REFLECTIONS ON CIA AND YOUR STEWARDSHIP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05S00620R000100160003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 14, 1980
• Content Type: MEMO

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Jtl.Kt I / C 1 LJ v11L-1
14 October 1980
MEMORANDUM FOR: DCI
FROM: EA/DCI
SUBJECT: Reflection on CIA and Your Stewardship
As you ponder your tenure as DCI and the future, I have a few thoughts
I would like to add to intellectual stew. I don't want to get into
specific issues as done last week but rather help you think about
the "macro" issues of managing an "intelligence" organization.
I. General
A. Good and Bad Change
Much was made of CIA being unique because of clandestinity.
Balderdash. This town is full of agencies much whose work is clandestine--
e.g., DEA, NSA, FBI, Justice, and even the IRS.
I t in our uniqueness ueness is overem hasized among senior
manager to be emphasize among a troops for morale) and tends
to impose obstacles to coping with our management problems.
To the extent we are unique, it is perhaps because in no other agency
are the skills we emphasize for success as an analyst or case officer (independence
of thought and action, creativity, self-initiative, critical thought, questioning
of assumptions, ability to get the job done despite obstacles) so antithetical
to the smooth management of a bureaucratic organism. We are an institution
always at war with ourselves, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. That is
why the main issues confronting management today are the same ones at the fore-
front 20 years ago. Insofar as we try for the sake of efficiency and ease of
implementation to parallel CIA to the Civil Service--pay on GS scale, incentives,
promotion system, GSA, etc.--we diminish our flexibility and effectiveness in
encouraging and developing the unbureaucratic traits so vital to doing our
work well. In a sense, then, any DCI faces the impossible task of mesh in
gym, intellectual ferment and independence of action of a university faculty
with the organ zi ational principles of the Department of Commerce: another way
of putting it--you need to encourage "permanent revolution" in the context of
a bureaucratic structure.
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SLGKti/trt3 uwL'
Most CIA managers have tried to accomplish this thrk::jh frequent
organizational change. Criticisms from Congress or customers require response
and the response is bureaucratic--just alter the plumbing chart. This does
indeed produce ferment and shake up established patterns--but these affect
working conditions and career prospects; produce confusion and uncertainty
vis-a-vis priorities, expectations and lines of command. This kind of change--
bureaucratic/organizational--does not, however, produce ferment where it is
needed: in the thought processes of analysts, the initiative and creativity
of case officers, and everyone's determination to find ways to do the job
better. Indeed, the reverse attitudes result: keep your head down, proceed
cautiously, don't make waves or the bureaucratic grim reaper will get you in
the next reorganization.
Moreover, the directorates have created their own measures of
effectiveness rather than trying to consider seriously outsiders' (including
the DCI's) criticism or even trying to put themselves in the shoes of our
consumers in assessing intelligence needs, requirements and analysis. This
parochialism in turn breeds resentment at such criticism and evokes a bureau-
cratic--i.e., superficial and ineffective--response. Worst of all, this
defensive, bureaucratic response to criticism from you or downtown carries
down to the lower level both in terms cf directorate management's contempt
for such criticism/advice and its overall narrow attitude. This, of course,
ultimately dampens the creativity and boldness of analysts and operations
officers who otherwise, with proper encouragement, might in fact come up with
new approaches, ideas, or analysis. In sum, our employees read their superiors'
signals very well--and quickly learn what those superiors endorse and what they
disdain.
In short, CIA has responded to criticism and the need to invigorate
the intellectual climate with organizational change, mainly because that's
the easy approach, it protects institutional turf and self-image, and avoids
the kind of attitudinal change that would reflect acceptance of the criticism.
Organizational label changes keep the wolf from the door for just a little
longer. What is really needed, however, are changes within the existing
structure to plinimiz_e bureaucrUy and to develop incentiv s, indu_ements and
methods to produce ferment,-creativity, ini is ive an oldness ~:`le re it counts:
in the attitude and minds first of senior management and then of our employees.
And that's hard.
B. Attitudes Toward the DCI/DDCI
I can be brief because we have talked about this before. Three of
your deputies grew up in an Agency where the DCI/DDCI left the DDs alone to
do their own thing and interacted only to levy tasking from outside, prepare
1 for meetings and hearings, and to sign where asked. Your and Frank's activism
required a massive bureaucratic and attitudinal shift by this institution,
which prays that your successors will return to the old system--from a management
standpoint. The odds are that their prayers will be answered. Any new DCI must
pressures
of keep m set
many him
appreciate the enormous
and that
to rewill verse be
management of the directorates in motion.
