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CHURCH COMMITTEE REPORTS
II. THE FOREIGN AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
OPERATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES: AN OVERVIEW
Permanent institutions for the conduct of secret foreign and military
intelligence activities are a relatively new feature of American
government. Secure behind two oceans and preoccupied with the settlement
of a continent, America had no permanent foreign intelligence
establishment for more than a century and a half. In times of crisis,
Americans improvised their intelligence operations. In times of peace,
such operations were not needed and were allowed to lie fallow.
Despite the experience of the First World War, Americans believed
they could continue this pattern well into the Twentieth Century. The
military services developed important technical intelligence capabilities,
such as the breaking of the Japanese code, but the American
public remained unaware of the importance of effective intelligence for
its security. As a world power, the United States came late to intelligence.
It came on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl
Harbor.
That searing intelligence failure led to the Congress' first effort to
deal with the necessity and complexity of modern intelligence. The
Joint Committee on the Pearl Harbor Attack, after a sweeping investigation,
recommended in 1946 a unified and permanent intelligence
effort by the United States-concepts ultimately embodied in
the basic charter for American intelligence, The National Security
Act adopted by the Congress in 1947. However, neither the Pearl
Harbor Committee, nor the National Security Act addressed some
of the fundamental problems secret intelligence operations pose for
our democratic and constitutional form of government and America's
unique system of checks and balances.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities represents
the second major effort by the Con~ress to come to grips with intelligence
problems, in particular the basic constitutional and structural
issues arising from a permanent secret intelligence establishment.
While these problems were the subject of the investigation and are
the focus of this report, the Select Committee wishes to emphasize that
it found much that was good and proper in America's intelligence
efforts. In particular, the capacity and dedic8ltion of the men and
women serving in our intelligence services is to be commended.
This inquiry was not brought forth by an individual event such as
a massive intelli~ence failure threatening the nation's security. Rather
it is the result of a series of occurrences adversely affecting the liberties
of individual Americans and undermining the long-term interests and
reputation of the United States. In effect, the Select Committee was
created to deal with the question of whether our democratic system has
effectively governed in the crucial area of secret intelligence.
(15)
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Mr. Clark Clifford, one of the authors of the National Security
Act of 1947, told the Committee that:
The law that was drawn in 1947 was of a general nature
and properly so, because it was the first law of its kind. We
were blazing a new trail. 1
It has been the responsibility of the Select Committee to consider
where this ~ecret trail has taken the nation, and with this as prologue,
to begin the task of charting the future.
A. THE BASIC ISSUEs: SECRECY AND DEMOCRACY
The task of democratic government is to reconcile conflicting values.
The fundamental question faced by the Select Committee is how to
reconcile the clash between secrecy and democratic government itself.
Secrecy is an essential part of most intelligence activities. However,
secrecy undermines the United States Government's capacity to deal
effectively with the principal issues of American intelligence addressed
by the Select Committee :
-The lack of clear legislation defining the authority for permissible
intelligence activities has been justified in part for reasons of
secrecy. Absent clear legal boundaries for intelligence activities, the
Constitution has been violated in secret and the power of the executive
branch has gone unchecked, unbalanced.
-Secrecy has shielded intelligence activities from full 'accountability
and effective supervision both within the executive branch
and by the Congress.
-Reliance on covert action has been excessive because it offers a
secret shortcut around the democratic process. This shortcut has led
to questionable foreign involvements and unacceptable acts.
-The important line between public and private action has become
blurred as the result of the secret use of private institutions and individuals
by intelligence agencies. This clandestine relationship has
called into question their integrity and undermined the crucial
independent role of the private sector in the American system of
democracy.
-Duplication, waste, inertia and ineffectiveness in the intelligence
community has been one of the costs of insulating the intelligence
bureaucracy from the rigors of Congressional and public scrutiny.
-Finally, secrecy has been a tragic conceit. Inevitably, the truth
prevails, and policies pursued on the premise that they could be plausibly
denied, in the end damage America's reputation and the faith
of her people in their government.
For three decades, these problems have grown more intense. The
United States Government responded to the challenge of secret intelligence
operations by resorting to procedures that were informal,
implicit, tacit. Such an approach could fit within the tolerances of
our democratic system so long as such activities were small or temporary.
Now, however, the permanence and ~cale of America's int.elligence
effort and the persistence of its problems require a different
solution.
1 Clark Clifford testimony, 12/5/75, Hearings, vol. 7, p. 50.
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B. THE SCOPE OF THE SELECT COMMITl'EE'S INQUIRY INTO FOREIGN AND
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
The operations of the United States Government in the field of
intelligence involve the activities of hundreds of thousands of individuals
and the expenditure of billions of dollars. They are carried out
by a complex "community" of organizations whose functions interact
and overlap. Because of their scope, the Select Committee could not
deal in depth with all aspects of America's intelligence activities.
