RECOMMENDED CHANGES IN THE WAY WE DEAL WITH CONGRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90B01370R001602020048-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2008
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: December 17, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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OLL 84-4742
17 December 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, Office of Legislative Liaison
Deputy Director, Office of Legislative Liaison
Chief, Liaison Division, OLL
SUBJECT: Recommended Changes in the Way We Deal with
Congress
1. The goal for the Office of Legislative Liaison, for the
near term at least, should be to attempt to improve personal,
procedural, and substantive relations and atmospherics between
the CIA and our Oversight Committees. The major obstacle that
we face in that regard is our inability to respond in a timely
manner to legitimate oversight questions on current Agency
activities. The overwhelming majority of Congressional queries
are relatively simple and straightforward and can be easily
answered by DO Area Division officers. As matters now stand,
however, when we receive a question from a committee, we call
EPS/LG, which in turn passes a written request to the Area
Division concerned. The answer to the question is prepared by
the Area Division in writing and coordinated up through the DDO
and on to OLL/LD for passage to the Hill. The coordination of
these responses through the DO normally takes an inordinate and
sometimes unreasonable amount of time.
2. The problem as we see it is that we have made the
bureaucratic clearance chain for such responses so cumbersome
that it can't possibly work in a reasonable amount of time.
This is certainly not any one person's fault, and in no way do
we mean to point a finger. Nonetheless, we think that we can
do better, and we believe we should take the initiative to try
to do so.
3. Following is a fairly typical example of routine
coordination. When we receive a request from Congress, OLL
phones the requirement to EPS/LG. If the question involves the
CATF of LA Division, as is quite frequent, the following
generally happens:
- The request is put in writing by EPS/LG;
- Forwarded to CATF;
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Assigned to a CATF officer for an appropriate
response;
Coordinated through the CATF and cleared by C/CATF;
Sent to DC/LA and C/LA for their clearance;
Answer returned to EPS/LG and coordinated through
EPS/LG to C/EPS (this answer is often rewritten or
modified in EPS);
In some cases the response will be referred to
Counsel/DO;
Sent to SAs/DDO;
A/DDO;
DDO;
DD/OLL;
D/OLL;
C/OLL/LD.
Coordination with the Comptroller, General Counsel, or another
Directorate also may be necessary. In some instances, the
decision is made that the DCI should look at the response, in
which case it would be coordinated through the EXDIR, DDCI and
the DCI before it reaches OLL. A change, amendment, or
addition at any point along the way usually pushes the paper
back to square one and the coordination process begins anew.
Urgent matters can sometimes be expedited through EPS in a few
days; more-routine matters have taken over two months. On
occasion they have responded almost instantly, but that is not
frequent.
3. In recent conversations with HPSCI staffers, when we
have asked for suggestions on how the Agency could improve its
performance in the oversight arena, the staffers have stressed
the need for the Agency to do something to streamline the
system so that they can get timely responses. We have also
learned that when it takes us an unreasonable amount of time to
answer a simple question, some of the members and staffers are
prone to jump to the conclusion that we are in fact trying to
hide something, concluding that we are stonewalling,
incompetent, or both. This reaction often generates additional
questions which might not have been asked had we been able to
respond in a reasonable length of time in the first place.
Please see the attached record of delays in our response to the
committees.
4. It appears to us that there is a way to correct this
situation essentially by making the DO Area Division and Staff
Chiefs, as subordinates to the DDO, responsible for their own
relations with Congress. In practical terms, OLL/LD would deal
directly with representatives of each Area Division or Staff
Chief in handling their relations with Congress. This has the
following advantages:
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a. Dramatic cuts in the time it takes us to respond
to questions from the Congress, especially those that are
essentially factual and non-controversial.
b. A definition of the lines of command and control,
placing the responsibility for knowledgeability and record
keeping on the Area Division and Staff Chiefs whose
preeminent interest it should be to keep track of
Congressional concerns about their respective Area
Divisions.
c. As a result, DO officers would be much more
concerned with their relations with the Committees.
Moreover, their involvement in the process, on a daily
basis, would open their eyes to the political implications
of what the Divisions are doing and would broaden the
knowledge at the working level of the DO about how deeply
their activities are affected by Congress.
5. There is, of course, no guarantee that direct contact
between OLL/LD and DO Area Divisions and Staffs would eliminate
mistakes and delays, but we think we could and should provide
better service, both with regard to timeliness and to quality.
However, there are at least two key requisites for OLL/Liaison
Division to work well with the DO in projecting and protecting
DO interests and equities with Congress.
a. DO Rotational Assignments to OLL: As currently
constituted, OLL/LD has become fully representative of the
four Directorates. The slots of Chief of the Liaison
Division and Chiefs of both our Senate and House branches
are allocated to senior DO officers on rotational
assignment, in great part because most of our controversial
business with Congress concerns the DO. These officers
must have the full confidence of the DDO himself, and the
Directorate in general. Moreover, they must be line
officers with a future. Tamper with either of these
criteria and OLL can become "politicized" and/or a dumping
ground without the writ and clout from the DDO required for
the office to function effectively. Further, should
OLL/Liaison become a 'fetch and carry' function, the DO
would have no need to assign senior officers to OLL/LD, and
I believe two branch chiefs at a GS-12/14 level could
manage.
SECRET
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b. Command and Control with Congress: As noted
above, EPS/LG is at present constituted to task DO
components to respond to Congressional queries, to
coordinate these answers, and to incorporate them into a
Directorate data base for queries and replies to Congress.
In practice, EPS/LG often writes the reply itself,
thereafter coordinating as it considers appropriate.
Implicit and explicit in this process has been the goal of
attaining a DO data base that would eliminate the need to
task Area Divisions to respond to Congressional requests,
or at least to 'lighten the load' on DO Area Divisions in
replying to Congress. In my view, this is dangerous and a
distortion of where the responsibility and record-keeping
for DO Area Divisions should lie. Area Division and Staff
Chiefs, under the guidance of the DDO, should bear that
responsibility. Our job should be to ensure that replies
from DO Area Divisions and Staffs speak for the Agency and
are coordinated within the Agency as appropriate.
6. Finally, one must recognize that there is room for
reasonable men to disagree in this matter. Clearly Phil and I
are coming at this from two diametrically different points of
view; my staff, in the main, agrees with me; I dare say his
agrees with him. At issue is an honest professional
difference, and I believe. it important that this perspective be
kept. Although it is my understanding that the DDO has made a
decision in this matter, I understand that he and D/OLL may
wish to review the changes to be made in our dealing with or
without EPS in the oversight process. We stand ready to
proceed as instructed.
Attachment:
As stated
Distribution:
Orig - D/OLL
1 - DD/OLL
1 - OLL Record
1 - OLL Chrono
1 - VB Chrono
OLL/LD 17 Dec 84)
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