIE) and some
had never heard of them.
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-- Anticipatory political analyses - some political intelli-
gence customers desire more reflective and speculative
political forecasts or projections, but some other customers
indicate that such forecasts are mostly futile. Other
customers believe that whatever is possible is best per-
formed by outside academic experts, whereas still others
believe that such analyses must also include consideration
of U.S. actions, in which case it should be performed by
policy planners who would have better information and ex-
pertise on U.S. options.
D. Directions for Improvement.
0 Some of the more basic improvements that could be made obviously
lie in expanded and more reliable intelligence dissemination and communica-
tions between the Community and its customers. This type of improvement
could increase the relevance of intelligence reporting and analysis as well
as improve the possibility that "available" intelligence would really in-
fluence government decisions. If relevant information already on-hand within
the Community is not readily identifiable and disseminatable to interested
customers who could use it, it is not clear if that information has any value.
Also, if customers are not receiving available information, it is not clear
how much direct relevance customers' opinions should have on major production
resource allocation decisions (not to mention collection and processing) since
the "needed" information may already be "available" in one form or another.
Actions that would appear to contribute significantly to improving dissemina-
tion and communications include:
-- Regular and widespread issuance of a Community-wide guide
and telephone directory to facilitate direct contact by
customers.
-- Regular issuance of timely and authoritative Community-wide
product indices and production schedules.
-- More extensive Community participation in customer working/
study groups (and vice versa).
-- Reduced artificial barriers to dissemination, such as.re-
strictions on codeword clearances, contractor access, and
controlled dissemination.
-- Better mechanisms for soliciting customer opinions and
significantly improved mechanisms for providing feedback
to them.
-- More complete sharing of information and products between
intelligence agencies so that customers primarily reliant
upon a single agency are not needlessly cut off from relevant
information within other agencies.
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Other means which have also been suggested include more extensive substantive
conferences involving customers, improved liaison offices and all-source
.libraries, more complete cross referencing of intelligence reports and listing
of authors' names and phone numbers and more aggressive customer guidance to
and acquisition of information from the Community.
S Because allocations of resources to and among various intelli-
gence activities are ultimately made for the purpose of improving the. ,
information available to the rest of the government, it should become
more clear how and to what extent disseminated intelligence affects or
can affect these other programs. Both the Community and its customers
could improve their ability to demonstrate the value of specific types of
intelligence. Such demonstrations could include:
-- Identification of policy, program and/or budget decisions
;made in which specific types of intelligence have played
a key role, including programs and policies not being.
carried out by the government primarily because of the
significance of intelligence information.
-- In-depth case studies of how and to what extent particular
types of intelligence have influenced types of U.S.
-decisions.
-- Identification in customer studies and analyses of specific
key intelligence inputs whose variation causes significant
changes in study results and in decision recommendations
affecting non-intelligence programs.
o Although the real value of major changes in the Community's budget
may not be clear, the Community could significantly improve the quantity and
quality of its product line at least in the eyes of the customers surveyed
here, with only small changes in the overall intelligence budget (less than
10). More specific suggestions are contained in Appendix B but overall
improvement actions could include:
-- Pruning and streamlining the product lines of the various
agencies to reduce redundant, or irrelevant description and
analysis while enhancing the presentation of different and
relevant viewpoints and analyses in a less voluminous product.
-- Expanded reporting and analyses of topic areas noted as
deficient by a number of customers - Warsaw Pact conventional
forces, Allied conventional forces, political reporting and
analyses, and selected other areas as summarized in Table 2.
The bulk of these topics were said to primarily require
improved analysis, including better and more thorouqh ex-
. plo.itation of available HUMINT and COMINT, and expanded
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HUMINT reporting (including State Department) in some
areas of,the world.
Improving Community personnel policies to enhance the
development and retention of senior substantive expertise.
Reallocating more of the Community's effort to focus-"upon
the future implications of past:developments rather'-"than-?
the past=developments themselves-:
Expanded use of contractual analyses to address topics
requiring special skills and expertise. .
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? It is clear that the Community, together with certain external
sources, performs a valuable service in supplying numerous customers with
critical information. This information appears to be sufficient in both
quantity and quality to almost completely satisfy many customers, notably
those concerned with Soviet strategic nuclear forces and with current political
developments in many countries of the world.
? Other customers exist who are currently less well served-by'
the Community and by other sources and there is room for considerable
improvement both in dissemination and in coverage of some subject areas of
high relevance to these customers. Most of these areas require relatively
low cost, if any, collection, the primary improvements lying in analysis,
production, and dissemination.
? Although some intelligence is obviously valuable to some govern-
ment activities, there is room for some doubt as to how sensitive many other
government programs and activities may be to selected changes in available
intelligence.
V. Recommendations,
? The DCI and other elements of the Intelligence Community should
substantially improve dissemination and communications with customers by:
-- Regularly issuing a Community-wide guide and telephone
listing of substantive analytic offices, making it available
to customers throughout at least the offices sampled.
-- Regularly issuing a timely, Community-wide, all-source index
of completed and forthcoming products.
-- Significantly reducing artificial barriers to needed
dissemination.*
? The DCI and other elements of the Intelligence Community should
substantially improve the quality and quantity of available intelligence
products by:
-- Selectively expanding and improving the Community's output
in the areas of Warsaw Pact conventional forces, Allied
military capabilities, political reporting and analyses,
and the other areas of interest to the customers surveyed.
-- Streamlining the intelligence available in some subject areas
by reducing product proliferation while expanding the repre-
sentation of different views in the remainder.
* The Executive Secretariat of the Department of State should also take
action on this item.
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-- Improving the relevance and quality of analysis through
increased emphasis on the future, through significantly
altered personnel policies for intelligence analysts and
through the expanded use of contractual expertise.
Customers should improve their intelligence support by:
-- More aggressively seeking out information throughout
Community agencies.
-- Providing more specific and more frequent guidance to the
Community on what information and products will be needed
in the future.
Improving their ability to demonstrate that changes in
intelligence products and support significantly affect the
operation of their programs.
s The'Community should review the detailed problems and suggestions
mentioned by customers (see Appendix B) to discern what additional means for
improving intelligence support to government operations may be possible.
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APPENDIX A
CONVERSATION GUIDE - FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE CUSTOMERS
(These questions were furnished to customers several days prior to their
interview to indicate areas of interest.)
1. General Background
In general, what are your responsibilities and those of your office,
and how can good intelligence help you do a better job?
o What are your general needs for intelligence (e.g., country,
subject, level of detail)?
o What agencies and offices within the intelligence community
provide the bulk of your intelligence support, and what form
does this support take (examples)?
o Where has the intelligence community provided the most useful
support to meet your needs?
o Where-has the intelligence community not met your needs?
2. Getting the Product
- What offices in DIA, CIA, NSA, the Services, and elsewhere in the
intelligence community do you contact regularly and directly?
Do you interact directly with National Intelligence Officers,
Defense Intelligence Officers, National Foreign Intelligence
Board and DCI Committees, or other liaison personnel?
How do you communicate your immediate and long term needs to the
intelligence community?
Has your office ever had any problems or difficulties in locating
and/or obtaining information from the various organizations in
the intelligence community? If so, what were the circumstances?
Are there any significant current difficulties?
Do you make any significant use of the foreign military capability
information found in unclassified, publicly available publications?
If so, why? Is it due to any particular difficulties with avail-
able intelligence products?
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- How significantly do the following reduce the utility of available
intelligence?
o Time delays
o Codeword document control procedures (clearances, document
storage, etc.)
o Other security related problems
What has been your experience in requesting intelligence which
required special analytic effort? Have you ever been told that
your concerns could not be addressed because of inadequate production
resources or because additional collection was required?
- The following are items which either exist or which could exist and
which might be useful in locating and obtaining intelligence
information. Could you please comment on how important each of
these means is or could be to you.
An intelligence community consumers guide
o A (monthly?) index to intelligence reports (DIA, CIA, NSA, etc.)
o An interagency-phone-directory-of analytic personnel/offices
o An improved system of reading/lending libraries, perhaps with
better information display methods
o Improved quick-response reproduction
-o An expanded secure phone network
o A system of computer terminals in users' hands with access to
finished intelligence data bases
o Other (specify)
Are there any noticeable trends in the quality and quantity of
intelligence support available to you? What changes have
occurred as a result of community concern over the last 2-3 years?
What would be your preferred mode of interaction with intelligence
producers?
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3. Using the Product
- Have you noticed any particular problems with the form of intelligence
products (e.g., verbiage, abstract technical data)? Have you
noticed any particularly valuable presentation means or features
(e.g., use of color, analyst names and phone numbers)?
- Contrast the usefulness of the products of various agencies and
offices to you in your job.
- How much confidence do you place in the information provided by the
intelligence community? Which are the stronger and weaker areas?
Do you perform or are you aware of post hoc assessments of accuracy?
- What effort does your office make to expand or adapt the available
intelligence product for your use? Are there any perceived biases
which you try to correct?
