234. National Security Council Report1
STATUS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAMS AS OF JUNE 30, 1955
[Omitted here are Parts 1–6.]
Part 7—THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM
(Prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency and concurred in by the Intelligence Advisory Committee)2
[Omitted here is a Table of Contents.]
(Note: The intelligence community was recently investigated by the Clark Task Force of the Hoover Commission.3 The findings of the Commission, which are presently under advisement, are not covered or commented on in this report. The comments of the organizations reported on are being transmitted separately to the White House in accordance with customary procedure.)
I. Summary
A. Evaluation of U.S. Capabilities to Provide Warning of Attack
We believe, as we did at the time of our previous report, that the U.S. could expect possibly as much as six months and not less than 30 days warning of Soviet preparation for full-scale land, sea, and air attack, providing that the Soviets went to full, or nearly full mobilization prior to the attack.
The current estimate of the growing air capabilities of the USSR has made us somewhat more pessimistic than we were last year regarding our ability to give advance intelligence warning of surprise air attack. Should the USSR attempt a major surprise air attack against the U.S. from forward bases in 1955, the preparations might be detected, [Page 721] and if they were, would provide a generalized degree of warning of several days, and specific warning of unusual and possibly threatening air activity on the order of 18–24 hours. A lesser scale of attack, involving about 250 aircraft, if accompanied by an extraordinary security effort could be launched as early as 1955 with no assurance of specific advance warning to U.S. intelligence (apart from that provided by early warning radar). Attacks against U.S. bases or forces overseas, or against U.S. allies, could be made with equal or greater likelihood of being accomplished without advance warning.
In the period between now and 1958, Soviet capabilities for surprise attacks will almost certainly increase. Furthermore, the USSR will have a progressively increasing capability for launching attacks on the U.S. from interior Soviet bases. Such a method of attack would probably provide no specific advance warning to U.S. intelligence.
The USAF now operates world-wide on a 24-hour basis an Indications System for detecting imminent Communist attacks, especially air attack with nuclear weapons. Major air commands have subsidiary centers tied in with Washington by preferential use channels of communication for flash transmission of early warning intelligence. This system is in turn tied in with the unified command indications centers and with the National Indications Center in Washington, which is maintained on a 24-hour basis by the Watch Committee of the IAC.4
B. Evaluation of Soviet Capabilities and Intentions
Intelligence to support over-all assessments of the strengths of the USSR, Communist China, and the Satellites is generally improving. The general limitations of intelligence on the USSR are evident in the process of attempting to measure the forces shaping Soviet policy. We can illuminate the broad outlines of the chief problems confronting Soviet leadership, but we are still unable to determine the degree to which these problems, such as allocation of Soviet economic resources and German rearmament, generate pressures on Soviet policy. The main questions of political intelligence often involve matters of judgment on which little or no factual evidence can be brought to bear—the degree of independence enjoyed by Communist China in matters of major policy, the degree of likelihood that the USSR will withdraw from East Germany, the likelihood of open intervention by the USSR in hostilities between the U.S. and Communist China which threatened the existence of the latter.
We have made progress in economic intelligence on the USSR, most notably in improving techniques for measuring economic growth. [Page 722] However, there remains the basic problem, that of determining the extent to which the Soviet economy is capable of meeting the competing claims for resources arising from the various internal and external commitments of Soviet policy. In an effort to find some solution to this problem, we have recently focused attention on a particularly difficult aspect of intelligence on Soviet resources allocation, the estimated economic cost of the over-all Soviet military effort.
New techniques for acquiring and analyzing data have advanced our knowledge of Soviet scientific and technological capabilities. Progress has been made in intelligence on Soviet development of guided missiles and electronic equipment, and on the Soviet nuclear program. Despite advances in these and other fields, important questions such as the characteristics of various guided missiles, the existence and nature of a Soviet biological warfare program, and the apportionment of nuclear material among various types of weapons and systems, remain to be answered.
Although we have succeeded in collecting much information on the separate branches of the Soviet armed forces, we have yet to construct the picture of probable Soviet strategy so essential to estimating general trends in the Soviet military establishment, probable Soviet choices in weapons systems, or the strength of particular military components. The requirement for such estimates is particularly urgent at the present time because of recent indications that Soviet military thinking is adjusting to the impact of modern military technology.
C. Collection
In most respects there has been little over-all change in our collection capabilities within the Bloc, largely because of the continued strict enforcement of Sino-Soviet security and counterintelligence measures. However, there has been a considerable improvement in the collection of intelligence data through technological means such as ELINT, together with increasing use of aerial reconnaissance. Evacuation of U.S. forces from Austria will deprive the military services of a significant intelligence base. Service collection units in Austria will be transferred to West Germany, where operational requirements are being carefully considered in U.S.-West German negotiations on a new Forces Arrangement.5
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, S/S–NSC Files: Lot 63 D 351, NSC 5525. Top Secret. The full report was transmitted to the National Security Council under cover of an August 31 memorandum from Acting Executive Secretary of the National Security Council Gleason.↩
- On July 19, A. Sidney Buford III, Director of the Office of Libraries and Intelligence Acquisition, Department of State, sent to the IAC the State Department’s contribution to the IAC’s semi-annual report on the Foreign Intelligence Program to the National Security Council. The Department of State report is in National Archives, RG 59, INR Files: Lot 58 D 776, IAC–D–55 Series on Foreign Intelligence Program.↩
- See Document 220. For the public report by the task force on intelligence, see Document 221.↩
- For a description of the National Indications Center and the Watch Committee of the IAC, see Document 218.↩
- Under the terms of the Austrian State Treaty signed in Vienna on May 15 all World War II allied occupying powers were scheduled to evacuate Austria within 90 days of the treaty coming into force. (See Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. V) This provision is in Article 20 of the treaty, which is printed in full in Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XXXII, June 6, 1955, pp. 916 ff. In preparation, the U.S. Government was negotiating a new status of forces agreement with the West German government. ( Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. XXVI, pp. 242 and 300)↩