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Foreign Relations of the United States 1945-1950 Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment Department of State Washington, DC

Founding of the National Intelligence Structure
August 1945 through January 1946

                           

55. Minutes of Meeting

Washington, December 11, 1945.

//Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Diplomatic Branch Reference File, Minutes of the Meetings of the Committee of Three, 1944-47. No classification marking. A copy ibid., Decimal File 1945-49, 101.61/12-1145, indicates that the minutes were classified Top Secret.

PARTICIPANTS

State Department: James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State

War Department: Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of War, Brigadier General George A. Brownell, Colonel Charles W. McCarthy

Navy Department: James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, Major Mathias F. Correa

RECORDER
John Hickerson

[Here follows a brief discussion unrelated to intelligence.]

Central Intelligence Agency

Mr. Patterson said that he felt it would be desirable to carry forward the discussions on the Central Intelligence Agency. He asked General Brownell to review the present status of the matter. General Brownell referred to the discussions which had been taking place in the Committee representing the three Departments./1/ At this point, Mr. Byrnes sent word to Colonel McCormack to join the meeting and he did so. General Brownell said that the War Department favored a draft worked out in that Department based on an earlier draft prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Navy Department, he went on to say, is in substantial agreement with the War Department draft. The State Department is not in agreement with the War Department draft but has proposed an alternative draft which Secretary Brynes sent to the War and Navy Departments some days ago. The Committee representing the three Departments has discussed this matter at considerable length but is still not in agreement. General Brownell compared the two drafts briefly. He said that there is agreement on the part of all three Departments on two highly important points:

/1/The "Committee representing the three Departments" was appointed by the Secretaries at their meeting on November 14. See Document 45. The only records of this group's meetings that have been found are those for November 19 and December 27. The latter is printed as Document 63. A record of the November 19 meeting is in National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Diplomatic Branch Reference File, Minutes of the Meetings of the Committee of Three, 1944-47.

(1) That there should be a Central Intelligence Agency.

(2) That there should be an Intelligence Authority at the top controlling the work of the Agency, consisting of the Secretaries of State, War and Navy and perhaps others.

Beyond that, General Brownell went on to say, there are differences in opinion on organization.

There was a general discussion of the two plans. Colonel McCormack described briefly the proposed State Department plan and General Brownell reviewed the points of difference between the War Department plan and that of the State Department. There was an extended discussion between the three Secretaries as to whether the Director should be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the three Secretaries or whether he should be appointed by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Secretaries of War and the Navy. After an extensive discussion, there appeared to be agreement among the three Secretaries that the Director should not be appointed by the President but his appointment should be a matter of agreement between the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy.

The next question which was considered was whether the Director should be an official of the Department of State as proposed in the State Department plan or outside all three Departments as proposed in the War Department plan. This matter was discussed at some length, but no decision on the point was reached. There was also discussion of the Advisory Board as visualized in the two plans. Mr. Patterson stated that the War Department wishes to have the top official from G-2 personally sitting on the Advisory Board, whereas the State Department plan envisages that a representative of the head of G-2 will devote his full time to sitting on the Board. Mr. Forrestal expressed similar views on behalf of the Navy Department. Colonel McCormack set forth his view in favor of the advantages of the State Department proposal in this regard.

After considerable discussion, the three Secretaries agreed that it would be desirable for the Committee representing the three Departments to endeavor to resolve the differences between the three Departments over this whole question while Mr. Byrnes is out of town on his trip to Moscow. It was agreed that the three Secretaries would consider this matter further upon Mr. Byrnes' return.

[Here follows discussion unrelated to intelligence.]

56. Memorandum From the Secretary of State's Special Assistant for Research and Intelligence (McCormack) to Secretary of War Patterson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal

Washington, December 15, 1945.

//Source: Truman Library, Papers of J. Anthony Panuch, State Department Research and Intelligence No. 1. No classification marking. Copies were distributed to Staff Committee members under cover of an unsigned, undated note. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees--State Department, Lot File No. 122, Records of the Secretary's Staff Committee 1944-47) Attached to the memorandum is an annex, "Chart A," of the revised organizational plan. See the Supplement.

Annex VI (SC-172)

DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM

SUBJECT
National Intelligence Authority

After the meeting of the Secretaries of State, War and Navy on Tuesday, December 11th/1/ two questions were left for discussion:

/1/Document 55.

a. Whether the Executive Secretary of the Authority should be, as proposed, a State Department official;

b. What should be the role and composition of the Advisory Groups or Boards who are to assist the Executive Secretary in discharging his functions.

