AD HOC IAC COMMITTEE (WATCH)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91T01172R000400150003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 25, 2000
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 15, 1954
• Content Type: TRANS

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AD HOC IAC COMMITTEE (WATCH)
Transcript of Meeting Held in Director's
Conference Room, Administration Building
Central Intelligence Agency, on 8 January 1954
Mr. Huntington D. Sheldon
Presiding
Mr. William C. Trueheart, Office of the Special Assistant,
Intelligence, Department of State
Brigadier General John M. Willems, Deputy AC of S, G-2,
. Department of the Army
Captain D. T. Eller (USN), Assistant Head, Intelligence
Branch, ONI, Department of the Navy
Brigadier General Millard Lewis, Deputy Director Intelli-
gence, Headquarters USAF, United States Air Force
Dr. Charles H. Reichardt, Intelligence Division, Atomic
Energy Commission
Colonel Neil M. Wallace, Joint Intelligence Group, The
Joint Staff
Mr. Meffert W. Kuhrtz, Special Agent, Liaison Section,
Federal Bureau of Investigation
ALSO PRESEN
25X1A
Colonel Howard D. Kenzie, United States Air Force
Lt. Col. James P. Barry, G-2, Department of the Army
Mr. Samuel S. Rockwell, United States Air Force
, Secretary
25X1 A Reporter
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MR. S ELDON: Are there any comments on the last Minutes?
DR. REICHARDT: I have one, air, on page 5 about three quarters of the
way down. I believe I have obtained General Lewis' thunder, I think it was
General Lewis that made the suggestion referred to there and finally adopted.
MR. SHELDON: What part of page 5 are we looking at?
DR. REICHARDT: About three quarters of the way down "recommended
that the paragraph under-discussion be made paragraph a, the two paragraphs
already approved thus becoming b and c." I remember that he made that
finally.
MR. TRUEBEART: I have a very clear recollection of your having said it.
DR. REICHARDT: As I remember I recommended a change in the paragraph,
and that led to General Lewis' . . .
MR. SHELDON: Does it make any difference?
GENERAL LEWIS: I don't care.
DR. REICHARDT: That led to General Lewis' much better suggested change.
MR. SHELDON: I don't think it is a matter of substance.
DR. REICHARDT: I did want to --
GENERAL LEWIS: That you very much, but it didn't make any difference
to me.
MR. TRUEHEART: What is your recollection, General?
GENERAL LEWIS: My recollection is that it doesn't make a damn bit of
difference as far as I am concerned as long as it was constructive and we
get on with it. So let's just leave it as far as I am concerned unless you
want to change it.
DR. REICHARDT: I just didn't want to take credit for something which
you really did.
MR. SHELDON: Are there any other corrections? If not the Minutes will
stand as circulated. I will try to give you clean pieces of paper here. We
have circulated what we call tentatively approved paragraphs a, b, and c
as of the 8th of January meeting. I see that General Willems has a suggestion
to offer. You have circulated this new paragraph?
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GENERAL WILLED: Yes, you remember in the last meeting there was some
concern, and I believe General Lewis expressed this, that we were not perhaps
exploiting all the sources of indications intelligence, and I asked if we
might instead of trying to rearrange the paragraph that we were discussing
put that in as a separate paragraph, and I think everyone agreed that we
would consider it, so I worked out this wording here which I take no pride
in at all as the possible paragraph to insure that we do arrange for a complete
exploitation of all sources of indications intelligence.
MR. SHELDON: This would be in addition to a?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Yes, it would fit in somewhere in the series. I
don't know just where we would want it to go.
MR. SHELDON: Well, suppose we consider it in detail then. Does any-
body wish to address a commodent to it?
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, I like it myself except that I em not too sure
that the term "through the IAC" might not be either limiting or possibly
misunderstood. We might add "through the IAC or a member of the IAC", but
my point is if you group "through the IAC" together as a body, someone
might interpret that to mean that you have to go through the IAC as a body
in order to get something, you see. I don't think that is what we mean.
At least I wouldn't want it that way.
GENERAL WILLEMS: I certainly didn't intend that.
MR. TRUEHEART: "through the IAC agencies"?
DR. REICHARDT: That might solve the problem -- just the word "agencies".
MR. TRUEHEART: Here we are back again.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Could we say "through the IAC or any member thereof"?
GENERAL LEWIS: All right.
MR. SHELDON: That would cover Millard's point I think.
MR. TRUEHEART: Is this something the Committee should do perhaps
rather than the Center, or does it matter? Does this put the Center, in other
words, in direct liaison with the IAC, or is this too fire a point to worry
about?
MR. SHELDON: Well, you are raising a question now which I was going
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to raise when we get down to considering paragraph f, and that is the
relationship between "Committee" and what I call or think of as Staff of
the Indications Center. We are going to reach that relationship further
down the line, and it does arise here also.
MR. TRUESEART: It is important I think that we get it very clear what
the relationship is.
MR. SHELDOON: We are trying to spell out here actually at the moment
the duties of the indications Center's staff, and if we put it among the
a, b, c, d's of these instructions, it would then fall on the staff to
accomplish this particular function.
ADMIRAL. LAYTON: Mr. Chairman, it would seem to me that when you get
to the position that we are in now that we should have an introductory
paragraph -- something about organization -- and say that the Watch Com-
mittee will be assisted by, and then Working Group or whatever you call the
Indications Center, and then following as it is written now you would have
this Working Group arrangement with the IAC,Agency arrangement with the
IAC and its members, when actually I mean they would report to that Com-
mittee and recommend these things be done. That could be member or Com-
mittee as a whole.
CNERAL WILLEMS: I think it is actually going to be awfully hard to
differentiate between Committee members and the Working group.
MR. TRUEHEAT= Why do you think that? They will certainly be different
individuals at least in my opinion.
DR. REICHARDT: Don't look at me again.
MR. SHELDON: In general we mean.
ADMIRAL, LAYTON: Maybe I am mistaken, but I have the idea from reading
over the transcript and talking about it to Colonel Wallace that that
Working Committee was on a well we will say more or less 24-hour basis regard-
less of whether you say it is 24 hours a day. In other words they are on a
continuing duty basis while the Watch Committee members are not themselves
except on call. They are on call on a 24-hour-a-day basis, but no one expects
them to sit in the Indications Center and do that and nothing else.
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ADMIRAL LAYTON: So if these are the working Indians, then they work
for the Committee which works for the IAC, and what they do would be in the
name of their Committee, and we are getting in, I think, a lot of detail
here, that the Watch Committee itself would under broad guidance be entitled
and authorized to draw up procedures of what they do, but the Committee is
the one that would do these things, the broad things we want to get in rather
than the Working Group.
MR. SHELDON: Well, we are hitting at the meat of something that I
thought might come up perhaps a little later. Our concept really falls right
along those lines. I have a paper here which I don't propose to circulate
at the moment. I don't have many copies of it, but we had broken it down into
the duties and responsibilities of "the Watch Committee" and then the duties
and responsibilities of what we called the Working Group, which would be the
Indians running the Center, and do I gather that we want to go back now and
deal with the functions of the Committee per Be, or shall we continue and
work out the details of how the Working Group shall proceed? Admiral Layton's
comment would indicate that he feels that it is desirable that we preface
at least the instructions to the Working Group by some appropriate phrase.
Then if we finish that we can go back if necessary, look at the paper, and
see if we want to put certain responsibilities on the Committee per Be.
Would that be acceptable if we handled it in that manner, in other words, to
continue as we are with some appropriate introductory phrase? Our own hap-
pened to be this: "The Working Group will support the Watch Committee by . . ."
Then you go on and list these various things.
DR. REICHARDT: Mr. Chairman, I was going to sort of second your idea on
that that really these jobs on more authority are jobs of both the Committee
and the Center so that all you have to . . . well, what I had was "the Watch
Committee will maintain an Indications Center which will support the Watch
Committee by . . ." Change the verbs to whatever the "ing" means. I keep
forgetting those participles.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Now is the Chairman going to be on the Working Group
or is he on the Committee?