4. Value Assessment
- What intelligence information now available to you is so critical
to your responsibilities that you would allocate more resources
to obtain it? Can you give an example of how the intelligence
provided in these areas affects significant decisions made in
your agency?
- Would you'be willing to pay to get some information faster, more
accurately, more frequently updated, etc.? If so, what information?
How would this improvement affect decisions made in your agency?
- If the intelligence support your office now receives (visits, phone
calls, briefings, messages, publications) had to be reduced, what
would be the items/subject areas which you would prefer to give up
first, and how would these affect decisions made in your agency?
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Sections 1-4 contain summaries of the ranges of views expressed by customers
within each organization. Common views expressed by a large number of
customers in all organizations are found in Section 5, while some highly
critical views held by a few customers in most organizations are found in
Section 6. Section 7 summarizes the views of those customers who were
extremely supportive of the Intelligence Community. Although the comments
summarized here were usually not carefully qualified by customers,
obviously the comments. relate principally to a customer's own particular
.responsibilities, interests, and experiences.
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1. National Security Council Staff
? NSC staff customers expressed opinions ranging from unsatisfied
to full satisfaction with their intelligence support. Their needs were for
timely reporting of current political developments in and between selected
foreign countries, foreign perceptions of U.S. policies and programs, the
status of developments in such areas as human rights and nuclear weapons
proliferation, as well as significant developments in and occasional pro-
jections of foreign military forces, particularly those of the USSR; East
Europe, and NATO. Information provided was used as inputs to Presidential
Review Memorandums and to inform senior NSC officials and the President.
The time frame of principal interest was today, although general long-run
trends were of signficant interest.
? The principal source of intelligence was CIA, either directly
or via the NIO (National Intelligence Officer) structure. CIA provided
briefings, some special as well as regular reports, representation to working
groups, cables and FBIS reports, and considerable personal con ' ct; one
(military intelligence) customer mentioned receiving phone calls on any
significant new development. The operational element (DDO) of CIA was also
contacted regularly by some NSC staff customers. The NIO structure was
heavily utilized, primarily as a conduit to CIA but also as a source of
information from the rest of the Community.
o Other sources of intelligence support and information were the
State Department, DIA, NSA, and USIA. The State Department provided an ex-
tensive supply of cable traffic to most NSC staff elements as well as the
Morning Summary and some special reports. DIA provided selected. publications,
some cables, and there was some limited personal contact and weekly-biweekly
briefings, primarily on military-oriented scientific and technical subjects.
NSA provided a daily-weekly general report and on a few narrow topics would
provide some additional, useful material (to two customers). Foreign opinion
surveys done by USIA were also identified as useful.
? NSC staff customers thought that the Community was often responsive
and that it performed well in the areas of military and scientific/technical
intelligence, especially on the USSR. DIA's steadfastness during the B-1
bomber reexamination-was praised as was INR's Morning Summary which was said to
be quite relevant and timely for their uses. Also praised was the National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Soviet strategic forces, Special National
Intelligence Estimates (SNIEs) in general, a DIA nuclear Proliferation Watch
report, INR/CIA weekly human rights roundups, CIA support for the SALT working
group, and selected special reports, such as those done by CIA on the.Kenyatta
succession question.
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? NSC staff customers requested studies and reports informally
via their personal contacts (often NIO's) but did no long range projections
of needs. Several customers noted that it was hard to know in advance what
would be needed. One customer noted receivinga number of early (if not
premature) visits from the heads of CIA analytic offices inquiring as to what
analyses were desired. One customer noted, however, that requests could be
made endlessly on some subjects but with no response. Another customer in-
dicated that he did not like to tell the Community what to do - he bel-ieved
that the Community should be able to adequately identify topics oi; potential
interest (e.g., South Africa's development of nuclear weapons) and allocate
resources to them.
? Some problems were ident,ufied. One was the lack of responsive-
ness of Community elements (princyap lly CIA) to some request, such as for
more future oriented analyses and for a better integration of different
types of information (e.g., the political motivations and scientific capa-
bilities of foreign groups for nuclear weapon development). Another problem
was the often unfocused nature of much production, even on areas of high
interest (e.g., Euro-communism) which was said to greatly reduce the potential
utility of products. There was too much historical description and analysis
and too little production directly addressing potential problems.
One problem of a different sort was mentioned - that some
customers seemed either to not be aware of available intelligence or to com-
pletely ignore it (e.g.,,prospects for warning of a European conflict);'-the
,related suggestion was that additional personnel for liaison were needed.
? Problems with specific agencies were as follows:
-- Some studies "delayed beyond belief" for unknown
reasons.
Costing of Soviet military programs is misleading.
Sometimes assigns analysts with little relevant
substantive background to important areas.
One customer thought that the value of CIA cable
traffic on some "friendly countries" did not seem
to justify the political risks that appeared to be
necessary during collection.
Some customers concerned with growing militarization
and morale problems at CIA.
Too many "primers" and "general appraisals".
One customer mentioned that a more specific table of
contents and an index was needed for the Weekly Review.
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DIA:
-- Its political analyses were of little use for most
customers.
- Withholds some information (e.g., products done for
the Joint Staff) from CIA.
-- Is difficult to reach and was mostly an unknown to
-- One customer who valued NSA products felt the DCI was
trying to prevent NSA from being a direct producer of
useful intelligence.
Processing/production resources appeared to be in-
sufficient to the task.
-- Some customers were concerned that NSA may be with-
holding some sensitive COMINT products from CIA, and
perhaps from DIA.
Navy:
-- Withholds some intelligence and operational information
from CIA, preventing the latter from fully assessing
some Soviet ASW exercises.
Community Coordinated Products:
-- Many products are "sterile," limited by the "lowest
common denominator rule," and written so as not to
be wrong.
Community does "a poor job in backing themselves up."
- The National Intelligence Daily was said to be inferior
to INR's Morning Summary by some customers, citing the
latter's inclusion of more relevant material.
? Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were:
-- Better and more integrated political/economic analyses
(including focussed analyses of the politics and
economics of foreign military establishments and of
the Arab world).
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-- Global issues, especially nuclear proliferation
and economics.
politics (surprisingly few intelligence
reports were said to be available).
The support establishment, logistics and weaknesses
of Warsaw Pact conventional forces.
In addition, one customer thought that the State Department could usefully
review and provide to customers a summary of the output of the academic
community on many topics of interest (mostly political).
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2. Department of Defense
a. OSD(ISA)
? OSD(ISA) customers expressed opinions ranging from partial
to full satisfaction with their intelligence support. ISA needs were
(predominantly) for political intelligence and (secondarily) military
trends relating to countries, areas, and issues of significant DoD/NSC-
concern. Information provided was used to develop, review, and monitor
U.S. military assistance and military sales programs and to prepare senior
DoD officials.for negotiations and interactions with foreign governments
on other matters (e.g., base and overflight rights, arms limitations, and
crisis developments). The time periods of principal interest were two--
from today to the near future (a year or less) for most political topics
to several years in the case of policy and force projections.
? The principal single source of intelligence support and infor-
mation for ISA customers was DIA, which provided regular and special request
reports, some raw intelligence (e.g., attache reports), as well as extensive
personal contacts between analysts and ISA staff members and, to a lesser
degree, between DIO's and more senior ISA customers. Occasionally, the
Director of DIA would be contacted, and DIA also participated with ISA as
a member of the MBFR task group.
-? Other sources of intelligence support were CIA, NSA, the State
Department, and, to a lesser degree, NIO's,the Air Force's FTD, and study
contractors. CIA provided a considerable quantity of raw data (e.g.,
cable traffic), and some finished products to many elements of ISA. O,ne
customer also mentioned a number of personal contacts with CIA analysts;-
he could also request and receive special analytic products from CIA. NSA
provided one customer with his most valuable product--a specially produced
report for a particular area of interest; NSA also provided some inputs to
ISA via working groups on the Mideast and on chemical warfare. (The NSA
Pentagon representative had arranged some of this support.) The State
Department provided cable traffic and some INR reports to ISA customers.
NIO's were contacted regularly by one customer. ISA study contractors
also provided valuable inputs by performing longer range analytic studies
blending intelligence and U.S. policy considerations.
e ISA customers indicated that the Community was generally very
responsive and that. they were satisfied both by this responsiveness and
because of their knowledge of what was possible. Elements of DIA support
were praised (e.g., support to the MBFR group, DIA's being relatively fast
and accurate in getting out the facts, production of the Executive Summary,
and use of quantitative confidence estimate=). CIA was said to be the
source of the best political analysis and to have improved its economic
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analysis capabilities. NSA, for a few customers, was a most valuable source,
particularly on * nuclear programs, and (in conjunction with DIA)
on chemical warfare programs in .*
? Some ISA customers indicated they responded to KIQ forms, others
responded to DIA forms, and others requested special reports from time to
time. There were no explicit long range projections of requirements, however.
? A number of general problems were identified by ISA customers.
One was the difficulty in simply getting good (political) analysis. In
addition, there was a need for more anticipatory analyses, as much of the
available material was merely descriptive and historical; one customer
summed up the problem as a lack of knowledge of "what is building up."