Before leaving for Moscow, the Secretary of State instructed me to make every effort to resolve these issues with the Secretaries of War and Navy at an early date. This memorandum suggests modifications of the State Department's plan to meet the views of the War and Navy Departments.

It is proposed:

a. To provide specifically that the Executive Secretary will represent the Authority as a whole, and not any one Department, and to make the provision enforceable by giving a majority of the Authority (e.g., the Secretaries of War and Navy) the power to remove the Executive Secretary; and

b. To amend the provisions with respect to the Advisory Groups or Boards so that (1) the War and Navy Departments, if they wish, may appoint their Intelligence Chiefs as the Board members and (2) the Executive Secretary will be required to submit to the proper Advisory Board, for concurrence of comment, all recommendations for the intelligence program or for any operating plan designed to carry it out.

The proposed modifications of the Plan are listed in Tab A hereto./2/ The considerations on which they are based are discussed below.

/2/See the Supplement.

Status of the Executive Secretary

If there is to be an interdepartmental organization, rather than a separate entity outside the Departments, all personnel in the central agency, including the Executive Secretary, must hold office in one of the interested Departments. The State Department strongly believes, and it seemed to be the consensus at the meeting of the three Secretaries, that an independent budget for the central agency should be avoided for security reasons. Since passage of the Independent Offices Appropriation Act, 1945 (Public Law 358, 78th Congress), a non-departmental agency without an independent budget appears to be impossible. A copy of the relevant provision of the statute is attached as Tab B./3/

/3/See the Supplement. Enacted June 27, 1944; 58 Stat. 361. The Act provided that the Executive Branch could not use appropriated funds to support any agency that had been in existence for more than 1 year and for which Congress had not specifically appropriated funds.

If the interdepartmental type of organization is approved, and the Executive Secretary must hold office in one of the Departments, it is suggested that the State Department is the logical one because of the responsibility of the Secretary of State in foreign affairs. In existing interdepartmental coordinating mechanisms for matters involving foreign policy it appears to be customary for the Director or Executive Secretary, as well as the Chairman, to be a State Department officer. That is so in each of the following cases:

Interdepartmental Committee on Cultural and Scientific Cooperation

Liberated Areas Committee

Executive Committee on Economic Foreign Policy

Petroleum Facilities Coordinating Committee

Interdepartmental Committee on Rubber

Committee on Trade Agreements

Interdepartmental Committee on Resumption of Communications with Liberated Areas

Special Committee on Communications.

Concern has been expressed by the War and Navy Departments that the Executive Secretary would regard himself as responsible to the State Department rather than to the Authority. The suggestion for meeting that point is to insert the following provision in the plan:

"The Executive Secretary, in his capacity as such, will be responsible to the Authority as a whole and may be removed by a majority vote of the Authority."

Advisory Groups or Boards

The State Department has proposed two "Advisory Groups." "Intelligence," composed of full-time representatives of the G-2, the DNI and the AC/AS-2, and the other for "Security," composed of full-time representatives of the Chief Coordinator, Treasury Enforcement Agencies, the AC of S, G-2, the DNI and the Director of the FBI. The War Department has expressed the view that these arrangements do not insure that the G-2, DNI and AC/AS-2 will be brought in as members of the team.

It was not the State Department's intention to minimize the role of the Service Intelligence Chiefs. It was thought that, since they would be represented in the central organization at every level, they would participate fully in the development of the national intelligence program and of all operating plans designed to carry it out.

Further, it was the State Department view, and it still is, that through a board of officers assigned full-time to the job of assisting the Executive Secretary, the G-2, DNI and A-2 would have a fuller and more effective participation in the central agency than if they sat merely as a "board of directors" holding occasional meetings and passing on finished papers. A full-time Advisory Group or Board would be part of the office of the Executive Secretary, would be familiar with the thinking of that office, would have time to study all plans and programs in detail and could do much to bring the Secretariat and the departmental intelligence agencies to a common point of view.

However, it is recognized that the War and Navy Departments have a right to specify who their representatives on the Advisory Boards will be, and it is therefore proposed to amend the plan so as to leave the War and Navy Departments and the Army Air Forces free to appoint their Intelligence Chiefs as part-time members or to appoint some other representatives as either full-time or part-time members, whichever may prove to be best.