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MR. SHELDON: My personal concept is that the Committee is the Committee
of which the Chairman is the head. The Committee is then supported on a
full-time basis by a staff which runs, operates, etc., the Indications, Center.
That is my personal concept of how this would work.
MR. TRUEREART: The head of the Staff is not necessarily the Chairman
of the Committee, probably not?
MR. SHELDON: I would say no. In other words, the Senior Member of the
Staff would report directly to the Committee and presumably to the Chairman
of the Committee who would be his . . . he would guide the destinies of the
Working Staff. At least that is the way I thought about this thing, and if
we are thinking differently perhaps we better get this one out on the table.
GENERAL WILLEMS: I would like to discuss it a moment because, for
instance, the Chairman of the Committee it seems to me carries the responsibility
for seeing that the whole Watch Committee effort functions properly.
MR. SHELDON: Right.
,GENERAL WILLEMS: And if you and I just don't see how you can divorce
that . . . Now the Chairman himself while he can accomplish certain things
through the head of the Working Group, the head of the Secretariat, or whatever
we want to call it, actually he accomplishes his greatest effectiveness by
by working through the Committee, and it is awfully hard, as I see it now in
my mind, to divorce this Working Group functions from the Committee respon-
sibilities. Now surely they don't do it. The Committee doesn't get in there
and do all of these things. They don't post the various indicators, etc., but
they must share, and I think intimately, in the responsibilities for the
functioning of the Watch Committee as a whole.
MR. SHELDON: For instance, today I would be hard put to it to name the
members of the Watch Committee. I wouldn't know who they were if somebody
said to me, "Now let's send out a message to all the members of the Watch
Committee." As individuals I would be hard put to it to know how to address
myself because they change from time to time, or quite frequently, and in
many instances there is more than one representative of an IAC member present,
and it doesn't seem to me there is any clear-cut "member" or Committee. Am I
wrong in that?
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CAPTAIN ELLER: I have the latest memorandum, I believe, which shows the
Chairman, and then it shows the Watch Committee Secretariat, you know, gives
the names, home phone numbers and office phone numbers, and then it gives . . .
the next one down is the Central Intelligence Agency, and on there it just
gives Watch officer with the phone number. The State Department it gives
Mr. Mose Harvey, and then it gives alternates of about five or six of which
411ussen is one, and the Watch officer, and then it gives the office of the
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, and lists the various members there. It
doesn't differentiate between them. It gives the Duty Officer.
MR. TRUEHEART: Nobody is in doubt about which one of them is.
CAPTAIN ELLER: Office of Naval Intelligence it gives my name with
alternates. It depended a little bit on how the Agency phrased its contribution,
I think, to the memorandum. Directorate of Intelligence, Air Pbrce, Colonel
Hunt's name has been substituted here with alternates, and the JIG with Colonel
and an alternate, Mr. Easton. Atomic Energy with no alternate. That
Wallace
one is dated fairly recently, 1 September, and I believe there has been
MR. SHELDON: What constitutes the Watch Committee at the moment? I
still am not clear as to who the individual members of the Watch Committee
are. Would you simply say the Senior Members listed on that sheet?
GENERAL WALE) : Yes, I have always looked on it as the Senior Representa-
tive from each Agency represented.
MR. TRUEHEART: Waesn't there actually a formal notification to you of
the members from each Agency? I was under the impression there was. After the
IAC approved it, it is my impression that everybody notified Reber, or something
like that, who the members were.
DR. REICHARDT: Who the member and the alternates --
MR. TRUEHEART: Yes.
GENERAL WILLEMS: I think probably that was originally set up, but now it
has gotten into a sort of routine. The head of the Watch Committee Secretariat
always knows who they.are -- there is no doubt about it -- and the Chairman is
so informed. There is a lot of routine work that goes on with the Committee
here that goes on between Colonel Barry, who is the head of the Secretariat now,
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and formerly was McBride and myself. I found there was a great deal of house-
keeping going on, and personally I felt that I was pretty much a member of
the working organization there, and I thought that most of the other representa-
tives did too. This is something of a surprise to me here that the differ-
entiation --
MR. SHELDON: Well, I think it is a question of language. Let me see if
I can restate my concept, that is, that there would be a Committee to which
each Agency would nominate its representative. There would be a Chairman
obviously. The Chairman would work in close association with the members of
the Committee. There would also be a staff on, I hope, a full-time basis
which would be directly responsible to the Committee per se, and the Chairman
in particular, as the Chairman of the Watch Committee. Now in that sense the
Chairman would be a working member, so to speak, and direct the operations
of the Indications Center which need be in collaboration with the other members
of his Committee. Is that the general concept held around the table, or am
I out in left field on this one?
MR. TRUEHEART: That is my conception.
GENERAL WILLEMS: That is mine too.
ADMIRAL LAYTLON: That is essentially what I would say.
GENERAL LEWIS: Very close.
MR. SHELDON: I don't think we are at odds on this. This may be language
or something of that sort.
GENERAL WILLEMS: I think it is a question of responsibilities; where
we are talking about responsibilities --
MR. SHELDON: Yes.
GENERAL WILLEM~S: -- I think the responsibility for the whole operation
rests squarely on the shoulders of the Chairman?
MR. SHELDON: Yes.
GENERAL WILLEMS: It seemed to me it should be on the Committee.
MR. SHELDON: Well, with the Chairman as the boss of the Committee so to
speak.
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GENERAL WILLEMS: And these responsibilities of getting all of this done,
etc., it seems to me that we are dividing the responsibility when we pass
these responsibilities down to just the Working Group. Now we hope they will
be a very qualified group, but the people that I think we ought to charge all
the way through with accomplishing all of these things should be the Committee.
MR. SHELDON: Oh, I couldn't possibly agree with you more.
GENERAL WILD: Maybe we have misunderstood.
MR. SHELDON: There is no difference at all. It is a question of whether
we have set it down here in the manner in which we all agree on it.
MR. TRUEHEART: I have a procedural suggestion here which is that we go
through the list of items which are on your work sheet, and also the one that
General Willems has added, and consider them initially without regard of
whether it is the Committee or Working Group that is concerned. The first
question, this is something-that has to be done by somebody.
MR. SHELDON: Then we can tack a label on it when we have decided what
the functions and responsibilities are.
MR. TRUEHEART: The second question, I think, we would ask as we go
through them is "Is this for the Working Group to do or the Committee?"
If we say it is the Committee we could label it as Committee and then go
back later on and look at our Terms of Reference and see whether it covers
this.
MR. SHELDON: I think that is a perfectly sound attack on the problem.
MR. TRUEHEART: We also ought to get a heading such as Admiral Layton
suggests to --
MR. SHELDON: Why don't we wait with our heading until we have examined
these responsibilities in detail, and then it might change our heading it we
decide on it now, and we could do that at the end to tidy the paper up. Well
with that in mind let us again address ourselves to the new suggestion today
which has been amended to read "arrange through the IAC or any member thereof
for complete exploitation, etc." Are we now satisfied that that is a new
paragraph that we wish to incorporate in our paper? Are we all agreed on
that?
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MR. TRUEHEART: I would think we are somewhere combining it with the
present a. It seems to overlap it to me. Or did you have something totally
different in mind?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Yes, I did. It is in the same field as a. I mean it
is the requirement of the indications intelligence, but we did feel it important
in working up this original statement of responsibilities to stress the word-
ing in a. I believe if we put this in we tend to obscure that, and I think
actually this is a very important function though which hasn't properly been
considered before, and I believe it is worthy of being in a separate para-
graph. There are two duties. You see, there are two things, two functions,
in these two.
MR. SHELDON: One is within the respective agencies themselves, and the
other is a memorandum in effect to be sure that the other member agencies
scan the world and the other non-IAC agencies to pull it into a big basket
all the material that may have an indications characteristic. So it is
really two types of responsibility. And I think read in that context it does
stand satisfactorily on its own feet as a duty.