Instead the Committee focused on the principal organizations, their
key functions and the major issues confronting the United States in
the field of foreign and military intelligence. In doing so, the Committee
sought to uncover the truth of alleged abuses by the intelligence
agencies and to ascertain the legitimate needs and requirements
of an effective future intelligence system for the United States that
can function within the boundaries established by the Constitution
and our democratic form of government.
The Select Committee focused on five institutions:
-The National Security Oouncil (NSC), which on behalf of the
President, is supposed to direct the entire national security apparatus
of the United States Government, including the intelligence community.
As the senior policymaking body in the executive branch in the
field of national security, the NSC is also the ultimate consumer of the
nation's intelligence product.
-The Director of Oentral Intelligence (DCI), who is charged with
producing intelligence which reflects the judgments of all of the intelligence
organizations in the executive branch. He is also supposed
to "coordinate" the activities of these organizations.
-The Oentral Intelligence Agency, which houses the governmenfs
central analytical staff for the production of intelligence, but which
devotes its major efforts to developing new means of technical collection
and to operating America's clandestine intelligence service
throughout the world. In the latter capacity it carries out covert action,
paramilitary operations and espionage.
-The Department of State, which is the primary sonrce of intelligence
on foreign political and economic matters, and as such is both a
competitor in the collection and evaluation of intelligence and a potential
source of external control over clandestine intelligence activities
of the Central Intelligence Agency.
-The Department of Defeme, which is the major collector of intelligence,
the largest consumer, as well as the principal manager of
the resources devoted to intelligence. It houses the largest intelligence
collection organization, the National Security Agency (NSA), and
the largest intelligence analysis organization, the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA).
C. THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS: THEORY AND REALITY
These organizations, and some of their offshoots, constitute the
United States intelligence community. In theory at least, their operations
can be described in simple terms by the following cycle:
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-Those who use intelligence, the "consumers," indicate the kind
of information needed.
-These needs are translat€d into concrete "requirements" by senior
intelligence managers.
-The requirements are used to allocate resources to the "collectors"
and serve to guide their efforts.
-The collectors obtain the required information or "raw
intelligence."
-The "raw intelligence" is collated and turned into "finished intelligence"
by the "analysts."
-The finished intelligence is distributed to the consumer and the
intelligence managers who state new needs, define new requirements,
and make necessary adjustments in the intelligence programs to improve
effectiveness and efficiency.
In reality this pattern is barely recognizable.
There are many different consumers, from the President to the
weapons designer. Their needs can conflict. Consumers rarely take
the time to define their intelligence needs and even if they do so there
is no effective and systematic mochanism for translating them into
intelligence requirements.
Therefore, intelligence requirements reflect what intelligence managers
think the consumers need, and equally important, what they
think their organizations can produce. Since there are many managers
and little central control, each is relatively free to set his own
requirements.
Resources therefore tend to be allocated according to the priorities
and concerns of the various intelligence bureaucracies. Most intelligence
collection operations are part of other organizations-the Department
of Defense, the Department of State-and so their requirements
and their consumers are often the first to be served.
Collecting intelligence is not an automatic process. There are many
different kinds of intelligence, from a radar return to an indiscreet remark,
and the problems in acquiring it vary greatly. Information that
is wanted may not be available, or years may be required to develop
an agency or a technical device to get it. Meanwhile intelligence agencies
collect what they can.
In the world of bureaucracy, budgets, programs, procurement,
and managers, the needs of the analyst can be lost in the shuffle. There
has been an explosion in the volume and Quality of raw intelligence but
no equivalent increase in the capacity of analytical capabilities. As a
result, "raw" intelligence increasingly dominates "finished" intelligence;
analysts find themselves on a treadmill where it is difficult to
do more than summarize and put in context the intelligence flowing
in. There is little time or reward for the task of providing insight.
In the end the consumer. particularly at the highest levels of the
go\'ernment, finds that his most imnortant questions are not only
unanswered, but sometimes not even addressed.
To some extent, all this is in the nature of things. Many questions
ca~mot be answered. The world of intelligence is dominated by uncertamty
and chance, and those in the intelligence bureaucracy, as else19
where in the Government, try to defend themselves against uncertainties
in ways which militate against efficient management and
accountability.
Beyond this is the fact that the organizations of the intelligence
community must operate in peace but be prepared for war. This has
an enormous impact on the kind of intelligence that is sought, the way
resources are allocated, and the way the intelligence community is
organized and managed.
Equally important, the instruments of intelligence have been forged
into weapons of psychological, political, and paramilitary warfare.
This has had a profound effect on the perspective and preoccupations
of the leadership of the intelligence community, downgrading
concerns for intelligence in relation to the effective execution of
operations.
