COUNTERTERRORISM AND THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY: WHAT'S BEEN DONE FROM THE NIC OVER THE PAST YEAR?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001100010007-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 4, 2008
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: November 28, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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S E C R E T
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
Counterterrorism and the Intelligence Community: What's Been Done From the
NIC Over the Past Year?
FROM:
David D. Whipple
EXTENSION
NO.
NIC-06680-84
NIO for Counterterrorism
7E47 HQS
DATE
28 November 1984
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED
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INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
DDCI
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The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20505
National Intelligence Council
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Chairman, National Intelligence Council
SUBJECT: Counterterrorism and the Intelligence Community: What's
NIC-06680-84
28 November 1984
National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism
FROM: David D. Whipple
Been Done From the NIC Over the Past Year?
1. To complete my experience over the past year as the NIO/CT, I thought
it would be useful to summarize and review what has been begun or accOMDlished
essentially from the NIC to improve the Community's performance.
2. Attached is my summation.
3. I believe the Community's overall performance now against terrorists
and terrorism is significantly better than it was a year ago. For example,
our predictions of likely terrorist attacks are sharper and more accurate than
they were, although we continue to receive criticism for lack of specifics and
details in our alerting predictions. NIC contributions (mostly from the
NIO/CT office), both of substance or by exhortation, played a part in bringing
about these improvements.
4. Terrorism analysis by most of the Community's agencies is better done
than before because, thanks t and some of the other innovations,
those agencies are now able to work together quickly sharing leads and threat
information. The State Department, egged on by its INR, has begun to insist
on more and better reporting from open sources from the Department's foreign
service officers overseas. This innovation strikes me as a much needed plus,
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Collaboration with foreign 2bxl
counterpart security and intelligence services abroad is also for the most
part close and increasingly fruitful. 25X1
5. I am reasonably encouraged by the Community's progress in 1984,
look forward to an increase in the pace of improvements in 1985. 25X1
S - [,)f~ co,
David D. Whipple
Attachment:
As Stated
cc: VC/NIC
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Year-End Summary of NIC Contributions to Improvements in the
Intelligence Community's Performance Against Terrorism in 1984
As the year began, there was an evident need to sharpen cooperation and
coordination among Intelligence Community (IC) agencies engaged in collecting
and analyzing intelligence.
By early February, the various collecting and analyzing agencies in
Washington were electronically linked, enabling analysts to quickly
and informally communicate with each other from and to their
individual work places in secure voice, conferencing, and facsimilie
modes. Since then, terrorism analysts throughout the Community have
made continuous use of this capability night and day to exchange
critical information, to rapidly assess it, and to arrive at critical
judgments as to its reliability. Much of the fragmentary,
questionably sourced information of the past can now either be
eliminated or checked out and supplemented with collateral
information before it is disseminated as threat alerts or warnings.
The same electronic system ensures that no threat report, no matter
how incomplete it may be in its original form or by whom it is
received, need be overlooked or neglected by analysts in other
agencies who may already have or can get confirming or conflicting
information to validate or invalidate 'it. The new system has
significantly contributed to the Community's ability to produce more
reliable and comprehensive threat alerts and warnings to US
facilities and allies abroad and to policymakers in Washington.
The NI0/CT sponsored a series of analytic conferences and seminars
held at various Community agencies to facilitate primary discussion
on current terrorist topics of interest. Speakers and participants
were from inside and outside the government. Invitees were, for the
most part, working analysts from all USG agencies concerned with
international and domestic terrorism. In 1984 there were separate
seminars/conferences on Iranian/Syrian, Libyan, Latin American,
Armenian, Italian, Lebanese, Kurdish, and Western European terrorists
and terrorism. This educational cross-fertilization of information
and assessments was designed to enhance cohesion within the various
agencies working on collection and analysis.
All portions classified SECRET.
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-- A short-term interagency exchange program for analysts, aimed at
"cross-pollinating" ideas and experience, has been implemented. A
number of working analysts are presently on loan by their parent to
other agencies.
During the year the NIO/CT traveled
by
Ito brief and be briefed
civilian and military intelligence
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services and law enforcement agencies. Objectives of these trips
were to promote a continuing exchange of terrorism leads, data and
analysis, and to determine how intelligence collected abroad can be
improved and presented so as to best serve users. Analysts and other
professionals f m several US intelligence agencies accompanied the
NIO to participate in round-table substantive 25X1
exchanges with intelligence/security 25X1
and to Los Angeles to arrange that raw and analytical 25X1
intelligence and terrorism leads collected abroad would quickly be
made available and intelligible to law enforcement officials
responsible for security at the Olypmics. These were unique and
successful experiences in multiagency liaisons with foreign
intelligence and security services and with domestic law enforcement
officials.
