The Secretary has asked me to examine the present and prospective needs
for information handling in the Department of State in the light of the
welcome initiative and recommendations recently made by your Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board.2 I am enclosing a
memorandum which sets forth our position on those recommendations.
In essence, the Department strongly favors new efforts to improve
information handling within the intelligence community and shares the
view of the Board that immediate, concerted action is required.
Our objective is to provide the leadership in the foreign affairs
agencies with a common data base of relevant facts. We believe that, to
assure the adoption of complementary elements of a unified system by all
members of the community, thorough coordination is called for, and that
the Director of Central Intelligence should be designated as
coordinator. Until further study has been made of the needs of each
agency and the scope of the proposed system, it seems premature to
determine the extent to which centralized management may be required in
either the design or the operation of the eventual system, and we
believe that the recommendations of the Board should be amended in this
respect.
We realize that until the present financial uncertainties facing the
Government are resolved, designs and plans for a comprehensive
information-handling system must be considered tentative and
preparatory. The costs will be considerable, and our memorandum
discusses the need for a carefully-formulated funding plan and
Congressional strategy.
Attachment
THE INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION-HANDLING PROBLEM:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE POSITION ON THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE
PRESIDENT’S FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE ADVISORY BOARD
The Department of State strongly favors new efforts to improve the
intelligence community’s information-handling system, so as to
insure better methods for the dissemination, use, and retrieval of
foreign affairs information.
The Department of State is the prime user of the increasing flow of
materials which constitute intelligence and foreign affairs
information. Thus, in designing any information-handling program,
apart from technical military data, the information requirements of
the Department of State are preeminent and the system must serve the
needs of the Secretary of State as the principal adviser to the
President in the formulation and execution of the foreign policy of
the United States. The adequacy of the Government’s information base
for foreign policy formulation is obviously one of the matters
falling within the general supervisory authority assigned to the
Secretary of State by NSAM-341 of
March 2, 1966.3
The Department agrees fully with the President’s Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board in its description of the urgency of the problem,
aggravated by the tremendous growth in the collection and
distribution of intelligence information, and in its view that
immediate concerted action by the intelligence community is
required. The Department has long felt the need for an effective
community-wide intelligence information-handling system which would
not only cope with the anticipated proliferation in intelligence and
foreign policy information but would also permit the timely
retrieval of primary foreign affairs documentation long consigned to
archives. Thorough coordination is required to assure the adoption
by all members of the United States intelligence community of
complementary elements of such a system.
It nevertheless seems premature, at this embryonic stage in the
development of a complex system, to make a determination that
strong, centralized management will be required or even feasible. We
are far from knowing what the information needs of the respective
agencies will be in the future.
[Page 595]
Under the provisions of National Security Council Intelligence
Directive No. 1,4 the Director of Central
Intelligence has the responsibility of “coordinating” intelligence
community activities, with the advice and assistance of the United
States Intelligence Board. This cooperative relationship has worked
well, and the Department believes that it is within this context
that the information-handling effort should be undertaken.
Accordingly, for the purpose of initial system design and program
presentation, the Director of Central Intelligence should be
designated with USIB participation
to coordinate intelligence community action and Basic
Recommendations No. 1 and No. 3 should be amended accordingly. The
degree of centralized management which may ultimately be needed will
become clear only as the design of a compatible community-wide
system takes shape and its constituent elements are identified.
With this change, the Department would have no difficulty with the
additional provision of Basic Recommendation No. 1 which charges the
Director of Central Intelligence with the coordination of a phased
plan for review with the Fiscal Year 1969 budget. A great imbalance
exists among the several Departments and Agencies as to the current
level of development, and a special effort will be necessary to
upgrade some components of the system, including those of the
Department of State. The Department has recently employed a small
staff of information-handling experts to develop a program for a
modern substantive information-handling capability. We now have a
proposal for a five-year program of technological modernization with
an initial program in Fiscal Year 1969 calling for fifteen
additional positions and $334,000 in operating and contracting
funds. The entire five-year plan for the Department in Washington
might be in the magnitude of eight million dollars. Substantial
additional sums would be required for installation of the system at
field posts. This program has been designed to meet the Department’s
own internal requirements.
The costs to the community as a whole of the information-handling
system proposed by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board will undoubtedly be many millions, and consequently a most
carefully formulated funding presentation for Congressional
consideration will be required. Fundamental budgetary and strategic
considerations are involved, and questions of how to budget for
common-use elements of the system as well as for departmental
components of the unified community system should be left for
subsequent high-level decision. Equally important is the issue of
whether there should be a composite intelligence community program,
presented as a single budget
[Page 596]
request for funding outside the normal appropriation cycle, or
whether the program should be presented in pieces as regular parts
of the annual budget of each community agency having responsibility
for providing a facility or service which will be a part of the
community program. The best solution may be a combination of
specially-provided community funding for central and common
components, plus identified departmental budget items for
departmentally-operated components.
Finally, the Department agrees with the rationale for the creation of
a high-level review body within the Executive Office of the
President and wholeheartedly supports Basic Recommendation No.
2.
The Department also agrees that, contingent upon the issuance of the
recommended Presidential Directive, early consideration should be
given to such actions as those listed in the form of Supplementary
Recommendations by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board. No discussion of these recommendations is deemed necessary at
this time.
In a final recommendation, the President’s Board proposes that the
Department seek to improve its internal procedures for using
intelligence information in the formulation of foreign policy.
Before commenting on this recommendation, it would be useful to have
the benefit of the Board’s thinking as to the nature of present
deficiencies in this regard.
