OPPORTUNITY UNFULFILLED THE USE AND PERCEPTIONS OF INTELLIGENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90M00005R000300100038-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 38
• Content Type: MISC

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/09: CIA-RDP90M00005R000300100038-2
25 August 1988
NOTE TO THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR
As usual, this is a fine paper. I have no comments on what
is here.
The reader who sees your name on an article concerning the
relationship between the CIA and the President might reasonably
expect more discussion on what has happened during the past eight
years. The history that you discuss is illuminating but your
message might be driven home still more effectively with some
more recent examples.
Obviously, there are dangers in being too current. one more
or less antiseptic issue that you might wish to disduss'somewhere
in the-paper would be intelligence support leading up to the
INF Treaty. Such a discussion'could make the point that we are
critically important and appreciated in some respects; unable to
deliver (monitor, etc.)'in other key areas; and divided among
ourselves in ways that are frustrating-to the President (e.g.,
CIA-DIA split on non-deployed missiles). To repeat, I think a
couple of paragraphs on the build up to the INF Treaty would
underscore a lot of your points effectively (including the
tension between Administration and Congress) and give the paper a
more current ring, but still not get you into trouble with
anybody.
There is another theme in your paper that is implicit but I
think would enlighten a reader if made more explicit.. That is,
the CIA is a high stakes institution. The President does not
have the option of ignoring it as he can ignore many other
executive departments and agencies. The CIA can do terrifically
useful things and does, (and you might wish to provide an example
or two), but it is also an organization that can get the
President into terrible trouble quickly, as with the Bay of. Pigs
or if we had become more centrally involved in the Iran-Contra
mess.
In fact, any informed reader will pick up an article like
this wondering what you have to say about the impact of
Iran-Contra on the relationship between the President and the
Agency, or what lessons it holds. I would not recommend getting
far into this for obvitius reasons except in the limited way I
have suggested, i.e., as an illustration of the kinds of things
the CIA could be drawn into, (also like Watergate, for example),
if the rules are not clear about the kinds of support--
substantive and operational--that the Agency legitimately should
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/09: CIA-RDP90M00005R000300100038-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/09: CIA-RDP90M00005R000300100038-2
Opportunity Unfulfilled
The Use and Perceptions of Intelligence at the White House
"Collection, processing and analysis all are directed at
one goal -- producing accurate reliable intelligence.... Who
are the customers who get this finished product? At the very
'top, of the list is the-President. He is, of course, the
Central Intelligence Agency's most important customer."
Intelligence: The Acme of Skill
(CIA Information Pamphlet)
And what have our most important customers had to say about
how well we achieve that goal?
"I am not satisfied with the quality of our political
intelligence."
Jimmy Carter, 1978
"What the hell do those clowns do out there in Langley?"
Richard Nixon, 1970
- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/09: CIA-RDP90M00005R000300100038-2