I AT 1 IE mmomu summit-S I 3 x 5 June 1967 The Director The Dcpuiy Director of Central Intelligence A Comment on Mr McNamara's Possible Difficulties with the DIA Herewith a comment of possible interest We omt has teen approved to release throng - the HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRRE SHERMAN KENT the Central Intelligence agency Director 22-1614 are -National Estimates -k sumonucso we NATIONAL mauwcs 'not know the exact nature of the Secretary of Defense's complaint about DIA's performance My guess is that it bears upon his dissatisfaction with DIA's handling of intelligence questions which call for sophisticated analysis and detached speculation I justify the above guess on the basis of the nature of a number of requests which the Secretary of Defense has directed to the DUI in the past If the Secretary had been satisfied with DIA's estimates of Soviet Ground Order of Battle or estimates of the costs of the Soviet military-establishment or the effectiveness of the ROLLING THUNDER Program he would not have come to the D01 2 That the Secretary has been disappointed in performance in the past and almost certainly will continue to be disappointed I ascribe to two built-in fundamentals in the nature of DIA The first is that by definition it is a Headquarters military'intelligence organization with all of the classical maladies of such The second is that it reports to the Secretary'tiastheEChiefs Intelligence findings which relate to matters in contention between a civilian Secretary and the Military-Chiefs cannot pass through the latter without picking something up maybe it is conclusion 000035 - - - AA hmARCHIVESmaybe thrust maybe nothing but flavor By this I do not intend any reflection on the probity or objectivity of BIA I simply mean that any intelligence utterance of an analytical nature in which the area occupied by fixed points is very Small and that occupied by'VoEds very large is bound to take on some non-objective color In this case the first source of color supply is DIA's proximate boss 3 There is no question about Mr McNamara having a problem There are about three ways of handling it only one of which seems to me feasible and that is the way he is handling it right now Before enlarging on this thought let me mention the two courses which are possible but which I do not believe are feasible a Doing something dramatic to for example begin by allocating to it 50 or 60 General and Flag Officer slots this is about as many supergrades as exist in the analytical offices of CIA Second search the Services for their real substantive and analytical brains assign them to DIA for long tours of - 1 4 - nemooucco AT mam mciuveszzji- 1 a duty 10 years to life with all of the prospects for success which is attached to duty in the line and third mute this business of reporting via the JCS b Leave the BIA to handle the intelligence account of the Chiefs land the separate Services Set up a new intelligence service to handle the account of the Secretary of Defense and the civilian echelons of the DOD You see what I mean by possible but not feasible c Keep traveling the present route only a bit more so That is keep coming to CIA for analytical work and estimates urging that the work be done in close collaboration with DIA As long as there is a jointness about such assignments the damage to morale in DIA will be reduced contact with long-time CIA experts may even be providing an important educative experience to DIA and the quality of the end product surely will not be damaged and might even be improved The only disadvantage may be in a loss of efficiency 3 It is not at all cheerful however to reflect how many fine in DIA have improved their talents through working 1 on ma NATIONAL 1 a w p om hand-in-hand with more experienced peqple from CIA and then left DIA and indeed all intelligence work for some other duty in their Service