PLANNING BOARD DISTRIBUTION OF DRAFT ESTIMATES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00268R000800120041-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 10, 2014
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: November 19, 1954
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/15: CIA-RDP86T00268R000800120041-8
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/15: CIA-RDP86T00268R000800120041-8
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/15: CIA-RDP86T00268R000800120041-8
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STAT
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19 November 1954
NEMDRANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT : Planning Board Distribution of Draft Estinates Apjrc74(
1. From time to time, there has been some restiveness manifested
by some members of the IAC and other individuals in the Departments of
State and Defense at my practice of furnishing Planning Board members
with Board drafts of estimates and intermediate revisions prior to
approval by the IAC.
2. Today General Bonesteel appeared considerably exercised at
our distribution of NIE-10-7-54, "Communist Courses of Action in Asia
through 1957." In my opinion, this practice is justified and should be
affirmatively supported by you if challenged.
3. The IAC is a Subcommittee designated by the NSC, and IAC-agreed
intelligence should be available to the Council whenever it considers a
major policy paper on a given country or area. This support should be
furnished even where it necessitates overtime or such a compression of
the normal estimating process as to impair the quality that might other-
wise be achieved in an estimate prepared with more leisure. On the other
hand, the advanced scheduling of NSC Agenda items is not sufficiently far
into the future to enable 118 to complete the coordinating process before
the Planning Board starts its consideration of the policy paper.
L. 1, as Intelligence Advisor to the Planning Board, am therefore
confronted with a dilemma as between (a) speaking solely for CIA, and
(b) providing the Planning Board with the best available community intel-
li-gence. In the absence of an agreed estimate, a Board draft is the next
best thing, because it is largely a synthesis of contributions from all
the intelligence agencies.
5. It seems clear to me that I should follow course (b) as I have
been doing for the past eighteen months, being careful, as I invariably am,
to point out that the paper submitted is only "Board approved" or "coordinated
at the working level" and may be substantially changed before being finally
adopted by the IAC.
6. To prohibit the circulation of draft estimates would impose a
heavy burden on either OCI or the ONE Staff to develop substitute papers
and, far more serious, would detract from the influence of the intelligence
community in the making of national policy.
Sk'RET
OBERT AMORY, JR.
Deputy Director/Intellig ce ,59,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/15: CIA-RDP86T00268R000800120041-8