These problems alone would undermine any rational scheme, but
it is also Important to recognize that the U.S. mtelligence community
is not the work of a single author. It has evolved from an interaction
of the above internal factors and the external forces that have shaped
America's history since the end of the Second World War.
D. EVOLUTION OF THE UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
The evolution of the United States intelligence community since
World War II is part of the larger history of America's effort to
come to grips with the spread of communism and the growing power
of the Soviet Union. As the war ended, Americans were torn by hopes
for peace and fear for the future. The determination to return the
nation promptly to normal was reflected in demobilization of our
wartime military establishment. In the field of intelligence, it was
clear in President Truman's decision to dismantle the Office of Strategic
Services, scattering its functions to the military departments and
the Department of State.
The Second 'World 'Val' saw the defeat of one brand of totalitarianism.
A new totalitarian challenge quickly arose. The Soviet Union, a
major ally in war, became America's principal adversary in peace. The
power of fascism was in ruin but thp, power of communism was mobilized.
Not only had the communist parties in France, Italy, and Greece
emerged politically strengthened by their roles in the Resistance, but
the armies of the Soviet Union stretched across the center of Europe.
And, within four years, America's nuclear monopoly would end.
American military intelligence officers were among the first to perceive
the changed situation. Almost immediately after the fall of Berlin
to the Red Army, U.S. military intelligence sought to determine
Soviet objectives. Harry Rositzke, later to become chief of the CIA's
Soviet Division, but at the time a military intelligence officer, was
despatched to Berlin by jeep. Although the Soviet Union was still an
ally, Rositzke was detained, interrogated, then ordered expelled by
the Soviet occupying forces. He managed, however, to escape his Soviet
"escort" and arrive in Berlin. He described his experience to the
Committee:
We got on the outskirts of Berlin and yelled out "Amerikanski,"
and were highly welcomed. And as we went over the
Autobahn the first basic impression I got, since I had known
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Germany well before the war, was a lon~ walking group of
German males under 16 and over 60 who were being shepherded
to the east by four-foot-ten, five-foot Mongolian soldiers
with straw shoes.
The RU'isians also had been looting. With horses and farm
wagons they were taking away mattresses, wall fixtures,
plumbing fixtures, anything other than the frame of the
houses.
We then made our way through the rubble of Berlin-most
were one-way streets-identifving- every shoulder patch we
could, and passed the Riemans-Halske works, in front of
which were 40 or 50 lend-lease trucks, on each of which was a
lar[!p shiny lathe. drill pre€s, et cetpra.
When we had seen enough and were all three extremely
nervous, we headed straight west from Berlin to the British
Zone. When we arrived we harl an enormous amount of exuberance
and a real sense of relief, for the entire 36 hours had
put us in another world. The words that came to my mind
then were, "Rllssia mOVf>S west." 3
At home, the Truman Administration was preoccupied by the transition
from war to an uncertain peace. Tholll!"h dispersed, and in some
eases disbanded, America's potential capabilities in the field of intelligence
were considerable. There were a large number of well-trained
former OSS oneration officers; the military had developed a remarkable
capacity for cryptologic intellip'enl'e (the breaking of codes) and
communiC'lltions intelligence (COMJNT) ; there was also a cadre of
former OSS intelligence analysts both within the government and in
the academic community.
E. THE ORIGINS OF THE POSTWAR INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY 4
With the experiences of World War II and particularly Pearl Harbor
still vivid, there was a recognition within the government that,
notwithstanding demobilization, it was essential to create a centralized
body to collate and coordinate intelligence information. There
was also a need to eliminate frictions between competing military
intelligence services. Although there was disagreement about the structure
and authoritv of the postwar intelli~pnce servir>p, Presirlent Truman
and his senior advisers concluded that, unlike the OSS, this
centralized body should be civilian in character.
The militarv resisted this judgment. Virtually all of America's
competing intelligence assets were in the armed services. Then, as
now, the military considered an intelligence capability essential in
wartime and equally imnortant in time of peaC'e to be prepared for
military crises. ThllS, the services were stronglv opposed to having
their allthoritv OVf\r intelligence diminished. In contrast, factions
within the State Department were relllctant to aC'cept any greater
responsibilitv or role in the field of clandestine intelligence.
Six months after V-.r Day, and thrpe months after he hfld disbanded
OSS, Presirlent Truman established the Central Intelligence
3 Harry Rozitzke testimonv, 10/31/75. p. 7.
• For an organizational history of the CIA, see Chapter VI.
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Group (CIG). CIG was the direct predecessor of the CIA. It reported
to the National Intelligence Authority, a body consisting of
the Secretaries of State, War and Navy and their representatives. CIG
had a brief existence.. It never was able to O\'ercome the constraints
and institutional resistances found in the Department of State and
the armed services.