MR. TRUEHEART: I think you might make a case that this is a clear
duty of the Committee, and perhaps on your other it is properly a function of
the Working Group of the Staff.
MR. SHELDON: What is the reaction to that?
ALINIIRAL LAYTON: I don't agree with that at all. I don't think you can
set the Working Group, or Staff, or whatever you call then; as separate or
any different from carrying out the duties that are assigned to the Watch
Committee itself as a whole, as an entity, in the name of the Chairman.
MR. SHELDON: You see, we may end up by labeling this as the Watch
Committee's responsibilities, and then it is up to the Watch Committee to put
on the Working Group the detailed handling and carrying out of these par-
ticular responsibilities.
GENERAL LEWIS: As I look at it the Watch Committee is going to be sort
of the Board of Directors, you see.
MR. TRUEREART: That is my concept.
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GENERAL LEWIS: And then these people who are going to be running or
working in this Center are going to be the people to do the work in general,
and the Chairman of the Board of Directors is going to be the man who is
really going to carry the torch and assume the great deal of responsibility
to see that things click for the Board.
MR. TRUEHEART: I accept the idea of the Board of Directors if it is
understood that this is a substantive Board of Directors, a Board of Directors
which is qualified specifically to discuss matters of Soviet intentions and
not simply a group which has procedural cognizance of what the Working Group
is doing.
MR. SHELDON: I agree with that 100%. You can't detail people who can't
sit down and take a problem apart substantively. I agree with that whole-
heartedly.
CAPTAIN ELLER: I have a thought on the same subject. I wonder if that
note in the paper this morning brought this up, General. There was a Com-
mittee of Congress that has discharged the head of their Secretariat. This
is off the record.---
MR. SHELDON: I still visualize that we are all thinking along the same
lines.
MR. TRUEHEART: I can certainly buy this paragraph, and let's put it in.
MR. SHELDON: All right, then we should move down to d. -- "maintain in
readily usable form .....*"etc.
ADMIRAL LA TON: Mr. Chairman, before you go on could I ask where you
are going to put this new paragraph? Is it going to be a new a.?
MR. SHELDON: All right.
GENERAL LEWIS: You can stick in that one, you see.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: We are going to have a piece of paper to start from
first base. I don't particularly have any feeling about it one way or the
other except I would like to see it in some place where it would belong, and
this thought struck me since this is a complete blanket. This is "to arrange
the exploitation of every'-- this is without exception then --"domestic or
foreign source of indications of intelligence: That probably is the paragraph a.
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because the next one says "to arrange for the systematic screening", which you
aren't going to get it to screen unless you get it
MR. SHELDON: I will buy that order.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Yes.
MR. SHELDON: Excepting when we are going to reach . . . I may suggest
that that come first. Let's not confuse the issue at this moment.
CAPTAIN ELLER: Mr. Chairman, we were very careful the last time to
put this last sentence a paragraph a., if you remember, and now we are getting
a new a.
MR. SHELDON: Yes.
CAPTAIN ELLER: Which is extremely broad, and I am in favor of it
incidentally, but it seems to me there might be some proper limitations on
it since we were . . . even just as a mechanical means of avoiding too
gigantic a problem is what I had in mind. All information which may contain
indications of Soviet-Communist intentions as set forth in paragraph C,2
certainly defines our present a. to where it is a sizeable matter that can
be handled generally, whereas the new a. I am not sure just what size it
might take as far as volume went.
MR. TRUEHEART: I have some second thoughts on that "complete" word. My
God, what does that mean? We all know they can't completely process all the
stuff out at Arlington Hall, for example. Would it mean you have to have
that absolutely complete, or would you have to translate every word of every
document that cones to hand? I think that might be so broad as to be meaning-
less.
DR. REICHARDT: I think perhaps it depends on the definition of "exploit-
ation" in this case.
MR. TRUEHEART: "complete exploitation".
DR. REICHARDiT: I interpret the "exploitation" to mean essentially what
Captain Eller was trying to bring out -- the exploitation for this purpose.
MR. TRUEHEART: I think the "every" is the important one, but I am not
sure whether you couldn't drop the "complete" as setting too high a
That is not feasible.
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GENERAL WILLEMS: I think we could drop out "complete" too. If you
exploit it there is no degree. I mean if you exploit it you exploit it.
GENERAL LEWIS: Yes, actually what you are trying to do is you are
trying to be sure that you cover the sources not covered by a. -- that
might not be covered by a. Isn't that right?
GENERAL WILS,EMS: Yes.
GENERAL LEWIS: And if you did want to limit it, you might in some way
put it that way that you have covered certain sources in a. Now you are
covering all the other sources. You might have something in which you are
interested.
MR. SHELDON: I think you have said everything you can possibly say if
you delete complete#. I don't think that adds anything. Does that help you,
Captain Eller? Does that help you?
CAPTAIN ELLER: Yes, sir, I was thinking possibly where we have the wording
"source of indications intelligence" related to "Soviet/Communist intention".
Might pin it down to just exactly what we are talking about, at least what
I feel we are talking about. That is rather a minor point.
MR. SHELDON: You mean you want to tack on there what we tacked on before?
CAPTAIN ELLER: Yes, that phrase.
MR. SHELDON: "Soviet/Communist intentions as net forth in C,2 above."
CAPTAIN ELLER: Yes, sir, I believe that is what we mean.
MR. SHELDON: We must mean that.
CAPTAIN ELLER: In the new a., yes, sir.
GENERAL WIL : Just add it to after "intelligence" there.
MR. SHELDON: Does anybody have any objections to adding . . . ?
MR. TRUEHEART: We are sure that when we get through we will be able to
say this in a less cumbersome way.
MR. SHELDON: I have a feeling here that there is some meeting here that
is going to be possible, but it may not be possible around the table. All right,
then that becomes the new a. again, and I think we can now address ourselves
to what in effect would be e., temporary e. perhaps. I personally have a
feeling that the phrase "of Soviet-Communist preparations for attack" again
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is a less tight phrase than we have been trying to write into this paper,
and something along the line of "pertaining to the Committee Mission", or
something along those lines would seem to me a little tighter there.
GENERAL LEWIS: Why do you need anything? Why can't you end this sentence
with "indications"?
MR. SHELDON: Because it is for sure that what you haven't got you can't
keep in useable form; therefore, once you have got it why put another label
on it? I would agree with that. Why relabel it?
GENERAL LEWIS: Yes, we do the same thing in e. I think now that you
have spelled out pretty well exactly what you are talking about up above
you can end this sentence with "indications".
MR. SHELDON: Now you have got these things and why put another label
on them?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Yes, that is quite right. Did you have in mind calling
it indications intelligence?
GENERAL LEWIS: Yes, whatever you want to do.
GENERAL WIL : In the vernacular around here we all speak of that.
I think that is what we all mean. I think we said that in the first paragraph
up there and thereafter refer to that as "indications intelligence".
MR. SHELDON: Otherwise we have to spell out"as set forth in C,2 above"
and in every paragraph.
MR. TftUEHEART: I would suggest dropping again the word "complete" and
the word "all" in that thing so as to give the Committee some flexibility in
what sort of files they maintain. I am not sure that we need to have every
last piece of information in these files, particularly when you consider the
period . . . the historical thing, I mean.
MR. SHELDON: The only thought I would offer there would be that here
again it is the men under the gun which have to carry these things out, and
when he reads this if he gets the impression, "Now look we have to get the
most we possibly can get" . . . if he gets that thoroughly drilled into him
we are apt to get more rather than less.
.,.1 _
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MR. TRUEHEART: What we want, I think, is the most useful files, not
necessarily the biggest.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: All the pertinent available --
GENERAL LEWIS: Yes, I think there is another sidelight to that too.
