LETTER TO EDWARD K. DELONG FROM CHARLES E. WILSON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201120005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 14, 1983
• Content Type: LETTER

STAT
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENC
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Phone: [phone]
Mr. Edward K. DeLong
Regional Executive
United Press International
Suite 315
529 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20045
A/ )ZOA, h
Thank you for the opportunity to thoroughly examine
UPI's service proposal. We have carefully weighed the
pros and cons and have found that our mission would not be
sufficiently enhanced to justify the investment at this time.
Rather than merely giving you a perfunctory turn-down,
I thought you might be interested in some of the consid-
erations that led to this decision. I offer these comments
in no particular order:
o Diversity of news service is at least as important
to us as volume;
o FBIS and Reuter give us effective international
coverage which meets our alerting and production needs;
o Competition among news services, including FBIS,
generally ensures adequate timeliness to meet our purposes;
o We doubt if we could handle UPI's high volume of
inapplicable material;
o The cost of your services plus computer sorting
would encumber on-going plans to use ADP capabilities for
other official purposes.
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In short, we don't seem to be ready for UPI's capabilities.
We are, however, quite content with our current UPI service.
Thank you nevertheless for your interest and attention.
Sincerely,
ar es E. Wilson
Chief, Public Affairs
OEXA/PAD/CEW/cdk/14 Mar 83/7676
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Note for: Chuck Wilson
Chief, Public Affairs
Subject : UPI Proposal
1. Thank you for the chance to comment on UPI's new
service. After weighing the pros and cons, we find that our
mission would not be enhanced sufficiently to justify the
major realignment of resources this project requires.
2. My watch people offer these comments:
-- Diversity of news service is important to us,
not just volume.
-- FBIS and Reuter give us the best international
coverage for our alerting and production needs.
-- Competition among news services including FBIS
generally ensures timeliness for our purposes.
-- UPI's proposal would swamp us with a high volume
of no interest material.
-- Cost of UPI services and computer sorting would
only encumber present plans to use ADP for official
traffic. We just aren't ready for UPI's capabilities.
STAT
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Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
[phone]
CharIs E. Wilson
Chief, Public Affairs
24 February 1983
Jay--
UPI proposal, per our conversation.
Please let me know how I can help.
STAT
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529 14TH STREET, N. W. - SUITE 315
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20045
EDWARD K. DELONG
REGIONAL EXECUTIVE
[phone]
"Intelligence consists of the gathering
of as much information as is available
on events abroad ... "
-- Office Director, CIA, quoted in
Intelligence- The Acme of Skill
Mr. Chuck Wilson
Chief of Public Affairs Division
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Chuck:
Feb. 18, 1983
Information is the bedrock on which intelligence estimates rest.
Intelligence analysts need as much information as is available on
events abroad, delivered as rapidly as possible.
As we discussed Wednesday, United Press International is about to
acquire in Washington a unique ability to help the agency with that
difficult task.
Specifically we will be able to provide you with our primary
newswires for the United States, Canada, South and Central America,
Asia and Europe, the Middle East and Africa -- all delivered via
satellite at 1,200 words a minute. So far as I know, you would be
the first to receive anything of such scope.
A bit of background is in order at this point to underscore just
how valuable an asset you would receive by getting this service.
UPI is an organization of more than 2,000 highly trained men and
women, based in 243 bureaus around the world. This corps of full-time
employes is assisted in newsgathering activities by thousands of
part-time reporters, or "stringers," worldwide. We also are able to
call on the resources of our more than 6,000 subscribers, including
800 newspapers and 300 broadcast clients abroad.
Every day UPI's people produce some 13 million words of information,
a dynamic database reflecting events ranging from the dramatic to the
mundane -- breaking news, features on personalities and places, basic
statistical material, reflective situationers and analyses.
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Chuck Wilson
Feb. 18, 1983
Speed and accuracy are paramount, and UPI delivers both. We were
first by two hours in reporting the Beirut massacre, first to report
the death of Princess Grace of Monaco and the assassination of
President-elect Beshir Gemayel of Lebanon, exclusive from New Delhi
last month on the call for Indira Gandhi to step down and exclusive
yesterday on the first interview with Prince Ranier since Princess
Grace's death.
The CIA reaped partial benefit from these accomplishments because
of the UPI wire it already has---the Washington Capital News Service,
or WCNS -- but the material you got was in abbreviated form and was
delayed by relay requirements.
WCNS is a highly specialized wire serving primarily the Washington
news media and government agencies. It carries abbreviated versions
of national/international news and financial news of interest to this
city, but its main content is the Washington Daybook material and
virtually everything written by UPI reporters in Washington.
It would be to your advantage to retain WCNS, because a good number
of the Washington-produced stories appearing on it do not move anywhere
else. But WCNS gives you only the tip of the iceberg from outside
Washington.
The proposed service outlined below would give you most of the
iceberg. Thanks to the inclusion of foreign wires and high-speed
delivery, it would provide access to information almost as fast as
our reporters produce it.
Here is what the proposed service would include:
? The domestic A-wire. This is UPI's main U.S. newswire, carrying
major news from across the nation and international items of interest
to U.S. readers. It also includes such things as texts of major
presidential addresses.
