THE CIA AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89G00720R000500100001-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 1, 2013
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To speak truth to power
THE CIA AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
Robert M. Gates
Over the years, public views of the Central Intelligence Agency and its
role in American foreign policy have been shaped primarily by movies,
television, novels, newspapers, books by journalists, headlines growing out of
congressional inquires, exposes by former intelligence officers, and essays by
"experts" who either have never served in American intelligence, or have
served and still not understood its role. The CIA is said to be an "invisible
government," yet it is the most visible, most externally scrutinized and most
publicized intelligence service in the world. While the CIA sometimes is able
to refute publicly allegations and criticism, usually it must remain silent. The
result is a contradictory melange of images of the CIA and very little
understanding of its real role in American government.
Because of a general lack of understanding of the CIA's role, a significant
controversy such as the Iran-Contra affair periodically brings to the surface
broad questions of the proper relationship between the intelligence service and
policymakers. It raises questions of whether the CIA slants or "cooks" its
intelligence analysis to support covert actions or policy, and of the degree to
which policymakers (or their staffs) selectively use?and abuse?intelligence to
persuade superiors, Congress, or the public. Beyond this, recent developments
such as the massive daily flow of intelligence information to Congress, have
complicated the CIA's relationships with the rest of the Executive Branch in
ways not at all understood by most observers?including those most directly
involved. These questions and issues merit scrutiny.
The Role of Intelligence
The CIA's role in the foreign policy process is threefold. First, the CIA is
responsible for the collection and analysis of intelligence and its distribution to
policymakers?principally to the President, the National Security Council
(NSC), and the Departments of State and Defense, although in recent years
many other departments and agencies have become major users of intelligence
as well. This is a well-known area, and I will address it ony summarily.
Second, the CIA is charged with the conduct of covert action, the one area
in which it implements policy. This is a subject so complex and so controversial
as to require separate treatment elsewhere. Because of the media's focus on
covert action, however, it is worth pointing out in passing that over 95 percent
of the national intelligence budget is devoted to the collection and analysis of
information. Only about 3 percent of the CIA's people are involved in covert
action. By citing those figures, I do not pretend that covert action is not an
important aspect of the CIA's activities. It certainly attracts the most attention
and controversy. However, it is useful to have some perspective on its relative
importance in terms of resources and the overall scope of the Agency's
activities.
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Third, and most significant, the CIA's role is played out in the interaction,
primarily in Washington, between the intelligence community and the policy-
making community. It is in the dynamics of this relationship that the influence
and role of the CIA are determined. The Agency's effectiveness depends on
whether its assessments are heeded, whether its information is considered
relevant and timely enough to be useful, and whether the CIA's relationship
with policymakers, from issue to issue and problem to problem, is supportive or
adversarial. It is this dynamic interaction of intelligence and policy that is the
least well understood, and it is this area that I will examine here.
The Director of Central Intelligence serves both as director of the Central
Intelligence Agency and head of the US intelligence community. The commu-
nity includes the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security
Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the intelligence components
of the Departments of State, Treasury, Energy and the four military, services.
Of these, only the CIA is completely independent of any policy department or
agency, and only it accepts requests for intelligence support from throughout
the Executive Branch. The Director of Central Intelligence and the CIA serve
as the principal conduits of intelligence to the President and the members of
the National Security Council.
The CIA devotes the overwhelming preponderance of its resources to the
collection and analysis of information in order to learn the capabilities and
intentions of adversaries of the United States, to forewarn of hostile actions
against this country from whatever quarter, and to forecast and monitor
political, economic, and military developments worldwide that have potential
to affect American interests or security. The CIA also endeavors to determine
and respond to policymakers' longer range requirements for information and
analysis.
What is intelligence information and how it is used by the policymaker?
The CIA's information comes from satellites, from newspapers, periodicals,
radio and television worldwide, from diplomats and military attaches overseas,
and, of course, from secret agents. All of this information, billions of bits and
pieces of data on global developments and issues of interest to the United States,
flows to Washington, where analysts with expertise in scores of disciplines sift
through, examine, collate, and try to make sense of it. The CIA then reports its
findings to policy officials and to the military services.
What clearly distinguishes information as suitable for intelligence exploi-
tation is its relevance to US policy and interests. It is the comprehensiveness of
the CIA's collection and analysis, the Agency's focus on the national security
interests of the United States, and the advantage of its having knowledge before
anyone else that make the CIA's intelligence valuable to the policymaker.