The National Security Act of 1947 5 \vas passed on July 26, 1947. The
Act included, in large part, the recommendations of a report prepared
for Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal by New York investment
broker Ferdinand Eberstadt. Though largely concerned with the creation
of the National Security Council (NSC) and the unification of the
military services within the Department of Defense, the Act also
created a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and a Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). The powers of the DCI and the CIA
were an amalgam of careful limits on the DCI's authority over the
intelligence community and an open-ended mission for the CIA itself.
The power of the DCI over military and diplomatic intelligence was
confined to "coordination." At the same time, however, the Agency
was authorized to carry out unspecified "services of common concern"
and, more importantly, could "carry out such other functions and
duties" as the National Security Council might direct.
Nowhere in the 1947 Act was the CIA explicitly empowered to collect
intelligence or intervene secretly in the affairs of other nations.
But the elastic phrase, "such other functions," was used by successive
presidents to move the Agency into espionage, covert action, paramilitary
operations, and technical intelligence collection. Often conceived
as having granted significant peacetime powers and flexibility
to the CIA and the NSC, the National Security Act actually legislated
that authority to the. President.
The 1947 Act provided no explicit charter for military intelligence.
The charter and mission of military intelligence activities was established
either by executive orders, such as the one creating the National
Security Agency in 1952, or various National Security Council directives.
These National Security Council Intelligence Directives
(NSCID's) were the principal means of establishing the roles and
functions of all the various- entities in the intelligence community.
They composed the so-called "secret charter" for the CIA. However,
most of them also permitted "departmental" intelligence activities,
and in this way also provided the executive charter for the intelligence
activities of the State Department and the Pentagon. However, the
intelligence activities of the Department of Defense remained with
the military rather than with the new Defense Department civilians.
At the end of the war, the .Toint Chiefs of Staff decided to continue
the inter-Service coordinating mechanism-the Joint Intelligence
Committee-which had been created in 1942. 'With the 1947 Act and
the establishment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a working level intelligence
operation was created in the Joint Staff, known as the Joint
Intelligence Group, or J-2.
The structure created by the 1947 Act and ensuing NSCID's was
highly decentralized. The task of the CIA and the Director of Central
• See Chapter YII for an analysis of the 1947 Act.
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Intelligence was to "coordinate" the intelligence output of all the various
intelligenc€ collection programs in the military and the Department
of State. The CIA and its Director had little power to act itself,
but the potential was there.
F. THE REsPoxsE TO THE SOVIET THREAT
Immediately after its establishment, the CIA and other elements
of the intelligence community responded to the external threats facing
the United States.
-The threat of war in Europe. Following the war there was a distinct
pos.sibility of a Soviet assault on Western Europe. Communist
regimes hao been established in Polano, Hun~ary, Romania ann Bulgaria.
Czechoslovakia went Communist in 1948 through a coup supported
by the Russian Army. There was a Russian-backed.civil war ~n
Greece. And, above all, there was the presence of the SOVIet Army III
Eastern Europe ann the pressure on Berlin.
In light of these developments, U.S. policvmakers came to the con:
clusion that outright war with the Soviet Union was possible. The U.S.
intelligence community responded accordinglv. The CIA assumed the
e!"pionage task, running af!'ents and organizing "stay-behind networks"
in the event the Soviets rolled west. Agents, mostly refu<:!ees, were sent
into the East to report on ~oviet forces and, in particlllar, any moveS
that sig-nalled war. The U.S. went so far as to establish contact with
Ukrainian guerrillas-a relationship that was maintained until the
guerrillas were finally wiped out in the early 1950s bv Soviet security
£orres. CIA activities, however, were outnumbered bv the clandestine
collection operations of the military, particularlv in Western Eurone,
where the Army maintained a large covert intelligence and paramilitary
capability.
-Turmoil in thp. West. TJ'e Soviets had powerfnl political resources
in the West-the Communist parties and trade unions. Provided with
financial and advisory support from the Soviet Union. the Communist
parties sought to exnloit and exacerbate the economic and nolitical
turmoil in postwar Europe. As the elections in 1948 and 1949 in Italy
and France approached, the democratic parties were in disarray and
the possihilitv of a Communist takeover was real. Coordinated Communist
political unrest in western countries combined with extremist
pressure from the Soviet Union, confirmed the fears of many that
America bceo an expansionist Communist monolith.
