Office of the Historian

193. Memorandum From the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (Carter) to Director of Central Intelligence McCone1

Washington, March 2, 1964.
1.
There are several basic factors to consider:
a.
The NRO has developed into an essentially Air Force owned and operated component, one of whose aims is to get the CIA out of the reconnaissance business, both satellite and aircraft.
b.
The Air Force, the D/NRO, and the staff of the NRO have never been oriented to the intelligence collection responsibility for which NRO was set up.
c.
The bulk of those things that have been undertaken by the Air Force component of NRO have been sloppily done.
d.
Large numbers of actions taken by the NRO are not coordinated with appropriate elements of the Agency and in many cases are done without the knowledge of Mr. [name not declassified].
2.
We could list a large number of gripes by item to prove the foregoing. What is needed, however, is a solution to the problem rather than more discussion of the shortcomings.
3.
I am personally convinced that as long as the Director, NRO, is the Under Secretary of the Air Force or has any allegiance to anyone other than the DCI and SecDef jointly, these jurisdictional matters will continue.
4.
The Air Force and the CIA and any other Governmental agencies having a capability for NRO must be considered as operational assets in their entirety and must not be broken down into small components as part of a line organization under D/NRO.
5.
We must have a D/NRO whose principal orientation is toward intelligence collection and who can utilize through a small staff on a managerial basis only, the assets of the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency as a whole.
MSC
Lieutenant General, USA
  1. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Executive Registry, Job 80–B01676R, Memoranda Originated by General Carter. Secret; Eyes Only. A handwritten notation on the memorandum reads “DCI has noted.”↩