377. Memorandum From the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant for Research and Intelligence (Armstrong) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas (Saltzman)0
Charlie:
After reviewing your draft memorandum1 on the State-JCS relationship, I would like to suggest for your consideration the inclusion of the question of intelligence relations between the Department and the JCS as one facet of the general problem that is distinctly susceptible of improvement. If you agree, a section might be included under Discussion along the following lines, perhaps to be inserted between your Sections 9 and 10:
Intelligence Relations
During the war and for some time thereafter the Department maintained formal membership upon the Joint Intelligence Committee and [Page 962] the Joint Intelligence Staff, JCS. In 1947, following the enactment of the National Security Act and the establishment of the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency and the reorganization of the structure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department relinquished its representation in the intelligence echelons of the JCS, although it has maintained informal liaison with the Joint Intelligence Group (successor to the Joint Intelligence Staff). In theory, the expression of the Department’s intelligence viewpoint is made to the JCS through the Central Intelligence Agency and, conversely, the intelligence requirements of the JCS are supposed to be conveyed to the Department through that Agency. The experience of the past 18 months, however, has proven this arrangement to be unsatisfactory and impracticable.
It is not believed necessary that the Department be specifically and formally represented upon the Joint Intelligence Committee, since its intelligence relations with the military intelligence services can be satisfactorily accommodated in the Intelligence Advisory Committee established under the National Security Council to advise the Director of Central Intelligence), but it is believed desirable that a direct channel be re-established between the Department and the Joint Intelligence Group. Such a channel would permit the continuous conveyance of Departmental intelligence of interest to the military to its joint intelligence units and the expression of the joint requirements of the military for politico-economic intelligence.
If you agree that the foregoing should properly be included in your memorandum, it would probably follow that a brief recommendation also be included to cover the re-establishment of direct and official liaison relations between the intelligence area of the Department and the Joint Intelligence Group, JCS.