STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL HOYT S. VANDENBERG

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03362A002100020001-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 15, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 29, 1947
• Content Type: STATEMENT

Approved For Release 2001/07/28 : CIA-RDP78-03362A0021 020001-3
-YNOT
LIEUTENANT GENERAL HOYT S. VANDENBERG
Director of Central Intelligence
Before The
Armed Services Committee
of the
United States Senate
and Before
House Committee
On Expenditures
in the
Executive Departments
on 1 May 1947
on S. 755,
"The National Security Act of 1947"
29 April 1947
CU, 'E~ULT CQPY NO.
'Document No. X
No Change in Class,
Q Do lz 3sil ed
Class. .3 e l Te: TS S C
Auth.: Fi IsNes 0 ft g
?A arroA`e For Rerths
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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
My appearance before your Committee this morning is
in support of Section 202 of the proposed National Security
Act of 1947. This section of the bill would provide the
United States, for the first time in its history, with a
Central Intelligence service created by Act of Congress.
Our present organization, the Central Intelligence Group --
which I have the privilege of directing -- has been in
existence since January 1946, by authority of an Executive
Directive of the President.
Since the day that the Central.Int^lligence Group was
established, the Directors of Central Intelligence -- my
predecessor, Admiral Souers, and I -- have looked forward
to the time when we could come before the Congress and
request permanent status through legislative enactment,
I sincerely urge adoption of the intelligence provisions
of this bill, Section 202 will enable us to do our share in
maintaining the national security, It will form a firm basis
on which we can construct the finest intelligence service
in the world.
In my opinion, a strong intelligence system is equally
if not more essential in peace than in war, Upon us has
fallen leadership in world affairs. The oceans have shrunk,
until today both Europe and Asia border the United States
almost as do Canada and Mexico. The interes"',71 intentions
and. capabilities of the various nations on these land masses
must'be fully known to our national policy makers. We must
have this intelligence if we are to be forewarned against
possible acts of aggression, and if we are to be armed against
disaster in an era of atomic warfare.
I know you gentlemen understand that the nature of some
of the work we are doing makes it undesirable -- from the
security standpoint -- to discuss certain activities with
too much .freedom. I feel that the people of this country,
having experienced the disaster of Pearl Harbor and the ap-
palling consequences of a global war, are now sufficiently
informed in their approach to intelligence to understand
that an organization such as ours -- or the Intelligence
Divisions of the Armed Services, or the F,B,I, -- cannot
expose certain of their activities to public gaze. I there-
runctions or common concern to more than one department of the
Government, which could more efficiently be performed centrally.
In the testimony which h
Lap- .r' rt of this
ApproveolFlor-EZeaeAg0,1L4 4&DV f~-~'~ ~ ~0 f z'fa1 Eisen-
hower, Admiral Nimitz., and General Spaatz, among others -- there
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has been shown an awareness of the need for coordination
between the State Department and our foreign political poli-
cies on one hand and. our National Defense Establishment and
its policies on the othor* Similarly with intelligence, there
must be coordination and some centralization, so that no future
Congressional Committee can possibly ask the question asked
by the Pearl Harbor Committee: "Why, with some of the finest
intelligence available in our history -- why was it possible
for a Pearl Harbor to occur?"
The Committee recommended that intelligence work have
centralization of authority and clear-cut allocation of re-
sponsibility, It found specific fault with the system of
dissemination then in use -- or, more accurately, the lack
of dissemination of intelligence to those who had vital. need
of it. It stated that "the security of the nation can be
insured only through continuity of service and centralization
of responsibility in those charged with handling intelligence."
It found that there is no substitute for imagination and re-
sourcefulness on the part of intelligence personnel, and that
part of the failure in this respect was "the failure to accord
to intelligence work the important and significant role which
it deserves.tl The Committee declared that "efficient intelli-
gence services are just as essential in time of peace as in
war,"
All of those findings and recommendations have my hearty
concurrence. In the Central Intelligence C-~up, and in its
successor which this bill creates, must be fo?~,nd the answer to
the prevention of another Pearl Harbor.
As the United States found itself suddenly projected into
a global war, immense gaps in our knowledge became readily ap-
parent. The word "intelligence" quickly took on a fashionable
connotation. Each now war-time agency -- as well as many of
the older departments -- soon blossomed out with intelligence
staffs of their own, each producing a mass of largely unco-
ordinated information. The resultant competition for funds
and specialized personnel was a monumental example of waste.
The V'?ar and Navy Departments developed fall political and
economic intelligence staffs, as did the Research and Analysis
Division of the O.S.S.. The Board of Economic Warfare and its
successor, the Foreign Economic Administration, else delved
deeply into fields of economic intelligence? Not content v.ith
staffs in Washington, they established subsidiary staffs in
London and then followed these up with other units on the
continent.
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~J`,Then,, during the war, for example,, officials requested
a report on the steel industry in Japan or the economic; con-
ditions in the Netherlands East Indies, they had the reports
of the Board of Economic Warfare, G-2,..0,X I. and the O,S.S#
from which to choose. Because these agencies had competed
to secure the best personnel, it was necessary for each of them
to back up its exports by asserting that its particular re-
ports were the best available, and that the others might well
be disregarded.
As General Marshall stated. in testifying on the unifica-
tion bill before the Senate Military Affairs Committee last
year,..",,.Prior to entering the war, we had little more than
what.a military attache could learn at a dinner, more or less
over the coffee cups." From this start,. we suddenly had
intelligence springing up everywhere, But. nowhere was its
collection, production or dissemination fully coordinated not even in the armed forces,. General Marshall pointed this
out in his testimony when he mentioned "the difficulty we had
in even developing a Joint Intelligence Committee.. That would
seem to be a very simple thing to do, but it was not at all,"
There are great masses of information available to us in
peace as in war. With our war-time experience behind us,.we
know now where to look for material, as well as for what to
look. The transition from war to peace does not change the
necessity for coordination of the collection, production and
dissemination of the increasingly vast quani'-;ties of foreign
intelligence information that are becoming available, This
coordination the Central Into'l.Ligence Agency will supply.
President Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic
Services for the purposes of gathering together men of excep-
tional background and ability who could operate in the field of
national, rather than departmental, intelligence. In weighing the
merits of the O.S.5., one should remember that it came late
into the field,. It was a stop-gap. Overnight, it was given
a function to perform that the British,. for instance, had been
developing since the days of Queen Elizabeth, When one cone
elders these facts,. the work of the O,S.S.. was quite remarkable
and its known failures must be weighed against its successes,,.
Mnreover, it marked a crucial turning point in the development
of United States intelligence.. We are now attempting to profit
by their experiences and mistakes.
Having attained its present international position of
importance and power in an unstable world,. the United States
should not, in my opinion,.find itself again confronted with
the necessity 3of developing its plans and policies on the basis
of intelligence collectedr compiled, and interpreted by some
The Director of Central Intelligence is presently charged
with the following basic functions:
1, The collection of foreign intelligence information
of certain types -- without interfering with or duplicating
the normal collection activities of the military and naval
Approvg Y~aeo~i8 :?1=i~D8~62'mb1 rbo0ob$i-3State
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