HOW NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES ARE MADE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00971A000100060002-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 4, 2005
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: REPORT

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HOW NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES ARE MADE
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is an institution
of some years standing. The first was written in the fall of
1950. The NIE has received publicity by name and as a result
there is a wholly understandable public curiosity as to how this
most important finished intelligence document is produced. One
would say most important both because of the care, man hours, and
the high level consideration that go into their preparation, and
the attention they command at the highest policy echelon of the
Government.
The Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. John McCone,
is tae man in last analysis responsible for these documents.
The National Security Act of 1947, which sets forth his duties,
declares him to be responsible for the preparation of the
intelligence for national security and in carrying out this
mandate Mr. McCone has a primary role in the preparation of
these estimates. This is quite a large order and one in which
he is assisted by his own special staff -- the Office of
National Estimates (ONE) of the Central. Intelligence Agency --
and the combined intelligence resources of what is referred to in
Washington parlance as the Intelligence Community. This
community is represented by the intelligence organizations
whose chiefs sit as members of the United States Intelligence
Board. These are: Department of State, Defense Intelligence
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Agency, National Security Agency, the intelligence component
of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In addition, the intelligence chiefs of the three services,
Army, Navy, end Air Force, have observer status on the USIB.
In actual practice, their role in the production of NIEs is
comparable to that of the regular members; they contribute at
each step of the process, including the all-important final one.
Furthermore, should their views not coincide with those of
the Chairman of USIB, their positions will be presented in the
usual footnote of dissent.
National intelligence estimates are constructed for one
single purpose, namely to serve the intelligence requirements
of those high policy making individuals and groups that formulate
national security policy: the President and the members of the
National Security Council, and various ad hoc interdepartmental
task forces.
The procedure through which national intelligence estimates
pass is a procedure designed to make the national intelligence
estimate maximally useful to the purpose it is designed to
serve. Before getting to the machinery itself let me lay out
the four principal desiderata which an estimate muot possess.
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As a matter of highest importance the national intelligence
estimate must incorporate all the truest and most reliable
information, the most advanced and careful intelligence research,
and the most sophisticated intelligence thinking.
It should be the institution which obligates the totality
of national intelligence resources. No one who has not grown
up in the trade can have an idea of the size and power of these
resources.
Lastly, as a practical matter its findings should be in
largest measure possible agreed to by the members (and observers)
of USIB. It can do the policy maker little or no good to be
presonued with an intelligerc,. paper in which areas of disagree-
ment are very large and in which several of the intelligence
chiefs have incorporated resounding dissents to matters of key
importance to the policy consumer. The net result of such a badly
split paper is to oblige the policy maker to resolve the splits
in other words, to force the policy maker to do the work of
intelligence, a task for which he is far less well prepared
than intelligence itself.
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An estimate must arrive in time to be of use to the users
whenever they begin their deliberations on a policy matter.
Advance notice of need for an estimate may amount to months,
weeks, days, or, in times of crises, only hours.
They must deal with astringently limited subject matter.
In the first place they will treat only foreign situations --
never domestic problems. They nust limit themselves to those
areas of a foreign situation with respect to which policy
officials will have a legitimate concern. Within these
limits they will confine themselves to the statement of
knowable relevant facts which are known with a high degree of
accuracy. They will go on to estimate factual situations about
which precise knowledge is wan cd. The type and number of
this kind of estimate is of cou,ase largely a function of how
well a foreign power is able to protect its own secrets of
state. Lastly, they must estimate about things which are
literally unknowable.
This phase of estimating proceeds naturally and unavoidably
from the very essence of policy planning itself. So long as the
policy planner must look into the future in an endeavor to plot
the wise course, so must the intelligence estimator try to
project himself from the factual situation of today into the
speculative areas of tomorrow.
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The qualities of an NIE as set forth above should and, in
fact, do dictate the procedure which produces them. Depending upon
the time available, the procedure trill vary. If short, say a matter
of hours, the procedure is clipped to its two essential steps the writing of the draft and its submission to the Director of
Central Intelligence and the members of the United States Intelligence
Board for approval. If, on the other hand, circumstances permit,
the paper will pass through a routine procedure which may require
several months. Let us examine this latter case for it most fully
illustrates the care with which the desirable qualities are built
into the finished paper.
First, as to timing. Various upper echelon policy makers
or policy-malting groups, themselves daily consumers of intelli-
gence in its many forms, can sometimes block out their activities
for weeks and months in advance. They will know that the policy
paper on Ruritania is probably good for another year but that the
sweep of events is fast calling for a review of policy towards
Bukovenia and 1#alatacha. They will accordingly set an earlier date
for the completion of the review of these two latter policies.