The. United ~tates resT'onoed with overt economic aio-the Truman
Doctrine ann the Marshall Plan-and covert nolitical assistance. This
latter task was assivned to the Office of ~pe(>ial Proiects, later renamed
the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). The Office was hOllsed in the
CIA but was oirectly responsihle to the Denartments of State and
Defense. Clanoestine support from the lTniteo States for European
oemocratic parties was rerraroen flS fin essential response to the threat
of "international rommunism." OPC berame the fastest p-Towing element
in the CTA. To fflrilitllte its onerations. as well as to finanre CIA
espionage activities, the ConnTess passeo the Central Intelligence
Agency Art of 1949, which allthorizpo the Director of CIA to spend
fnnos on his voucher without having to account for disbursements.
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-Nuclear weapons. The advent of nU'clear weapons and the Soviet
potential in this field led to efforts to ascertain the status of the Soviet
Union's nuclear program. By the time of the Soviet's first atomic explosion
in 1949, the U.S. Air Force and Navy had begun a peripheral
reconnaissance program to monitor other aspects of Soviet nuclear
development and Soviet military capabilities. As the Soviet strategic
nuclear threat grew, America's efforts to contain it would grow in
scale and sophistication until it would overshadow the classic tools of
espionage.
G. KOREA: THE TURNING POINT
The Communist attack, feared in Europe, took place in Asia. The
Korean War, following less than a year after the fall of China to the
Communists, marked a turning point for the CIA. The requirements
of that war, the involvement of China, the concern that war in Europe
might soon follow, led to a fourfold expansion of the CIA-particularly
in the paramilitary field. This period was characterized by efforts
to infiltrate agents into mainland China, which led to the shootdown
and capture of a number of Americans.
The CIA's activities elsewhere in Asia also expanded. Instrumental
in helping Ramon Magsaysay defeat the communist Hukbalahaps
in the Philippines, the CIA also assisted the French in their losing
struggle against the Viet Minh in Indochina.
The failure to anticipate the attack on Korea was regarded as a
major intelligence failure. The new Director of the CIA, General
Bedell Smith, was determined to improve CIA's estimating and forecasting
capabilities. He called on 'William Langer, formerly ehief of
the Research and Analysis section of the OSS, to come to Washington
from Harvard, in 1950, to head a small staff for analysis and the production
of intelligence. An Office of National Estimates (ONE) was
established to produce finished intelligence estimates. ONE drew on
the intelligence information resources of the entire U.S. intelligence
community and was aided by a Board of National Estimates composed
of leading statesmen and academic experts.
Bv the end of the Korean War and the naming of Allen Dulles as
DCL the powers, responsibilities and 'basic structure of the CIA were
established. The Agency had assumed full responsibility for covert
operations in 1950, and by 1952 covert action had exceeded the money
and manpower allotted to the task of espionage-a situation that
would persist until the early 1970s.
Paramilitary actions were in disrepute because of a number of failures
during the Korean War. However, the techniques of covert military
assistance in training had been developed, and the pattern of CIA
direction of Special Forces and other unconventional components of
the U.S. Armed Forces in clandestine operations had been established.
In the field of espionage, the CIA had become the predominant, but
by no means the exclusive operator. Clandestine human colleetion of
intelligence bv the military services continued at a relatively high
rate. The militarv also had a large stake in clandestine technical
collection of intelligence.
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Major strnctnral changes in the inte1Egenc(: community were
broU<;ht abont bv the consolidation of cryptanalysls and related functions~
CodebreakinO' is a vital part of tpchnical intB1Egence collection
and has had an i~portant role in the history of. U.S. intellige!lce
efforts. The American "Black Chamber" responSIble for breaklIlg
German codes in ·W'WI was abolished in the 19205. As "W"WII approached
cryptanalysis received increased attention in the military.
Both the 'Army and Navy had separate cryptologic services which had
combined to break the .tapanesc code. Knoml as "the magi.c" this information
signalled the impending attack on Pearl Harbor but the
intelliO"ence and alert system as a whole failed to respond.
In o~der to unify and coordinate defense cryptologic and comll?-unications
security functions. President Truman created the NatIOnal
Security Agency by Executive Order on November 4, 1952. Prior to
this time, U.S. cryptological capabilities resided in ~he separate .agencies
of the ArnlY. Xavy, and Air Force. The very eXIstence of stIll the
most spcrpt of all u.s. intelligence agencies, NSA, was not acknowledged
until 1957.
H. THE "PROTRACTED CONFLICT"
With the end of the Korean conflict and as the mid-1950s approacheAl,
the intelligence community t'1rT'ed from the desperate concern
over imminent war with the U.S.S.R. to the long-term task of
containing and competing with communism. In the "struggle for
men's minds," covert action developed into a large-scale clandestine
psychological and political program aimed at competing with Soviet
propaganda and front organizations in international labor and student
activities. Specific foreipTI governments considered antithetical
to the United States and its allies or too receptive to the influence of
the Soviet Union. such as Moserlegh in Iran in 1953 and Arbenzin
Guatemala in 1954. were toppled with the help of the CIA. Anticommunist
partirs and groups wrre ,g-ivrn aid and encouragement such
as the Sumatran leaders who, in 1958, sought the overthrow of President
Snkarno of Indonesia.