-- The NIO/CT frequently briefed representatives of foreign liaison
services in Washington, representatives of several US military
commands, and others in the Community on terrorism-related issues,
developments, and objectives. All presentations and participations
were designed to enhance cooperation and coordination among agencies
and allies concerned with combatting terrorism. He also responded,
or coordinated responses from Community agencies, to a variety of
written information requests from Congressional committees. On
various occasions, he personally briefed Congressional committee
principals and staffers on the Hill on aspects of terrorism abroad
and on USG measures to combat it.
-- The NIO/CT or the A/NIO/CT took advantage of frequent opportunities
to personally lecture on international terrorism, or to participate
in panel discussions, in a variety of CIA and NSA training courses
and orientations, and DIA- and State Department-sponsored gatherings.
There also was a need to promote a rational, complete, and consistent
interagency intelligence effort against terrorism.
-- The NIO/CT chaired the Interagency Intelligence Committee on
Terrorism (IICT) which is the principal interagency coordinating
mechanism for terrorism intelligence planning and guidance. The IICT
in turn sponsored special informal subcommittees and temporary
working groups to concentrate on specific problems, e.g., a
pre-Olympics planning committee headed by the FBI designed to ensure
that terrorism leads and supporting data collected abroad were
quickly made available to American law enforcement officials on the
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scene in Los Angeles; a working group of representatives from several
agencies specializing in explosives used by terrorists and possible
countermeasures and in explosive ordnance disposal. The NIO/CT also
occasionally participated with the Critical Intelligence Problems
Committee (CIPC) Working Group on Terrorism, DCID 1/2 Committee on
collection and analysis priorities, and the Los Angeles Olympic
Organizing Committee's Overseas Government Relations Section, and in
intelligence-related meetings with the State Department-chaired
Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism, the NSC-chaired Terrorist
Incident Working Group, the White House Operations Group, and the
Armed Forces Inaugural Committee.
An estimate on Prospects for Anti-US Terrorism in the year ahead,
which also reviewed and analyzed terrorism threats in the US and
elsewhere from mid-1983 to October 1984, was prepared and published
under NIO/CT auspices. Representatives of NFIB collection agencies
contributed to the detailed substantive and editorial review of the
publication draft, making the final product a Community presentation.
The NIO/CT prepared the first draft input to the DCI response to the
National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 138) on combatting
terrorism. This input was a compilation of ideas and capabilities
for enhancing the Intelligence Community's response to terrorism,
drawn from all agencies. This compilation became the basis for the
final DCI submission to the policymakers, which was drafted by the
Community Staff in consultation with the NIO/CT and coordinated
throughout the Community. The final submission summarized and
prioritized the enhancements originally suggested by the NIO/CT.
The NIO/CT assisted CIA's Director of Security in reviewing and
arranging to improve a study drafted by State/Security assessing
risks to US diplomatic missions overseas from terrorists. The study
became the basis for recommendations on prioritizing and implementing
enhancements to the physical security and protection of USG
installations abroad.
The NIO/CT and the State Department obtained preliminary agreements
within the Community to a new terrorism alert warning system
featuring alerts quickly coordinated throughout the Community to be
sent to diplomatic posts abroad via one communications channel. The
objective is to reduce duplication and confusion resulting from
alerts based on single-source reportings which are currently sent
abroad via various channels.
A beginning has been made to develop special courses to train
analysts from all USG agencies concerned with terrorism. Information
about the four training courses already being offered within the
Community will be made known to would-be student candidates, through
the IICT mechanism.
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-- The NIO/CT acted as a referent for terrorism-related matters to CIA's
Public Affairs Office. In addition to his participation as speaker
at training courses and seminars inside the Government, the NIO/CT
was one of the featured speakers at the annual convention of the
Association of Former Intelligence Officers, at an inquiry into
terrorism as a threat to US naval assets conducted by the Chief of
Naval Operations' Executive Panel Task Force on Terrorism, at a
terrorism conference arranged by the State Department's Office of
Counterterrorism and Emergency Planning and State/INR for US
corporation and "think tank" as well as USG community represen-
tatives, and at briefings and orientations for the benefit of
security executives of private American corporations.
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