INTELLIGENCE COMMUNICATIONS AND RELATED PROCEDURE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP62-00680R000100230017-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 28, 1998
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: January 13, 1958
• Content Type: MF

Sanitized - Apped For Release CIA-RDP6 QWMOR000100230017-5
l "Ianuary 1958
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director (Intelligence)
SUBJECT : Intelligence Communications and Related Procedures
The Problem
1. This paper concerns both the mechanical and human aspects
of intelligence communications from the time that apiece of infor-
mation is collected until the intelligence judgment based on it is
implanted in the minds of the persons whose policy decisions and
actions are influenced by it.
2. It discusses the problem of organizing the communications
of the intelligence community as a whole. It is not limited to
the communications of the Central Intelligence Agency, although it
might be desirable for the C.I.A. to manage a communications system
along the lines of this model as a service of common concern.
3. This paper is based on two assumptions: (a) that the U.S.
seriously intends to take all necessary action to retain control
over its own future; and (b) the collection and analysis of technical
information is becoming and will continue to become more and more
important to the future of the U.S.
4. In an activity as large and complex as the intelligence
community the problem of transmitting information from collector
to user. is necessarily a tremendously complicated business. In our
present situation the natural complexity is compounded by the process
of unplanned evolution from an archaic past of our communications in
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5
 Sanitized - Approyed For I eTeaseTCIA-RDP62-Q,80R000100230017-5
separate departments and agencies. Rather than examine the present
communication system and related organization of the intelligence
community, this paper will attempt to construct a model of an ideal
mechanical and human system which would take advantage of the advanced
technical developments available to us and which would attempt to
make the flow of communications keep pace with the increasing speed
of world developments and hostile weapons systems.
5. The model of the communications continuum outlined in
this paper will be opposed by many people on the grounds that: (a) it
will require the development and implementation of a vast array of
new relationships and new m thods of work; (b) it will be expensive
as compared to the present direct expenses for rapid communloatione
and courier services; and (o) many of the changes in detail from our
present procedures will involve relatively small gains in time saved
or increased efficiency and these gains will seem small when compared
to the possible disruption of existing work habits.
6. These objections must be met by a recognition that: (a)
custom and established habits must not be allowed to inhibit the
ability of the intelligence community to be of maximum service to
the U.S.; (b) the cost of a truly effective communications continuum
would be small in comparison with the expenses resulting from inadequate
intelligence, and an increase in direct communications cost might well
be balanced by savings in indirect costs; and (c) no single change in
our present organization and work procedures can result in any major
saving of time or efficiency, but a great many small changes in organi-
zation and procedures can result in a great improvement in the intelli-
gence process,
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5
 Sanitized .- App ~o ed For Release : CIA-RDP62-QW80R000100230017-5
7. The present communications system used by the intelligence
community is essentially the same as that used by the U.S. Government
in 1900. In that era the few copies of dispatches from abroad re-
quired in Washington could be VW d in an Embassy and the necessary
number of carbon copies forwarded to Washington by ship pouch. The
only thing that has changed in this procedure is that we need more
copies in Washington and, therefore, use stencils instead of carbon
paper, and we forward the stencil by air instead of by sea. As a
result, there has been a speed-up in the means of transportation
but no change in the basic system itself. Dispatches still flow
back to Washington to parent departments through many separate channels
where distribution is made by mail rooms and secretariats to other
interested departments and agencies who in turn route the documents
by messenger to subordinate components.
8. In the case of messages transmitted by rapid means there
has also been little change in the system in the past 50 or 60 years.
Messages are still typed, carried to the code room and enciphered,
transmitted, deciphered, reproduced, and distributed by messenger to
secretariats who make further distribution inside and outside the
parent department. The only speedup in this system has occured as
.a result of the development of radio and more efficient teleprinter
machines and cipher machines. The message can be sent across the
ocean more rapidly than it formerly could be by the cables of 1900
but approximately the-same amount of time is consumed in handling
it at both ends of the communications system and these are the areas
in which the greatest aunt of time has usually been consumed.
9. The analysis of information in Washington and the transmittal
-3-
Sanitized - Approved F ? CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5
i i
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP62-Q~80R000100230017-5
of intelligence Judgments to policy and action officials also
continues to be governed by habits developed in a slower tempoed
era. The great bulk of information still moves from department to
department, from office to office, from desk to desk, in the form
of hard copy carried by messengers, and intelligence Judgments are
believed to have served their purpose once they have been embodied
in a formal publication which may drift across the desk of some un-
known and unseen policy or action official.