I think every one of us knows of something that this Watch Committee now
does not have that it should have, and I think the object of this exercise has
got to be that somehow we see that everything that is pertinent gets to the
Watch Committee. Now it may be that we are going to have to recognize, and I
think we will have to recognize the fact that there are certain very sensitive
items that only a very few people should know anything about that shouldn't
be generally broadcast, that shouldn't be spread over more than those who
positively need to know, in which case we set up within this organization a
certain number of people by name who will handle super-sensitive things which
someone of the Agencies wouldn't want to toss in if he thought the ting was
going to be given general distribution. See what I mean? And I think that
if we do recognize that there will be some of those things, if we do make
provisions for very limited distribution, and I mean truly limited distribution,
so that the person who is tossing the thing in isn't going to be worried
about security, then I think that we will see that everything does get at least
to the heart of this organization even though it won't get full distribution
to all of the curiosity seekers.
MR. SHELDON: Well, Millard, you do introduce there a concept, which I
don't find too friendly, and that is a circle within a circle in which I would
consider to be an essentially ultra-sensitive project in any event.
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, I would be willing to do that if that is what it
took to see to it that every member organization would be happy to give every-
thing, and I just don't believe unless you put it on a very limited basis and
have, we will say, specific persons designated for super-sensitive things
that these organizations are going to be happy to throw certain things in.
MR. SHELDON: Well, I would prefer to take this view, and that is that
I would not expect to detail either as the CIA member on the Committee or
any individual who might be required to add to the Indications Center . . . I
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would not put anybody there to whom I would not be willing to give everything
that we have.
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, I haven't quite gotten to you yet, and I don't
want to take up the time here, but I believe in this one because I think
that here is one of our greatest defects. There are just so darned many
people sitting in your Watch Committee meeting now that there are certain
things that are never brought out that should be brought out, and the reason
is that a good many of those people don't have any reason to know. I could
get a small group -- a very small group -- and tell them, and they could
handle it without all the other people knowing about it. Now if that is what
it takes -- a group within a group -- to do it, all right. Maybe we can
make this thing so air tight, and the distribution so closely controlled, a
hand carried distribution to certain selected people and no other distribution
of such information. Maybe you can do it on the basis that you could let
anyone who is working in the Center have it, but I don't even believe that
either. I believe that this has got to be something like the Comint clearance
arrangement of limiting, of having certain designated people who are going
to know super-sensitive things, and there won't be very many. Now I am
only talking with a fraction of one percent of the information, and yet it
is very vital information -- very vital.
CAPTAIN ELLER: I might add to that, General, that the Navy's feeling
has been that the number of people in the Watch Committee, you know, at each
of our meetings possibly weakens the security, and I really don't know, but
there have been several indications that there is additional material which
the Watch Committee isn't cognizant of. I don't know anything that the Navy
has that isn't in or wouldn't be put in if anyone could segregate it out and
recognize it, but I know there are some operational matters which undoubtedly
all the agencies have that border on . . . I think we might consider some of
them before we finish awfully closely on the resulting indicators will be
tied to these operations which we have no way at present of differentiating,
but possibly some reduction in the scope or the number of people, the clearance
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anuary 195
arrangement that General Lewis mentioned might materially improve the amount
of material that is presented.
MR. SHELDON: Well, I frankly had in mind that if and when this general
scheme went into effect that there probably would be fewer people actually
attending the Watch Committee meetings per se.
MR. TRUEHEART: I think it is the only way you can have any chance of
getting a full disclosure. I am not even sure you can get it then.
GENERAL LEWIS: I am not sure you would either, and yet I think that
full disclosure has got to be our objective, and we have got to go to whatever
ends are necessary. Sure you can discuss the way it works. You discuss a
top secret in a larger group than you discuss Comint than you discuss super-
sensitive things, and if you just . . . And if we recognize that and set the
organization up in such a way that we are sure that the super-sensitive
things are going to get in there somehow.
MR. SHELDON: I am all for your concept. I would like to try to avoid
having a ring within a ring because I think that tends partly to destroy the
effectiveness of the whole organization. I think you would recognize that
qtr. man working in a Center of this sort if he felt that the guy next to him
had information available to him that was not available to the individual
across the way, I think you would build up a kind of a tension which might
develop into an unhealthy situation.
GENERAL LEWIS: I agree with that, but your problem is for him not to
know just like your problem is with Comint.
MR. TRUEHEART: You might just work out something like IAC does -- just
having a regular Executive Session at the end of each meeting., and kick every-
body out but one man from each Agency.
GENERAL WII: Yes, that was the way I was thinking too, and items
could be marked if necessary "For Executive Committee" or "Executive Session".
We have felt too that there are too many people over there in the Watch Com-
mittee meetings. That apparently was the way it was operating when I came there.
And if you use this Executive Session system we can perhaps permit
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We don't have to restrict it too much -- the actual meeting. Excuse me, there
is some good accomplished by having certain people in there. They add to the
discussion in certain fields. They add a great deal because you get an expert
in who really can give the facts in a certain field, and I think they have
contributed, but we have had many visitors who come in. They want to see
the Watch Committee function. I think there is an advantage to that because
we get the idea known; we let them see how it functions, etc. Many of those
people contribute in some way to the Watch Committee function.
MR. TRUEHEART: But I don't think anybody could resent an Executive
Session, particularly if you held one every time you met. You might not
have anything to discuss, but be understood everybody leaves at the end of
the meeting, and then --
MR. SHELDON: That is another way of handling it.
DR. REICHARDT: It might be that the conclusions are always considered
in Executive Session just as a matter of giving you the idea it is just a
machanism.
MR. SHELDON: I still, however, would prefer to see the full-time
working members of such caliber as to want their being given the most sen-
sitive material. I still feel that is the optimum solution.
GENERAL LEWIS: I agree with that, but it is going to depend then upon
how many working members there are.
MR. TRUEHEART: The people who are going to control the information are
just not going to let it go if you have too large a number, in other words.
GENERAL LEWIS: I think you have a good one to think about there. You
have a very good one to think about. I would like to chew on that a while,
but that idea of maybe having a recommendation to the Executive Session to
consider the conclusions in Executive Session . . . in other words, the main
meeting comes up with a recommendation from the Center personnel that they
recommend that the Executive Session consider a conclusion of so and so and
so and so, and then you go into Executive Session, and if there is anything
additional to consider, you consider it. If you don't you Just say, "Well,
that is it," but you go through the routine each time of having an Executive
Session so that you provide your normal cover, yes.
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ADMIRAL LAYTON: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make an observation.
While I recognize that it is necessary the Center get all of the information,
all of the intelligence, and it is necessary they know of operations except
that intelligence might develop from those operations. Well, now if these
are operations . . . let us say, take one, for example. Let us say it is
the (Off the Record). Well, we will say that at Executive Session today the
Watch Committee knows about that and have discussed it -- that something might
come out of this, but they can't tell the Working Group, so they secure, and
they go home, and the next day this (Off the Record). The Watch Committee
are home having dinner, and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. The Work-
ing members know nothing about this, might miss the import, and it might be
of such importance that they might want to call the Watch Committee into
immediate session so they could go to their IAC principals in accordance with
the Directives so the machinery could be put in motion which exists. I mean
it might start being the little trigger that started this thing going, and
if the Working Group didn't know it, General, they wouldn't be in a position
to do it.
I would like to bring out one thing. They had had the same situation
before Pearl Harbor. They were holding Comint so tightly in Washington that
they weren't going despite the recommendation of Field Commanders that they
be furnished this, and they were told very piously that this was all political,
but anything that ever pinged upon the military or their responsibilities,
these Commanders, that they would be told . . . they would be advised. They
were not advised. It is brought out that they had these various messages.
The Watch Committee have had, I am sure, that, some bright young man would
have been able to say, "This looks bigger to me than we have figured it up,
and if you . . . " And I realize that you are going to have difficulty getting
these sensitive things, but we have to face facts rather than talk around
them, and if you set up anything wherein only a certain number of this Watch
Committee, or the Watch Committee itself alone, get it, and the Working
Members who represent them on a so-called 21+-hour-a-day basis don't have it
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Now I will have one more. During the war I saw an Operational Intel-
ligence Center set up, and they tried to operate it without certain people
being Comint cleared, and it fell apart in exactly 24 hours, and when the
Commander discovered that was attempted, he said, "How stupid can you be?