Furthermore, the CIA often makes a contribution simply by organizing facts in
a clear and concise way, by providing the same facts to a range of different
organizations, by identifying the important questions?and by trying to answer
them.
This information finds its way to the policymaker in several ways. First,
intelligence on day-to-day events and developments around the world is
provided to senior officials daily or even several times a day. Early each
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morning a written briefing is delivered to the White House for the President.
As directed by President Reagan in 1981, officers of the CIA's analysis
directorate also fan out across Washington each morning to share copies of the
President's briefing with the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and
Defense, the National Security Adviser and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. During crises, situation reports are provided every few hours.
Second, the CIA contributes analysis to policy papers, by describing both
current events and potential opportunities or problems for the United States.
Nearly all NSC and sub-cabinet meetings begin with a briefing by the Director
of Central Intelligence or a subordinate expert.
Third, National Intelligence Estimates can play an important role in the
making of policy. An estimate provides a factual review of a subject and
forecasts future developments. Consensus among contributing analysts is
welcome where it is genuine, but it is not sought at the expense of clarity or the
airing of disagreements. Analytical mush is helpful to no one. In recent years a
high premium has been placed on the presentation of diverse points of view
and alternative scenarios?the different ways events may play out, and with
what likely consequences. But, always, a -best estimate- is offered; the
intelligence community owes the policymaker that.
These estimates?more than a hundred were done last year?are prepared
by analysts from different intelligence agencies under the supervision of the
senior substantive expert in the intelligence community, known as the National
Intelligence Officer. Estimates are the most formal expression of the intelli-
gence community's views. All of the intelligence agencies of the government
contribute to and coordinate what is written in national estimates. The best
known of these are the annual estimates on Soviet strategic military forces.
Fourth, policymakers receive specialized assessments by individual agen-
cies. The CIA's assessments and research papers are the products of the largest
intelligence analysis organization in the world. The range of issues is breath-
taking?from strategic weapons to food supplies, epidemiology to space, water
and climate to Third World political instability, mineral and energy resources
to international finance, Soviet laser weapons to remote tribal demographics,
chemical and biological weapons proliferation to commodity supplies, and
many, many more. I should note also that other intelligence agencies, such as
the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military service intelligence organizations
and the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, prepare an
extraordinary array of assessments for their respective departments and
organizations.
The Policymaker and the Intelligence Officer
Obviously the preceding review is a textbook description of the role of
intelligence. It is neat, unambiguous, clinical, non-controversial, even com-
mendable?and highly misleading. It does not address central questions such as
whether certain users of intelligence seek, not data or understanding, but
support for decisions already made; whether they selectively use or misstate
intelligence to influence public debate over policy; whether they disingenu-
ously label intelligence they dislike as too soft, too hard, or -cooked"; whether
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some intelligence officers are addressing personal agendas or biases. It does not
reveal the implications for intelligence and policy of a CIA director who is held
at too great a distance from the President, or of one who is too closely
associated. It does not treat policymakers' frustration with constantly changing
evaluations or with analysis that is just plain wrong, or the use of intelligence as
a political football in struggles between government departments or between
the Executive and Legislative Branches. The attitudes and actions of CIA
officials and policymakers that lie behind these and many similar issues, and the
interaction among them, comprise the dynamic of the relationship?what
Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem describes
as "the intelligence-policymaker tangle." 1
Sherman Kent, a professor of history at Yale who became a senior analyst
in the Office of Strategic Services and was later director of the CIA's Office of
National Estimates, wrote in 1940:
There is no phase of the intelligence business which is more important
than the proper relationship between intelligence itself and the
people who use its product. Oddly enough, this relationship, which
one would expect to establish itself automatically, does not do this.2
The fact is that, over the years, the policymaker and the intelligence
officer have consistently (and with frighteningly few exceptions) come together
hugely ignorant of the realities and complexities of each other's worlds?