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II. The Directorates
The DCI spends his meeting and paperwork time along the following lines:
DDCI
NFAC
50%
5%
DDO
25%
45%
DDS&T
5%
10%
DDA
Independent Offices
20%
40%
In other words, for the most part DDA and DDS&T run themselves and have little
interaction with you and Frank. What business they do bring is usually conducted
at the DD level. So, not surprisingly the business end of this Agency is DDO and
NFAC--probably as it should be. Each has serious problems even you have been
unable to shrink significantly.
N FAC
Your analytical directorate suffers from:
-- Incapacity to see intelligence problems from the policy makers'
perspective and focus analysis accordingly; too offe-n irrelevant
-- Excessive timidity and onservatism, especially as regards
projecting ahead---Whether five days, five months, or five years.
They are great historians and poor prognosticators. They are
t rrifipcI of ping wrang and preoccupied with the acquisition
of "more data."
-- Failure ever to admit failure or shortcomings. They have missed
a number of important calls in the last couple of years and yet,
rather than admitting it which would open the way to corrective
action, will point to something in the file that makes appropriate
warnings. Remember Kissinger's mocking of admonitory intelligence
memos the policymakers never saw.
-- Continuing inability to perform multi-disciplinary analysis.
-- Persistent failure to be timely. NFAC has been left at the gate
times without number. There are items in the production program
for early next year on issues policymakers are deciding now.
-- Dearth of people with breadth of vision to take macro viev of
international affairs and see major currents at worecially
across regional boundaries.
-- Methodological backwardness, especially in political analysis,
w f-ci is i done the same way now as 25 years ago.
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You have been the most highly respected and popular DCI ever with the
analysts. Your meetings with them, feedback of results of meetings, and
sharing of views all have been unprecedented and welcomed. At the same time,
senior management shares and often is responsible for the shortcomings cited
above. Additionally, though not as vocal as DDO or DDS&T, senior NFAC manage-
ment is hostile and resentful toward your "idiosyncratic" approach to NIEs,
many of your personnel policies and your management style--especially "tinkering`
and "stovepipe" meetings. These same managers are foremost among those reluctant
to look into the future, to be bold, to admit shortcomings, etc. This is as
true of some of the new younger office chiefs as of the older generation.
On the positive side, Bruce and Evan are the first real managers the
analytical directorate ever has had--but that means they are starting from
scratch in terms of both directorate management tools and skills as well as
office management.' They therefore also are starting from scratch on the
management attitudes and practices of all NFAC managers--trying to catch up
and drag them into the 1980s.
The DDO for too long (until 1973) was the be-all, end-all of CIA. DCIs
were graduates of the DDO and catered to it, both in resources and prestige.
It suffers from:
-- Unwillingness to acknowledge shortcomings and consequent need
for corrective action.
-- Too little initiative and creativity on both CA and collection;
you and DDCI should have to weed out the best ideas from a large
choice of good proposals. As it is, you two have to drag ideas
out of the DDO.
-- A jingoistic a roach which, together with management and
oVwi ationa practices, tends to is-olate it within the Agency:
us vs. them (especially the DCI).
-- Some divisions are far oo f and riding on past glory (e.g.,
-- The Headquarters component is still too heavy in some divisions.
-- Too few younger senior managers.
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The DDO management bitterly has resented your interference in their
internal affairs and your criticism. They have not had to tolerate this
in the past and still are not reconciled. No one before has challenged
their priorities or management arrangements, not to mention on occasion
their tradecraft.
To summarize the directorates in medieval terms, the king (DCI) has one
loyal duke (DDA); two powerful but separatist dukes (DDO, NFAC) who constantly
challenge the king's internal control and centralization but are steadfast
allies against an external foe; and one simply perverse duke (DDS&T) who
has external alliances and is critical of all the king's efforts. While he
is unprepared to cross the king directly, he is an uncertain ally both internally
and externally.
III. Your Tenure
You have made many changes in CIA, only some of which will survive your
tenure should you leave in the next few months. I believe the survivors will
be limited to:
-- In personnel, the new performance report, panel system and
accelerated processing of recruits.
-- Tougher security practices.
-- The EXCOM planning process.
-- Analytical priority to societal change.
-- Implementation of SAFE.
Initiatives I believe will die without continued DCI pressure are:
-- Successor planning on an Agency-wide basis.
-- Senior officer- de.Vp1f)pmpnt ms beyond vague semblance on
1rectorate level.
-- The Senior Officer Development Course. It will continue but
just become a replacement for earlier courses. Even for the
first course, the DDs really did not put forward their most
promising (fast--track) people. Quality was a little above
the regular Midcareer Course, but not much. All incentive to
do better next time will disappear without DCI pressure.
-- Extra-directorate rotational experience, especially for aspiring
senior officers.
c
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JLI+RL I / L I LJ V -
-- Efforts to make intelligence more relevant to policymakers,
especially the President.
-- Future-oriented analysis.
-- SIS bonus prograr.
-- Merit pay.