There is no such thing as being partially pregnant. They either are or they
aren't, and if I have this material for my use, my protection, it has got to
be cranked in." Well, somebody brought out the rules. The rule said that
you could only clear so many people, and they gave them -- not their ranks
and title, but their position. Now those are written in peacetime when there
was only one position. He said, "I don't give a damn about rules." It
turned out he was quite correct. I think rather than saying that we can
do this, I think we have to approach it that the Watch Committee will have
such stature that they will get it, and the way they handle it within them-
selves, they will insure as if only one person got it.
GENERAL LEWIS: I think we are talking about the same thing.
MR. SHELDON: I couldn't agree with you more.
GENERAL LEWIS: I think we are talking about exactly the same thing. I
am visualizing a limited number of persons but not all of the persons belong-
ing to the Center knowing about this, so that you will be reasonably assured
that what you are talking about won't happen and yet that you don't unneces-
sarily spread this information, we will say, to members of the Secretariat
who don't need to have it -- to stenographers and other people, in other words.
MR. SHELDON: In other words, you are embracing all of the substantive
individuals?
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, it depends upon how many you are talking about
when say all. Now if you are talking about the members in the Center who
represent each one of the activities, and that would be a matter of four or
five, possibly so, but to go much beyond that, I don't think so.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Well, I agree with you, General. I understood this
Executive Session was only for the Watch Committee themselves, and the
working Indians who were there all the time wouldn't have this . . .
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GENERAL LEWIS: I don't think you would hold an Executive Session
without some support from the full-time people. I wouldn't visualize it that
way. Now maybe I don't have the proper concept and feel of what an Executive
Session is here.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Well they described the Executive Session of the IAC
in which only the principals remain.
GENERAL LEWIS: And everyone else leave.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Yes.
DR. REICHARDT: Everyone else but a supporting member of the . . . well,
and also in some cases a supporting member of the Agency bringing up the
sensitive material. This may happen, and I had in mind that at least that
member on the Working Group whose Agency had this sensitive material, the
Senior Member on the Working Group of that Agency at least would have it.
GENERAL LEWIS: It might even vary a little bit, but I would say in gen-
eral it should be the minimum of the member on the Working Group who represents
the member who is in the Executive Agency, so that would be two from each;
but however we come out with it -- and it might vary from time to time -- I
think that the principle is that somehow we have got to get everything into
this Center even if we have to go to extremes to do it.
DR. REICHARDT: There is a great deal in which you said that has to be
covered.
MR. TRUEHEART: Theoretically what you say you cannot argue with. It is
absolutely right, but, as a practical matter, I don't think you are going to
get the people to cut loose with the information unless you can assure them
that it is going to go to absolutely a very small number of people.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I don't see any real problem if the IAC members themselves,
who are their intelligence chiefs of the various IAC Agencies, will be con-
vinced -- this is a matter of convincing them -- that this is an absolute
necessity. They are the ones who control the intelligence within their
departments. No one else controls it, and it is up to them, and either they
are an IAC member and cooperate with their own subcommittee or they don't,
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and this thing to me is plain not salesmanship but presenting the facts and
requirements.
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, that is the reason why I kind of feel we should
shoot for extreme words in here. That is the reason why I kind of like this
concept of "all".
MR. TRUEHEART: I want to point out, General, that my point in this
paragraph d. now e., I hadn't in mind at all the thing you were talking
about. I thought we covered that above in b., c., d., etc. I am just here
arguing that we don't want to bind the Working Group to file every damn
thing they get, but that isn't necessarily the best kind of a way to run a
file. Not that they shouldn't get it, but I just don't want to make them
keep it and put it in the file.
GENERAL LEWIS: I appreciate this paragraph isn't particularly on what
you get, but I would like to go filter through the whole thing, the concept
that this show gets all, and somehow arrange it so that they will get it all.
MR. TRUEHEART: I agree with that.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Wouldn't the insertion of the word "pertinent" in there
cover both of the objections? In other words, the Watch Committee can
determine which is pertinent. If they decide they want to do away with a
certain file that has outlived its usefulness, they can do it, and I think
this is getting a little too legal when it says "all" -- you have to keep
everything including memoranda.
GENERAL LEWIS: I wouldn't be worried about that because I am sure they
would throw away what they didn't think was worth keeping, but I kind of like
the concept of saying "all", although I am one from staying away from extreme
words, in general, but if you put . . . You might stick "pertinent" after
"all" if you feel it is necessary.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Yes, I think it certainly wouldn't do any harm in
there, and does give, confirm, the latitude there of this Committee.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: And, you see, you have a completion of a pertinent file.
I would like to leave the "complete;' in there, I think.
MR. TRUEHEART: Yes, I will buy that.
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MR. SHELDON: Just add the word "pertinent" then after "all"?
GENERAL LEWIS: That would be my suggestion; yes, that would be fine.
MR. SHELDON: All right.
MR. TRUEHEART: But, of course, this means that that sensitive information
that you are talking about is going to go in here.
GENERAL LEWIS: It will be somewhere, but it doesn't say that super-
sensitive information is going to be in, but it will be somewhere, yes.
MR. TRUEHEART: It says "and integrated file" which means,. General,
you put it all together.
GENERAL LEWIS: No, not necessarily. The super stuff you would put
separately.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: You don't have to have it all in the same room.
MR. TRUEHEART: To be integrated?
ADMIRAL LAYTON: No, sir, you go to any file, and if you get any size
of files, they can't even be kept in any one room except possibly the big
National Guard Armory down here, and then if you go a little further, and
then I can think of the CIA in the next 10 years outgrowing that in the size
of files.
MR. TRUEHEART: What does integrated mean?
ADMIRAL LAYTON: That you have cross-indexing; you have cross checking
so that on any subject, or any area, or any matter you can go in and find
like a librarian's file. If you don't even remember the book and you know what
it is about you can go in there and find your leads from which you can go
back and pick up the name of the author, and find the shelf number, and from
the shelf number you go and find it. Don't get me off on intelligence file
indexes.
MR. SHELDON: All right, let's tackle f. then.
CAPTAIN ELLER: Mr. Chairman, just one point on d. there. Do you want
the word "available" in there? Do you want "all pertinent available intelligence"?
It doesn't seem to me to contribute anything since if it was not available you
----wouldn't have it.
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MR. SHELDON: I will buy the deletion.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Well, I was all for leaving it in and depending on
General Lewis' statement because it might not be available, and you might
not have it.
GENERAL LEWIS: All right, it is back in.
CAPTAIN ELLER: I withdraw my comment.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: That is the fish hook.
CAPTAIN ELLER: Yes.
MR. SHELDON: I have some suggestions on the next item which would read
somewhat along these lines: "Maintain and develop graphics, and mechanical
aids, and techniques effectively to illustrate and assist in interpreting
the current situation and long-range trends with respect to the Watch
Committee mission." I am trying to get in there the idea that we have got
to develop the art which at the moment is embryonic in tackling these things.
I don't say we will ever be successful, but it seems to me that we have got
to try a little.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I think that should be a separate paragraph. -I
think doing what they are doing now should be in there separately and to
develop another one where we can say this will not supplant in any way, be
put on a trial basis, a check.
MR. SHELDON: We don't want to change the experiment in which --
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Not within the current watch function; otherwise you
will muddy it.
MR. SHELDON: I do think we have to get that concept in somewhere along
there.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I will recommend that be done separately, and that will
be one of the things they will do, and then they will develop, and then they
will check this against the current human methods. To quote General Samford
and General Porter, they both have considerable experience with very competent
firms -- electric brains people -- trying to work out something. There was
the feeling, and it was expressed at the IAC, if you recall, they didn't want
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this thing to supplant it now. Mr. Dulles said that he didn't want to have
any mechanical monster that would give the wrong election return.