At the same time, the CIA was movin~ into the field of technical
intelligence and reconnaissllnce in a major way. The U.S. military
had recognized thf' value of aerial reconnaiRSarlce within a few short
years after the Wright brothers' successful flight in 1903 and had
borne major responsibility for reconnaissance against Communist
bloc C'Olmtrirs. Bnt it was the CIA in 1959 that beO"an work on the U-2.
It proved to be a technical trinmnh. The U-2 established that
the Soviet Union was not, as had been feared, about to turn the
tables of the strate~ic balance. It gained more information about
Soviet military developmrnts tl'an had been acquired in the previous
de,cade of e.spionage operations. But there were risks in this opera!
lOn. Desmte the ~ffort to minimize them with a special system of
llll!h-level N~C reVIew and apnroval, Francis Garv Powers was shot
down in a U-2 over the Soviet Union on the eve of the Paris summit
ct.)l~:ference in. ~960. President Eisenhower's acceptance of responsibIlIty
and N1Jota Khrushchev's reaction led to the collapse of the
con-Ferencf' before it ben'an.
. Nonetheless thr U-2 proverl the value of exotic and advanced techmcal
means of intelligence collection. It was followed by a transfor25
mation of the intelligence community. As the 1950s gave way to the
1960s, large budgets for the development and operation of technical
collection systems crcated intense competition among the military
services and the CIA and major problems in management and
condensation.
To support the Director of Central Intelligence's task of coordinating
the activities of the intelligence community, the United States
Intelligence Board (USIB) was established in 1958. Made up of senior
representatives of the State Department, the Department of Defense,
the military services, Treasury (since 1973) and the FBI, USIB
was to coordinate the setting of requirements for intelligence, approve
Xational Intelligence Estimates and generally supervise the operations
of the intelligence agencies. However, the real power to set requirements
and allocate resources to intelligence programs remained decentralized
and in the hands of the principal collectors-the military
services, the Foreign Service and the clandestine service of the CIA.
As collection programs mushroomed, USIB proved unequal to the
task of providing centralized management and eliminating duplication.
I. THIRD 'VORLD CoMPETITION AND NUCLEAR CRISIS
·While the United States' technical, military and intelligence capabilities
advanced, concern intensified over the vulnerability of the
newly independent nations of Africa and Asia to communist subversion.
And in the 'Yestern Hemisphere the establishment of a communist
Cuba by Fidel Castro was seen as presaging a major incursion
of revolutionary communism to the 1Vestern Hemisphere.
At his inauguration in January, 1961, President Kennedy proclaimed
that America would "pay any price and bear any burden" so
that liberty might prevail in the world over the "forces of communist
totalitarianism." Despite the catastrophe of the CIA-sponsored Bay
of Pigs invasion only four months later, the covert action and paramilitary
operations staffs of the CIA were to shoulder a significant
part of that burden. In Latin America the Alliance for Progress, the
overt effort to help modernize the southern half of the hemisphere, was
accompanied by a significant expansion of covert action and internal
security operations aimed at blocking the spread of Castro's influence
or ideology. This was accompanied by an intense paramilitary campaign
of harassment, sabotage, propaganda against Cuba, and attempted
assassination against Castro.
Nearby, in the Dominican Republic, the United States had already
supported the assassins of Dictator Raphael Trujillo in order to preempt
a Castro-type takeover. In Africa, significant paramilitary aid
was given in support of anti-Soviet African leaders. In Asia, American
intelligence had been involved for a long time in the Indochina struggle.
The CIA, along with the rest of the United States government,
was drawn ever deeper into the Vietnamese conflict.
Early in the decade the United States faced its most serious postwar
crisis affecting its security-the Cuban Missile Crisis of October
1962. It illustrated a number of important facts concerning the nature
and structure of American intelligence.
During the summer of 1962 overhead reconnaissance confirmed agent
intelligence reports that some form of unusual military installation
was being placed in Cuba. By October 16 it was clear that these were
207-932 0 - 76 - 3
26
medium and intermediate-range ballistic missile sites capable of han(
lling nuclear wrapons that could strike targets throughout significant
arras of thr rnitrd Statrs.
"\s the Fnited Statf's moyed towards a confrontation with the So,
·jet rnion, CS. intellig'ence played a significant role at every turn.