It is also proposed, in order to relieve the Executive Secretary of the necessity of representing the State Department in discussions with the Advisory Boards, to add a State Department representative to each of the Boards.

Finally, it is proposed to make the role of the Advisory Boards explicit by means of the following provision:

"Before submitting to the Authority any recommendation for the intelligence program or any operating plan designed to carry out that program, the Executive Secretary shall submit such recommendations to the appropriate Advisory Board for concurrence or comment. If any member of the Advisory Board shall not concur in the recommendations, he shall have the right to submit a statement of his views to the Authority to be considered in connection with the recommendations."

Conclusion

It is hoped that the above-suggested modifications will meet the views of the War and Navy Departments, so that the modified plan can be submitted to the President as the agreed recommendations of the three Secretaries.

For the Secretary of State

Alfred McCormack/4/

/4/Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.

57. Memorandum From the Chief of Naval Operations (Nimitz) to Secretary of the Navy Forrestal

Washington, undated.

//Source: Central Intelligence Agency Historical Files, HS/HC-135. Top Secret. The handwritten words "Nimitz letter" at the end of the source text identify the author. Nimitz became Chief of Naval Operations on December 15, 1945.

SUBJECT
National Intelligence Authority

1. After careful analysis of the State Department Plan, it is my opinion that it is unsatisfactory in many respects and that the proposed plan of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is more likely to assure sound national intelligence and should prove more satisfactory to the Navy.

2. The strength of the JCS plan is the proposed Central Intelligence Agency. Such an agency is needed and when functioning properly should eliminate much unnecessary duplication through the pooling of personnel from the participating departments. It should provide the same intelligence estimates directly to the President and the three Secretaries to enable them to be uniformly informed. It should also supply the participating departments with intelligence of common interest which they require. The product of this agency would reflect the best judgment of the experts from all participating departments and would not be dominated by any one department.

3. I think it desirable that the N.I.A. nominate and the President appoint the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It is recommended, however, that the Director be an Army, Naval or Marine officer for the following reasons:

(a) This will assure a non-political administration of the intelligence effort with unbiased and objective intelligence estimates.

(b) He will be subject to military discipline, continuing after retirement. He can be required to avoid publicity which is undesirable in the conduct of an intelligence activity.

The term of office should be for four years to assure continuity.

4. The State Department plan is objectionable for the following reasons:

(a) The national intelligence estimates would be made by the State Department. The Secretaries of War and the Navy might not be informed with respect to the intelligence furnished the President by the State Department.

(b) It does not provide a real central intelligence agency and therefore duplication can not be reduced without impairment of departmental intelligence agencies. No economy of effort will result.

(c) The complex committee structure will actually result in wasted effort of key personnel.

5. In a spirit of compromise it may be necessary to confine the membership of the N.I.A. to the three Secretaries as provided in the State Department Plan. I see no serious objection to the elimination of the representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Authority. It may be necessary to agree on a few committees. This would be satisfactory if the number of committees is held to a minimum.

6. I recommend you continue to support the J.C.S. Plan subject only to the concessions indicated above./1/

/1/Printed from an unsigned copy.

58. Memorandum From the Executive Officer, Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Air (Brownell) to the Members of the Lovett Committee

Washington, December 17, 1945.

//Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 263, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, Troy Papers, December 1945. Secret. Addressed to Major Generals Craig (OPD), Quesada (AAF), and Wyman (AGF), Brigadier Generals Clarke (G-2) and Magruder (SSU), and Colonel Roamer (ASF).

SUBJECT
Proposals for Central Intelligence Agency

1. The Secretary of War has directed that the special committee appointed by him by directive dated 22 October 1945/1/ to consider intelligence matters be reconvened under the chairmanship of the senior officer, with the addition of representatives of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, to advise him further on certain matters in connection with the establishment of a Central Intelligence Agency.

/1/Not found, but see Document 32.

2. The recommendations of the above Committee on the subject of a Central Intelligence Agency, after receiving the approval of the Secretary of War, were submitted to the State Department and Navy Department./2/ Those recommendations were in general concurred in by the Navy Department. The State Department proposed a counterplan, copies of which are attached as Tab A./3/

/2/Document 42.

/3/Document 46.

3. Both programs were discussed at a meeting of the Secretaries of State, War and Navy./4/ No final decision was reached, and it was decided that the matter should be further considered with a view to perhaps arriving at a compromise decision. The State Department has now prepared certain amendments to their original plan, attached as Tab B./5/

/4/Presumably the meeting reported on in Document 55.