This decision is made known to the intelligence community through
appropriate channels. The Office of National Estimates in the CIA
takes note of the requirement. This organization is the Director's
right hand and the memory and executive group for the whole com-
munity in the matter of national intelligence estimates. Among
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its other duties, the Office of National Estimates tries to antici-
pate the needs of the policy makers. Once each quarter, the 0/1TE
confers with representatives of the intelligence community and
presents to the USIB a schedule of papers to be undertaken for
the next six months. Heedless to say, this schedule rests
squarely on the requirements of the consumer. Such is the
mechanism through which most of the HIES are programmed so as
to arrive at destination in ample time to serve whatever use the
policy makers desire.
Of course, not all estimates can be laid on in this orderly
and far-seeing way. A considerable percentage trill always have to
be laid on to meet policy emergencies and produced under crash
procedures. But the point to bear in mind is that almost no
estimates in their long history have been produced too late. The
few that have met this dismal fate met it through the most un-
predictable of accidents.
One of the classical problems of intelligence work inheres
in the separation of intelligence from policy staffs and in the
fact that each has its own dark secrets which it feels it may not
reveal. Policy people have been known to withhold the reason why
they want such-and-such information from an intelligence organization
on the ground that to explain fully would unnecessarily risk
compromise of an extremely sensitive policy gambit. As long as
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would-be policy consumers play their cards thus close to the
chest, they deny to intelligence exactly the kind of guidance
necessary to make the intelligence contribution most applicable
to their problems. Intelligence, on the other hand, having
given a highly useful answer to the policy people, may find that
it is being regarded skeptically simply because the intelligence
brotherhood does not feel able to reveal the source. It is north
mentioning this classical problem to the lay audience of this
article in order to indicate that never before in our history has
this problem been less important than in the area of national
intelligence estimates. Intelligence is sufficiently in the con-
fidence of the policy people to know the exact requirement and
the why of it, and the policy people sufficiently in the confid-
ence of intelligence to permit intelligence to validate its findings
when necessary by reference to source or method of collection.
Accordingly, the step in the production of estimates calculated
to make the product applicable to consumer wants is a relatively
simple one. It is known in the trade as the "Terms of Reference"
stage.
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Most estimates begin with a document called the Terms of
Reference." These are drafted in the Office of National Estimates,
are discussed when necessary with potential users, are discussed
by representatives of the intelligence community, and become the
cornerstone of the structureto be built.
The terms of reference paper usually looks like a compre-
hensive examination paper for a student who has spent four years
studying the past, present, and probable future of Ruritania. The
questions call for analyses of those parts of Ruritanian history
and present existence as well as for reasoned guesses on probable
future developments that the policy maker will want to hear about.
As a general proposition there will be far more questions on the
econon and military establishment and political problems than on
the Ruritanian family life and prospects at the forthcoming Olympic
games. An VIE is not an encyclopedia. It is a thin document of
pertinent facts and estimates, and the terms of reference discussions
are the means by which this is achieved.
The terms of reference serve another purpose. They are the
first step in the business of seeing to it that the totality of
national intelligence resources are focussed on the problem at
hand. This step is the mechanism through which members of the
intelligence community are authorized to return to their respective
research organizations and to instruct appropriate intelligence
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research staffs to pull together all of their materials on such-
and-such a subject. No one member of the intelligence com.
munity undertakes as a matter of primary obligation to do the
research called for by all of the entries of the terms of reference.
Normally, a very simple breakdown of responsibility is followed:
the State Department's intelligence arm produces answers to the
political and economic questions; the military intelligence organ-
izations the answers to the military questions; the ABC and FBI,
answers to the questions which lie within their responsibilities.
Certain specialized components of the CIA themselves may undertake
studies of important parts of the terms of reference.
The terms of reference session is conducted in the Office
of National Estimates, is chaired by a member of the Board of
National Estimates (a senior group of substantive advisors to the
Director of Central Intelligence), and attended by representatives
of the intelligence community. At this meeting not only are the
matters noted above discussed, but responsibilities fixed for
contributions and a deadline set.
The next step in the process takes place within the several
intelligence research organizations and estimates groups of the
contributing intelligence agencies. The State Department men will
return to his Ruritanian section chief. He may also alert other
specialists in his organization who keep the files on international
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organizations and international trade; perhaps his population or
transportation specialist. To each he will set a task of writing him
copy on the basis of what each has in his head, in his safe, or
knows to be available elsewhere within reach. Ruritanian staff
experts may be dispatched to the Library of Congress, the Depart-
ment of Commerce, a museum, a university library, or a professor
in a learned institution. He may wire the embassy in Ruritania's
capital city, see to it that a half dozen American businessmen
recently returned from a Ruritanian trip are interviewed, request
a careful screening of the preceding year's broadcasts from Radio
Ruritenia, get out the back files of the Ruritanian Times and the
Ruritanian Economic Monthly. If necessary, another intelligence
component will be asked to screen and translate appropriate articles
from a half dozen Ruritanian and other journals.