process, technique, form, and culture. CIA officers can describe in excruciating
detail how foreign policy is made in every country in the world save one?the
United States. By the same token, as suggested by Professor Harkabi, the
unhappiness of intelligence people "swells when they compare the sophistica-
tion and advanced methods employed in collection of the information and the
production of intelligence against the cavalier fashion or improvisation with
which policy decisions are many a time reached." 3
Bookshelves groan under the literature of proposed rules of engagement to
be followed when these two worlds collide. In 1956, for example, Roger
Hilsman wrote that intelligence producers must "orient themselves frankly and
consciously toward policy and action . . . adapting tools expressly to the needs
of policy." A more recent intelligence monograph argued that the intelligence
producer should initiate no direct interaction with his consumers, but rather
should respond to requests for data and analysis.5
Sherman Kent was perhaps the first of the early intelligence commentators
to make the case for a more direct and intensive interaction between
policymaker and intelligence officer, even while arguing that a firm line must
Yehoshafat Harkabi, "The Intelligence-Policymaker Tangle," in The Jerusalem Quarterly,
Winter 1984, pp. 125-131.
2 Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy, Hamden (Conn.): Archon
Books, 1965 edition, p. 180.
Harkabi, p. 130.
Roger Hilsman, Strategic Intelligence and National Decision, Glencoe, (Ill.): The Free
Press, 1956, p. 182.
5 Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Impact of Intelligence on the Policy Review and
Decision Process, part two, Central Intelligence Agency, March 1980, p.7.
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exist between the roles of each. Warning that overprotecting the objectivity of
the intelligence analyst could be likened to piling armor on a medieval knight
until he was absolutely safe but completely useless, Kent concluded that too
much distance posed the greater danger to effective analysis. Even so, he
foresaw a troubled relationship?that intelligence officers' skepticism of the
objectivity of policymakers, and the latter group's consequent resentment,
would stultify any free give-and-take between them; that policymakers would
see the very existence of CIA assessments as an insult to their intellectual
capabilities, that the security concerns of each party would encourage wariness
and reticence.6 And, in truth, these and other difficulties still greatly influence
the CIA's role in foreign policy process.
Grievances and Resentments
The institutional autonomy of the American intelligence service?of the
CIA?is unique in the world (with perhaps the single exception of the Soviet
KGB). While this confers certain advantages, above all independence, such
autonomy also imbues the CIA-policy community relationship with a signifi-
cant adversarial as well as supportive content. The policymaker has a long list
of grievances, many legitimate, some not.
Policymakers legitimately want intelligence information that will inform
and guide their tactical day-to-day decision-making. In some areas, the CIA
can and does meet their needs. For example, in 1980, thanks to a very brave
man, the Agency was able to provide policymakers with knowledge of the
step-by-step preparations for the imposition of martial law in Poland. In early
1986 it was able to document, in extraordinary detail, electoral cheating in the
Philippines. There are even some areas where CIA intelligence is so good that
it reduces policymakers' flexibility and room for maneuver.
Yet I would have to acknowledge that there are countries and issues
important to the United States for which tactical intelligence remains sorely
deficient, and here the complaints of policymakers are justified. The CIA's
capabilities have improved much in recent years, but they are still uneven in
quality. No matter how good CIA intelligence is, there will still be surprises or
gaps.
It is no surprise that few policymakers welcome CIA information or
analysis that directly or by implication challenges the adequacy of their chosen
policies or the accuracy of their pronouncements. Indeed, during the Vietnam
war, this was a constant issue. On the other hand, I concede that on more than
a few occasions, policymakers have analyzed or forecast developments better
than intelligence analysts. And, truth be known, analysts have sometimes gone
overboard to prove a policymaker wrong. When Secretary of State Alexander
Haig asserted that the Soviets were behind international terrorism, intelligence
analysts initially set out, not to address the issue in all its aspects, but rather to
prove the Secretary wrong?to prove simply that the Soviets do not orchestrate
all international terrorism. But in so doing they went too far themselves and
failed in early drafts to describe extensive and well-documented indirect Soviet
6 Kent, op. cit., pp. 167, 193-95.
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support for terrorist groups and their sponsors. Far from kowtowing to
policymakers, there is sometimes a strong impulse on the part of intelligence
officers to show that a policy or decision is misguided or wrong, to poke an
analytical finger in the policy eye. Policymakers know this and understandably
resent it. To protect the independence of the analyst while keeping such
impulses in check is one of the toughest jobs of intelligence agency managers.
