ROLE OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS (NIO)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78B02992A000100040023-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 28, 2005
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: December 10, 1975
• Content Type: REGULATION

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National Intelligence Production
Generation
Role of the National Intelligence Officers (NIO)
One basic reason for the establishment of the NIOs
was to develop a mechanism which could help the Director
of Central Intelligence respond to the President's charge
to take a more positive role in leading the Intelligence
Community. Specifically, the DCI was tasked with improving
(among other things) "the responsiveness of the US
intelligence effort with respect to national requirements"
and with improving "the quality, scope and timeliness of
the Community's product." The NIOs, as the DCI's principal
substantive staff officers, represent a mechanism through
which the attention and resources of the Community elements
can be focused on geographic or functional problems of
major policy concern.
The NIOs are responsible for maintaining close contact
and continuing dialogue with policy-level customers on the
National Security Council (NSC), its staff and ancillary
committees, and with senior subordinates in the departments
whose heads are members of the NSC. Through these contacts,
the NIOs are kept abreast of policy makers' needs for
national intelligence and serve as a conduit relaying these
needs and concerns to specialists throughout the Community,
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whatever their affiliation within the Community or its
several components, to provide a means for energizing and
focusing all of the Community's knowledge and expertise
on the specific problems at hand. This involves consider-
has
ations of what/to be collected, analyzed and produced to
meet the needs of the national-level customer.
The "production of national intelligence" in this
context, however, has a definite specialized meaning,
since the actual work on most of the papers is done by
officers and analysts throughout the Community under the
overall supervision of an NIO. Under the DCI's concept
for the NIOs, an NIO is envisaged as a channel of commu-
nication and a coordinator and manager of national
intelligence production rather than a drafter of intelli-
gence reports. Indeed, a major objective of the NIO
system is to draw on the best talent available throughout
the Community in producing national intelligence products
designed to be timely, directly responsive to and in
support of key decision makers at the policy level.
Requirements for National Production
The driving force in the whole cycle of production
of national intelligence is the substantive guidance
contained in the DCI's Perspectives for the Intelligence
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Community, the DCI's Substantive Objectives, and the Key
Intelligence Questons for the fiscal year. These documents
narrow the goals of the Intelligence Community from the
general five-year view of the world as reflected in the
Perspectives down to the more specific though still broad
Substantive Objectives for the fiscal year to the more
detailed Key Intelligence Questions, which by definition
flag topics of major importance with a direct bearing on
policy decisions that may have to be made during the coming
year. While these documents are prepared by the Intelligence
Community, they are reviewed and approved by policy-level
echelons -- e.g., the National Security Council Intelligence
Committee -- to ensure they reflect the needs of the policy
makers.
In the main, the bulk of national intelligence produced
under the auspices of the NIOs is in support of the
Objectives and KIQs, though much of it results from specific
requests from key policy makers or their staffs. These
requests may come because of these policy officials'
awareness of a developing problem or concern about a
continuing one; or they may come from the other direction,
i.e., through the identification by an NIO or other member
of the Intelligence Community of a policy matter over the
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horizon which will need high level attention. The requests
may be in written form, they are often levied orally --
by phone or in face-to-face conversation -- during the
course of the continuing dialogue between the NIOs and
senior consumers. Some requests for national intelligence,
of course, are initiated by members of the Intelligence
Community and/or the NIOs, based on their expertise in
their areas, but these products most often are contributory
to answering larger intelligence questions.
The most common self-initiated NIO products are special
memoranda addressing subjects which are known to be of
interest to the policy makers or ones which bring to their
attention items of particular concern. The Intelligence
Alert Memorandum is a good example of such a report. It
is designed to alert high level officials of a developing
situation which could impact on US foreign policy interests
and which may require policy decisions. Production requested
by the Community is most frequently in the realm of
Interagency Intelligence Memoranda -- a coordinated look
at a specific, fairly broad subject. National level
requests, of course, encompass Estimates (NIE, SNIE, NIAM)
as well as special memoranda and Interagency Intelligence
Memoranda. Taken as a whole, the majority of NIO production
is in direct response to such requests.
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