276. Memorandum From Spurgeon Keeny of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1
SUBJECT
- Presidential Initiatives and Actions
At your request, I have prepared the following list of Presidential initiatives and actions which the President might consider during the balance of his term:
[Omitted here is material unrelated to intelligence.]
6. Strengthening the Director of Central Intelligence. The President might undertake by appropriate executive actions to strengthen the position of the Director of Central Intelligence so that he can carry out more effectively the functions supposedly associated with his office. For a variety of reasons, the Director of the CIA has never been able to perform the over-all intelligence coordinating role assigned to him as Director of Central Intelligence. Strong institutional opposition has developed within the various intelligence organizations of the DOD to any external role for the DCI. The President now has the opportunity working with Secretary Clifford, who as former Chairman of the PFIB was in a unique position to understand this complicated organizational problem, to take [Page 602] certain actions which, although desirable, might be quite controversial in the intelligence community. General Taylor, acting either as Chairman of the PFIB or as head of a small task force, could be assigned the job of coming up with specific proposals. If this problem is not sorted out now, it will be a long time before a new Administration comes to grips with it.
[Omitted here is material unrelated to intelligence.]
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Rostow Files, Presidential Program. Secret.↩