THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL'S INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP93T01132R000100030017-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 7, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: June 20, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/09: CIA-RDP93TO1132R000100030017-3
GONFIDENTML
HF
20 June 1985
THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL'S INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION
The National Intelligence Council (NIC) is that entity of the DCI
which produces Intelligence Community judgments of major world trends and
prospects. These judgments take form in various types and formats of
national intelligence estimates. These estimates are based on all
foreign intelligence available to the USG and are coordinated with the
entire Intelligence Community. They reflect the coordinated views of the
chiefs of the US Intelligence Community components, and as such they
often reflect important differences of opinion. They cover the broadest
intelligence questions produced -- as, for example, probable developments
in the USSR's strategic power over the next 10 years. They are produced
for the USG's most senior policymaking consumers, including the
President. They paint the world as intelligence evidence indicates,
without regard for policies or budgets.
Successive US Administrations have valued national intelligence
estimates since they were first introduced in 1950. A number of elements
in the national intelligence system have remained fairly constant over
the years since that time, including dispassionate judgment, and final
deliberation and sign-off on these studies by the DCI in concert with the
chiefs of the respective US foreign intelligence agencies.
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Of particular interest for present purposes, however, are the
improvements that have taken place in this system over the past few
years. Briefly, these are:
-- Better quality -- as collection, data bases, analytic methods,
formatting, and presentation have improved.
-- An increasing annual number of such estimates -- as they have
grown more digestible by senior readers; and as new procedures
have eased the process of producing fast-track estimates. In
1982 total of 67 national estimates was produced. Last year the
figure was 80. This year it will run a little over 100.
-- Greater help to policymaking consumers -- as estimates have done
more to indicate not only threats but opportunities facing the
US, possible alternative scenarios, differences of view among
Intelligence Community participants, intelligence gaps needing
collection, and indicators of change which bear watching.
-- An expanding array of subject matter -- as strategic concerns
have broadened to include energy supply, resource allocation,
narcotics trafficking, terrorism, nuclear and chemical weapons
proliferation, the high tech future, technology transfer, and
Third World instabilities.
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-- More relevance to ongoing policy processes -- as in particular
the NIC's National Intelligence Officers (NIOs) keep in close
touch with policymakers and reflect back into the process the
problems needing inquiry; and as policymakers increasingly ask
for specific help on fast-breaking issues. More than half of
the total estimates produced last year were such special
estimates, requested by senior policy makers and the DCI.
Twenty-six such special estimates have been produced thus far
this year.
-- More relevance for US security planning -- as periodic reviews
are done on such subjects as Soviet capabilities for strategic
nuclear conflict, space programs, naval strategy, armor
programs, and inventories of Warsaw Pact forces opposite NATO.
Also of special use to security policymakers are estimates on
topics such as the possible Soviet response to SDI, the Soviet
nuclear weapons stockpile, the Cuban presence in Nicaragua, the
international flow of narcotics money, the Western European
terrorist threat to US interests and NATO, and the implications
of the Greek elections.
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-- Greater impact on readers -- as respect for estimates and the
individual estimators has grown in recent years, and as key
findings are now presented to senior readers in an easily
identified special format.
I wish to stress that the definition of the NIC's "production" is
not limited to these national estimates, but includes national
intelligence communicated daily by NIC's National Intelligence Officers:
some written, some face-to-face. There are 16 NIOs, each of whom is the
DCI's and the Intelligence Community's senior substantive officer for the
particular portfolio: e.g., strategic programs, general purpose forces,
economics, terrorism, Soviet deception, warning, narcotics, science and
technology, and six broad geographic areas. Of command rank, the NIOs
and their assistants are drawn from senior CIA analysts, CIA chiefs of
station, serving military general officers, Ambassadors and FSOs, NSA and
DIN civilians, and specialists from academia, the institute world, and
the private sector. In addition to preparing and chairing the national
estimates, the NIOs "produce" national intelligence and pass it to the
DCI and to senior policymakers in numerous manners and forums: special
memos, think pieces, briefing memos, participation in policy forums, and
the like. In these endeavors they exercise care to check with experts in
the DDI, the DDO, DIA, INR, and elsewhere in the Community, to insure
that such "estimates" indeed represent Community views -- or clearly
indicate where differences of view exist, and why.
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Despite ongoing progress, the current estimates process continues to
face numerous problems. These include gaps in collection that affect
accuracy, difficulties involved in sometimes having to estimate the
unknowable, coordination process hazards, and the lack of impact of
uncongenial messages to consumers. Nonetheless, the NIO system produces
national intelligence which is better in quality than in previous years,
greater in quantity, more relevant to policy concerns, and still
professionally dispassionate.
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