-- Improve CIA's public image (profile).
-- Active DCI role on supergrade promotions, assignments.
There are others that can be added to both lists, but I think you get the
point. From a management standpoint, the pressures are almost entirely centrifugal
in the absence of a DCI deeply involved in management and willing to buck the
DDs. As I have said before, you and Frank are an anomaly in CIA history. Even
your relatively long tenure as DCI has not been enough to reverse 30-year-old
institutional biases toward particularism. Only if you stay or your successor
picks up where you left off can but a few centralizing, refocusing initiatives
be preserved. In short, the institution has bowed before your pressures, but
has not broken; indeed, all along even while bowing the DDs kept looking out
the corners of their eyes to see if you had averted your attention so they
could resume business as usual.
IV. Leadership and Control
The DDs have consistently demonstrated a of leadershi qualities.
Both DDO and NFAC refuse to acknowledge shortcomings and so have change ittle
in response to your recommendations and urgings. Neither the DDO nor the DDNFA
has worked to find ways to promote the analytical/operational ferment necessary
to our work or to encourage the other vital attitudes/traits fast disappearing
in the face of bureaucratic pressures--generated not by you but by timid,
conservative directorate management. Additionally, the ;.n&' 1 -L .,f l2y2lt"
to the DCI has increased the difficulty of bringing new approaches to fruition
ecause you can never rely on such approaches being presented to subordinates
in a fair or even neutral manner--much less supportive. This is manifested
in a small way by their failure to keep you informed or to.Jollow up -with you
on problems and issues you raise wl them.
I conclude that the only way a DCI determined to run CIA can hope to do
so is to appoint the DDs from outside--especially NFAC and DDO. The precedents
should alleviate fears associated with this. Bob Bowie was no manager and
never claimed to be. Nevertheless, even though he was an outsider, I never
heard anyone complain that Bob did not "understand" intelligence analysis or
its "proper" role, or the needs of policymakers, etc. Indeed, one could make
a strong case that a former policymaker familiar with analysis (e.g.,
Bob Ellsworth, Bob Komer, any of several Assistant or Under Secretaries of
State, or an Ambassador like Ron Spiers) would be an ideal DDNFA, bringing to
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the position fresh ideas, new perspective, and innovative insights long w-.with
management skill. As Boyatzis said, an industrial R&D director could also
prove successful (though I tend to favor someone with government/policymaking
experience).
%r DDO, John McMahon has proved that that position need not be filled
by a,,careerist. The pool of outsiders for this job is smaller probably than
for DDNFA, but there still should be plenty to choose from--again, someone
like Komer comes to mind as a man who would not be captured by the institution,
who understands and accepts the value of clandestine work, and who brings fresh
ideas and perspective to a barnacle-encrusted directorate.
Finally, Don Wortman has shown.that an outsider can mesh into CIA at a
senior level and perform well.
Unlike almost any other part of government aside from the uniformed
military, CIA has been Drotected almost entirely from outside appointees except
for the top two positions. While there are disadvantages to such appointments
and some will not work out, I believe they are on balance beneficial to an
institution because they bring a breath of fresh air, force review of old
practices and procedures, and often bring useful changes of emphasis and
approach. Even what they don't change must be re-examined and justified anew.
If only one of every two or three DDNFAs or DDOs are outsiders, these purposes
would be achieved. And, most importantly, such outsiders would be more loyal
to the DCI, follow and implement his policies more faithfully, help bring
ferment and challenge to the intellectual/operational climate, and overall
improve the work of CIA in analysis, operations and management. Finally, from
the DCI's perspective and based on your experience, I would argue that such
appointments are essential to a DCI establishing real control over and in CIA.
Professional, institutional interests can adequately be protected if the
Associate Deputy Directors are career intelligence officers. Additionally,
outside appointments should be made with exceptional care to ensure, above all,
that such officials will appreciate the essential importance and challenge of
managing an organization so dependent upon imagination and creativity and yet
also upon the relevance of its work to those who daily must make concrete and
difficult decisions. I believe you- or your successor should move to replL:ce
the DDNFA and DDO within six months of the inauguration.
V. Conclusion
Harsh as the judgment may be, I believe you have only scratched the surface
of this institution (apart from creation of RMS). Many of your initiatives
will fade because you started too late and have not yet found an institutional
handle (analysis) or the initiatives remain alive only because of your
persistent pressure (senior officer development, successor planning). You are
the first DCI/DDCI even to try to manage CIA but the lack of real support in
the institution for most of your and Frank's changes (beyond some of your
personnel and security changes) and the old centrifugal, traditionalist pressures
will erode and finally destroy much of what you have tried to do. Your (or
Frank's) continuation in office for a couple of more years--with the DD personnel
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changes I propose above--could institutionalize more of your initiatives.