MR. SHELDON: In addition to which your own paper that you submitted
tried to set the experimental facet aside and apart from the --
ADMIRAL LAYTON: That is why I would recommend not putting it in here;
put it in as a separate function.
MR. SHELDON: I think we have to put the idea in somewhere along the
line, and as long as we get it in, that is all I care about.
GENERAL LEWIS: I would like to put your word "assist" though in front
of both. I think you had it after the first . . . after the "interpret"
didn't you?
MR. SHELDON: "Assist and interpret".
GENERAL LEWIS: I think we have to recognize that any of these things --
MR. SHELDON: "to most effectively assist in illustrating and inter-
preting."
GENERAL LEWIS: Yes, that is right that none of them are going to do
anything more than assist, and that is the big danger, which I already agreed
with you, and I have shied away from these things from time to time because
I have worried about their becoming a mechanical matter and too much reliance
being placed upon them, but I do think that they can be properly used as an
aid.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: As a matter of fact, I know one case where they tried
to run this mechanically -- an exercise -- just a test -- and they got about
five indicators on one red line, four on the other one showing red when the
thing was calm. It was a misinterpretation of indicator, but it came up
mechanically.
GENERAL LEWIS: There is no replacement for brain work in this whole
business, and the brain work has got to do most of it, and the aids can assist
the brain work, but it can't be the other way around.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: These can jog the memory so the brain then can start to
function.
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MR. SHELDON: I think "assist" is correct in this context. I suppose
several years back if we had said to ourselves a mechanical translator was
an impossibility we all would have probably agreed; however, this mechanical
translator is starting to function on a very limited basis. I don't know if
it will ever be useful. I suppose most of you are aware of the project.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: With the IBM and its potentialities there is no doubt
it could be done with certain languages because you can do everything. I have
seen the IBM perform marvelous feats.
MR. SHELDON: They have up to 250 words now. There was a test run up
in New York about a week ago, and it is going to take 5, to 7, 8, 9, 10
years to develop several thousand word vocabulary which will be effective
in a mechanical translation of Russian into English.
MR. TRUEHEART: It is that far off?
ADMIRAL LAYTON: Vocabulary isn't the stumbling block; it is syntax
and grammar. You can crank in all kinds of words and use those as subjects,
objects, modifiers, but when you get into syntax and grarmnar, that is really
the trick. But the people here in Georgetown who first evolved the idea
showed very fine grasp.
MR. SHELDON: Well, that is a sideline. Maybe one of these days we
will have something that will assist us better. Let's put it that way. Do
we have any other comments on f.?
MR. TRUEHEART: I am not clear what we have left here.
uggested at the moment is "maintain wait
MR. SHELDON: What we have s4
maps, charts, and other display material which will most effectively assist
in illustrating and interpreting graphically." That is as far as we have
gotten.
DR. REICHARDT: Could we accept your wording ofgraphics, mechanical
aids, and techniques to leave the thing open for the future if any of these
are developed?
Mot. SHELDON: Well, the concept here was we would write another sentence
or so dealing with the experimental facets of this so we could use those
words there. Otherwise we are going to be stumped for words if we use them
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15 January 1954
all up in this paragraph.
GENERAL WILtEMS: In another paragraph.
DR. REICHARDT: What I meant . . . my viewpoint was so the next para-
graph you will talk with developing things, and then if you develop one on
the limitation of the present thing which does not include a mechanical
aid necessarily, then you have to write a third paragraph to maintain it if
this is going to be developed. In other words, looking to the future in the
present wording.
GENERAL WILLEMS: These are not mechanical brains we will have by that
DR. REICHARDT: No, but what I meant was --
MR. SHELDON: In 1960 when we meet again we can crank that part in.
DR. REICHARDT: I am trying not to limit.
MR. SHELDON: Supposing we try our hand at submitting the next time a
sentence that deals with the development aspect of mechanical aids. Frank,
make a note of that.
MR. TRUEHEART: I think we ought again to go back to our standard phrase-
ology whatever it is going to be.
MR. SHELDON: Yes, the end of the sentence is again --
CAPTAIN ELLER: Mr. Chairman, in relation to that you like the wording
"preparations for attack" there in paragraph d.? It seems to me in thinking
it over . . . I think it is a rather important point that that is more
restrictive than the preparation for offensive action possibly.
MR. SHELDON: Well, we were going to try to find some similar solution.
CAPTAIN ELLER: Yes, I see.
MR. TRUEHEART: I thought we were using that for the moment at least,
that phrase, old a. now b., "Soviet/Communist intentions as set forth in C,2
above."
MR. SHELDON: We can't crank that in at the end of each paragraph.
Otherwise the thing is going to look dreadful.
MR. TRUEHEART: I think we just say "Soviet/Communist intentions" each
time perhaps and --
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MR. SHELDON: No, no, in e. we stopped at "all pertinent --
GENERAL LEWIS: "pertinent available indications intelligence."
MR. SHELDON: "-- indications intelligence."
MR. TRUEHEART: Oh, we did? I didn't know that.
MR. SHELDON: Yes, so we should find some similar technique in this
sentence because we agreed we wouldn't constantly repeat and relabel this
material.
MR. TRUEHEART: Couldn't you just stop after "trends"?
GENERAL LEWIS: I would think so.
MR. SHELDON: Or something like "and cumulative indicators
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I would like to recommend that you examine that one
from the point of view of long-range trends that bear upon the mission.
Your mission covers the water front again. Could say "bring to bear upon the
mission of the Watch Committee."
MR. SHELDON: Well, that was my original sentence.
GENERAL LEWIS: Didn't. you mean the long-range more in connection with
your development project or not?
MR. SHELDON: It seems to me that one has got to have certain graphics
which would portray the current situation and might in a sense be a projection
of a trend. Otherwise you have a completely static series of graphics.
GENERAL LEWIS: Plotting what had happened and possibly projecting.
MR. SHELDON: Something of that sort, and I was trying to get that into
the paper. Otherwise you are completely static in your presentation.
` ADMIRAL LAYTON: I think that would be very pertinent where you would
have, for example, a gradual reinforcement of ground forces in East Germany
and where this be shown over a period that the number of reserves going out
were less, and you wanted to plot this to show at a certain time they would
reach instead of thirty divisions on hand they would have forty, and that
might be considered at that time one of the pink light warnings that when they
got forty there they would have more capability.
MR. SHELDON: That was why I was playing with the word "cumulative"
there somewhere along the line.
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CAPTAIN ELLER: I have also considered that at some length there, Mr.
Chairman., in our discussions and find our feeling is that when we get into
long-range, the use of long-range, you get into the division between estimates
and indications whereas cumulative gives you the ability to keep current
on background without going into the estimate field. That seems to be our
general view, and I would agree with you certainly on current and cumulative
indicators or something to that effect.
MR. SHELDON: That doesn't prohibit anybody projecting a line if they
feel that it is warranted?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Do I understand you throw out "trends"?
MR. SHELDON: Well, the suggestion is "the current and cumulative
indicators."
CAPTAIN ELLER: Yes, sir, that would be all right.
MR. SHELDON: How does that sound?
MR. TRUEHEART: Period?
MR. SHELDON: That would be my suggestion.
CAPTAIN ELLER: And again the last part would be covered by the opening
phrase. In other words, this would come under some general paragraph which
would cover in each case Soviet/Communist preparations or Soviet preparations
for offensive action?
MR. SHELDON: Are we ready to move on to the next? Here is where I
perhaps part company with the concept. I don't know whether I am alone in
this thought. I would like to see something like after the word indications
"a selection of indications and prepare draft reports and conclusions for
consideration by the Committee" inserted in there, to carry out the direct
support function, and I visualize the Indications Center Staff will provide that
through the Committee itself. Otherwise I think there is a gap between what
would be due, and direct, and immediate support to the Committee and its
Chairman. That would in no sense deny the Committee the right to redraft,
throw out, or edit such papers as are prepared for their consideration.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Well, as you know, Mr. Chairman, I hold a different
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view on that, and because I am very apprehensive that we gradually lose if
we have some system along those lines, that we will gradually lose the
active participation by these key individuals that each agency will designate
for the Committee in the preparation of the report of the indications and
the conclusions. It is a difference in concept, I believe, a question of
whether or not the report is more or less prepared for them to approve or
whether or not after they have their meeting to consider all the indications
they then develop the report as a result of the meeting.