In this connection the policymaker sometimes has the sense that the CIA
is attempting, at least by inference, to -grade- his performance. Further, the
policymaker is often suspicious that when the CIA's analysis suggests his policy
is failing or in difficulty, these conclusions are widely circulated by the Agency,
with malice, for use as ammunition by critics of the policy in the Executive
Branch, in Congress, or among the public. These suspicions are magnified by
leaks that pit the policymaker against CIA in a contest for political advantage.
And the policymaker often believes the CIA itself is a source of these leaks.
Of ten policymakers, facing a situation of extreme delicacy with another
country, especially where US law or political sensitivities may be involved, will
caution analysts as they write or brief: -Now, you have to be careful what you
say about this?let's work it out together beforehand.- And the CIA, while
protecting its independence, does try to be careful and to take the legitimate
concerns of policymakers into account. But that is little solace to a policymaker
who is politically at the mercy of any CIA briefer who goes to Capitol Hill.
Many policymakers believe the CIA allows its biases to dominate its
reporting. Who would disagree that the CIA officers have views and biases, and
that they try to promote them? But the CIA is not monolithic; there is a wide
range of views inside on virtually every issue. Indeed, internal debates are
fierce and sometimes brutal?after all, the stakes are very high. A classic
example was the debate over the validity of the Sino-Soviet split in the early
1960s. A more recent one was the bitter internal disagreement over who was
behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. The CIA is not a place
for the fainthearted. The Agency has elaborate procedures for reviewing
assessments to filter out individual bias and make its reporting as objective as
possible. And when the CIA sends out a provocative analysis by an individual,
it tries always to identify the analysis as a personal view so that a reader will
know it has not been through the above-mentioned review process or given a
seal of approval by the Agency.
More serious is the accusation that an institutional bias affects the CIA's
work. I believe there probably is bias in some areas, in a broad sense. Although
the Agency was severely criticized for underestimating Soviet missile deploy-
ments in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it is probably regarded today as more
skeptical than most observers of Soviet intentions, as more cynical about the
public posture of other governments when contrasted to their overt and covert
actions, as more doubtful about the ease and speed with which the United
States can usually affect developments overseas, and fairly consistently, as
tending to see perils and difficulty where other do not. This was the case during
the Vietnam war, when it was a source of great bitterness.
Suspicion that the CIA's assessments are biased is especially great in areas
where the CIA is involved in covert action. There are several reasons, however,
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why such suspicion is greatly overdrawn. First, analysis and operations are
carried out by two completely separate elements (or directorates) within the
CIA. There are longstanding cultural as well as bureaucratic differences
between the two branches. There is?unfortunately, in my view?little flow of
people serving in one directorate to positions in the other. Thus the analysis of
developments in countries where covert activities are under way is done by
people with no role or stake in the operations. Contrary to the case in earlier
days, senior officials in the analysis directorate review and comment on covert
actions proposals, but few subordinate analysts are involved and no one doing
the analysis feels compelled to defend the success of a covert program. A
common source of tension is an analysis that is far less optimistic than the
director or operations people would wish?but, by policy, the analysis stands.
Another safeguard of objectivity where covert action is involved is the
recognition inside the CIA that intelligence work in these areas is bound to be
scrutinized for signs of bias with special care by readers in the Executive
Branch and especially in the Congress.
? The impatience of policymakers with intelligence?with the CIA?is
intensified by the fact that analyses and forecasts, often based on incomplete or
ambiguous information, are sometimes wrong, and often change or are revised
to take account of new information or new analytical techniques. CIA
assessments of Warsaw Pact strength have changed on several occasions,
complicating the task of US negotiations in the Mutual and Balanced Force
Reductions talks in Vienna. Similarly, the Agency often revises its assessments
of Soviet strategic weapons as new information becomes available. The CIA
does not acknowledge error gracefully, and often does not forewarn policyma-
kers of revised views before the information is published. A policymaker who
has made decisions or developed a negotiating strategy based on one assess-
ment, only to see it change or to find that it was wrong, will not think fondly
of the CIA or soon wish again to proceed on its assurances or assessments.
As I suggested earlier, a special criticism by policymakers is that the CIA
is too frequently a voice of gloom and doom. For policymakers who must try
to find solutions to intractable problems or a way out of a no-win situation?for
example, various conflicts in the Middle East?the CIA's forebodings and
pointing out of perils and dangers are of little help and may be highly irritating.