? The domestic Financial Wire. This wire is devoted exclusively
to news of the financial and business communities, including reports
of activity overseas by U.S. corporations and activity in the United
States by foreign corporations. While most of the content is textual,
there is a fair amount of statistical tabular information on such
things as currency and commodity markets.
? The U.S. state news reports. These are the individual state
wires, carrying material of wide regional interest. Most of the
stories on these wires are not carried on the domestic A-wire. As we
discussed during my visit to the agency, the information on the state
wires is likely to be of greater interest to the CIA than it might seem
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Chuck Wilson
Feb. 18, 1983
at first blush because these wires carry details of visits to the United
States by groups or individuals from abroad and reports of studies about
other nations made by U.S. academics.
? The European A-wire. This wire is for Europe, the Middle East
and Africa what the domestic A-wire is to the United States. It carries
much less news about the United States and much more news about the
areas it serves. It is an English-language wire.
? The Asian A-wire. This wire is to Asia what the domestic A-wire
is to the United States. As with the European A-wire, it is written in
English. There is somewhat more European news on this wire than there
is Asian news on the European A-wire because of Asian interest in
European affairs.
? The Latin American A-wire. This wire, written in Spanish, is the
dominant newswire of Central and South America. It draws on UPI
bureaus in Bogota, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Caracas, La Paz, Lima, Mexico
City, Rio de Janeiro, San Juan, San Salvador, Santiago and Sao Paulo,
plus reports from Latin American staffers in Washington and at the
United Nations.
? The Canadian A-wire. This is the main general newswire for
Canada, duplicating to some extent the domestic A-wire but carrying
much more Canadian news. It is written in English.
? The Canadian Financial Wire. This wire is to Canadian financial
and industrial news what the domestic Financial Wire is to similar news
from the United States. As with the Canadian A-wire, there is some
duplication with the domestic Financial Wire, but a great deal of the
material is exclusive to this wire. It is written in English.
Each of the foreign wires described above carries a great deal of
breaking news that is too localized to be of interest outside the
region where it originates. In addition, each carries analyses,
situationers and personality profiles that appear nowhere else. To a
trained analyst, such localized information is highly valuable.
You cannot count on getting all of this information by reading
newspapers from around the world or by monitoring broadcasts from
various countries for a number of reasons. First, a great deal of
what these wires carry is produced exclusively by UPI staffers. Second,
a news organization subscribing to UPI uses only about 10 percent of
what we deliver in any given day. Third, wire service stories that are
printed or broadcast often are also cut down in length or edited in
content so they no longer reflect the depth and objectivity they
originally had.
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Chuck Wilson
Feb. 18, 1983
A number of foreign embassies in Washington now get either the
European A-wire or the Latin American A-wire, both of which already
are available here. The Asian A-wire is expected to be available
soon, and there is embassy interest in it as well.
Even if you could get all the material on these wires by reading
newspapers or listening to the radio, there are vast advantages in
taking it direct from UPI.
Speed is one reason. The story that moves on the wire today does
not generally show up in print until tomorrow.
Efficiency is another. We can deliver all these wires direct to
CIA headquarters, presenting them to you in a form that can be either
printed on a high-speed printer or fed into a computer. Direct computer
delivery is desirable because it eliminates the need for keyboard entry
by your own personnel, saving manpower, and allows automatic computer
storage, searching and sorting.
Delivery would be via Westar III, Transponder 1, to a three-meter
satellite receiving dish owned by the CIA and located at a site of your
selection. You can either obtain the dish on your own or get it through
UPI. It probably would be best to obtain the receiver electronics
through UPI, because our supplier provides a receiver with space for
UPI-owned cards needed to decode the multiplexed signals. The cost
would be minimal. UPI would then supply all necessary decoding
electronics.
It should not be too difficult for your programmers to put together
a program to store and sort the various UPI signals in a computer. The
House of Representatives has just done that, but using only our domestic
wires. We would be delighted to supply all the necessary technical
specifications and work with your experts if necessary to get the job
done.
The cost for the extraordinary service I have outlined would be
$160,000 for the first year, plus the cost of the dish and receil4r.
Future-year costs would depend on the type of agreement you can
make. Some agencies are able to enter multi-year contracts (the White
House, for instance, has a five-year agreement with us), while others
must go one year at a time.
If you are able to enter a five-year agreement, I can offer you
the $160,000 annual rate in each of the first three years with 8.5
percent increases fixed for the final two years. Should you be limited
to a one-year agreement, the rate almost certainly would go up in the
second year.
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Chuck Wilson
Feb. 18, 1983
We can start delivery of all these high-speed services except the
Asian A-wire as soon as you are able to provide the dish. The Asian
A-wire is scheduled to be available here in high-speed form in about
six months, and could be provided very soon in slow-speed form via
landline in the interim.
Should you desire to get the service before a dish is available,
we could loop off from another dish in the Washington area and deliver
it to you via landline with an interim surcharge for line costs.
In the business of intelligence analysis, a seemingly insignificant
fact can sometimes prove extremely important to a trained analyst. The
package I have outlined would provide your analysts with vast amounts
of information from around the world, with a minimal amount of sifting
by editors between the source and you.
I am available to discuss details of this proposal with you or
other agency officials at your convenience.
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