MR. SHELDON: Wouldn't in practice this happen? At least I would assume
it would happen, that is, the Committee member who was going to attend the
official Committee meeting would have in effect guided and participated in
the preparation of the staff work? I think that is inherent in the technique.
Ia other words, he wouldn't arrive cold and not know what was going to be
up for discussion. In other words, in one's own pre-watch meetings, which
I assume most of us hold, what in effect would be presented to the Committee
would in large part, barring items that came up over night, be considered by
the senior personnel before the meeting.
GENERAL WILLENS: But even so I am not so much afraid of the initiation
of that in the initial period. What I am apprehensive of is the gradual, oh,
sort of degeneration which I have seen happen a number of times here in
Washington, into sort of quibbling over minutiae and the statements, etc.,
that you find in a paper. Also I must say this about the Watch Committee --
the period that I have observed: It is quite devoid of any departmental or
agency positions. It is quite a pure group, I think, in that respect, and I
believe that results from the fact that those people as Watch Committee members
consider in a group what ought to be in the report or not, and they don't
quibble much how it is said so long as it seems to carry out the thought.
I am afraid if we go to another system of having them meet sort of to consider
a paper we then get back into the other type of operation where they begin to
take positions and begin to quibble over phraseology, etc., and you don't have
the spontaneity that you do have in the present Watch Committee function.
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MR. SHELDON: What do the others around the table advise on this problem?
MR. KUHRTZ: I am inclined to agree, I think. A conclusion of each one
is going to delay the feed of the material into the Center which, of course,
our main concern is expedition there, and I might steer some intelligence or
indication in there, but to have a conclusion on it if it is going in there ....
in my case it is FBI material, and to get FBI conclusion is going to delay it.
I might put Kuhrtz's conclusion on there, but I couldn't submit that as the
FBI conclusion on some intelligence that we might submit, and I think it just
delays the material getting in.
GENERAL LEWIS: This conclusion you are talking about though, aren't you
talking about the final conclusion as a result of consideration of all the
material that was brought forth in the Watch Committee?
MR. SHELDON: Isn't that what you are talking about? You are talking
about the final conclusion, or are you talking about individual conclusions?
Perhaps the word conclusions isn't correct. Perhaps it is recommendations
with respect to conclusions that I am thinking of because the way we have
got this thing set up here now, it is up to, as we have written it, the Staff
members in the Indications Center to obtain evaluations of material from
their home bases, so in effect the conclusions or the evaluations have
already been arrived at and are available in the Center, so there is no time
lost. That work has already been accomplished. What we are really talking
about here is sorting out the items in effect which merit Committee considera-
tion. That is what we are really talking about, I guess.
MR. KUHRTZ: In that case it seems to me like we will need the entire
body to come up with a conclusion rather than a member or representative
of a member agency which will have to be done, as General Willems indicated,
at the meeting level.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Also there is one other thought too though, and that
is that every principal member who goes in there who is a selected man, and
he is a very high-powered individual. I think you have a wonderful group there
representing all the agencies, but they all personally come to grasp with
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It all has to go through their collective brains and come out. If we get
this other system, pretty soon we will have the system whereby the Working
Group will be developing all of this, and it is pretty much their thinking
that is reflected in the Watch report rather than the thinking of the key
members of the Committee, and I think the Working Group should provide the
assistance for the Committee to consider and go through the indications, but
I don't believe that they should write up the indications or even propose
wording.
DR. REICHARDT: Could you get back then in . . . I am trying to get
some thoughts together to assist in the preparation of draft reports and
evaluations.
MR. TRUEHEART: That is the next paragraph, isn't it?
DR. REICHARDT: Well, what we are doing is --
MR. SHELDON: No, g. is after the events so to speak.
MR. TRUEHEART: I thought that was what he was talking about. I am
sorry.
DR. REICHARDT: No, I am talking about . . . I mean the Watch Committee
member may not be able to do all of this alone. He is going to need the
support, and the Indications Group is to bring these things to him, and
thereby they would assist in the preparation of the reports -- leave out
draft -- the individual agency provides to the Committee as they sit around
the table with the evaluations which will be if you want to recommend a
conclusion.
MR. SHELDON: You are suggesting then in effect something along
the lines of an assist in preparing reports and conclusions?
DR. REICHARDT: Well, I am sort of trying to stay away from conclusions,
being more --
MR. SHELDON: Maybe conclusions is wrong because it is the Committee
itself that should reach the conclusions. I agree to that.
DR. REICHARDT: They are going to have to go out and assist the actual
Committee member to go back to his own agency or through the working level
to another agency to get an evaluation on a report.
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ADMIRAL LAYTON: Well, I assume that evaluation is already in this
Center. They have got all the material as of the time they meet.
DR. REICHARDT: Right.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: And it has all been evaluated by the experts in the
agencies who are naturally supposed to be the best qualified for this
evaluation; that this group has put all of these things together in their
own minds, and they think there are some potential indicators, and they
bring that to the attention of the individual members.
DR. REICHARDT: Right, well, in a sense you are correct, sir, that f.
really is included in what we had up here in b., and c., and d., so that
what we are getting back now to talking about is a., b., co, and do are
over-all missions, and we are now talking more in terms of the working
functions of the Center itself, or Secretary, or call it whatever . . .
I agree wholeheartedly with your idea that we have already done it, but if
we are going to apparently break up this thing, then we will have to --
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I just wanted to add on there I think if they start
drawing up draft reports or even a draft, I agree with General Willems that
the tendency would be for the Watch Committee then to become a rubber stamp
who will come in and give a stamped approval of what the working Indians
have done, and in the course of time it is human . . . You have a bunch
of people working it out. You go in and review it briefly under the harass-
ment of other details and duties, and I think General Willems' statement they
go through it, they sit down and go through the indications . . . They
didn't have any draft conclusions or anything to start with. They have
all the indications evaluations. All that is right there. Those have been
selected by the working people so they won't have to look over a lot of
things that are not considered valid. It probably is well not to let them
do any drafting, let them keep in the Watch Officer type, let us say, rather
than be the member of the Board of Directors.
DR. REICHARDT: Well, it could very readily -- I mean my suggestion --
be dropped. I was not trying to imply the word "assist" in the preparation of
the report necessarily.
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ADMIRAL LAYTON: I know you weren't, but if it was in here in that
term it might give the impetus and the means. They will say, "Well, it is
in there. Then actually your Watch Committee would come back to being your
Working Group.
MR. SHELDON: Do I take it then that I find no support for this other
general concept around the table?
MR. TRUEHEART: I have been in the unaccustomed position of not being
quite sure where I stand. I certainly agree with what General Willems has
said about the Committee remaining completely enmeshed in the process of
evaluating material and coming up with conclusions, but what I take it --
MR. SHELDON: When you raised the question of substantive competib4en.,
I thoroughly agree with that that the designee must be a substantively
competent individual. It is simply a question of how far the so-called
staff goes, and where the transition, and where you crank in the more
senior approach.
MR. TRUEHEART: To complete the thing, while I agree with that, on the
other hand I am a great admirer of precision ead expression, and I think it
is most important that when they finish cogitating that whatever it was
they concluded be conveyed accurately to the recipients, and to do that I
think it is often helpful to have the people who had the ideas look at the
words that are going to be used to express them, so I, as I say, am really
between two bales of hay on this one.
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, you have some conflicts, and I don't think there
is a natural solution. What level do you think now aside from personal
capability -- youth versus old age or what not -- what level of officer
do you think ought to sit on this Committee?
GENERAL WILLEMS: You mean to be a member of the Watch Committee?