O"erll<'ad reconnaissance of the Soyiet strategic posture ,vas vastly
superior to that of the Russians. Reports from Co1. Oleg Penkovsky,
the r.s. agent in the Kremlin, kept the United States abreast of the
Sm"iet military responsr to the crisis. U.S. tactical reconnaissance of
Cuba not only prepared the United States for possible invasion hut
signalled the eal'llestness of our intention to do so should the situation
(h,teriorate. Xaval rrconnaissance kept close tabs on Soviet ships bearing
ballistic missile components. As the crisis neared its showdown
,,"ith a quarantine, the President demanded and received the most detailrd
tactical intelligence. including the distance in yards between
.\ merican navaI YessrIs and the Soviet transport ships.
This crisis dramatizrd the importance of intrgrated intelligence
collection and prodllction in timrs of crisis. It also clearly illustrated
the clif1iculty in distinguishing between national and so-called tactical
intrlligcnce. This disti.nction has been a central feature of the structme
of the .\merican intelligence community with the military services
rnaintaining control on'r tactical intelligence and the so-called
national intelligence assets subject to varying degrees of control by
the Director of Central Intelligence or the Secrtary of Defense and
t he ~ational Security Council. Cuba proved that in time of crisis
these distinctions evaporate.
J. TECHNOLOGY AND TRAGEDY
During the 1960s the U.S. intelligence community was dominated
by two deyclonments: First. the enormons exnlosion in the volume of
technical intelligence as the research and development efforts of the
previous period came to fruition; second, the ever-growing involvement
of the Uniterl States in the ',ar in Vietnam.
The increase in the quantity and quality of technically acquired
information on Soviet military forces. in particular strategic forces,
l11a(le possible precise measurement of the existing: level of Soviet
strategic (leployments. However, it did not answer questions about
the ultimate scale of Soviet stratef!ic deployments. nor did it provide
firm. information on the quality of their forces. 'While it provirled an
additional clue as to Soviet intentions. it did not offer any definitive
(1I18"e1'8.
In the Pentagon disparate estimates of future Soviet strate<ric power
f,'om earh of the Armrd Srrvices led Secretary Robert McNamara to
establish the Defense Intrlligence Agency. The Secretary of Defense
\yas in the ironir position of being: responsible for the bulk of American
intelli!.!"enre collrrtion activity bnt lackinO' the means to coordinate
rither'the rollection pro.~rams or the intelligence produroo. The DIA
was to fulfill this need, but in a compromise with the military services
the DIA. was made to rrnort to the Secretary of Defense through the
.Toint Chid-s of Staff. The DIA has never fulfilled its promise.
In thr CIA the analvsts confrontrd bv the new mass of terhnical
intelligence information underestimated the ultimate scale of Soviet
27
dployments while tending to overestimate the qualitative aspects of
Soviet weapons systems. Previously, intelligence analysts had to build
up their picture of Soviet capability from fragmentary information,
inference and speculation, particularly as to Soviet purposes. Confronted
with the challenge to exploit the new sources of intelligence on
Soviet programs, the analysts in the intelligence community turned
away from the more speculative task of understanding Soviet purposes
and intentions, even though insight into these questions was central to
a greater understanding of the technical information being acquired
in such quantity.
Tho war in Vietnam also posed serious problems in the analysis and
production of intelligence. In effect, the analysts were continually in
the position of having to bring bad news to top policymakers. The result
produced some serious anomalies in the nature of intelligence
estimates concerning the Vietnam conflict. For example, the CIA continually
flew in the face of the Pentagon and the evident desires of
tho ,Yhite House by denigrating the effectiveness of the bombing campaigns
over North Vietnam, but as American involvement deepened
from 1965 onward, the CIA was unwilling to take on the larger and
1I10re important task of assessing the possibility for the success of the
overall U.S. effort in Vietnam.
The increase in technical collection capabilities of the United States
were also brought to bear on that conflict, creating in its turn important
questions about the application of such resources to tactical situations.
As one intelligence officer put it, local military commanders in Vietnam
"were getting SIGINT (signals intelligence) with their orang-e
juice every morning and have now come to expect it everywhere." This
involves two problems: first, whether "national" intelligence resources
aimed at strategic problems should be diverted to be used for
local combat application and, second, whether this might not lead to a
compromise of the technical collection systems and the elimination of
their effectiveness for broader strategic missions.
K. THE 1970s
Together, the advent of increased technical capabilities and the Vietnam
'Val' brought to a climax concerns within the Government over
the centralized management of intelligence resources. This coincided
with increased dissatisfaction in the Nixon Administration over the
quality of intelligence produced on the war and on Soviet strategic
developments.
In the nation as a whole, the impact of the Vietnam 'Val' destroyed
the foreign policy consensus which had underpinned America's intelligence
acti vibes abroad. Starting with the disclosures of CIA involvement
with the National Student Association of 1967, there were
a series of adverse revelations concerning the activities of the Central
Intelligence Agency and the military intelligence agencies.
