CRISIS ANALYSIS VIA SIMULATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91M00696R000600160006-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 3, 2004
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: June 8, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT Crisis Analysis via Simulations
1. I understand from some of my colleagues on the
Intelligence Community Staff that you have recently expressed
an interest in the general subject of "collection systems
interaction" and in turn may be seeking ways to test this inter-
action via a simulation or exercise. As you can appreciate
given. my position I too have been concerned with this issue
and have for a number of years been trying to focus both Agency
and Community attention on the problem. I did get Director
Colby to begin to address it but the problems he had to face
towards the latter part of his stewardship totally deflected
his attention. However, I was able to get the Agency's Office
of Research and Development to spearhead an effort which resulted
in the formation of a Crisis Management Analytical Team (CMAT)
whose task was to study this very issue. (Attached is a precis
of the CMAT project).
2. Granted this is but a small part of the question I
understand you are addressing. However, it is the first time
that such an analytical effort on the subject of Crisis
Management has been made in CIA. What is really needed and
what I think you may be getting at, is a parallel effort in
Community terms. In my judgment this effort should have as
its focus several interrelated questions which in aggregate
summarize the instruments you have to perform your crisis and
wartime responsibilities; how those instruments interact in
normal times, crisis times and wartimes; and finally given the
bureaucratic overlay of the various agencies concerned, who is
your principal crisis advisor and what crisis instruments can
you exercise on your own?
3. The issue of the DCI's role in crisis situations and
in various wartime shadings is a very complicated and contentious
one. There are wide variances in opinion even among the intelli-
gence managers in CIA. Unfortunately until now we have not had
a DCI who was either politically capable of or inclined towards
addressing this issue. Your arrival gives us a clear opportunity
to do so and do so hopefully within the context of an expanded
Community charter. As a final point and as a suggestion aimed
at giving you a more complete insight into this'question I
would like to suggest that you bring together those of us who
'head the various Community crisis facilities, plus IC Staff and
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L AI S IAT1V
A E INTERNAL USE ONLY
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ORD representation, for a brain-storming session on this and
related questions, thereby giving you the benefit of our thinking,
an opportunity for you to see what we are made of and perhaps
thus begin a process which could lead to a more integrated and
Community-wide crisis, mechanism, which at present does not exist.
STAT
Vincent n
Director
CIA Operations Center
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CRISIS MANAGEMENT ANALYTICAL TEAM
The Crisis Management Analytical Team (CMAT), headed
STAT byl of the Office of Research and Development,
was orme as a result of a felt need to evaluate the management
of CIA processes, analytical and other resources during foreign
crises. The team jointly sponsored by the Office of Research
and Development and the CIA Operations Center is studying the
methodological, technological and behavorial aspects of how the
various information handling procedures and groups of people
interact during these times, with the goal of identifying im-
proved procedural and attitudinal modifications leading toward
better use of intelligence resources and better support to policy
levels during crisis times. This study necessarily examines
relationships among CIA functions concerned with indications and
warnings and identifies potentially fruitful areas of research
that could be brought to bear on the broad issue of crisis
management.
As fundamental to this effort GMAT will shortly install a
PDP-11/70 mini-computer in the 6th floor Task Force Area of
the Operations Center to process simulations which will enable
us to gain insights into how best to interact crisis procedures
and players. We currently have available scenarios concerning
an outbreak of hostilities between North and South Korea and
one involving an Aegean Sea scenario postulating a conflict
between Greece and Turkey.
Approved For Release 2004/12/21 : CIA-RDP91 M00696R000600160006-8