(One simple example was given of what was needed--if a country is going to
become independent in 6 months, he wanted some appreciation of the conditions
likely to be prevailing then.) Also, the implications of foreign develop-
ments for U.S. policy needed to be better brought out. One customer believed,
however, that the Community was not aware enough of U.S. policy issues to do
this well. (One suggestion to improve this situation was mutual attendance
at senior staff meetings--ISA and Community agencies.) Other customers
thought it unrealistic to expect good predictive or estimative intelligence,
while another doubted that the Community could do any better than a good
outside scholar in assessing the future. One customer indicated that neither
he nor the Community appears to know what the real concerns of the leadership
of the Soviet Union are. Other general problems involved dissemination. Cus-
tomers indicated that informal channels and contracts were preeminently im-
portant in getting good intelligence, that there was no real guide to what
may be of interest to customers ("I can't ask for what I don't know exists,"'
was one comment), and that available information sometimes would only be
surfaced by the Community as project priorities went up. There were also
some administrative difficulties in handling codeword material in ISA which
were mentioned (e.g., no use of codeword material after 5 p.m., uneven access
to the National Intelligence Daily, and severely limited secure communica- .
tions--apparently only one secure phone in all of ISA); these problems served
to reduce access to and use of codeword information. One customer thought
that the availability of relevant intelligence to ISA study contractors had
worsened in the past year or so, due to increased dissemination restrictions.
One customer noted the occasional issuance of a product tailored to agree
with the views of a customer.
? Problems with specific agencies were as follows:
-- Produces the best political analyses but was too slow
to. be of much immediate use.
Denotes information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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One customer couldn't get information on Philippine
base negotiating positions.
A few customers thought there was insufficient prior
consultation on potential products, often making them
less relevant to ISA concerns.
One customer has difficulty getting DIA to do longer-
range, anticipatory studies (and used study contractors
instead).
Weak in technology transfer.
Weak in political analysis.
NSA:
Rarely dealt with, little contact for most customers.
One customer couldn't get some pertinent material
available to the NSC staff.
INR:
Most customers said they saw little of value from INR
itself.
State Department:
-- LIMDIS/NODIS/EXDIS cable traffic highly valued by many
customers but were rarely available. Some customers
went to considerable trouble visiting other agencies to
see selected cables, but other customers did not have
the time to do so. One customer summarized the problem--
lack of these cables "really slows me down."
Community Coordinated Products:
? Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were:
-- Military equipment transfers between Third World
countries involving U.S. law (more complete coverage).
-- Philippine base negotiating positions.
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-- Soviet concerns and policy motivations.
-- Southeast Asian andi too
little coverage across the board at present).
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 b. OSD(DDR&E)
? OSD(DDR&E) customers expressed opinions ranging from partial t'o
full satisfaction, with strategic nuclear force customers being the most
satisfied. DDR&E needs centered principally on the technology levels embodied
in the latest foreign military equipment, with the Soviet Union being the
principal country of interest. For strategic nuclear force customers, general
directions and trends were of principal interest, although a few operational
details (e.g., the mechanics of ICBM upper-stage and RV entry into 'the atmos-
phere) were valuable. For conventional force customers, it was also important
to know how a foreign nation would use various types of combat equipment. In
some areas, specific characteristics for weapon and countermeasure design were
needed. Information provided. was used in reviewing the effectiveness of,
selecting, and pacing the development of new U.S. weapons systems and in-
performing net technical assessments of U.S. and foreign equipment. Consider-
able work in these areas was done by study contractors. The time period of
interest was principally in the future - from 5 to as much as 20 years in
some cases.
? The principal single source of intelligence support was DIA which
provided weekly "S&T" briefings (principally), regular publications, and some
personal contacts at the senior level. The DIO for SALT was used extensively
by one customer. DIA also participated in the drafting of Development. Concept
Pa
ers (DCP'
) (b
"
"
p
s
y reviewing
the threat
) and was said to do a fairly good
job. DIA's scientific and technical intelligence reporting was characterized
as small, partially dependent on the Services, but was definitely improving
and was often equivalent or superior to that of CIA. (One customer pointed
out that DIA
i
tr
ed to respond to all requirements, whereas CIA could pick and
choose, thus, CIA selection may be a significant explanation of some apparent
quality differences.)
? Other sources of intelligence support and information were collec-
tively quite significant and included CIA, NSA, Military Services, contractor
studies, and by foreign manufacturers' advertising. CIA provided selected
technical publications to DDR&E, some of which were said to be quite useful
(particularly on strategic systems) and OSR would be contacted at times. NSA
would sometimes provide some useful data
and there was some limit
d i
t
,
e
n
er-
action on selected topics between CIA/NSA analysts and DDR&E throughout the
year. The Military Services were, however, a much more important source of
intelligence information for DDR&E, especially for conventional force customers.
The Services provided some direct support (e.g., monthly Navy intelligence
briefings for two customers), indirect support in the form of expertise (e.g.,
the Air Force's Advanced Ballistic Reentry Systems office was considered a
center of expertise on both U.S. and Soviet RV technology) and, most signifi-
cantly, studies. These studies, as well as DDR&E contractual studies, were
identified as a very significant, perhaps even pre-eminent, conduit for intelli-
gence information because for most DDR&E customers,. intelligence "had to relate
to a specific problem to be of interest." Advertising by foreign equipment
manufacturers was an important source of information on developments of non-
communist world weapons systems.
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Many of the Community's products were broad but not deep.
The Community does not seem to be able to say why a
foreign nation (especially the USSR) is following some
development path.
Answers to critical questions about how military equipment
would be utilized (e.g., how would tanks cluster, how ex-
tensive would night combat be, what would be the principal
targets for jammers?) were sometimes "quite shaky".
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. DDR&E customers indicated that a good deal of basic information
seemed to be available, too much to read or absorb in the time available. In
addition, much of it was of no direct and immediate use. Many decisions, it
was noted, were not precisely tied to intelligence inputs. There were frustra-
tions in some areas, but in many cases, Soviet security practices were con-
sidered to be the real limitation. Despite problems, DDR&E customers were
satisfied that their most critical needs were addressed one-way or another.
Most of their time was said to be spent on U.S. systems ("We don't live for
Soviet systems (alone)" was one comment), and there was little time available
to search out all.the information in the Community.
? Most DDR&E customers relied upon informal feedback to guide the
Community, although some specific requests were made from time to time, with
varying results. One office mentioned responding to requirements solicita-
tions (primarily by DIA) and also indicated that long term requirements are
stated during the preparation of RDT&E Mission Area Summaries.
? . A number of general problems were identified by the various DDR&E
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The overlap of CIA/DIA production in a number of areas
(e.g., Soviet navy).
? Problems with specific agencies were as follows:
DIA:
Poor career structure for analysts limits what can be
expected from DIA.
At least occasionally - too much U.S. doctrinal think-
ing reflected in products.
For one customer - "repeatedly asked (for some specific
analysis) with no response." Another customer indicated
that there was no way for him to influence even the
selection of topics to be addressed in the weekly briefings.
Many publications of limited use because their information
will be 1-2 years old when finally available. (This may
be a printing problem).
-- Many questionnaires "just seem to disappear into DIA."
* Denotes. information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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-- A "peculiar situation; there should be a closer rela-
tionship between CIA and DDR&E, and improvement is
definitely needed."
No way for DDR&E to know what is being studied in CIA,
what products are in preparation or even what products
have already been issued; in addition, there is no.way
to influence their selection of work.
--Output is uneven and irregular and coverage seems very
thin on most conventional military force topics (e.g.,
a report on Warsaw Pact air attack plans against NATO
was done some years ago and contained little new usable
information. The customers have seen, however, no CIA
reports at all on that subject since).
-- Worst record in providing available intelligence data
to DDR&E study contractors.
Information sometimes seems quite slow in getting out
of NSA because it is held up until fully analyzed (e.g.,
significant characteristics of * were
available in NSA two years sooner than in DDR&E). Another,
customer indicated that useful data could be "squeezed
out of NSA" if a specific request were levied and time
permitted. Another customer opined that there must be
much unanalyzed * data at NSA.
Other customers indicated very little interaction with
NSA, no way to know what is or could be collected,
processed, and analyzed, no NSA acceptance of contractor
support, and for one customer, no method to really
approach the agency. "We don't even know if they monitor
(some subject), ... can't get a name, ... no management
method (to get data from NSA)".
-- Over-compartmentation and clearance billets were the
worst problems for two customers--seriously reducing
their knowledge of Soviet ASW capabilities.
-- Many long range weapons forecasts were called "completely
misleading" because of their inadequate comprehension of
technological advances.
* Denotes information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were::
-- Warsaw Pact plans and capabilities to destroy and/or
disrupt NATO rear area installations (air bases, communi-
cations, logistics) using its networks of agents in
Western Europe (alleged by the customer to be some 1.6,000).
-- Soviet ASW countermeasures.