The Army man will return to his organization with a similar
mission. He will levy upon his own Order of Battle Section, his
Weapons Section, and so on. He may wire his attaches in Ruritania
and nearby countries for up-to-date information on a score of
matters.
And so with the Navy and Air members; and so with appropriate
components of the Central Intelligence Agency itself.
In the Office of National Estimates the staff will begin
blocking out the paper, discussing the key estimates with members
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of the Board of National Estimates against the time when the
written contributions from the agencies will arrive and the formal
draft got under way.
On the appointed day the contributions arrive and the staff
of the Office of National Estimates begin their study and digestion.
The paper is drafted and discussed with the Board of National
Estimates. At this stage of the procedure some problems of great
importance may appear. For example, it may become obvious that
there is comparatively little information on some very important
matters. It may appear that on other important matters there are
very wide differences of opinion between two or three or more of
the contributing agencies. It is up to the Office of National
Estimates to try to fill the gaps in information through calling
on arty intelligence resources it can name and to resolve the funda-
mental differences, at least to its own satisfaction. It will
call upon the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency for
help and it may arrange for informal briefings by the experts of
the outside agencies in question. Its task is to see that the
paper Is as complete as may be and that a position is taken with
respect to the matters at contest. This position is the position
which the Board of National Estimates feels that the Director of
Central Intelligence should take.
The draft estimate is dispatched back to the intelligence
community. There in the member agencies it Is studied and checked
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with the various experts. Within a week or two representatives
of each of the member agencies meet with the Board of National
Estimates to begin the next-to-the-last stage of the process. This
is the stage known in governmentese as "coordination.." The meet-
ing is presided over by the member of the Board of National
Estimates who has ridden hard on the paper from the beginning.
The meetings consist of going over the text word by word and para-
graph by paragraph; setting the text right where errors of fact
have been made; correcting matters of color or emphasis and trying
to reach agreement on the key estimates. If the wide differences
of opinion persist which appeared with the written contributions,
there will be discussions in the presence of experts. There will
be formal briefings by expert staffs. Representatives will take
the problem to their chiefs, discuss them at length with the chief
and with his other expert witnesses. When meetings resume, if
there is no resolution of the conflict, dissenters are invited to
reserve on the paragraph and to compose footnotes of dissent.
At the end of the coordinating process which, in short papers may
take no more than an afternoon, and in the case of long and
difficult papers a score or more of day-long sessions, there
emerges a draft estimate. It represents a systematic ransacking
of the storehouses of knowledge and the work of hundreds of minds,
perhaps thousands, using scores of methods and techniques -- some
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as old as time; some seemingly from the lexicon and Buck Rogers.
It may be, however, that there are still dissents.
The final stage in estimate making occurs at the weekly
meeting of the United States Intelligence Board where the estimate
receives its own full and proper treatment by the intelligence
chiefs themselves. If there are still dissenting opinions, they
are discussed in full and in the event of no resolution, the dis-
sentor commits his objections to a footnote of dissent. If all
has gone well, the policy maker gets his paper on time. It has
been cut to the exact dimensions of his requirements; it can be
said to represent the best collective effort of the intelligence
community, agreed to by all or very nearly all the intelligence
chiefs of the government.
How is one to account for dissents when everybody involved
works from the same inventory of information? The point is that
there are never dissents with respect to the knowable things that
are in fact known and there are seldom dissents with respect to
knowable things that do not happen to be known with exactness.
Dissents almost invariably arise with respect to estimates of
those things which are literally unknowable. In this case it is
all too obvious that no two men need make identical extra-
polations. Any two men may find it reasonably easy to agree on
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the nature of the past and the nature of the present and make
widely divergent estimates as to what the future holds. The
reason for dissents is not much more complicated than that which
makes horseracing an interesting sport.
Upon occasions it has been skid that the process by which
national intelligence estimates are written is a process dominated
by compromise and that the resultant is a dull gray document
full of platitudes. To be sure, unimportant differences of opinion
are often compromised, words or phrases offensive to one party are
sometimes striken in the interests of getting on with the job,
but the simple fact that these compromises are made is witness to
their relative unimportance. By the same token, crucial issues
are seldom, if ever, compromised. Disagreements about them are
the stuff dissents are made of.
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