GENERAL LEWIS: A member of the Watch Committee. Now do you think that
your present unit level colonel is the proper level, or do you think that
this level ought to be higher than that, if possible?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Well, let me say this, that I like the present Watch
Committee very much. I think that is a very proper level in a billet. I
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I don't know about the relative ranks of certain individuals in their own
services,or agencies, etc., but we have somehow or other . . . I think they
have developed about the ideal type of representative to be there.
GENERAL LEWIS: You think it is high enough?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Oh, I do, but I think it would be wrong to try to
put an arbitrary level. I think we ought to emphasize the competence.
GENERAL LEWIS: I am not trying to label it, but I am trying to probe
now just what you think it ought to be and whether or not you think it has
been high enough in the past. I just have some impressions, but they don't
jib with what you are saying. My impressions have been that you haven't been
getting high enough representation to put the proper emphasis on this whole
thing.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Well, I don't think that is where the difficulty
has arisen. Of course, you would probably solve . . . that is one way of
solving this difficulty by having a lot of very high-ranking people sit on
the Committee, but if we would get or enlist the support of the rank behind
the representative I think we would overcome this difficulty that we have.
GENERAL LEWIS: That is not a natural either.
GENERAL WILLEMS: What?
GENERAL LEWIS: That is not a natural either.
GENERAL WILLEMS: But my concern is that if you get the fellow who is
high powered enough to arbitrarily demand to carry some authority with him,
he then is involved in so many other high-powered things and high pressure
affairs that he really doesn't or isn't able to devote as much time to this
Committee as the present members are. We are still in the . . . May I say
this? We are all still in the Working Group in the Committee. We are all
workers. If we go too high, then we are not going to have that type of per-
sonnel there.
GENERAL LEWIS: But what you are going to do is that you are going to
separate what you are doing now into two parts, aren't you? You separate it
into working level people -- pick and shovelers -- and it is a question of how
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high they are going to go, and then you are going to have this Committee on
top of them. Well, there are advantages and disadvantages both ways, and
I share your fear, and I also am very much concerned about not getting
enough emphasis behind this thing, so it is a question of how high up on
the ladder as well as capable will this Board of Directors be, and I think
that is one that needs a lot of thought. There is an awful lot to this
careful preparation in advance theory, a great deal, and I expect we are
going to have to compromise here somewhere and accept some more or less on
each side. Maybe it will seek its own level; I don't know. My inclination
at the moment is to try to seek the highest possible level within the
organization structure that can provide you the emphasis and still the
capability. You want to be able to talk intelligently, but let's see what
the level is. The level is well below the main subdivision level in the
other activities other than yourself, isn't it? In your case you are on a
vey0
man subdivision level, and the other people who attend this thing are not
on that level at all.
MR. TRUEHEART: It seems to me you want your top Russian expert on
this thing; that is all there is to it.
GENERAL LEWIS: On the Committee?
MR. TRUEHEART: Yes.
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, it is a question of how you are organized, you
see. The organization you may be thinking about is quite different.
MR. TRUEHEART: Maybe so, but, of course, if he doesn't have . . . If
he is just sort of a retired expert who is working on other matters, we don't
want him, but I would qualify that by your top Russian expert who is still
concerned on a day-to-day basis with Russian affairs is the man who ought
to be on this Committee, and everybody ought to put this top man on it.
GENERAL LEWIS: Well, I will bracket that. I am afraid I am not pre-
pared to say because there are too many conflicts here, but it is somewhere
between that fellow and the guy who runs all analyses.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I would like to make an observation since this is a
Subcommittee,.. Subcommittee of the IAC, and intelligence bosses are the
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IAC members, it would seem to me that they are the ones that will each and
individually determine who they put on.
MR. TRUEHEART: Oh, of course, they are.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I mean in the interest of being the best represented.
The guy they would put on might be a Russian expert, a Chinese expert, or an
expert on nothing, but he would have good common horse sense for which
there is no substitute.
MR. TRUEHEART: May I qualify by saying this is just my personal opinion.
ADMIRAL LAYTON: I wanted to add if I may that I don't think rank has
anything to do with it. I think you can find some awfully good ones in the
senior officers, and I include the rank I just had and the rank I am getting
up to. I don't like to go back to the Pearl Harbor investigation, but I sat
there and I heard senior officers make complete jackasses out of themselves,
the people who are supposed to be mature, but when they could sit, and one
of them sat there for five and one-half hours, and he said, "I don't know;
I don't remember; I can't recall; I don't know; I don't remember," and they
were simple questions, and he was a Naval Flight Officer too. There are others
like him. So I don't think rank other than to have enough standing within
his own organization is the measure of it. The measure of it is what the
TAG bosses think is the best man they have in the organization to represent
them.
GENERAL WILLEMS: I don't believe you can get away from what we tried
to accomplish leading off from your preamble here of getting everybody on the
topside interested in pressuring to get this Committee properly served in
their Agency. I think that is where the authority and the weight of the
authority should be felt in this setup that we are proposing.
MR. KUHRTZ: In my mind this representative is going to have to be
quite a liaison man in his own agency to (1) win on a selling point and (2)
to make sure that all the pertinent information is being properly handled
for the Center.
MR. TRUEHEART: I think that will be more of a problem for the member
of the Working Group than it will for the member of the Committee. I would
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suspect that he would have sufficient stature that properly they would bring
the stuff to him rather than his having to go look and beating the bushes
for it.
DR. REICHARDT: It isn't a matter of necessarily the stature as it is
the backing that the IAC member gives to this man and the authority that the
IAC member gives to this man. In other words, take he is a colonel --
MR. TRUEHEART: In my department that is the case, and if the fellow
doesn't know what he is talking about nobody is going to ask him any questions
about it or bring the information to him. You can't just say that Joe Doaks
is the Russian expert and expect anybody is going to treat him as such. He
has to be a Russian expert.
DR. REICHARDT: I can see where this could run into difficulties in
chains of command, etc., but then it seems if necessary it would mean a
change in organization, put a separate little box out -- you know -- this
type of thing. I thoroughly agree -- I don't know which member of the
Committee made the suggestion -- that if you get too high in rank you just
don't have the time to spend and the details that I gather everyone around
the table feels is necessary in being a member of the Watch Committee.
GENERAL LEWIS: I am very interested in this. If you all feel that way,
General, I then think must be the right solution in general, but you have
got some insolubles here. You have a zone of insolubles that the only thing
you can do is to compromise, and you are going to compromise something by
either putting in these words or leaving them out, whichever concept you agree
upon.
MR. TRUEHEART: Actually there is some compromise in effect now as I
understand it. While the report is drafted after the meeting, it is true
that the individual members often bring in the paragraph that they would like
'to see put in the report after it has been discussed. Isn't that right?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Yes, that is right.
MR. TRUEHEART: We are not the only group that does that, are we?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Oh, no, no.
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MR. TRUEHEART: So you really have a kind of compromise between what
you and Mr. Sheldon have been arguing here?
GENERAL WILLEMS: Well, but there is not an awful lot of debate over
the thing.
MR. TRUEHEART: Over the wording.
GENERAL WILLEMS: Over the wording. We usually hit on . . . There has
been a consideration of the matter; it has been discussed, and the person
who draws up the proposed wording usually knows the general thinking of
everyone else. They know what they will buy, etc., and they come up with
a trial paragraph that is circulated around for size.
MR. SHELDON: Time is getting short. Why don't we see if we can come
up with something that is perhaps a little more acceptable than the suggestion
I made this morning. Why don't we see if we can narrow the problem down. I
will do that by the next meeting -- see if I can get over this immediate
hurdle that we have been Paving here. Yes, certainly there is no desire on
our part to compound a felony here in having the Committee become a rubber
stamp. That is in no sense . . . We are aware of that problem too, and
perhaps we can find a solution that will be acceptable to everybody. I think
we had better kind of stick to our normal time schedule, and perhaps, this is
a good time to call it a day.
(There being no further business to come before the committee,
the meeting adjourned at 12:29 P.M.)
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