LETTER TO WILLIAM PROXMIRE FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90B01370R000300380010-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 3, 2009
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 28, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2009/02/03: CIA-RDP90BO1370R000300380010-7
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The Honorable William Proxmire
Vice Chairman
Subcommittee on International Trade,
Finance, and Security Economics
Joint Economic Committee
Congress of the United States
Washington, D.C. 20510
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I appreciate your letter of 15 February noting the benefit
to many from the studies and briefings concerning the Soviet
Union contributed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the
Joint Economic Committee (JEC).
I have delayed responding to your letter while we gave
careful consideration to your request that CIA permit the JEC to
publish a collection of recent studies prepared by Agency
analysts on the industrial sector of the Soviet economy.
I regret to advise you that the updating and modification of
completed studies for this purpose would involve a serious and
unacceptable drain on our very limited resources on Soviet
industrial sectors. Indeed, the thinness of our resources in
this area has made it a high priority for..the assignment of new
resources provided by the Administration and the Congress in the
last two years.
At the same time, your request that some of CIA's work on
the Soviet economy be made available more widely follows similar
requests and expressions of interest from a variety of scholars
as well as individuals in the Executive Branch and the
Congress. In recent years, our effort along these lines has
included the very time consuming work involved in preparing
testimony for the JEC on both the Soviet and Chinese economies.
We will continue to participate in the JEC as well as to publish
a variety of statistical and reference materials on both the
Soviet and Chinese economies. Moreover, this year we will also
be publishing our Soviet defense expenditures paper in an
unclassified form.
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We have serious resource problems relating to publication of
unclassified documents beyond this level as well as continuing
serious reservations about publishing more of our work where we
cannot incorporate the evidential base for our conclusions.
Again, I appreciate your kind words about our work in this
area and hope that you will understand our concerns with broader
publication of unclassified documents.
Sincerely,
11 William i lud"I
William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
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February 15, 1904
The Honorable William Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Mr. Casey:
Executive Registryl
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Members of Congress and the general public have benefited
greatly from the many studies and briefings concerning the Soviet
Union contributed by CIA officials to the Joint Economic Committee.
I am personally appreciative of the agency's continued close coop-
eration with the Committee under your leadership.
It has been brought to my attention that a need exists for
better understanding of the Soviet industrial sector and the reasons
for its poor performance in recent years. We would like to publish
a collection of recent studies prepared by CIA analysts on the
industrial sector of the Soviet economy. It would be desirable
for the studies to include industries such as steel, machinery,
cement, coal, metals, fuel, and chemicals. I would expect that,
in most cases, completed studies can be updated and modified for
our purposes. This would reduce the time and effort necessary to
devote to the effort, Richard Kaufman of the Committee staff will
be made available to assist in this project.
I believe publication of these studies would greatly enhance
the public understanding of one of the most important aspects of
the Soviet economy, as well as aid in the appreciation of the
valuable role played by the CIA.
(S inner ~ y,~
, _%
Vice 'Chairman
Subcommittee on International Trade,
Finance, and Security Economics
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