AGENCY-MILITARY RELATIONSHIPS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP98S00099R000400790004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 16, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/24: CIA-RDP98SO0{099R000400790004-6
16 May 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: H. F. Hutchinson, Jr.,
National Intelligence Officer at Large
SUBJECT: Agency-Military Relationships
REFERENCE: Memo for ED fm NIO/AL (Mr. Hutchinson),
dtd 2 May 1983, Subject, "Survey of Selected
Agency-Military Relationships"
1. Your report (which I think was excellent) addresses
in some detail the growing unease between the Agency and the
military services. Some measure of mutual suspicion, I
suggest, in ineradicable but the present level of background
noise indicates we have a problem. As you point out, the
absence of a uniformed officer in a conspicuous position in
the Agency is undoubtedly exacerbating the normal minor
frictions of doing business.
2. On page 6 you tick off some of the procedural and
technical problems. I suggest solutions to these can be
worked out on a mutually satisfactory basis. However, both
the military services and the Agency will have to agree to
devote people and time to the development of the solutions.
Right now I do not think either group is organized to exploit
the capabilities of the other.
3. My first overall suggestion is that when a major
bureaucratic snafu is detected in the interface between two
major government departments, an organizational change within
one or both departments is inevitable. Without this change,
recriminations will grow, positions harden, and solutions get
to he more expensive.
4. I think the Agency needs to develop and staff an
organization which will manage its liaison activities,
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not only with the military but with friendly foreign intelli-
gence services. This organization would perform screening,
tasking, clearance, distribution, and a host of similar
functions which are required to fulfill the peculiar and
unique requirements of the liaison functions which are now or
will be required if the Agency is to fulfill its responsibil-
ities. The emergence of the office would require careful
preparation within the Agency and no doubt will generate some
serious problems of its own. Having a uniformed serving
officer head the new group would by itself do a great deal to
improve the climate of cooperation between the military and
the Agency.
5. War Planning. I don't know if the Agency has
current plans for operations in the event of a minor or major
war. Certainly I think the Agency should have a group of
experienced and talented planners working on the measures
which might be needed in crises varying from Grenada-type
operations to general nuclear war. These plans would involve
actions from the national level to the station level. Stay
behind agents in the field and expanded economic analysts on
the national level should he of equal and current concern. I
don't think the routine appointment of a crisis management ad
hoc group will meet the problem.
6. Crisis Management and Emergency Support. It is
inevitable that if CIA does not appear to meet the perceived
needs of another department, the other department will some-
how get the funds, allocate the people, and do it them-
selves. Some degree of duplication is not entirely a bad
thing but common sense indicates we continue to resist this
tendency. Once war breaks out, the urgency of military
operations will overwhelm economic considerations, and, as
far as NRO programs are concerned, I suspect DoD will get
exactly what it wants when the bombs begin to burst.
7. One comment. The CIA has never (in my opinion)
-quite had the guts, or the clout, or the ability to be the
boss of the intelligence community. It has been content at
most to be first among equals. To perform the guiding role
it is uniquely capable of carrying out, it needed a complete
life cycle to develop officers with the experience and talent
of a Helms, Ray Cline, John McMahon, Chuck Briggs, etc. The
Agency should now produce a steady supply of talented and
dedicated professionals who know the nitty gritty, are
educated, trained, and competent to administer a National
Intelligence Program. Mr. Casey is capable of providing the
political support, at least as far as the White House, that
will permit the organizational realignments needed to
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increase the effectiveness and decrease the overlap of the
national intelligence effort. I think you can lead the
movement from your present desk.
8. All your other suggestions are obviously sensible
and should be pursued. Basically, CIA is better at producing
intelligence than it is in marketing as far as the military
services are concerned. I suggest the effort should be made
to make the channels between the Agency and the military
services more effective.
ODCI/SRP
Distribution:
Orig. Adse.
1 SRP File
1 - SRP Chrono
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/24: CIA-RDP98S00099R000400790004-6