Relations with the Hill
The CIA's relationship with Congress also is a special problem for
policymakers, for several reasons, and it profoundly influences the Agency's
role. Virtually all CIA assessments go to the two congressional intelligence
committees. Most go also to the appropriations, foreign relations, and armed
services committees. Eight congressional committees get the CIA's daily
national intelligence report. In 1986 the CIA sent some 5,000 intelligence
reports to Congress and gave many hundreds of briefings. All this is new, having
developed over the last decade or so. As a result, and thanks to their staffs, many
senators and representatives are often as well if not better informed about the
CIA's information and assessments on a given subject than concerned policy-
makers. Moreover, this intelligence is often used to criticize and challenge
policy, to set one executive agency against another, and to expose disagree-
ments within the administration.
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Imagine the reaction of the Ford administration in the mid-1970s when it
went to Congress to get additional military aid for Cambodia, only to be
confronted by the legislators with a new intelligence assessment that the
situation was hopeless. Imagine President Carter seeking a US troop cut in
South Korea only to find Congress aware of a new intelligence estimate that
concluded that there were more North Korean divisions than was previously
estimated. Imagine the reaction of a secretary of defense, seeking funds for a
new weapon, only to the told on the Hill of intelligence that the Soviets could
neutralize the weapon.
Most specialists writing about the change in recent years in the balance of
power between the executive and Congress on national security policy cite
Watergate and Vietnam as primary causes. I believe there was a third principal
factor: the obtaining, by Congress in the mid-1970s, of access to intelligence
information essentially equal to that of the Executive Branch.
This situation adds extraordinary stress to the relationship between the
CIA and policy agencies. Policymakers' suspicions that the CIA uses intelli-
gence to sabotage selected administration policies are often barely concealed.
And more than a few members of Congress are willing to exploit this situation
by their own selective use of intelligence that supports their views. The end
result is a strengthening of the congressional hand in policy debates and a great
heightening of the tensions between the CIA and the rest of the Executive
Branch.
The oversight process has also given Congress?especially the two intelli-
gence committees?far greater knowledge of and influence over the way the
CIA and other intelligence agencies spend their money than anyone in the
Executive Branch would dream of exercising; from expenditures in the billions
of dollars to line items in the thousands. Congress has been immensely
supportive and steadfast over the past 10 years in providing the resources to
rebuild American intelligence. But I suspect it causes policymakers consider-
able heartburn to know that Congress may actually have more influence today
over the CIA's priorities and its allocation of resources than the Executive
Branch.
The result of these realities is that the CIA today finds itself in a
remarkable position, involuntarily poised nearly equidistant between the
Executive and Legislative Branches. The administration knows that the CIA is
in no position to withhold much information from Congress and is extremely
sensitive to congressional demands; the Congress has enormous influence and
information, yet remains suspicious and mistrustful. Such a central legislative
role with respect to an intelligence service is unique in American history and in
the world. And policymakers know it.
The View from Langley
Now, let me turn to the CIA's role and relationship with the policymaker
as seen from the Agency's vantage point. In each of the five administrations in
which I have served there have been a number of senior policymakers (at the
level of assistant secretary and above) who were avid users and readers of
intelligence and who aggressively sought CIA analysis and views. These
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policymakers have dedicated considerable time to discussing substantive and
policy problems with CIA officers. The Agency has had unprecedented access
to the Reagan administration, from the President on down, especially when
presenting analysis, and daily contact with the most senior officials of the
government, including the Vice President and the Secretaries of State and
Defense. Administration officials have of ten directly tasked the CIA and
offered reactions to the intelligence they read?and they have read a great deal.
This is true also of their senior subordinates, with whom the CIA is in constant
contact. This has contributed enormously to improving the relevance, timing,
and substance of intelligence analysis and other CIA support. It is a dynamic,
healthy relationship, even though it is focused primarily on current issues.
This preoccupation with current reporting is, from the CIA's perspective,
a major problem. If, as I have been told, the average tenure of an assistant
secretary in government is 21 months, a short-term focus is understandable; but
it is nevertheless lamentable, and ultimately very costly to the country. One of
the CIA's greatest concerns over the years has been the unwillingness or
inability of most policymakers to spend much time on longer range issues?
looking ahead several steps?or in helping to guide or direct the Agency's
long-term efforts. For many years the CIA has struggled, largely in vain, to get
policy officials to devote time to intelligence issues other than those directly
related to a crisis. Agency officers work hard to ascertain what is required of
them: what policymakers' priorities are, what issues or problems the CIA
should address, how the CIA can help the administration.