ECCM capabilities of Soviet anti-radiation missiles.
Improved estimates of the timing of significant enemy
weapon upgrades (e.g. ICBM accuracy). (Precise forecasts
would not be believable but knowledge of whether a new
weapon system or modification is "a 1980 threat, a 1985
threat, or a 1990 threat" would be useful.)
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C. OSD(PA&E)
? OSD(PA&E) customers expressed opinions ranging from unsatisfied
to full satisfaction, with strategic nuclear force customers. being the most
satisfied. PA&E needs were for information on the quantity and quality of
the conventional and nuclear military forces of the Warsaw Pact 25X1
of the two Koreas, and'selected other countries. Needs included current
and projected orders of battle and equipment holdings, equipment c4iaracter-
istics, and operational capabilities and limitations. Considerable detail
was required in the area of conventional forces. Information provided was
used in formulating force planning guidance for DoD, in analytical studies,
and in the preparation of issue papers for the-Secretary of Defense during
the annual program review cycle. The time period of principal interest
was from today to 10-15 years in the future.
? The principal overall source of intelligence, especially on
conventional military forces, was DIA, which provided weekly briefings,
some workshops, computer tapes containing order of battle information,
numerous publications, some personal contact with analysts and DIO's,
and access to a codeword library.
? Other sources were CIA and the Military Services. CIA provided
Soviet -strategi-c-force intelligence via the SALT Working Group (these are
often Community inputs)-, = and -other -i ntel 1 i gence -via -a -number of publications,
and some personal contact, usually with more senior customers. PA&E was -
also a source of information for CIA, providing it data from a Warsaw Pact/
NATO data base. The Military Services also provided significant inputs
both directly and indirectly as inputs to Service/OSD studies.
? WE customers indicated that information on Soviet strategic
forces was adequate and complete and that there were no significant
information deficiencies. DIA's integrity in projecting the air defense
threat to the B-1 and to cruise missiles was also praised. Several
customers dealing with conventional forces indicated that DIA's DIPP
(Defense Intelligence Projections for Planning) was very important and
was potentially the single most important publication for the mid-long term
force planning--performed by PA&E.
? PA&E customers mentioned responding to numerous questionnaires
on intelligence needs but were disappointed because there was no feedback
and no evidence of any responsive changes. (Some customers thought this
was a serious problem.) There were also a lot of informal interactions
but no other explicit requirements statements. On specific product requests,
some customers indicated few problems, whereas other customers said that
DIA, while it would never turn you down, may take several years to respond.
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? PA&E problems lay in several different areas. One of the most.
serious was a long-standing and perplexing lack of codeword billets for
PA&E personnel. In the various sections of PA&E, it was indicated that
from 50-95 percent of the personnel do not have and cannot get such
clearances, even though many of the personnel have previously had such
clearances. It was said that efforts to secure additional billets have
been fruitless for years, with the result that many personnel have
essentially no access to a large quantity of information (especially
from COMINT) which could be extremely important to their evaluations.
This was the most important problem for some PA&E customers.* In other
areas, technical analyses of weapons were said to be too heavy on description,
too light on effectiveness. Some customers indicated that intelliggence
analysts often seemed to have no idea how their information would be used
and that this lack of knowledge could greatly reduce product value. (An
example of a misleading AS-4 analysis was given.) (One suggestion was to
provide improved feedback to intelligence analysts.) Some chronic problems
with force projections were mentioned (e.g., continued misanticipation of
a Soviet third generation attack submarine), but, for at least one customer,
"this has not really affected any decisions." Some customers mentioned
serious consistency problems between the data provided by different agencies
or even by different offices in DIA. One example of the type of problem of
concern was strength estimates - there appeared to be significant and
unexplained inconsistencies between different products of DIA and other
sources including, for Allied governments, Defense Planning Questionnaire
responses.
? . Problems pertaining to specific agencies were:
-- Most recurring products were not "up to speed", were
often inconsistent and frequently seemed to lack coordina-
tion between the various elements of DIA.
-- Seems to not want to find any look-down/shoot-down anti--air
capability.
Contact is very light.
-- "Get a lot of watered down publications which are not
terribly useful
* The causes of this unusual situation were not clear. Some customers
indicated a lack of billets, others told of internal administrative
restrictions, while others said that background investigations took too
long or that no serious effort had been made to request and justify addi-
tional billets. Regardless of cause, however, the effects are the same --
reduced information availability.
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-- "Tasking is impossible, but sometimes they will produce
something you want."
-- Coordination comments on the DIPP are very uneven and
-incomplete.
NSA and INR
? A few customers mentioned an inherent "intelligence" problem --
that reports dealing at length with only "the threat"..(such as the USSR
strategic forces NIE) are susceptible to misuse or misinterpretation in
that a balanced and comparable evaluation of U.S. forces and capabilities
is not provided.
? Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were:
-- Military forces equipment, capabilities and limitations
of including projections similar to those
available tor e Warsaw Pact in the DIPP.
-- More frequent, more detailed and better estimative
-ana-lyres-of__the_ nature_of_-_WWJarsaw Pact conventional force
operations under realistic combat conditions, including
problems and limitations, and explicitly addressing
logistics, maintenance, command and control, and the
effects of training and attrition.
-- More timely conventional force information in the DIPP
.(a more regular publication rate - 1/year - was mentioned);
also better information on confidence levels and more
complete references were desired.
More specificity was needed in DIPP land force equipment
projections.'
Present and prospective Soviet production of improved
conventional munitions (ICM).
-- More coordinated intelligence projections of future
submarine noise levels.
Soviet force structure planning perspectives.
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d. OSD (Net Assessment)
? OSD (Net Assessment) customers expressed opinions ranging from
not satisfied to partial satisfaction with their intelligence support.
Their needs were for a broad spectrum of information relating to the rela- 25X1
tive strengths and weaknesses of the nuclear and conventional military
25X1 forces of the Warsaw Pact,O the two Koreas,0 China, and selected
r countries in the Mideast. Information available was used to develop "force
balance" analyses for the Secretary of Defense. The time period of interest
was today, some recent history, and a short period into the future.
? The principal single source of intelligence support was DIA,
which provided numerous regular publications, weekly briefings, and some
personal contact with analysts, DIO's, as well as with the Director.
? Other sources were, however, cumulatively more important;
these were CIA,, NSA, the Military Services, NIO's, and study contractors.
CIA provided selected publications and would respond to some requests,
while NSA, especially the Soviet group, provided some significant material
for studies. The NSA Pentagon representative had facilitated receipt of
some information. The Military Services provided useful material both
directly and indirectly via their studies. NIO's were called upon to
provide answers to some brief questions. Contractual analyses, however,
were a principal source of information on the subjects. of greatest interest.
to Net. Assessment; they, in turn, primarily used DIA, NSA, and Military
Service data in their work.
? Net Assessment customers indicated that the Community did a
credible job in monitoring the order of battle of the combat elements of
Communist military forces and in assessing the technical characteristics
of their major weapons systems. In addition, other valued services were
CIA's ability to retrieve foreign press articles and a monthly CIA (OSR)
review. It was thought that NSA, of all the agencies, probably did the
best job of analysis on the things it attempted to do (an analysis of
* was one example given).
? Net Assessment customers, in addition to responding to standard
Community requirements. inquiries, had tried over a period of years to
obtain analyses of high priority to them, but they noted no great changes
and few improvements in the areas of their greatest need.
? A number of problems were identified, most of which centered
on an inability to get the Community to seriously and systematically study
subjects other than those that were thought to be the, Community's forte
(given above). (Topics of principal interest are given below.) A related,
serious problem was the Community's resistance to providing the best ..
intelligence to the study contractors and consultants who Net Assessment
found useful in addressing these neglected subject areas. Restrictions
* Denotes information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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or prohibitions on the release of codeword information were the principal
problem (a DIA refusal to grant access to IRONBARK papers was the most
recent occurrence). Other problems mentioned were the lack of a central
substantive library (especially one usable by contractors), the dec'n-
tralization of translation services among many agencies making it impossible
to find out what has or has not been translated and to focus the effort
on some subjects of interest, and a lack of customer knowledge about
research going on in the various agencies (some reports, when they come in,
are a surprise).
0 Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were:
-- Warsaw Pact logistics, training, doctrine,
tactics, command and control capabilities, limitations
and weaknesses.
-- Warsaw Pact concepts for employing tactical nuclear
weapons.
-- Soviet motivations and perceptions of the U.S.
-- The effects of foreseeable Soviet resource constraints
(e.g., oil and manpower in the 1980s) on the Soviet economy
and defense budget.
Net Assessment customers made these additional suggestions:
-- Greater use should be made of study contractors and con-
_ sultants, many of which now have substantially greater
analytic capabilities (at least in areas of interest to
Net Assessment) than many elements of the intelligence
community. In addition, study contractors were said to
have-greater organizational flexibility as well as experi-
ence and access (as a result of other contracts) to some
data on U.S. forces; thus, comparative analyses can be 4
readily accomplished.
