Office of the Historian

113. Memorandum of Conversation Between the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board1 2

Washington, August 8, 1975, 4 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS:

  • President Ford
  • Members of President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (see attached list)
  • Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
  • Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

[Omitted here is material unrelated to space/telecommunications policy.]

[Page 2]

Baker: I want very briefly to review the status of Soviet electronic telephone surveillance. Our interim actions have been effective, but we are very worried about the longer-term actions. [5 lines not declassified] We think we need to establish communication facilities which will be invulnerable—principally by encryption. We think a new directive is needed to establish clear responsibility for getting the job done. We have such a memo prepared for you. It includes a supervisory group under Ed David. Some are domestic and some overseas; [1 line not declassified].

[Page 3]

Cherne: Let me add on the economic side that it’s only since June that we are trying to find what they are doing [3 lines not declassified].

On a different matter, the most recent poll around New York showed strong feeling that the U.S. had to have a strong national intelligence system. While the citizen likes to read about the CIA, he wants a strong one but under your control.

Foster: One ironic point. There has been publicity about American citizens being spied on, and that others are doing it. Why not just tell them to take out all their equipment?

Baker: It might work for a year or two.

President: Would we not be able to detect whether or not they were putting it back?

Baker: They could probably circumvent it,

Teller: You could at least say we would be doing our best.

Baker: We believe you should put out a directive to take steps to minimize our exposure to the Soviets.

President: I thank you very much. We have some tough decisions to make and you are very helpful.

  1. Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Memoranda of Conversations 1973–1977, Box 14, August 8, 1975. Top Secret. The meeting took place in the Cabinet Room of the White House.↩
  2. The Board discussed measures to counteract Soviet electronic surveillance of U.S. domestic telephone communications.↩