LETTER TO RED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-06362A000200010006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2000
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: July 21, 1971
• Content Type: LETTER

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21 July 1971
Dear Red:
I came away from the Deputies' meeting with a sense of profound discourage-
ment over the real meaning of the discussion that took place. The real subject
was not the National Interdepartmental Seminar, it was the importance of training.
And not a man in the room said a single word in recognition of that importance.
The way one man after another commented mostly on the difficulty (or lack of
intention) of finding people to send to a course emphasized more clearly than I have
ever heard it before that training is a not very tolerable obstacle to getting the job
done. When Tom K. said "On top of all this youre now asking us to send a lot of top-
grade people to your Senior Seminar, " he cast it as an accusation, not as a challenging
opportunity to help people do their jobs better.
Nobody had the slightest interest in my point that three weeks in the NIS had
been shown to be valuable to a lot of people all over the outfit. What little grudging
acceptance the point got showed both skepticism and a lack of interest in finding out
whether the course might be valuable after all. If anybody were interested, he would
have been willing to look at critiques from his own people, and ask questions about the
content and conduct of the course. Simple assertions that the course used to be
more relevant than it is now are very ill informed.
What bugs everybody most is the amount of manpower required. But if they were
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interested in training when it's good, and in the opportunity to cross -fertilize
the rest of the community, they could find two or three times as many people as
the quota we allowed ourselves to accept years ago (when the course was five weeks).
The best proof of this is the rush to get into the external courses that last many
times as long. If CIA sent eight people to each of six/three -week runnings, the
total cost in manpower would be 144 man-weeks, or less than three man-years
divided among 48 people. By contrast, the nominations for the senior external
courses for 1972 add up to a certification that the Agency can spare senior manpower
for 37. 8 man -years. Since each nomination is a sign that the nominee can be spared
for up to ten or eleven months, the whole list works out like this:
(See Attached Tables)
Fewer than half of these can be accepted, so that the total manpower drain will be
proportionately less. But each individual nomination tells us "I can spare this
senior officer for x months. " And this does not count the Federal Executive Institute;
for our eight slots per year (times eight weeks each) we have had as many as eighteen
ergrada p Pffg~PPWPbleaUd2bblftA~ &A4ge* WAM66b20Obf Sr7people for
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all the additional management programs, Brookings seminars, etc. , plus thirty-odd
people off on full-time academic training at any given time, and it becomes clear
that people can be made available when their superiors are interested.
The question arises why it is so easy to spare a man for the courses listed
above and so hard to send people to the short NIS course or some of the good courses
given by OTR. I am coming to conclude that the directorates want their subordinates
to be selected for the prestige involved and not for what they learn. Nobody ever
questions the value of the war colleges; people assume that value without noticing
that month after month of the courses has next to nothing to do with the functions of
CIA. Why do they assume the lack of value of three weeks in the NIS, every bit
of it spent either learning from or contributing to discussions of matters that
profoundly concern the functions of CIA? The war colleges have a reputation for
prestige and glamor (highly inflated in my opinion), and the NIS has none. It's as
simple as that. For myself, I continue to believe that many people from the Agency
have found the NIS personally valuable, as they have attested in a thick file of laudatory
critiques, and I am especially sure that the NIS is an excellent forum for CIA representa-
tives to educate the rest of the community.
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Nominees for Senior Schools 1972-73
Directorate of Intelligence
School/Program
Air War College - 42 weeks
Armed Forces Staff College - 21 weeks
Army War College - 44 weeks
Industrial College of the Armed Forces -
42 weeks
National War College - 43 weeks
Naval War College - 44 weeks
Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy -
43 weeks
Grade/Nominees
GS-14 - 2
GS-13 - 6
GS-12 - 1
GS-14 - 2
GS-15 - 1
GS-15 - 2
GS-14 - 2
GS-15-2
GS-16 - 1
GS-15 - 1
14 years
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Nominees for Senior Schools 1972-?73
School/Program
Grade/Nominees
Total Weeks
Advanced Management Program, Harvard
13 weeks
Air War College - 42 weeks
Armed Forces Staff College - 21 weeks
Army War College - 44 weeks
National War College - 43 weeks
Naval War College - 44 weeks
Program for Management Development,
Harvard - 14 weeks
Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy -
43 weeks
GS-14-?2
GS-13 -. 2
GS-14 -
GS-15 -. 3
GS-14 -
GS-15 -
GS-16 - 3
499
9-3/5 years
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Nominees for Senior Schools 1972-73
Support Services
School/Program
Grade/Nominees
Total Weeks
Advanced Management Program, Harvard -
13 weeks
GS-16 - 1
13
Air War College - 42 weeks
GS-14 - 1
42
Armed Forces Staff College - 21 weeks
GS-14 - 1
GS-13 - 7
Army War College - 44 weeks
GS-14 - 2
88
Industrial College of the Armed Forces -
42 weeks
GS-15 - 1
42
National War College - 43 weeks
GS-15 - 2
Naval War College - 44 weeks
GS-14 - 3
Program for Management Development,
GS-14 - 3
56
Harvard - 14 weeks
GS-13 - 1
22
627
12 years
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Nominees for Senior Schools 1972-73
Directorate of Science
& Technology
School/Program Grade/Nominees Total Weeks
Industrial College of the Armed Forces - GS-15 -
42 weeks
National War College - 43 weeks GS-15 -
Program for Management Development, GS-15 -
Harvard - 14 weeks GS-13
43
2-1/5 years
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