-- Prepare the annual "Soviet Strategic Forces NIE" from a
Soviet perspective rather than from a U.S. perspective.
- -Do more inter-nation comparisons of similar types of forces
to display and contrast foreign reactions to evolving
threats. (For instance, a comparative analysis of recent
25X1
reorganizations was esire to Snow now each torce
was reacting to anticipated changes in the nature of land
warfare.)
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Where lack of expertise on U.S. forces would impede a
net assessment, use foreign perceptions of the U.S.
Establish a mock "Soviet Planning Board" to continually
review the "foreign" threat and to make Soviet resource
allocations from a Soviet viewpoint.
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SECRE I
s Joint Staff customers expressed opinions ranging from almost
full satisfaction to delight with their intelligence support. Collectively,
their needs covered a broad range of subjects--strategic and conventional
forces of Warsaw Pact, and other countries, national-security-
related political subjects, and selected economic topics. Historical
analyses, current events reporting, and projections were all needed by
some element of the Joint Staff. Information provided was used to
support SALT and other negotiations, nuclear and conventional warplan
preparation and review, crisis management and for some current operational
planning (e.g., SR-71 missions). The time period of principal interest
was from "today" (for current operations, negotiations, and crisis manage-
ment) to 5-15 years in the future.
? The principal source of intelligence support (by far) was
DIA, which provided daily and weekly briefings and regular publications
as well as special reports and memorandums. Frequent personal contact
at all levels was mentioned (some with the Director of DIA and with
Defense Intelligence Officers (DIO's); principally, however, with DIA
analysts-in the National Military Intelligence Center, in the JCS
liaison office, and in support teams ("cells") for various parts of the
Joint Staff). DIA analysts would participate in Joint Staff study projects
and physical proximity of DIA offices to the Joint Staff was also important.
One customer noted in summary that DIA was "just like being on the Joint
Staff."
? Other sources of intelligence support were CIA and to lesser
degrees, NSA, the Military Services' intelligence organizations, State Depart-
ment,and interagency sources such as NIO's. CIA provided selected finished
products and some raw data, and a few Joint Staff personal contacts were
made with CIA representatives to interagency study groups or with friends
who worked there. NSA provided a few reports and a little personal con-
tact, the State Department provided cable traffic (including some LIMDIS/
NODIS cables), and the Air Force's Foreign Technology Division was
identified as providing technical intelligence to some customers. (DIA
would usually be used as an intermediary if contact with other organiza-
tions was necessary; and DIA would usually decide this.)
? Joint Staff customers noted improvements in their intelligence
support in the last 6-8 years and had high confidence in the product. One
opinion volunteered was that there were few surprises--most of the important
things to know were known. Another customer indicated that it was supremely
important to avoid strategic surprises (e.g., Soviet development of a
broad area submarine detection and tracking capability); he believed,
however, that the Community did a good job in providing this type of
coveraqe. The responsiveness of DIA was often praised, and some customers
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valued some new DIA publications. Various customers also valued highly
the interagency SALT Monitoring Report and the responsiveness of the
entire Community during the 1976 Soviet ICBM silo dismantling episode.
When available, CIA and DIA competitive analyses were liked because
each agency would pick up on different aspects of a problem.
e A number of customers indicated that their future require-
ments for intelligence production were very hard to specify but that_
the Community seems to know what is needed. An example given of a
significant Community initiative were improvements in Warsaw Pact' man-
power estimates undertaken to support MBFR talks. One specific future
problem was identified--verification of cruise missile force levels
and performance.
? A few problems did exist, but it was said that most could
be worked out. One recurring problem was the development and use of
different (and somewhat inconsistent) data bases for different but
related problems and countries.
S Problems with specific agencies were as follows:
For a few customers., a "frustrating"lack of data.
Occasionally has a"mind fix" on some subjects, such
as BACKFIRE bomber capabilities.
Navy (NISC):
-- One customer said he had found the Naval Intelligence
Support Center (NISC) to be useless (Air Force and
Navy analysts at FTD were said to be much more
responsive).
Time delays before these products are available to
the working level significantly reduce their
utility.
a Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention
Soviet intentions and motivations. Several customers
said this was a "virtually unmined area" and that
the U.S. Government as a whole has few insights into
Soviet politics, personalities and policies and that
although we may know what they're doing, we don't
know why.
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-- African problems (A general lack of. resources for this
area was noted).
The status of Soviet ASAT, high energy laser develop-
ment programs and SS-16/20 deployment. (These
topics were believed to be collection-limited.)
A Soviet economic model and data base to support. ll
recovery denial targeting analyses.
-- Unexpected strategies for conventional warfare in
during a nuclear war.
operate in combat - e.g., how would attrition affect
the rate of ground force advance and aircraft sortie
rates, at what point would reserve and/or second
echelon ground forces be committed and how would
logistics and maintenance problems affect combat
capability?
Austria into Southern Germany.
Europe, including possibilities for an attack through
-- How Warsaw Pact I onventional forces would 25X1
? Finally, one customer indicated that he believed it important
to stabilize the structure of the Community and its agencies sometime
soon for the turbulance of recent years has distracted both analysts and
managers from more substantive concerns.
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f. Military Services' Headquarters
? Customers in the Military Services' headquarters force structure
analysis organizations* indicated that they were mostly satisfied with
their intelligence support. Their principal need was for basic information
on,foreign military forces, including orders of battle, equipment +iol'dings
and performance, strategic and tactical plans for employing same, and, for
conventional forces, logistics, maintenance, and other factors affecting
force sustainability in combat. A secondary need for some customers was
political information relating to the future availability of allies, bases,
overflight rights, and so forth. Countries of primary interest w those
directly related to DOD planning guidance--USSR, East Europe, and the 2 5X1
two Koreas. Information provided was used to conduct force and equipment
capabilities analyses, war games, and net assessments to support develop-
ment of their parent Service program and budget proposals. Analyses were
also performed for the JCS and OSD. The time period of principal interest
was 5-10 years in the future.
? The principal source of intelligence support was usually their
parent Service general intelligence organization which directly provided
some information and support and also served as a conduit for information
from other sources. For instance, the Army's Intelligence Analysis Group
provided intelligence inputs to an annual report (Army Force Planning Data
and Assumptions). which contained projected force characteristics and which
was heavily used in studies performed by the Concepts Analysis Agency and
elsewhere in the Army; Air Force Intelligence provided extensive personal
contact, weekly briefings and technical reports to Studies and Analysis;
and the Navy's Field Operational Intelligence Office and Intelligence
Support Center were also mentioned as providing useful analyses and contact
to the Systems Analysts Division.
? Other sources of intelligence support were DIA, CIA, NSA, and
NIO's.. DIA sometimes would serve as the conduit for reports and publica-
tions between the Military Services, would be the source of an occasional
special report, and provided some personal contacts at the working level,
and, to a lesser degree, DIO's would interact with more senior customers..
CIA provided some selected publications, and some informal contacts were
available to all organizations, although the extent of these varied widely.
Customers in one organization said they particularly valued CIA contacts.
NSA was occasionally contacted directly by these customers, especially by
one of the Services. NIE's and other interagency products were selectively
available to two of the organizations, and one senior customer would
occasionally interact with an NIO.
* The Army's Concepts Analysis Agency, the Navy's Systems Analysis Division,
and the Air Force's Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff (Studies and
Analysis)
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? Service customers indicated that they thought intelligence
support had improved significantly over the last 4-5 years, attributing
much of the improvement to less restrictive security practices. There
was a little less mystery now, one customer said (partially due to'Con-
gressional hearings and leaks in the press, as well as to the increased
availability of satellite imagery information in non-codeword channels).
Service customers had high confidence in the all source intelligence
product and thought the Community did a pretty good job on equipment
quantities and technical characteristics. The DIPP was used extensively
for future threat projections, with the Air Force also using the NIE for
strategic force projections because it contained more widely agreed upon
data and was more timely for their uses. DIA's Trends and Developments
report was also mentioned as useful as was the FTD "White Stork" project
which allowed users to search out the appearance of particular key words
in foreign literature.
e Some customers mentioned responding to Community solicitations
of intelligence interests, others requested special reports from time to
time, and there was considerable informal interaction. No real long-range
projections of needs were-made, however.- Some customers thought that
there was an imbalanced priority of effort between satisfying the needs
of national level senior officials and those of the working level (with
the former preempting most of the effort). Another customer could not
understand the Community's efforts in a particular substantive area,
indicating that some "critical questions are worked on by one guy, while
50 people work on silly problems." Another customer thought that the
Community was often driven by Congressional pressure (e.g., Soviet Civil
Defense analyses).
a A number of problems were mentioned. Some customers noted
that different levels of classification sometimes present significantly
different pictures (e.g., the higher level material revealing systems,
modifications, plans, and capabilities that "we didn't know about").