10. Under the present operating procedures of the intelligence
oomosunity, we are never able to say what the current situation is
in the Soviet Union. On a very small number of items, almost never
more than one or two a week, we can say what the situation was yester-
day or two or three days ago. On other things, perhaps 20 or 50 a
week, we can say what the situation was a week or 10 days ago. On
the great mass of things, however, we can only say what the situation
was two months or three months or six months ago. Many intelligence
studies carry a cutoff date which hides a large part of this time
lag. The cutoff date indicates that the conclusions of the paper
were the beat judgment of the analyst on the basis of the informa-
tion available to him at that time. The date conceals the fact that
the information itself probably was several months old and that the
situation actually described was considerably older than the cutoff
date on the report.
11. The slowness of our commtnieatione systems means that we
are heavily dependent upon the judgment of people in the field con-
cerning the imp rtance of specific items of information, since they
make the initial judgment concerning the method by which the information
Sanitized - Approved For-Release : CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5
 Sanitized - App ored For Release : CIA-RDP62- 80R000100230017-5
will be forwarded to Washington. It. happens frequent ly, therefore,
that information comes in by slow means which would have been of
considerable bipor nce in the judgment of Washington analysts had
it been received by rapid co munications in a timely manner.
12. This model of an intelligence communications continuum
is based on these major themesi '
a. connecting all intelligence components and their
major consumers in one integrated commial ations network.
b. expanding capacity to permit all intelligence to be
forwarded by electrical means.
c, mechanising and simplifying information handling
procedures at both ends of the communications system to permit
major savings in distribution time.
The Model
13. A model communications continuum for the intelligence
community must be based on the anticipation that in an emergency
situation there will be a tremendous increase in all types of
communications, operational as well as intelligence. The increase
in operational traffic might be no great that circuits normally
available to intelligence might no longer be available. It is
essential, therefore, that the entire communications system used
by the intelligence community be operated and controlled by the
intelligence community.
24. The most important period for the rapid forwarding of
intelligence in volume from the field is likely to be the period
just before and just after the outbreak of hostilities, revolution,
Sanitized - Approved Far ease- CIA-RDP62-00680R000100230017-5
 i NEW
- ! ! !
Sanitized- Apptoyed For Release : CIA-RDP62-O 80R000100230017-5
or other great disturbance. It is essential,, therefore, that the
actual communications facilities should be as secure as possible
against destruction by enemy action. This security could be ob-
tained by the construction of hard sites or dispersed sites in
isolated areas not likely to be a target for enemy action. In
practice, a combination of these two types-'would probably be desired.
15. These secure sites could contain the radio transmitters
or the termini of the cables used in the actual transmission of the
information. For maximum efficiency they should be connected by
direct wire teletype with the centers of intelligence operations in
the local area abroad.
16. The only way in which a large volume of information can be
transmitted rapidly and securely is by the use of on-line cipher
machines, and such machinery must be standard equipment for the in-
telligence communications system. This would still permit highly
sensitive operational and administrative traffic to receive hand
encipherement or privacy coding before transmission.
17. Information would be transmitted by radio or cable to Head-
quarters, In the case of radio, it would be desirable to establish
systems which transmitted cont1nuous key in order to frustrate enemy
traffic analysis while, at the same time, maintaining a 24-hour open
circuit. Each medium of transmission has unique advantages and dis-
advantages which` would make it desirable to have both means represented
in the system. Cable-is more secure and less subjected to natural in-
terference than radio, but is more difficult and expensive to install
and can be cut by enemy action. Radio is more flexible in operation
and expansion of capacity, but is subject to both naLura]/man-made
.6-
Sanitized - Approved For lease : CIA-RDP62-00680'R000100230017-5
-WPM
 Sanitized - Appr, oved For Release : CIA-RDP62-0.068ORO00100230017-5
interference as well as being relatively lose secure than cable.
18. A great deal of time is frequently lost in com=nications
systems in routing traffic through relay points. Where necessary,
therefore, relay points should be adequately equipped to provide for
automatic relay of traffic received from all out-stations.
19. Scam circuits of the communications system should be equipped
to handle photo-facsimile material. Information contained in saps,
photographys, technical drawings, overlays, weather data, etc., can
be forwarded most expeditcuely in this manner.
