COMMENT ON 'FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION REQUIREMENTS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP71B00185A000100020056-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 11, 2002
• Sequence Number: 56
• Publication Date: February 6, 1967
• Content Type: NOTES

Approved For Release 2002/06/14: CIA-RDP71 B00185A000100020056-0
6 February 1967
NOTE FOR: Carl
SUBJECT : Comment on "Foreign Intelligence Collection
Requirements"
1. I have scanned the subject report pretty rapidly. By
and large it is factual, well written, but, I suspect, another
exercise in frustration.
Z. The report concentrates heavily on the observable
internals of collection requirements, and I feel it fails to
treat properly items which are external and perhaps outside
the explicit charter of the IC's group. This lack of understand-
ing surfaces early when in 1-16, paragraph 25, the theme is
established that the CIA Long-Range Plan position that CIA
must either be allowed to grow or the Government must curb
its appetite is somehow incorrect. Perhaps the Long-Range
Plan is not overly clear, but the fundamental problem which
this group clearly saw was that emerging nations could quickly
become technilogically sophisticated and hence rapidly assume
positions of importance in the world. Therefore, if the criteria
of what is important is maintained, the number of things in this
world which get that label increase, and consequently the Agency
must grow if the criteria is not changed.
3. I feel that Chapter VII "The Information Explosion" is
most significant because it involves the greatest amount of
judgment. The preceding chapters which treat different types
of collection, etc. , are pretty much a recitation of the facts with
resulting recommendations. In Chapter VII, however, the report
unfortunately focused largely on the internals, and while it is true
that better management of collection, better specification of what
is needed in collection can be helpful, what really must be cured
is buried on page VII-10 and VII- 20, i. e., "Thus one of our most
important functions is educating the policy makers to ask the
right questions and to know what useful answers they can rightfully
expect from intelligence. " The group has nibbled, but failed to
bite the bullet. Chapter VIII deals with the responsibilities of
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management and here points out the mechanistic things which
Division Chiefs, Office Directors, and Deputy Directors ought
to do. To really put the cork in the bottle, the DCI and the
President, - along with the National Security Council, have got
to do a bit of thinking about requirements: this isn't touched.
Effective management does not proceed from an ensemble of
techniques to help the lower levels in their daily tasks, but
unfortunately that is about the bulk of what this report addresses.
4. By and large the recommendations are just right, and the
need to have these recommendations implemented is pretty well
substantiated by the documented facts. Given that the President
of the National Security Council and the DCI are probably not
likely to get into the over-all problem because the budget --
although large to us -- just doesn't hurt that much, working on
the internals may be the next best and only practical thing.
25X1A
Approved For Release 2002/06/14: CIA-RDP71 B00185A000100020056-0