One customer indicated that he had recently found that downgrading/sani-
tization procedures were not working and cited three instances in the
previous three months where NSA (COMINT) material of considerable sig-
nificance to his organization had not been included in products available
to him via. normal service and DIA channels. Other customers said that
there would sometimes be problems in locating the most knowledgeable
people to address some topic. Available guides, such as the DIA Users
Guide and the DOD phone directory, were said to be inferior (less detailed)
to formerly available material, such as a phone directory put out by DIA
several years ago and a list of Naval Intelligence Command personnel
published by the Bureau of Naval Personnel. Several customers noted that:
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The Community was extremely poor in exploiting Communist
military writings (foreign university professors were said
to do the best job) and in debriefing defectors and emigres
(e.g., only by coincidence were some important ICBM silo
details obtained).
They doubted that the available COMINT information (on a
variety of subjects) was adequately exploited.
The intelligence personnel drawdown following Vietnam had
affected areas other than Southeast Asia.
The utility of many Community publications was impaired
by lengthy publishing lags and old intelligence cutoff
dates.
Considerable efforts had to be made to adapt the available
intelligence to the problems at hand (e.g., making Red and
Blue tank repair times comparable).
Opinions of military operational people could often be
useful-in-=analyzing foreign-weaponry-and forces, but that
these opinions and experience appeared to be infrequently
utilized.
Finally, one of the three organizations had experienced considerable difficulty
obtaining billets and clearing personnel for codeword material (a real adminis-
trative burden was said to be caused by Community clearance procedures), and
two of the organizations had problems obtaining access to secure communications.
v Problems.with specific agencies were as follows:
Some customers said that a request for a special DIA
product-frequently would encounter lots of resistance and
that its ultimate availability was unpredictable; if
available, however, the product would be finished only
after several months had elapsed.
NSA
-- Seems to be impossible to speed NSA processing of
material of interest to several customers.
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Community Coordinated Products
-- Customers in one organization said NIE's and other inter-
agency products were no longer received because the
Community had reduced distribution and had cut out their
organization's copy "for economy reasons."
-- Some customers believed that these products are sorfletimes
"political documents" and do not necessarily reflect
balanced views (e.g., they were said to over-emphasize the
strategic role of Soviet attack submarines and to be
needlessly ambiguous on the factors affecting cruise missile
defenses).
- One customer indicated that he had tried over a period of
time to get an interagency product on peripheral nuclear
attack forces but had been unsuccessful.
Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were:
-- round, air, naval data (more complete,
e ai e an accurate information on current forces and
equipment and projections of same covering the period
5-8 years out)
-- Sustainability-related topics for Warsaw Pact
conventional forces (maintenance, logistics)
-- Soviet plans and targeting doctrine for nuclear and
conventional forces
-- Warsaw Pacti Par reserve stockpiles of tactical
missiles, o er munitions and equipment (A concern was
that-we know little about the quantity or purpose of
equipment stockpiles not assigned to front line units--
e-.g., what happens to Warsaw Pact tanks when they are
phased out of front line service.)
-- Warsaw Pact multi-sensor target acquisition capabilities
(for ground combat in Europe)
0
naval capabilities
-- Readiness of Warsaw Pact forces in Europe and how much
warning time their preparations could provide us
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Soviet capabilities to produce and deploy (in quantity)
improved conventional munitions
Warsaw Pact intentions with regard to communications
Jamming against NATO forces, along with likely alloca-
tions of available capability
Soviet plans and capabilities to employ their merchant
marine and fishing fleets in support of combat operations
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3. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
? ACDA customers were mostly satisfied with their intelligence
support. ACDA needs were for information relating to foreign compliance
with treaties in force (e.g., SALT, ABM, nuclear test, non-proliferation,
CW/BW). "Negative information" was of significant value (i.e., that no
activities of a particular sort were going on). Interest in these areas
was sharply related to the specific terms of treaties (e.g., the number
of ICBM silos). Also important were information and analyses to support
ongoing and potential arms negotiations (mostly with the USSR) and military
equipment flows affecting the "Third World." Needs.in these areas were for
mainly numerical data and some key qualitative factors and net assessments.
Information provided was used to assess current treaty compliance, to
negotiate with foreign powers over arms levels and military equipment
transfers, and to prepare arms control impact statements. The time period
of principal interest was from today (for verification and arms transfer
information) to 5-8 years or more in the future.
? The principal single source of intelligence was CIA which
provided representation to working groups, daily and other publications,
cable traffic, some special papers and briefings, and numerous other
personal contacts.
? Other sources of intelligence and information were, however,
cumulatively more significant; these were DIA, NSA, the State Department
and INR, interagency sources, and OSD (PA&E). DIA provided numerous daily
and other publications, some briefings and special reports. NSA provided
separate reports directly to certain arms negotiators. The State Department
provided cable traffic to ACDA, and INR's Morning Summate was also available
Interagency products such as NIE's and the SALT Monitoring Report were
available, and one interagency committee (JAEIC--the Joint Atomic Energy
Intelligence Committee) was also an important source. NIO's were frequent
contacts, and the DCI would be contacted from time to time. OSD PA&E) was
considered a good-source of comparable data on 25X1
conventional forces.
? ACDA customers thought the Community was generally very
responsive (even engaging in some collection at ACDA's request). CIA's
OSR was mentioned as trying to be very helpful. The product-was generally
pretty good, and it was not thought possible to know everything (e.g.,
to anticipate South Africa's nuclear programs). Improvements in the. NIE
on Soviet Strategic Forces have been made (e.g., ranges of estimates are
now included), CIA did a good job in presenting Community-wide views in
the SALT working group, and CIA papers on Soviet SALT.and MB.FR decision-
making were mentioned as valuable, as was ACDA participation in and reports
from the JAEIC. DIA's DIPP was a good source for future data, and the
Trends and Developments was also liked. NSA's "V group" liaison office was
identified as quite responsive.
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? Some ACDA customers took an active, if informal, role in
formulating requirements, principally by personal contacts with various
elements of the community, including IC Staff collection "requirements"
committees (e.g., COMIREX). ACDA would also respond to Community
solicitations (e.g., KIQ's and DIA questionnaires).
? Some problems were mentioned. Products from elements of the
Community were sometimes apparently politicized--one customer noted the
unresolved and unexplained differences between CIA and DIA on the Soviet
ABM program. Some customers believed that the Community went to more
trouble to support itself than to support outside customers. One
customer noted, in this regard, that CIA and DIA objected to ACDA's
acquisition of a DIAOLS/COINS terminal, even though ACDA was willing to
pay for the terminal out of its own budget. ACDA customers indicated
some problems with clearances (obtaining them was a very slow process)
and also a number of customers thought that a new DCI policy of no new
codeword billets for any agency would result in some intelligence just
not being used. (This was a problem for ACDA because of growth in the
number of ACDA personnel working on intelligence-supported projects.)
? Problems with specific agencies were as follows:
-- Sometimes there is a failure to carry through analyses to
address items of obvious high customer concern--(e.g.,
CIA's not addressing the defense budget implications of
foreseeable Soviet economic problems).
A report on the balance of conventional forces in Europe
was severely criticized as "primitive" and not at all
informative.
Several customers said that DIA. was "paranoid about raw
- da-to"--gett-ing to customers, even information from other
agencies.
-- Somewhat bureaucratic in responding to special product
requests (but usually would ultimately respond).
-- One customer thought that DIA's orders of battle were
useless because so many units were not contained therein.
Another customer, however, thought that this was probably
a compartmentation problem and that the additional details
were available in codeword channels.
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-- DIA'sIapabilities study, although addressing an
impor an area, was said to be mostly useless (DPQ
responses were thought better).
-- Emphasizes the menacing aspects of foreign developments
rather than presenting an objective view of strengths and
weaknesses.
Community-Coordinated Products
The DCI's Weapons and Space System Intelligence Committee
.(WSSIC) was said to be more of a potential source of
information than an actual source because ACDA was not
considered to be an appropriate recipient of its reports.
? Substantive problems identified as requiring more attention
-- Soviet concealment, camouflage, and deception practices,
present and projected (an IIM was desired).
-- Improved intelligence oni (DCID 25X1
priorities may be misapplied in this area--production needs
big improvement but not necessarily collection.)
- Better (more complete) information of Third World military
equipment transfers.
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4. State Department
? State Department customers expressed general satisfaction with
their intelligence support and indicated that most of their key concerns
were taken care of. Their needs were predominantly for information on the
internal politics and economics and foreign policies of other nations, as
well as foreign perceptions of U.S. policies, foreign diplomatic
instructions to.missions, and selected information on military fortes and
on "global" issues such as terrorism, nuclear weapons development, and
drug traffic. Most needed was current factual and interpretive reporting,
although longer term analyses were also useful. Information provided was
used to coordinate overall U.S. foreign policy, to support negotiations,
and to provide foreign policy advice, including the preparation of policy
papers for the Secretary of State, the President, and the Congress. The
time period of principal interest was from today to about a year in the
future, although general longer run trends were of interest for a few
problems.
s The principal source of intelligence support and information
was INR and State Department cable traffic. INR was said to act primarily
as a "facilitative link" to the rest of the Intelligence Community. INR
analysts provided most customers with a morning briefing or discussion
covering overnight events and a pouch containing codeword material of
relevance (e.g., the--Morning-Summary=National---Intelligence Daily, cables,
NSA reports). These discussions took place in customer offices. INR
also prepared some short analyses on special subjects, especially for the
Secretary, and (together with the Secretariat) issued the Morning Summary.