20: The traffic received in Washington from a cosmuni.catione
system would be deciphered by on-line cryptographic machinery which
would produce a teletype tape. -eor the great Majority of messages
this tape would be fed automatically into teletype transmitters
connected with teleprinters in the consuming agencies. The originator
of the message would have placed an indicator on the message, indicating
the general nature of . the subject material and the indicator would
govern the selection of the teleprinters Into which this particular
memesge would be piped. In the case of those ultra-sensitive opera-
tional or administrative messages which needed aorvening before
general release, the tape could be fed to the teleprinter of the
controlling organization and than re-run for general distribution
only if that organization gave a release.
23.. The: teleprinters in the offices. receiving intelligence
would use stencil paper so that the necessary number of copies for
internal use could be. reproduced as soon as the report came off the
Kuching.
-7-
Sanitized - Approved For Re ease CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5
 ZM -M 2
Sanitize2d2~ Approv.edF thRelease increasing : CIA-RDP62-00~;8OR000100230017-5
In of rr sing volume of Wohnioal infarction
that will be necessary for the security of the U.S., the oomminioations
system should have adequate capacity so that tapes containing technical
information collected in the field could be tranmaitted imeediately
to Washington for analysis. In other wards, the communications system
should be compatible with the transmission of both textual and technical
information,
23. The system should also be devised so that the ma!dmam amount
of information is produced by the communications system in tape form
that can be fed into computers wherever such rapid handling of mass
data is required,
24. The communications system should have adequate capacity to
handle all intelligence information now transmitted by cable or in
the farm of written dispatch. The only information to travel by
courier would be that information such as books, asps, pamphlets,
etc., which is too bully to transmit by electrical means. Not
only is this desirable but it it veil siitad to the nature of the
intelligence problem. A high volume of traffic similar to that now
sent by cable would be generated in times of emergency when the
lengthier material now sent by dispatch is less important. In
between emergencies Capacity that would be idle under present opera.
tang procedures would be used for transmitting the material now sent
by dispatch, thus keeping circuits filled to a mavdmwm of efficiency,
furnishing Washington with a large volume of current information, and
keeping available a high communications capacity for emergency situations.
25. As a continuation of the communications system in Washington
all key intelligence agencies and their major consumers would be
connected by secure teletype making it possible to provide intelligence
Sanitized - Approved For Released: CIA-RDP62-00680R000100230017-5
 Sanitized - App~ed For Release : CIA-RDP62-Q80R000100230017-5
consumers with a raw report from the field almost instantaneouslry
if that were desirable. It would also make it possible to provide
the intelligence consumers with a raw report and a preliminary evalua-
ticra in a matter of adnutee or a more thorough evaluation in a matter
of a fear hours. The termini of the communications system in the
consumers departments and agencies should be staffed by small groups
of highly competent intelligence officers who could brief their con-
sumers immediately on the basia'of the information received if necessary
or c ouM reproduce from the teletype stencil daily compilations of
intelligence for a more leisurely circulation within the department
to which they were accredited.
26. With the intelligence community operating at the speed en-
visaged in this c nioati s continuum, it would be extremely
difficult to maintain current standards of form and appearance for
much of the material passing through the system. This is a wall
price to pope, however, for the increase in timeliness of the substance.
27. The intelligence oostimnity could, of course, continue to
publish formal printed studies where time was not too important a
factor, but even in this can the printed studies would be such
more timely because of the currency of the information on which they
were based.
28. The existence of this Washington oormnioationa net would
make it possible to take Into account the current needs of consumers
such more fully and much more rapidly than can be done at present.
Since a request for information could, if necessary, be transmitted
from the consumer to the field in a matter of minutes or hours.
=9-
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP62-O OROOO100230017-5
29. The establishment of a communications coat such as
that described above would require the establishment of a knowledgable
and rapidly acting coordinating center in Washington and would make
highly desirable the establishment of comparable coordinating centers
representing all collection agencies in various centers of intelli-
gence activities abroad.
Conclusion
30. The construction of a ccunicatiens system along the
line of the model would involve a heavy initial investment in
equipment, facilities, and ccmewications personnel. Once in'being,
its daily operation might well be more expensive than the great
system. If the same results cane achieved by other means, however,
the intelligence come unity may have to face the hard fact, that it
mist pay the necessary sums to put this-model into effect if it is
to do the j b that it is expected to do for U.S. security.
31. There are mart obvious difficulties to inhibit the es-
tablishment of a communications continuum such as that described
in this model. None of these difficulties should be insurmountable
if there is a determination in the intelligence unity to make
our knowledge of events affecting the security of the U.S. keep
pace with the events themselves.
Assistant to DD/I (Planning)
Sanitized - Approved For RgJ use : CIA-RDP62-0068OR000100230017-5