Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume II,
Organization and Management of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1969–1972
187. Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence Helms to Secretary of
Defense Laird and the
Deputy Secretary of Defense (Packard)1
Washington, February 27, 1969.
SUBJECT
- Major Intelligence Problems, Particularly in the SIGINT Field
- 1.
- With further reference to my memorandum of 18 February,2 I am enclosing a paper which
outlines my views on the Government’s SIGINT activities.
- 2.
- In July 1967 the President directed that a special review of these
activities be conducted by the Director of Central Intelligence. The
purpose of the review was to assess the efficiency of these
operations and their responsiveness to national needs at minimum
necessary cost. To assist me I appointed a special study group
chaired by Mr. Frederick M. Eaton, which submitted its report in
August 1968. Since then I have received comments on the report from
various elements of the Department of Defense as well as from the
Director of the Bureau of the Budget. A copy of the Eaton report is
attached.3 The other members of
the study group were Mr. Livingston Merchant, General Lauris
Norstad, and Mr. Eugene Fubini.
- 3.
- The annexed memorandum sets forth in rather general terms some of
the conclusions which I have reached after considering the Eaton
recommendations and the various comments on them. I propose
ultimately to transmit my recommendations concerning possible
measures to improve the organization and administration of the
SIGINT effort to the
President through you. Before putting such recommendations in final
form, however, I would like to discuss with you personally the broad
outlines of the main problem as I see them. In anticipation of such
a discussion, the attached paper provides a summary of my views.
When you have had a chance to review it, I should appreciate an
opportunity to talk to you about specific actions that may be
taken.
Attachment
Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence
Helms
Conclusions Concerning Possible Improvements in the
Organization and Administration of U.S. SIGINT Programs
- 1.
- There is a need to bring together review of the three major
intelligence programs of the Department of Defense (the
Consolidated [Page 379]
Cryptologic Program, the Consolidated Intelligence Program and
the National Reconnaissance Program). As you know, these account
together for something on the order of 85% of the total
resources devoted to national intelligence. In the past these
programs have been considered by separate reviewing authorities,
which has complicated the problem of identifying gaps and
redundancies in the intelligence effort as a whole. Better
arrangements are needed for identifying and evaluating all the
resources and activities committed to the coverage of particular
targets and problems, particularly where high cost systems are
involved. It is also important that all of the Defense
Department’s intelligence programs at the national level should
be kept under more or less continuous review and that this be
done with full recognition of the relationship of each to the
others and to the total efforts of the community. In this way it
should be possible to assess more clearly the intelligence
impact of resource decisions. It was largely to facilitate the
process of continuing review of the totality of the Defense
Department intelligence effort that I recommended that you
appoint a senior official to act as a Special Assistant to the
Deputy Secretary for intelligence resource matters.
- 2.
- Resources must be more closely related to intelligence needs
than they now are. I believe that we have made considerable
progress in trying to achieve this. Among the more important
steps is the establishment of the National Intelligence
Resources Board (NIRB),
consisting of top representatives of the principal intelligence
producers, i.e., DIA, State and
CIA, chaired by the Deputy
Director of Central Intelligence. The purpose of this Board is
to provide me with informed advice concerning the real need for
particular systems or activities when the information which they
produce, or are likely to produce, is balanced against their
cost. We have established a Target Oriented Display (TOD) to
assist the NIRB in identifying
and assessing the totality of resources applied to particular
national intelligence needs. In this connection, we will need
your help in persuading certain elements of the intelligence
community to conduct their business so that they can be
adequately responsive to calls for information on the resources
which they deploy, including cost data.
- 3.
- We are also endeavoring to devise more effective means of
arriving at an accurate assessment of the true value of the
intelligence which is eventually produced as a result of the
operation of particular resources. This is a most complex
problem and we have been trying to attack it in several
different ways, including the use of advanced methods of systems
analysis.
- 4.
- The mechanism of the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB) and its functional
committees has been useful in developing intelligence
requirements in the first instance. A good deal of progress has
been made [Page 380] in
developing procedures to provide a continuing assessment and
refinement of these requirements with the objective of keeping
the flow of raw intelligence information within reasonable and
effective bounds. This problem has been exacerbated by the
steadily increasing technical effectiveness of collection
systems. Here we have encountered a certain amount of natural
reluctance to make hard selective decisions concerning what data
is really essential or at least important. I suggest that we
will all have to work together to achieve a proper balance
between the “nice to know” and the “need to know.”
- 5.
