THE CIA AND DECISION-MAKING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000100020001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 12, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

FOREIGN .Rs-c,--e,c,
Approved For Release 2001/02104 ? CIA-RDP80-01
4?11 iti72
J I !A I UM I L
THE CIA AND DECISION-MAKING
By Chester L. Cooper
"The most fundamental method of work .. is to determine our working policies a
cording to the actual conditions. When we study the causes of the mistakes we have mad
we find that they all arose because we departed from the actual situation ... and wer
subjective in determining our working policies."--"The Thoughts of Mao Tse-tung."
IN bucolic McLean, Virginia, screened by trees and sur
rounded by a high fence, squats a vast expanse of concret
and glass known familiarly as the "Pickle Factory," an
more formally as "Headquarters, Central Intelligence Agency.
Chiselled into the marble which is the only relieving feature o
the building's sterile main entrance are the words, 'The Trut
Shall Make You Free." The quotation from St. John wa
personally chosen for the new building by Allen W. Dulles over V
the objection of several subordinates who felt that the Agency,
then still reeling from the Bay of Pigs debacle, should adopt a
.somewhat less lofty motto. (In those dark days of late 1961, some
suggested that a more appropriate choice would be "Look Before
You Leap.") But Dulles had a deeper sense of history than
most. Although he was a casualty of the Bay of Pigs and never
sat in the Director's office with its view over the Potomac, he /
left a permanent mark not only on the Agency which he had
fashioned but on its building which he had planned.
Allen Dulles was famous among many and notorious among
some for his consummate skill as an intelligence operative
("spook" in current parlance), but one of his greatest contribu-
tions in nurturing the frail arrangements he helped to create to
provide intelligence support to Washington's top-level foreign-
policy-makers.
Harry Truman, whose Administration gave birth to both the ,
National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, .1
recalls that, "Each time the National Security Council is about
.to consider a certain policy?let us say a policy having to do
with Southeast Asia?it immediately calls upon the CIA to
present an estimate of the effects such a policy is likely to
have. . . .'- President Truman painted a somewhat more cozy
relationship between the NSC and the CIA than probably
existed during, and certainly since, his Administration. None
the less, it is fair to say that the intelligence community, and espe-
cially the CIA, played an important advisory role in high-level
policy deliberations during the 1950s and early 19605.
To provide the most informed intelligence judgments on the
effects a contemplated policy might have on American na-
tional security interests, a group especially tailored for the task
was organized in 1950 within the CIA. While this step would
probably have been taken sooner or later, the communist victory
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By BENJAMIN 'WELLES igence provided them. Some once to, the South Vietnamese
Speotal to T11: New IWhite House officials estimate \rmyls incursion into Laos Feb.
WASHINGTON, May 10 ---t
President Nixon is said to bet
considering a Major reorgani-tn-
zatio of the nation's foreign!
intelligence activities to im-
prove output and cut costs.
Those familiar with the plan
say that the options range
from creating a new Cabinet-
level department of intelli-
gence= to merely strengthening
the 'now-imprecise authority of
Richard Helms, Director of?Cert-
tral Intelligence, over the glo-
baleintelligence operations of
the Pentagon and other. fed-
eral agencies. ? ? .
The reorganization plan has
recently been - ? presented to
Presidern; Nixon. It covers 30
to 40 typewritten pages and
was prepa red - primarily by
James R. Schlesineer, assistant
director of the Office of Man-
agement and Budget, and H.
Wayne Smith, a tomer Pen-
tagon 'systems analyst now on
the National Security Cduncil
staff. -
The informants say the plan
grew from instructions Mr.
Nixon gave his staff last au-
tumn, to draft various reor-
ganizatienal and cost-cutting
studies.
Complaints-Voiced
Both the President and Hen-1
ry A. Kissinger, his assistant!
for national security affairs,
have frequently expressed dis-
satisfaction over the erraticl
quality of the foreign
intelli-
STATINTL
IS to 1 . ,
fl-
that at least S500-million could ? ?
be cut from the ;35-billion spent 'Their E.,tinntes Were Better' Assistant'Secretary ot Detense
annually on national intelli- "Hanoi threw 35,000 men or has ee,Ilmated costs 32.9-billion
geTice. . - four divisions against the yearly.