The principal source of information for almost all State customers was,
however, State Department current reporting, especially cables.
a Other sources of intelligence support and information were.
overt media and personal contacts, CIA, NIO's, DIA, the Military Services,
NSA, USIA, and the FBI. For a large part of the world, the amount of
overt material available was said to be enormous, with academic experts,
journalists, businessmen, and one's own personal foreign contacts being
considered-quite useful. Particularly mentioned were monographs from the
American Universities'-Field Service, a newsletter put out by a local
office concerned with-human rights in Latin America, a New Yorker
journalist, and regional experts such as Doak Barnet. CIA was said to
provide a considerable quantity of valuable information--particularly
station cables, personal contacts with DDO and other personnel, biographic
data, and FBIS and all source analytic reports. NIO's would also provide
some reports and information and served as a conduit for intelligence
(mostly from CIA) for some customers. DIA and the Military Services-
provided both -cable traffic and analytic reports to State customers,
while NSA provided some * to INR for State customers, and in one
case, there was some direct personal contact (via INR . Other sources of
25X1 occasional value were
USIA translations, an the FBI.
*Denotes information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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? State customers indicated that the Community did a good job in
supplying them with material, that the chief problem was selection; most
customers did not believe that any more reporting or analysis was needed.
INR's daily visit with codeword material was praised as "a very important
operation." CIA's biographical data base, economic modeling and analysis,
and the informal methods of access to personnel, especially to field
stations, were valued highly. DIA's military biographic data was also-
liked as was the Community's performance in numerous specific subject
areas (e.g., Soviet/Chinese relationships, Japanese and North Korean
foreign relations, Southeast Asia drug traffic, Republic of China nuclear
weapon developments, Greek base negotiations). Specifically valued were
the (U.S.) Taiwan Defense Command's China Watch weekly report, some INR
contractual analyses, a CIA analysis of the Kenyatta succession question
and current reporting related to.assassination attempts, DIA's reporting
on Indonesian fighon military politics in Argentina, and NSA's
25X1 reporting on some I I_
? State customers indicated that they informally tasked INR and
requested and suggested areas of interest to CIA (both the DDO and DDI) and
that CIA was very responsive. Some suggestions would also be made to
NIO's who would generally respond; requesting an interagency product,
however, was much more difficult. Most requests were short term, and
there were no long term projections of requirements.
? There were a few general problems identified by State customers..
A perplexing problem was said to be the causative factors in internal
politics--why is what's happening happening? It was said that we rarely
can discern these factors. There was often a need to embed current
analyses more fully into a longer-range historical context. A few
customers indicated that they desired more long-term and indepth analyses
from the Community, but other customers preferred other sources for this
perspective--e.g., academic experts or the informal face-to-face
reflections of a CIA station chief. (It was said, however, that there
was occasionally some feeling "in the field" that it was improper for
CIA personnel to discuss future implications of current developments.)
One customer thought that estimative (political) products are a waste of
money. A few customers believed that in some areas (e.g., Middle East
and Southern Africa) the United States was too dependent on information
provided by cooperative foreign governments who tell us what they want us
to hear. A potential future problem mentioned by one customer was that
most State customers who had codeword clearances had SI but not TK, and,
thus, some relevant material would not be available to them, especially
from the more modern collection systems. The DCI's limits on billets
would exacerbate this problem.
*Denotes information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples,
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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? Problems with specific agencies were as follows:
INR -- Some customers were concerned that INR had declined in
size too much in recent years so that there was no longer any
mobile pool of analysts who could be put to work on important
but transitory topics. Several customers indicated that INR
was rarely the originator of much substance anymore, being
primarily a liaison unit and writing one to two page summaries
on various subjects, usually for the Secretary. %
CIA -- One customer indicated that he was disenchanted with the
value of CIA reports from and was
concerned that the potential political cost did not seem
justified on the basis of the material he was seeing.
DIA -- Several customers indicated that DIA political reporting
andianalysis were weak (attaches specifically were said to
often be insensitive to political nuances).
Service Intelligence Organizations -- Several customers said
that the political reporting of the 500th M.I. Group in Asia
had for years been "worse than useless"--usually being wrong,
out of date, duplicative and/or misleading.
NSA -- -One---customer-=i nd i-cated -that--NSA -material on
* was denied to him on security grounds and that he
could only obtain a gross impression of the subject by having
it filtered through the one INR analyst who was cleared to see
it. He noted that NSA, in handling such material, is much
more "mechanical" in its decisions on who can read it and
contrasted the situation with CIA, who was said to be more
imaginative in granting access to its "sensitive" products.
.(The difference appeared to be that NSA would grant access to
only the most senior policymakers and their immediate senior
staff, whereas CIA would provide material on a selective basis
to the different echelons involved.) Another customer
-indicated that NSA resisted direct contact with customers.
? Substantive topics identified as requiring more attention were:
-- Politics of Third World military governments (neither
CIA nor DIA seems to focus on this subject).
-- Southern Africa - more complete reporting on current
developments.
*Denotes information in codeword channels (SI/TK/G). The specific examples
quoted are contained in Appendix C.
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-- Egypt - Military politics and morale.
-- Iran - Long range analyses of its economy.
-- North Korea - Economics problems and projections; status of
hardening (periodic reports were desired).
Terrorist threats against U.S. citizens and property.
? State customers had two problems with the uses of the
intelligence product--one was the public use of CIA economic projections
(on the USSR), which was said to probably implant an undeserved semi-
permanent slant to that subject, whereas the projection was merely a best
guess at a point in time. Another problem was the reported dissemination
of DIA DIN's by some U.S. military attaches to foreign military officers.
This was said to cause trouble because the DIN would often be mistaken for
a U.S. Government position on some subject.
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5. Common Responses
A number of additional opinions were expressed by a large number of
customers in all or most of the organizations contacted; these are
summarized below:
? The most highly valued type of customer-community interaction
was personal contact, preferably face to face, with an analyst (or in some
cases with a case officer or station chief), and measures to facilitate
these direct contacts (e.g., intelligence participation in customer
working groups.and vice versa, briefings, signed articles, phone numbers,
guides) were highly valued. Such contacts, where available, could most
rapidly communicate information in ways that most directly pertained to
customer problems and could serve as a two-way mechanism for communicating
current customer policy and program concerns, available intelligence
information, and research suggestions. Although working through them was
said to be sometimes very time consuming, personal contacts also served
as important indirect conduits for intelligence in that they would serve
as a guide to where else within the Community a customer might find
intelligence of value. Many customers indicated that there was no other
effective way to find out what information was available.
o Almost all customers indicated that there was, in general,
a surfeit of intelligence available to them, in excess of their time to
listen, read, or absorb it. Although usually there was a considerable
amount which pertained to their interests at the moment, there was also
much that was not of immediate interest, and a considerable quantity
would remain unread or otherwise unabsorbed. Problems included too much
duplicative material (so much sometimes as to obscure that which was
unique), some contradictory material (with no explanations or cross-
referencing), lengthy publishing delays and old information cutoff dates
(particularly for many DIA and Service products), and excessively general
and/or watered down material not addressing a topic in a policy-relevant
way (e.g., not written in such a way as to indicate how a policymaker
might influence, counter, or respond to a described situation). One
customer indicated that there was even too much production in an area
which he had indicated was of high interest--upon querying him on this
point, it was said that the available products were "too academic" and
not sufficiently. focused to be of use (one reason was that reports
addressed only the past and did not concern themselves with possible
future developments). Another customer (in OSD) complained that there
was too little CIA consultation with customers before a product is issued;
thus, potentially important and relevant points often would not be addressed.
? There was no practical distinction made by customers between
"finished"and unfinished intelligence products; both were valued. Customers
preferred all-source, finished analyses where available but indicated that
some of their most valued products (when available) were State Department,
CIA, and DIA cables, NSA intercept reports and DIA photographic briefings,
none of which are usually considered "finished, all-source intelligence."
These products were valued because of (at least) their timeliness and the
contextual details provided (which were said to be lost in some of the more
"finished" products).
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? Classification and compartmentation were problems identified
by most customers, although perceptions of seriousness varied widely.
Some specific problems have already been mentioned (e.g., PA&E codeword
clearances and contractor access for a number of OSD customers), but a
more general problem was if and how to use codeword information within
the customer's organization--for there would often be inappropriately
cleared personnel involved at some stage (both more senior and more
junior in rank), there was quite limited and inconvenient space for
storage and discussion, and handling procedures were said to be so
burdensome that for some customers it was almost impossible to write a
codeword memo for the use of others in their organization (at least for
elements of the Joint Staff, OSD, State, and ACDA). Compartmentation also
was said to restrict and confuse knowledge about what intelligence was
available. ("I wouldn't know what I'm not getting," was a typical comment..)