/5/Document 56.

4. The Secretary of War requests that the above Committee meet to consider the entire subject, including the revised State Department plan, as soon as possible. The Secretary states that he does not wish to delay matters for a further written report from the Committee, but that he would like to meet with them after they have had an opportunity to consider the revised plan. Notice of a meeting of the Committee to be held on Tuesday or Wednesday/6/ will be sent out by the Recorder.

/6/December 18 and 19.

By direction of the Secretary of War:
George A. Brownell
Brigadier General, U.S.A.

59. Memorandum From the Chief of the Operations Division, War Department General Staff (Craig) to the Members of the Lovett Committee

Washington, December 18, 1945.

//Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 263, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, Troy Papers, December 1945. No classification marking.

SUBJECT
Reconvening of Special Committee on Central Intelligence Agency to advise the Secretary of War on the State Department proposals

1. There are basic differences of approach between the Central Intelligence Organization recommended by the Special Committee in its report to the Secretary of War and the State Department proposal. The fact that the State Department proposal is worked out in considerable detail, with many features that are not acceptable to the War Department, has tended to delay a decision on the basic differences. If the important points can be solved now, these details can be dealt with by negotiation or by the Agency itself after its creation.

2. The Special Committee's recommendations to the Secretary of War should therefore confine themselves to the basic differences between the two plans. In considering these, and the extent to which they are eliminated by the concessions in Mr. McCormack's modifications, the Special Committee should bear in mind the advantage of reaching an early agreement with the State Department to permit some form of organization to come into being promptly. If there is long delay, there is a real danger that the personnel and going-concern value of the OSS group will be lost. In this sense, nearly any form of organization will be better than none./1/

/1/At this point Craig indicated by hand that "Rider A," which is printed as an attachment, should be inserted.

5. Although Mr. McCormack's memorandum of December 15, 1945,/2/ indicated that there are only two open questions, the status of the Executive Secretary and the nature of the Advisory groups, (the latter of which has lost its importance in view of Mr. McCormack's concessions), there are in reality at least three other important issues. Each of these, together with the first point mentioned by Mr. McCormack, is discussed below:

/2/Document 56.

a. Independent Status of the Agency. The War Department plan calls for a centralized, independent agency, separate from the State, War and Navy Departments, and with its own personnel. The State Department plan calls for a mere committee of representatives of the three departments, operating through personnel detailed from the three departments. Although the War Department plan is preferable in this respect, it will require legislative authorization at the expiration of the First War Powers Act and, under the Independent Office's Appropriation Act, 1945, will in any event require specific appropriations within one year of its creation by Executive Order.

Recommendation: That the Special Committee advise the Secretary of War to accept the State Department proposal in this respect, on the conditions that the State Department agree to the action recommended in subparagraph c below and that the State Department agree to the action to insert a provision to the effect that the Authority shall consider the advisability of legislation establishing an independent central intelligence agency under the direction of the Authority.

b. Status of the Executive Secretary. The War Department plan calls for an independent Director. Under the State Department plan, the Executive Secretary, although appointed with the approval of the Secretaries of War and Navy, is named by the Secretary of State and must be a State Department official. Mr. McCormack's concession that the Executive Secretary must be responsible to the Authority and may be removed by a majority of the Authority, goes a long way to meet the War Department's objections, but does not do so entirely. The implication that this is primarily a State Department show still remains. It should be eliminated in the interest of achieving maximum cooperation as well as to make provision for a possible future period in which the military interest in intelligence may be predominant.

Recommendation: That the Special Committee advise the Secretary of War to accept the State Department proposal as amended in this respect, subject to amending the first and second sentences of paragraph 5,/3/ and inserting an additional sentence after the second sentence of paragraph 5, as follows:

/3/References to this and to other numbered and lettered paragraphs and subparagraphs of the Department of State proposal are to the attachment to Document 54; see the Supplement.

"The Executive Secretary will be appointed by the Chairman with the approval of the Secretaries of War and Navy Authority. If any person appointed as Executive Secretary shall not be, at the time of his appointment, an official of the Department of State, War or Navy Department, he will be appointed as such an official of one of such departments, as recommended by the Authority, before assuming his duties as Executive Secretary. The first Executive Secretary shall be, or shall be appointed, an official of the Department of State."

