RESPONSES TO PRESIDENTIAL REVIEW MEMORANDA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91M00696R000200060058-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 58
• Publication Date: January 27, 1977
• Content Type: MF

ADMINISTRATIVE - INTERNAL USE ONLY
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27 January 1977
MEMORANDUM FOR: All NIOs
SUBJECT . Responses to Presidential Review Memoranda
1. In the interest of establishing some routine for the
handling of PRMs, I hereby set forth what I understand about
the procedures that we as a staff must adhere to when responding
to PRMs.
a. The PRMs are coming into the Agency through
Ben Evans' Executive Secretariat, and all dealing with
substance are sent to the NI staff for action.
b. We are logging the PRMs in the front office,
and Mr. Lehman is assigning the action to specific NIOs.
c. The NIOs are establishing themselves with the
chairmen of the SSC and PRC groups that draft the
responses to the PRMs. They serve as the focal point
for tasking the Community for intelligence contributions
to the PRM responses and forward these contributions to
the chairmen of the SSC and PRC groups. Would you please
notify Pat or me when contributions are sent forward
so that we may respond to the questions we are receiving --
from the Executive Secretariat, among others -- about
deadlines bei rig met.
d. Once a PRM response has been completed, the
NIO prepares a covering memorandum for the ADCI. The
memorandum prepared byl to accompany the
response to PRM No. 1 is attached for your information.
e. Mr. Lehman wishes to see the completed responses
to PRMs and the covering memoranda before they go for,?;ard.
We will log the action completed at this point.
ADMINISTRATIVE - INTERNAL USE ONLY
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f. The ADCI has designated Lew Lapham as the focal
point on his staff for NSC matters (see attached memo).
The PRM responses and covering memoranda should, therefore,
be addressed to the ADCI via Mr. Lehman and Mr. Lapham.
f. Notification to the Agency and the NI staff of
NSC, SSC, and PRC meetings will come from the NSC
Secretariat to in the DDI's Center for Policy
Support, as it has in the past. I Lill also notify
Lapham of these meetings. If an NIO, however, learns
of one of these meetings before the word is received
through official cha_nnels, would you please notice
Pat Taylor or_me so use can bass the word along.
g. The CPS receives an information copy of a PRM
at the same time the action copy is sent to the NI staff.
In some cases, the CPS will be starting to organize the
DDI to respond even before it is contacted by the NIO.
All work performed by the DDI to PRMs will
be forwarded independently to by the CPS.
2. If you think this procedure is complicated, rest
secure in the knowledge that it is but a small part of the
problem the Agency is having in getting organized to respond
to an NSC staff that is itself not yet organized.
DCI/NI
Attachments
As stated
2
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 NTO No. b1-77
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ftw
25 January 1977
MEMORANDUM FOR:
INFO:
FROM:
Acting, Director of Central Intelligence
D/DCI/NI
I
Acting, National Intelligence Officer
for Latin America
SUBJECT: PRM/NSC--1: Panama
1. The meeting to consider the Policy Review Memorandum
(PR1) on Panama, a copy of which is attached, will be held
on 27 January at 1015 hours in the White House Situation Room.
It will be chaired by Secretary of State Vance.
2. The PRM discusses the current economic and strategic
worth of the Canal to the US, concluding that while its com-
mercial and strategic value is declining, it is still a major
defense asset for the US in that it provides the means to shift
reinforcements from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans rapidly
and economically. Political factors prompting swift negotiation
of a treaty are examined, revealing that Panamanian frustrations
at extended delay could lead to violence against US installations
and personnel, and endanger Torrijos' position. The paper then
examines the major areas of disagreement with Panama: neutrality,
treaty duration and post treaty defense arrangements, stressing
the desirability of a joint US-Panama guarantee of neutrality,
Panama's insistence that the treaty terminate on 31 December 1999,
and Panama's refusal to accept the concept that US forces defend
the Canal "in perpetuity".
3. After outlining the options available to the US to
deal with these differences, the PRM defines the ways to re-
institute negotiations. These boil clown to two options:
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OPTION I: Present Panama with a formal offer
after interagency agreement has been reached on in-
structions regarding major issues. The drawback to
this option is that it will delay the reopening of
negotiations while interagency agreement: is sought.
OPTION II: Resume negotiations promptly and
informally on a "what if" basis, i.e.: If the US
were to accept the year 2000 as the termination date
of the treaty, what concessions is Panama. prepared to
make in return? This option would permit the Chief
US Negotiator to work out a conceptual agreement to
be initialed by both parties, possibly as early as
mid-March, with a draft treaty presented to the
President for final concurrence by 15 June. A formal
treaty could be signed by 1 July and sent to the
Senate for ratification by 1 August 1977. This op-
tion would demonstrate to the countries of Latin
America and the Third World that the US is serious
in its desire to negotiate a treaty in good faith.
As the above suggests, the PRM is clearly slanted in favor of
OPTION II. If OPTION II is selected, the Chief US Negotiator
would travel t o Panama immediately, i.e., the first week in
February.
4. The PRM concludes with a proposal by the State Depart-
ment that an interagency committee be established to address
rapidly the negotiators' requests for Executive Branch guidance.
