MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD: 27 JUNE MEETING ON GAO STUDY OF THREAT ESTIMATION PROCESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00017R001501140004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 30, 2009
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: June 29, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/04: CIA-RDP86M00017RO01501140004-3
DCI/ICS 84-3609
29 June 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, Program and Budget Staff
Executive Officer, IC Staff
FROM: GDIP Program Monitors
Program and Budget Staff
SUBJECT: Memorandum for the Record: 27 June Meeting
on GAO Study of Threat Estimation Process
1. MGEN Peck, Director of Intelligence and Space Systems in the office
of the DUSD(P), hosted a meeting in the Pentagon on 27 June for the purpose of
defining a GAO request to study the threat estimation process and how esti-
mates are used in system acquisition. GAO sent three representatives;
MGEN Peck (through his action officer, Larry Lancaster) invited about 25. We
noted representatives of DIA, the Services (both intelligence and systems
acquisition), DoD legislative liaison, and DoD Inspector General.
2. The people made the following points through the course of the
meeting:
-- Their purpose was to discover whether GAO had a role to play in this
area. The previous Comptroller General had been reluctant to get
involved, but the incumbent is interested.
-- They had met with several consultants to get their views on potential
GAO involvement, and the consultants agreed that GAO did have a role.
The GAO people acknowledged that there was no consensus on what that
role should be. One of the consultants was said to be ADM Inman, who
is a member of the Comptroller General's permanent consultant panel.
-- They had also met with the Staff Directors of the HPSCI and SSCI, who
were reportedly neutral about the idea.
All portions of this memorandum
are UNCLASSIFIED
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/04: CIA-RDP86M00017RO01501140004-3
SUBJECT: Memorandum for the Record: 27 June Meeting
on GAO Study of Threat Estimation Process
-- GAO does not have any personnel with sufficient knowledge and
experience to analyze the threat estimation process. The proposed
effort would be a case study, from threat estimate to approval of
system acquisition, to educate the auditors. The end product would
be an internal document for the Comptroller General. A decision
would then be made about whether further reviews and/or audits would
be required. GAO is trying to determine if an audit is needed to
ensure that systems which are procured are based on a legitimately
defined and documented threat as required by the DSARC process.
-- There was a discussion of "major" and "minor" acquisitions. It would
appear that "major" acquisitions will be studied ("major" meaning
high dollar cost per unit, not high overall program cost).
3. The Doint$ made by the DoD representatives can be summarized as
follows:
-- MGEN Peck's position throughout was that the threat estimation
process did not begin with DoD, but with the DCI, who is responsible
for producing NIEs. Accordingly, he suggested that the GAO begin
their inquiry with the IC Staff and return to DoD after they had
become familiar with the NIE process. GAO said that this was
acceptable with them, and MGEN Peck offered Larry Lancaster's
services to make contact with the IC Staff.
-- A DoD IG representative asked whether the GAO intended to talk to the
CIA as well, and MGEN Peck also hinted at that issue. The GAO
representatives said that they had no plans to do so, but were not
ruling it out.
was also present, and was asked by MGEN Peck for his
views. He replied that there was little dispute within the Community
about threat matters where evidence was available. The problems came
where there was no evidence, and yet judgements were required. He
wondered what good could come of GAO inquiry into that area, since it
was so subjective. GAO responded that it did want to look at the
area of judgement formulation.
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 - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/04: CIA-RDP86M00017RO01501140004-3
SUBJECT: Memorandum for the Record: 27 June Meeting
on GAO Study of Threat Estimation Process
4. On 28 June, Larry Lancaster called to say that the GAO
representatives would not, after all, be calling on the IC Staff or the CIA.
gave them a briefing on the national process on that date, and
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to the systems acquisition process.
they will now go on to spend about three weeks with the estimates branches of
DIA and the service intelligence agencies. After that, they will shift over
STAT ICS/PBS/
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1 - ICS Regi stryr/
Distribution:
Orig. - D/PBS
1 - EO/ICS
1 - PBS Subject
1 - PBS Chrono
28 June 1984)
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