This recommendation requires the deletion of the phrase "and may be officers of the Army or Navy" from the sentence beginning "Deputy Secretaries will be" in paragraph 5.

c. Functions of the Agency. The War Department plan envisages the agency as an operating group, in addition to its coordinating functions. This appears in the provisions that it shall, "a. Operate as the sole collection agency...in the foreign espionage and counter-espionage fields", and "e. Accomplish the evaluation and synthesis of intelligence...". The State Department plan assigns the agency primarily coordinating and policy-making functions, although it permits the establishment of centralized operations when the Authority so determines. This point is of importance to the War Department for the following reasons:

(1) It is felt that there is a definite need, in the field of high-level, long-range politico-military intelligence, for an expert research and analysis unit relatively independent of any of the Departments.

(2) It is believed that clandestine operations must be centrally controlled.

(3) It is fraud [feared?] that the value of the OSS organization will be lost if allowed to continue in its present dispersed condition and equally if assigned entirely to the State Department.

Recommendation: That the Special Committee advise the Secretary of War to insist that synthesis and evaluation and foreign espionage and counter-espionage be recognized as primary functions of the agency and that the appropriate OSS personnel, particularly the research and analysis group, be made available in the first instance to the agency, subject in all cases to the right of the Authority to determine that any such functions and personnel should be decentralized to one or more of the existing intelligence agencies.

d. Management by Committees. The State Department plan calls for the creation of numerous committees to deal with each major phase of the agency's functions. The plan states that "such committees will be the primary means by which the Authority will carry out its mission" (par. 7). The War Department does not believe that committee management is suited for all phases of the agency's functions, perhaps because it sees the agency as having more operating functions than are called for by the State Department plan. In any case, this is a matter that can best be left to the agency to work out for itself in the light of experience.

Recommendation: That the Special Committee advise the Secretary of War to approve paragraph 7 of the State Department plan, subject to the following:

(1) Amendment of the first sentence as follows: "The Authority, upon recommendation of the Executive Secretary, will may establish committees each of which will cover a major subject, area or kind of operation to deal with any of the subjects, areas or kinds of operations within the purview of the authority."

(2) Deletion of the second sentence of paragraph 7.

(3) Deletion of paragraph 13 and consequent renumbering of subsequent paragraphs.

6. If the above recommendations are approved by the Secretary of War and accepted to by the Secretary of State, the major obstacles to agreement will have been removed. Although a number of details of the State Department proposal will remain to be worked out, they can be solved either by negotiation or by leaving them to solution by the agency itself. The following are examples of such matters:

a. Advisory Groups. Mr. McCormack's concessions have narrowed the differences to a point at which they should prove readily adjustable by negotiation. They have chiefly to do with nomenclature and minor revisions in the description of functions.

b. Definition of Intelligence and Security Intelligence. The State Department proposal should be made more precise to eliminate any indication that the agency may conduct espionage or counter-espionage in the United States and to exclude any police functions. This can be accomplished in negotiations.

c. Control over Other Agencies. It may be necessary to limit the Authority's right to control and direct agencies other than the State, War and Navy Departments. This can also be left to negotiations.

d. Independent Budget. This question, as part of the larger question of the independent status of the agency, can be left to the determination of the agency itself.

Recommendation: That the Special Committee make no recommendation to the Secretary of War on these matters and other relatively minor points of difference.

H.A. Craig/4/
Major General, U.S.A.

/4/Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.

Attachment/5/

/5/No classification marking.

Rider "A"

3. In view of the fact that the Secretary of State is apparently supporting Mr. McCormack's proposals, the War Department must choose between two courses of action. It must determine either to make the maximum concessions to meet the State Department views, refusing to concede only on vital matters, or to adhere to the original War Department plan and rely on its being forced upon the State Department by the President. This memorandum is written on the assumption that the first course is to be adopted, which seems to be implicit in the Secretary's instructions to War Department representatives that they should attempt to reconcile the differences with the State Department.

4. In this connection, the question of personalities becomes important. If the War Department is committed to acceptance of Mr. McCormack as the first director or executive secretary of the agency, it would appear advisable to let him have the kind of organization that he wants, at least at the outset, rather than to force him to operate with a type of organization of which he disapproves. On the other hand, if the War Department intends to oppose Mr. McCormack's candidacy, it would seem very advisable that the War Department immediately attempt to select a candidate of its own. Otherwise there is a good prospect that Mr. McCormack will soon be entrenched in a position from which it will be difficult to dislodge him.

Continue with Document 60