It suggests that the committee be under the chairmanship of the
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and be composed
of representatives empowered to speak for State, Defense, NSC,
Secretary of the Army, Treasury, and (when appropriate) Labor,
Commerce, Transportation, Justice, CIA, OMB, and the Civil
Service Commission. The Defense Department believes that the
existing coordinating authority available to the negotiators is
sufficient, except in the most unusual circumstances. Defense
suggests that a standby committee composed of representatives of
the above organizations be identified early on, and called into
session if needed under the chairmanship of a designated member
of the NSC staff.
5. The intelligence and estimative aspects of the PRM
will be found in the Precis of the NIB on Panama (Tab 3) and at
the clipped annotated portions of the PRM on pages 1, 2, and 3.
Note the change I conveyed to the State Department on page 1,
paragraph 3.
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6. For your background, the Panamanian For.ei.gn Min._i.stei,,
Aquilino Boyd, is scheduled to arrive in Washington on 31 Janu-
ary to discuss the prospects for renewal of treaty negotiations.
7. I am available to discuss this matter with you prior
to the meeting on Thursday, and can accompany you to the meeting
should you desire my presence there.
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.. Acting, National Intelligence Officer
for Latin America
Attachment:
PRM
A/NIO/LA-
25 January 1977
Distribution:
Orig. & 1 - Addressee, w/l cy att.
1 - ER, w/o att.
1 - D/DCI/NI, w/o att.
2 - A/NIO/LA, w/l cy att.
1 - NIO/RI, w/o att.
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21 January 1977
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy to the Director of Central Intelligence
for National Intelligence Officers
Deputy Director for Administration
Deputy Director for Intelligence
Deputy Director for Operations
Deputy Director for Science & Technology
SUBJECT : CIA Support of NSC
1. During the next few weeks the new NSC Staff will be organizing
itself and developing its procedures and methods of operation. At the
same time it will be generating requirements for briefing papers and
scheduling formal NSC meetings or meetings under the umbrella of the
new committees established by Presidential Directive/NSC-2. In order
for the Agency to support the new NSC effectively and in a timely
manner, I would like to be kept informed of requirements levied,
meetings scheduled, and information concerning organizational and
procedural developments of the NSC and its Staff. I also wish to
review papers and briefings prepared for the NSC and its Committees.
2. For these purposes, I am designating I las the STAT
focal point on my staff. Please alert him promptly as requirements
for support or information on NSC developments are received and
advise him when papers are completed.
3. I have also tasked him to keep me informed of the status of
work on continuing short and longer range requirements that I discussed
with you on 8 January.
STAT
n le
Acting Director of Central Intelligence
cc: D/DCI/IC
A/DCI
OLC
OGC
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21 January 1977
We are reestablishing the procedure whereby Roz will
deliver to the NID staff copies of all NIEs and interagency
papers for publication in the NID on the same day that the
papers themselves are disseminated. If an NIO wishes the
publication of a paper in the NID either held up or in
advance of dissemination of the paper, he should notify
of the NID staff and Roz.
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19 January 1977
1. Attached, are two documents from the IC Staff. The
first is a draft revision of DCID 1/2, which I suggest we ignore,
no matter how exercised NSA may be over it. The revision does
not, as far as I can detect, in any way inhibit us from getting
on with assuming responsibility for national intelligence
requirements. Indeed, the draft revision, unintelligible as
it may be, has a section that seems to say that program managers
in the Intelligence Community should not really pay much attention
to the document.
2. The second paper is a production schedule for General
ffice, and we should pay attention to this one. The
schedule is an agenda of policy decisions that would be made
on the most vital issues concerning the Intelligence Community
and its external relations. The agenda, though perhaps too
comprehensive, is not all that bad; the question it raises is,
first, whether one wants policies on all these issues set down
on paper when some relationships might not better be left
somewhat obscure. The real problem, in any case, is that we
do not want a group of amateurs in the IC Staff's Office of
Policy and Planning making a series of recommendations on
critical policy issues to a new DCI who probably will not have
the experience to know which way to decide.
3. On the assumption that fighting I I on
this score would not increase the chances for evil, you should
at a minimum suggest to that these OPP papers must be
fully staffed out. Perhaps more effective might be a recommendation
from you to the new DCI, when you have your shot at him, that
he might like to reconstitute the Review Group to advise him
as he works his way through 'the policy issues that will face
him early in his administration. OPP could then serve as the
Review Group's staff.
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4. Beyond this particular proposal by 0 one
wonders if there might not be some way during this period of a
change of CIA administrations to bring the IC Staff, and
particularly this Policy and Planning Group, under some sort of
restraint so that we are not always having to respond to half-
assed suggestions about one thing or another. On the theory
that a good offense is the best defense, my inclination is to
urge you to suggest to the new DCI also that he should have an
independent look taken at his staff for managing the Community,
a staff which has grown by leaps and bounds in the past year
without much supervision from the last DCI. This independent
review could be conducted by an ad hoc group of senior Community
managers or by an outside consulting firm. The end result might
not be much different from what we have, but it might keep
the IC Staff tied up during the period that will be most critical
for us for the next eight years.
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