One reason Congress has assumed a larger role in these areas, in my view,
is that policymakers in successive administrations have largely abdicated their
intelligence-guidance responsibilities. For many years, trying to get senior
policy principals to attend meetings to discuss longer range intelligence
requirements has been an exercise in frustration. Beyond the lack of help on
requirements, the CIA gets little feedback on its longer range work that might
help improve its relevance to policymakers' needs. The CIA has been more
aggressive in recent years in trying to engage policymakers on these matters,
and key figures in the Reagan administration have shown some interest in
selecting long-range problems, but such interest remains exceedingly, danger-
ously rare.
In part because of insufficient familiarity with intelligence work, too many
policymakers arrive at their posts with an unrealistic expectation of what the
CIA can do. When this expectation is disappointed, it of ten turns into
skepticism that the Agency can do much of anything. The apparent lack of CIA
access to Soviet Politburo discussions, for example, leads some policymakers to
question whether anything the Agency says about Soviet intentions or politics
has value, regardless of its other sources of intelligence. Similarly, the CIA has
difficulty forecasting coups (which, of course, usually come as a surprise also to
the targeted leader) or the results of difficult decisions not yet made by foreign
governments.
It has been my experience over the years that the usual response of a
policymaker to intelligence with which he disagrees or which he finds
unpalatable is to ignore it; sometimes he will characterize it as incomplete, too
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narrowly focused, or incompetent (and sometimes rightly so); and occasionally
he will charge that it is -cooked"?that it reflects a CIA bias. In my 21 years
in intelligence, I have never heard a policymaker (or anyone else for that
matter) characterize as biased or cooked a CIA assessment with which he
agreed. On subjects such as Vietnam, various aspects of Soviet policy and
behavior, Angola, Lebanon, and the effectiveness of various embargoes or
sanctions, as well as on a number of other events and issues, the CIA's analysts
have drawn conclusions that have dashed cold water on the hopes and efforts
of policymakers. Sometimes the CIA analysts have been wrong, more often
they have been right; but on problems both large and small the Agency has not
flinched from presenting its honest view.
There is no charge to which those in the CIA are more sensitive than that
of cooking intelligence?of slanting its reports to support policy. Every director
since I joined the CIA has been accused of this at one time or another.
Therefore, it is important to understand the distinction between personal and
institutional views. National Intelligence Estimates are reviewed and coordi-
nated by a dozen agencies; CIA assessments are widely reviewed inside the
Agency but almost never even seen by the director before being published and
circulated. As noted earlier, all go to several committees of Congress, where
they are scrutinized.
These formal assessments must be distinguished from personal views
expressed by individuals at all levels of the Agency, from analysts to senior
operations officers to the director. More than once, the late Director William
Casey (and probably his predecessors) approved an estimate with which he
disagreed personally, and separately conveyed his personal view to policyma-
kers. I have no doubt that in policy discussions he expressed his own views,
which, on occasion, differed from the Agency analysis. Lest this raise eyebrows,
it is worth recalling that in 1962 Director John McCone disagreed with the
entire intelligence community over whether the Soviets might install missiles in
Cuba. He told President Kennedy they would, and he alone in the Executive
Branch was right. As long as all points of view are fairly represented and
reported, the Director of Central Intelligence?the President's chief intelli-
gence adviser?is entitled (even obligated) to have and to put forward his own
views. As Professor Henry Rowen of Stanford University recently wrote: -A
CIA director is not supposed to be an intellectual eunuch." 7 Sometimes the
director's personal view is insightful and correct?as in McCone's case;
sometimes it is not.
I must add at this point that the views of the Director of Central
Intelligence and of the CIA are sometimes overshadowed or set aside by
policymakers or their staffs in favor of unanalyzed reporting or the assessments
of other sources, or of interpretations of their own that support policy
preferences or actions. I believe this played an important role in the Iran arms
sales affair, as the CIA's formal assessments were misused or ignored by
individuals pursuing their own agendas. For example, no analytical expert in
the CIA believed in 1985 that Iran was losing the war, and only one or two
believed Iranian support for terrorism was waning. And no CIA publication
7 Henry S. Rowen, letter to the editor, The New York Times, Sept. 13, 1987, section 4, p. 34.
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asserted these things. But this was by no means the first instance of selective use
of raw reporting or assessments. I have seen it done routinely in five
administrations, on large issues such as Vietnam and the Soviet Union, and on
lesser ones as well.