Sometimes a customer would only find out that there was intelligence on some
subject by dealing with customers in other organizations who received other
products--often simply more highly classified versions of basic reports
which the former already received. Compartmentation also inhibited full
discussion of available intelligence even among codeword cleared personnel
for they would not know the degree of access each had received. Customers
understood that there was a general need for security, however, and had
adopted procedures to work around these limitations to the best of their
ability.
? A number of customers indicated that information on U.S.
policies, programs, and systems was deficient, in come. cases causing more
difficulty than foreign intelligence deficiencies (e.g., a JCS customer
needed data on the spatial structure of the U.S. economy in order to
assess the effects of alternative nuclear weapon impact patterns, Net
Assessment needed better data on historical U.S. force deployments, and
an ACDA customer needed assessments of the effectiveness of U.S. nuclear
retaliatory forces against a range of plausible Soviet ABM defenses).
Customers did not expect the Community to provide this information.
Nevertheless, the quality and quantity of information available on U.S.
military forces, politics, and economics directly affected intelligence
customer needs and degree of satisfaction because the U.S.-related
information was,a benchmark or standard for judging Community performance.
In some cases U.S. information deficiencies were said to be simply the
result of a lack of an organization focused on U.S. problems. In other
cases, however, the deficiencies were said to be more profound in that
nobody could reasonably be expected to know such things (e.g., why a U.S.
policy was adopted, how effective the A-10 would be as a tank killer in
Europe, what sortie rate can an F-4 sustain, what would be U.S. policy on
some subject in two years, or even how many ships would the Navy have in
2-3 years). Difficulties in answering these U.S.-related questions (even
when surrounded by large amounts of raw information) were said to limit
what-one should expect from the Intelligence Community. In addition, the
lack of high confidence information on some U.S. subjects sometimes makes
it unimportant to be precise about some foreign developments, for the
requisite comparative analysis could not be carried out.
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o Most customers associated with General Purpose Forces noted
that the Community concentrated too heavily upon factual, numerical data
on Warsaw Pact front-line combat equipment (quantities, dimensions,
external appearances) to the exclusion of information on how forces
possessing that equipment would probably be used and maintained, how
effective they would be, what backup reserve and support equipment, what
facilities and munitions would be available, and how forces containing
this equipment could or would probably be managed and operated in wartime.
Much more analytical attention was wanted on the latter subjects.
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6. Highly Critical Responses
? Slightly over 10 percent of the customers sampled predomi-
nantly expressed serious reservations about the general quality of the
intelligence product. (These comments were primarily directed at CIA
and DIA, since there was relatively little contact with most other
agencies and these customers were primarily interested in political,.
conventional military or military-economic topics, as opposed to Soviet
strategic weapons systems per se.) Expressed views of these customers
were very pessimistic, including the feeling that the intelligence
function was "a disaster area." Other expressions were that the resource
planning function "was poorly served by intelligence," that there was
"very little in-depth analysis," and that very little improvement seems
to have occurred in recent years--despite apparent Intelligence Community
concern with the consumers of intelligence. A repeated lack of Community
responsiveness to requests and suggestions** was mentioned by all of
these customers, and one result was that most of these customers requested
only what they knew the Community could produce and not what was really
needed. (One agency-specific comment was that DIA was too engrossed in
publications to be able to respond to requests.) Another customer
indicated that Community production managers employed an overly simplified
model of information use centering principally upon immediate decisionmaking
and ignoring e-do-cational and background uses. This over-simplified model
was said to reduce-,the--avai-lability- of-some-products- not-tailored to
support an immediate, clear-cut decision.
? The underlying concerns of these customers were that sub-
stantive areas of considerable significance were essentially ignored by
the Community (because they were difficult to analyze) over a long period
and that the validity and usefulness of much that was produced was
questionable. A few customers said that a great many products (in the area
of general purpose forces) often did not "bear up well under close
scrutiny." Two specific problems were identified by all of these customers--
intelligent speculation and writing/presentation of views. On the former,
it was said that there was too little speculation by analysts,** and, in
many cases-, analysts (or their superiors) would refuse to speculate.**
One customer indicated that a CIA representative had indicated that his.
job,was to be solely "a purveyor of hard facts." Two types of speculation
were of interest--speculation about past phenomena for which there is no
direct, hard evidence and speculation on possible future developments
(e.g., for the former, one customer indicated that the Community would not
provide performance estimates for a piece of (general purpose) equipment
until it has a system in hand (and by that time it was usually too late
to be of much use), and for the latter, almost all of these customers
indicated that community analysts and managers in general were "not oriented
**These comments were also made by a number of other customers who did not,,
however, characterize their problems as being so serious.
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to the future").** The cause of this reluctance was generally thought
to be the fear of being wrong, although for DIA an organizational problem
was also mentioned--DB (Intelligence Research) would not estimate,
whereas DE (Estimates) would, but DE analysts did not know all the
current information on hand in D1.
0 Writing/presentation was a lesser, but still significant,,,
problem, and comments from these customers in particular were that there
was little standardization of data, ways of speaking, estimating
techniques or assumptions,** that writing needed to be more concrete, that
there often was too much boiler-plate and too many generalities about
limitations and assumptions with too little effort being made to correct
them, and that it was often difficult to distinguish between facts and
judgments.** On this latter point, improvement was noted by some
customers, but an increasing Community tendency to obscure collection
sources was said to make this more difficult. DIA's use of quantitative
confidence estimates was liked,** however, and was said to partially
compensate for this loss of source information. Finally, and perhaps
most significantly, customers complained that different views were not
well spelled out in most products--that there were usually ranges of
opinions throughout Community agencies on many subjects but that most of
these were not available to customers.** These customers thought that the
Team A-Team B analysis was a useful initiative but noted that the Team B
analyses were refused to them because the reports were said to be only an
input to the NIE process and were not for the use of intelligence
customers. Nevertheless, copies had become available using informal
channels, and these alternative views were valued, even where not fully
believed.**
o The biggest single direct cause of these deficiencies in
intelligence analyses was said to be people problems--that is the
attraction, retention, and encouragement of substantive experts.** It was
said that some areas (e.g., political analysis) were intellectually
stagnant, that there were too few "eccentrics" (e.g., unconventional and
creative thinkers) and too many areas where the depth of knowledge was
too shallow, that the Community was years behind the academic and think-
tank community in analytical methodologies, especially for political
analysis and conventional military force capability assessment. Another
customer added that some DIA analysts were too passive and just received
data, acting more as librarians than analysts. One customer believed
that many other customers are probably not aware of how little some DIA
and CIA analysts know (in some political and conventional military subject
areas). Some of the factors bringing about this situation were said to be
**These comments were also made by a number of other customers who did not,
however, characterize their problems as being so serious..
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DIA and CIA personnel policies**--specifically, too frequent rotation,
assignment of analysts to areas where they have no prior knowledge, too
little training, too little foreign travel, and infrequent direct contact
with academia and with customers and their problems. There was said to
be little incentive for creativity and in-depth analysis at least in part
because of the intervention of middle management layers in DIA and CIA,
especially as buffers between customers and analysts. One customer said
that these layers often seemed to deprive analysts of the feelings of
being experts, for at meetings with customers, managers would pose as.
experts. In addition, DIA was said to have a severe problem because of
the policy that personnel at particular arbitrary grade levels (e.g.,
GS-12, LtCol) must be managers, not analysts.**/*
0 The ultimate cause of these problems was said to clearly
reside in senior Community managers. These customers, however, believed
that there was a long-standing lack of attention by these managers to
substantive analysis and production.** (Their attention was said to be
focused instead on "technical gadgets" and "jurisdictional disputes.")
Top management had set no meaningful standards for intelligence analysis
and had not adopted or even studied newer or alternative analytic methods,
especially in political analysis. In its place, customers noted, middle
management had grown excessive (in both CIA and DIA), and some CIA middle
and upper management was said to be much too bureaucratic. These intervening
layers, it was said, often added little to the product, while delaying and
obstructing product availability and customer-analyst interaction.
*DIA actually has many analysts at the GS-13 level and a few at higher
levels; thus-this-problem may be overstated. DIA does have only about
30 "supergrades," however, whereas CIA has over I[ not all involved in
production). Some customers,moreover, who had tried to get DIA to
? appoint a particularly expert military officer to an analyst vice manager
position quoted DIA as saying that "A LtCol is management, not analysis."
**These comments were also made by'a number of other customers who did not,
however, cha-racterize their problems-as being so serious.
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7. Lauditory Responses
0 Slightly over five percent of the customers sampled expressed
generally very positive views--not on the specific problems mentioned in
6 above but on the general conclusions. Citing problems and restrictions
such as those imposed by resource limits, civil service regulations, the
closed nature of many foreign societies, and the inherent difficulties
associated with intelligence analysis (e.g., the unknowability of some
things, as illustrated by the lack of good data on U.S. policies and
systems), these 'customers believed the Community did a surprisingly 'good
job. Their more specific views are included in Sections 1-5.
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