Mr. Nixon and Mr. :Kissinger 17,000 in ARVN," said one "When you have the author-
have said that while occasion- et:allied source. "They stripped ity but don't control the re-
ally intelligence of extreme North :Vietnam of troops, gam- a Defense Depart.-
usefulness ----- such as the- in- Nine', that .the United States met official observed, "yout
credibly detailed information wouldn't invade the North ? tend to walk very sofly."
on Soviet and Chinese.Commu- and they were right, Their esti- The President., is said to re-:
nist missile development- oh- mates were better than ours." gard Helms as the nation's
The most drastic option open most competent professional in-
to ?,Ir. Nixon would be the cre- telligence officer. Last month,
ation of a' new department of informants disclose, Mr. Nixon /
intelligence to be headed by on ?vroto Mr. Helms congratulat-
official- of ? Cnbinet rank. ? It inc' the C.I.A. on its recent an-, ?
would combine the Centel In-, mai estimate of Soviet defense .
telligence. Agency with 15,000 canehilities.
huge
To
provideintellige. intelligence
control s system and atnhae
h
make it responsive to his needs,'
Mr. Nixon is -likely, his staff
associates say, to choose one--
or a combination of the'
middle options before him that
do not require Congressiointi ?
tamed from spy satellites ?
has been produced, the serv-
ice has frequently failed to
forecast such sudden develop-
ments as the riots that forced
a political reshuffle in Poland
last December.
Mr. Nixon is particularly dis-. civilian. employes; the. Deeense
satisfied, his associates say, by Department's code-drank:4;g Na-
the cost and size of the Gov- tional Security Agency with
ermnent's global intelligence op- 100,000 uniformed personnel
erations when compared with and tis Defense Intelligence
their results. In addition to the %gency with 3,000. The C.I.A.
Central Intelligence Agency spends ? about $533-million
rise eraI ancien? yearly; the "no -'I Security
volved in intelligence overseas. Anency SI-billion and the De- appa-,val,
At least 200,000 people are in- fense Intelligence Agency 3500-
volved 150,000 of these uni- million. Closer Ties Possible
The?merit, some experts say, = It is likely, oficials say, that ?
would be to concentrate in one. Mr. Nixon will eventually hein,o
department the collection of ' ;Mr. Helms and a top-level staff
formed personnel in. the De-
fense Department. ?
The President was seriously
irritated, aides say, by two re- foreign intelligence now per- evmeators from C.I.A. heed-
cent failures of the Pentagon's formed not only by the C.I.A. 'quarters in Langley, Va., closer
Defense Intelligence Agency, but ? also by the Array, Navy, ; CO the V.'hite House, possibly
which numbers 3,000 and and Air Force separatelyilinto the National Security
spends an estimated 8500-mil- around the world. However, on- 'Council staff.
Ofikials concede that under
a reorganization Mr. Helms
.e.ltglit relinquish to his deputy,
Lieut. Gen. Robert E. Cushman./
of the Marine Corps, some of
his responsibility for the C.I.A.'s
day-to-day collection opera-
tions and concentrate, instead,
on intelligence evaluation for
the President. One possibility
envisaged under the reorgan-
ization would be the creation
by Mr. Helms of an evaluation
staff in the White House drawn
from the C.I.A.'s Office of Cur-
rent Intelligence and its Office
of National Estimates. ? The
latter prepares long - range
studies in depth of potential
trouble spots.
Another would be the crea-t
tion by Mr. Nixon of a White'
House intelligence evaluations
staff made up of Mr. Helms, _r
General Cushman, Lieut. Gen.
Donald V. Bennett, director of
the Defense Intelligence Agen-
cy, and Ray S. Cline, director -1
of the State Department's
Bureau of Intelligence and Re-
search.
ion yearly. One was faulty in- position would he forthcoming
telligence prior to the abortive from vested interests in the
prison-camp raid at Sontay, in armed service's and in Congress.
North Vietnam, last November. They say, -therefore, that Mr.
The other was failure to fore- Nixon is unlikely to adopt it. -
cast North Vietnamese resist- ? At the other end of the scale,
'informants report, Mr. Nixon
!could merely issue an ex-
!ecutive order defining ? thusi
-strengthening ? th,.,e authority
of Mr. Helms over the int?dlie
gence operations of such power
ful federal agencies as the
.Pentagon, the State Depart-
ment, the Atomic Energy Com-
Mission and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
'Officers Meet Weekly
Their principal intelligence
:officers' meet weekly as mem-
bers of the United States In-
telligence Board. Mr. Helms, as
-the President's chief intelli-
gence adviser and head of the
C.I.A., presides, but his author-
ity is unclear. It derives from a
letter written by President Ken;
nedy in 1963 to John A. Mc-
Cone, one of Mr. Helms,s prede;
cessors, and has never been
updated.
" ? While Mr. Helms has full
'control over the C.I.A., the
Pentagon's worldwide
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ober ?