Policymakers have always liked intelligence that supported what they
want to do, and they often try to influence the analysis to buttress the
conclusions they want to reach. They ask carefully phrased questions; they
sometimes withhold information; they broaden or narrow the issue; on rare
occasions they even try to intimidate. The pressures can be enormous. This is
where the integrity of intelligence officers, bolstered by a natural tendency to
resist pressure and an often adversarial bureaucratic relationship, comes into
play to protect the independence of the Agency's assessment.
But, overall, the dialogue between policymakers and intelligence officers is
normal and healthy, and it usually improves the CIA's assessments and makes
them more useful to policymakers?even while objectivity is preserved. CIA
officers know that policymakers are often trying to influence an assessment, but
that does not render their information and insights irrelevant or off limits.
A final thought: to attempt to slant intelligence would not only transgress
the single deepest ethical and cultural principle of the CIA, it would also be
foolish?it would presuppose a single point of view in an administration and
would ignore the reality of congressional readership. Indeed, in my opinion, the
sharing of intelligence with Congress?where members of both parties, with a
wide range of views and philosophy all see the information?is one of the surest
guarantees of the CIA's independence and objectivity. As Director William
Webster has said:
We intend to -tell it as it is,- avoiding bias as much as we can, or the
politicization of our product. Policymakers may not like the message
they hear from us, especially if they have a different point of view.
My position is that in the preparation of intelligence judgments,
particularly in National Intelligence Estimates, we will provide them
for the use of policymakers. They can be used in whole or in part.
They can be ignored, or torn up, or thrown away, but they may not
be changed.
The Agency's Principal Role
The foregoing describes the realities of the CIA's role in the making of
American foreign policy. I have tried to go beyond the mechanics and the
headlines to identify the stresses, tensions, rivalries, enduring complaints and
relationships?the pulling and hauling, day in and day out?that determine the
CIA's role and its impact. Some CIA analyses are better than others; some
intelligence experts are better than others; estimates sometimes alleged to be
politicized or biased usually are not at all?sometimes they were just not very
well done. But unevenness of quality should not be confused with politicization.
The CIA's autonomy is unique in our government, and its relationship
with the legislature is unique in the world. The CIA's relationships with other
elements of the executive are a dynamic blend of support and rivalry, of
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cooperation and conflict. The challenge to intelligence managers is to manage
these relationships so that all interactions?supportive and adversarial?end up
promoting a better understanding of an even more complex world around us,
and hence contribute to better informed decisions and policies.
The real intelligence story in recent years is the significant improvement
in the quality, relevance, and timeliness of intelligence assistance to policyma-
kers?a story that with rare anecdotal exceptions cannot be publicly described,
in contrast to the publicity surrounding controversial covert actions, problems
between the CIA and the Congress, and spy scandals. The CIA cannot advertise
better collection or intelligence analysis. CIA officers understand this political
reality, but it is imperative that Americans know that the CIA's primary
mission remains the collection and analysis of information. This is the CIA's
principal role in the making of American foreign policy. The President, the
policy community and the Congress?albeit sometimes with clenched teeth?
depend upon the CIA, task it, and look to it more each day. The CIA attracts
America's most capable young people, who find their work with the Agency to
be an exceptionally challenging, honorable, and consistently fascinating career.
As John Ranelagh observed in his recently published history of the CIA, -In its
moments of achievement as well as condemnation, the Agency was a reminder
that it was a faithful instrument of the most decent and perhaps the simplest of
the great powers, and certainly the one that even in its darkest passages
practices most consistently the virtue of hope." 8
The United States has the finest global intelligence service in the world.
Faithful to the Constitution and the law, it helps to safeguard our freedom
against our adversaries and helps the policymaker understand and deal with the
often dangerous world around us. The CIA is America's first line of defense?
its eyes and ears. And the Agency's deepest commitment, to borrow a phrase
used by Eris Larrabee to describe George Marshall, is to -speak truth to
power."
John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA, New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1987, p.733.
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