But if you leave within a few months, a new DCI will have his own agenda--
and based on past experience it will not emphasize central management nor
parallel your plans.
None of this should surprise you. Few heads of large departments or
agencies really impart new directions to those institutions--just look
around town. As Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon learned the hard way, the
bureaucracy is an implacable foe, all the more so because it can almost
always outlast those who wish to change it. The beauty of a second term
for any President is that it gives agency heads like you two or three years--
unanticipated by the bureaucracy--to consolidate initiatives and changes.
And I see that additional time as essential for you if more than two or
three of your innovations are to survive.
If you are reappointed or to the extent you can coopt the new DCI to
continue some of your efforts, I would urge the following agenda:
1. Move quickly to establish (better) control of Agency. Appoint
new DDO from outside immediately; replace DDNFA with outsider by Fall
1981. Make clear to new appointees (and holdovers) that their tenure
will depend on performance and loyalty to DCI and his programs. Without
such control and the collaborative o1e.r,,l81 DDs to make the bureaucratic
changes at various levels vital to,~spec~tMc initiatives, any new programs
are likely to last only as long as the incumbent DCI--your present problem.
I do not agree with Frank that the DDs/EXCOM can be "brought along" or
induced to accept changes that are fundamentally at odds with their
independence, authority or administrative discretion.
2. Consolidate personnel initiatives, including senior ojficer
development, executive development, rotations, Agency-wide successor
planning, as well as the role of the DCI/DDCI and EXCOM in long-range,
centralized Agency planning.
3. Better focus analysis on needs of policymaker, timely production,
and orientation toward prediction and analysis of future developments.
More SNIEs, special studies on current policy issues. Improve overall
quality of analytical product.
4. Develop initiatives (incentives and other tools) to promote
analyst/case officer creativity, boldness, and intellectual ferment.
5. Bring the DDO to heel institutionally while opening it up to
new ideas, approaches; encouraging bold initiatives; continuing emphasis
on leanness- and field orientation.
Because this paper has focused on CIA, I have not dealt with the Community.
If reappointed (or when your successor is appointed) you or he should press
the President to resolve-certain ambiguities of DCI authority over the Community.
Apart from that, the DCI should:
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3CL,Kr_1/r_TC3 WILT
1. Consolidate RMS and CTS, especially the latter.
2. Reduce the size of NFIB to manageable proportions.
3. Refocus NFIB on policy issues and collection/analysis
priorities vice processin NIEs. More meetings on contemporary
problems (e.g., Iran-Iraq).
4. More one-on-one time with D/DIA, D/NSA, and D/INR. If you
establish good relations with them, rest don't matter.
Nor have I discussed the DCI role with the policymaking community. I
would refer a new DCI (or you) to the recommendations in my Studies article
on "Intelligence and the White House." Additionally, I would suggest that
? you or your successor devote more personal attention to your important
constituencies:
a~?. 1. Take steps with the President personally to ensure regular DCI
? participation in any informal meetings such as the Tuesday lunch (LBJ)
or Friday breakfast (Carter) as well as such meetings as the V-B-B or
M-B-B.
2. Establish close working ties with National Security Advisor,
who is the DCI's most natural bureaucratic ally and CIA's point of
access to the policy process and the President.
3. Personally cultivate key Congressional leaders, such as
Chairmen of SSCI, HPSCI, as well as of the Foreign Relations, Armed
Services and Appropriations Committees.
A final thought that may be presumptuously elementary but often overlooked
by people new to senior government levels. Appointment to head an agency
provides only a nice office. Anything else--playing a real role in the policy
process or actually managing the institution--involves a massive effort and
enormous energy every day. The exclusionary process inside the Agency and in
the circle of policymakers is extraordinarily powerful. A.DCI cannot affo d
the time to manage CIA day to day--, ablrely on his DDs to
imp emen not only hisinitiatives but their own (consistent with his
objec Ives T y a l l y a ndd energetically. Most of his time should be spent
0) ensuring (and playing) an active role with policymakers, (2) working
the Community hustings, and (3) cultivating the Congress. Only the DCI can
do these things--and his success in doing them depends on being confident
that his deputies are running his Agency as he wishes and according to his
objectives and agenda. Time spent in trying to bring his subordinates around,
in overcoming their resistance, in being the only idea-man, and in trying to
run CIA from the DCI/DDCI's office is time away from the DCI's role as intel-
ligence spokesman and representative, chief Presidential intelligence adviser,
and chief link/lobbyist with the Hill. The DCI must manage CIA--unlike before
1977--but in ways and with su4rdi nates fth t leav .f~i r~ i~ne r t~f~e C ;y anadreies
role outside this building only a can u ill. $i o power bfa~e
bureaucratic control over it must be effective--and it in turn must perform its
mission effectively--for him to play his appropriate role with the Community
and the policymakers.
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