- Much thought has been given to the desirability of attempting
to formulate a long term national intelligence plan to determine
the objectives, targets and priorities of the intelligence
effort. A plan, in the conventional sense of the word, is
probably too elaborate and rigid a format for the provision of
practical guidance for intelligence activity. It is hard to
conceive of a planning document which would be very helpful in
projecting the intricate and multitudinous activities
contemplated for American intelligence activity over an
appreciable period of time. An alternative would be a series of
program memoranda related to the intelligence effort against the
more important areas. Such memoranda could define the objectives
of the effort in the area, describe the resources committed and
recommend the maintenance of a particular level of effort and
the allocation of particular resources to this effort. The
recommendations of the memoranda, insofar as they relate to
resources, would be based, in part at least, on the results of
systems evaluations completed during the course of a program
year. Preparation of such program memoranda would be the joint
responsibility of the DCI’s
staff and designated elements of the Defense Department.
- 6.
-
One of the most difficult problems in the SIGINT field is to achieve a
proper allocation of resources as between those devoted to
national requirements and those which are necessary to
support military units, particularly in the case of ELINT.
Under NSCID 6,5 NSA is
assigned the mission to provide “an effective unified
organization and control of the COMINT and ELINT intercept
and processing activities of the U.S.” This would appear to
be ample authority for NSA but in practice this centralized
control has been eroded. At the heart of the problem is the
fact that almost all the collection resources of the CCP are operated by one of the
three service cryptologic agencies (SCA’s). The SCA’s are oriented in large measure to the needs of
their respective parent services. Thus, while NSA nominally
has tasking authority over all COMINT and ELINT collection
facilities, it has perforce delegated [Page 381] control of a substantial
portion of these facilities to the SCA’s so they might fulfill the intelligence
needs placed upon them by their parent services.
Particularly in the area of ELINT collection, resources
programmed against national requirements are at times
diverted to meet the tactical needs of local military
commanders without the consent of the Director, NSA. The
result has been that a portion of the resources of the
CCP which are allocated
and justified on the basis of national intelligence needs
are subsequently tasked to meet other requirements.
There are some resources which are now clearly and
unequivocally being tasked for exclusively tactical needs.
Such resources should be identified by careful study, then
removed from the CCP and
assigned to the sole jurisdiction of the military commands
they are serving, as elements essential to military
operations and readiness. Criteria should be not the nature
of the equipment but the purpose it serves. They should be
funded through normal service channels rather than under one
of the national intelligence programs. By undertaking such
action, I believe that some of the tugging and hauling for
resources that now goes on between NSA and the military
services can be eliminated.
- 7.
- The authority of the Director, NSA over all resources, other
than those transferred to the military services or commands on
the grounds that they serve essentially tactical purposes,
should be confirmed and strengthened.
- 8.
- It would be desirable to do away with the present
subordination of the Director of NSA to DDR&E, and to have him report directly to the
Deputy Secretary, recognizing that additional staff support in
the form of the senior assistant proposed will be necessary. The
establishment of a cryptologic career within the services should
be encouraged and supported. Steps toward this objective have
already been taken but further progress is possible.
- 9.
- The capability of the Director, NSA for direction and guidance
of the cryptologic community should be strengthened by the
assignment of senior officials with experience and competence in
planning and programming.
- 10.
-
Existing arrangements between the National Reconnaissance
Office (NRO) and the rest of
the intelligence community, including NSA, appear to me
generally satisfactory. The NRO agreement was negotiated with considerable
difficulty with a view to accommodating conflicting
interests. It has provided an increasingly effective
mechanism through which the potentialities and capabilities
of various agencies of the Government for overhead
reconnaissance have been exploited. Design, development and
operational control of overhead sensors has proceeded under
the overall direction and coordination of the Director,
NRO. Guidance to this
effort is established through the appropriate USIB mechanisms which
determine the number, frequency [Page 382] and objectives of missions required
from particular sensors, e.g., the resolution of photography
for certain purposes, frequencies, band widths and general
characteristics of signals to be intercepted, is determined
as a result of a dialogue between the substantive elements
of the community (acting through USIB) and the appropriate echelons of the
NRO. [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]
is adequately represented in USIB and maintains effective working
relationships, at the technical level, with the NRO.
The processing facilities of NSA play an essential part in
the exploitation of data collected from SIGINT satellite operations
just as the National Photographic Interpretation Center
(NPIC) plays an
essential part in the exploitation of overhead photography.
Action to ensure that facilities for processing the take
from overhead reconnaissance activities are adequate can be
taken through the appropriate USIB mechanisms and in any event should be part
of the program review responsibilities of the managers of
the intelligence programs. The measures recommended above to
establish more centralized supervision over the intelligence
activities of the Defense Department would help to ensure
that appropriate action is taken to relate all processing
facilities to all collection activities.
- 11.
- I believe that these general conclusions can serve as the
basis for specific actions to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of the management of all Defense Department
intelligence programs, including specifically SIGINT.