Concern over the secret war in Laos, revulsion at the Phoenix program
which took at least 20,000 lives in South Vietnam, army spying
on U.S. civilians, U.S. "destabilization" efforts in Chile. and finally
the revelations 'concerning Operation CHAOS and the CIA's domestic
intelligence role created a climate for a thorOlwh COI1O'ressional . .. b b InVestIgatlon.
28
During this same period, the Expcuti \"e moved to initiate certain
managenll'llt reforms. Beginning as early as 1\)68, there were cutbacks
in the scale of the overall intelligence community. These cutbacks
deepplll>d lrr lU70, both ill the size of thr on'rall intelligence budget in
real terms illld in the manpo\ver devoted to intelligence activities. CIA
covert acti \"itips \ycre sharply reduced with a frw notable exceptions
such as Chile. The internal Security mission in foreign countries was
dropped. Thprr was a re-rmphasis on collecting co\"ert intelliger~ce
on the SO\"iet Fnion. TplTorism and narcotics were added to the lIst
of intpJligrllcp requirenwnts for our clandestine espionagr srrvices.
In lU7l.James Schlrsinger, then seITing in the Office of Management
and Budget, was asked to do a sweeping analysis of the in~elligence
comm\lllitv. That stmly led to an rffort to increase thr authonty of the
DirrC'tor (;f {'pntral IiItelligencr over the management of the intelli<
rencr cOI1ullunitv. Howevpr, President Nixon limitpd thp scope of
rdOl'm to that IYl;ich coultl 1w accomplishrd \vithout legislation.
Congrpss also took an incrrased intprest in the activities of tfle intrlligence
community. The role of the CIA in the 'Yatergate affaIr was
examined in the Senate 'Yatergate Committee's investigation. At the
close of lU74 a rider, the Hughes-Ryan amendment, was addcd to the
Foreign Assistancr Act "which rrquired the President to certify that
cOYrrt actions \vere important to the national interest and directed that
the Congress br fully informpd of them. In this connedion, the responsibility
to inform the Congress was broadened beyond the traditional
.\rmrd Services and Appropriations Committees of the Congress to include
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. Howe\-er, the first real effort of the Congress to
come to grips with the challenge posed to the American democratic
form of governlllent by necessarily secret foreign and military intelligence
activities came with the establishment of the Senate Sele.:'t Committee
on Intelligence in .January of lU75. The results of its inquiry
are set forth in the following chapters of this report.
L. THE TASK AHEAD
The American intelligence community has changed markedly from
the early postwar days, yet some of the major problems of that period
persist. The intelligence community is still highly decentralized; the
problem of maintaining careful command and control over risky
~ecret a?tivities is still great. There is a continuing difficulty in drawmg
a lIne between national intelligence activities, which should be
?losely supervised by the highest levels of government, and tactical
mtelligence, which are the province of the militarv services and the
departments. •
The positive steps undertaken by President Ford in his recent Executive
Order have not diminished the need for a new statutory framework
for American intelligence activities. Only through the legislative
process can the broad political consensus be expressed which is
necessary for the continuing conduct of those intelligence activities
essential to the nation's security and diplomacy.
Clark ~L Clifford, who was one of the authors of the 1947 National
Security Act that established the present legislative framework for
America's intelligence activities, made these comments in open session
before the Committee:
29
As one attempts to analyze the difficulty and hopefully offer
constructive suggrstions for improyement. he finds much confusion
existing within the system. It is clear that lines of
authority and responsibility have become blurred and indistinct.
The Xational Security Council under the Act of 1\:)47 is
giyen the responsibility of directing our country's intelligence
actiyities. ~Iy experience lrads me to believe that this function
has not been effrctively performed....
The 1\:)47 law creating the CIA should be substantially
amended and a new law should be written covering intelligence
functions. ,Ve have had almost thirty years of experience
under the old la,v and have learned a great deal. I beliHe
it has serYed us reasonablv ,veIl but its defects have become
increasingly apparent. A'clear, more definitive bill can
be prepared that can accomplish our purposes by creating
clear lines of authority and responsibility and by carefully
restricting certain activities we can hopefully prevent the
abuses of the past.
And ~Ir. Clifford concluded:
,Ve han a big job to do in this country. Our people are
confused about our national goals and cynical about our institutions.
Our national spirit seems to have bren replaced by
a national malaise. It is mv conviction that the efforts of this
committee "'ill assist us in 'regaining confidence in our national
integrity, and in helping to restore to our nation its reputation
in the world for decrncy. fairdealing. and moral leadership.
G
That is the spirit in which the Select Committee sought to pursue
its ill'luiry and that is the spirit in which the Committee puts forward
the follo~inganalysis of the intelligence community and the operation
of its constituent parts.
6 Clifford, 12/5/75, Hearings, p. 53.
 

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