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DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE DIRECTORATE OF SPECIAL PROJECTS (OSAFI

AF UNIT POST OFFICE. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90045

REPLY TO 4 November 1965

ATTN OF: legaintirmig

SUI.JECT NRO Management Documents

To: Deputy Director, NRO (Mr. Reber)

As requested by your 22 October memorandum on the above subject,

here are my comments on the proposed series of management documents

in general, and the 20 October draft of GMS-1 in particular.

I agree that some documentation of general NRP management concepts

can serve useful purposes, such as: basic guidance to all elements of

the NRO, and avoidance of misunderstanding concerning authorities and

responsibilities. In the attached pages, I have included a number of

specific comments which I will be happy to discuss further if desired.

In past practice, and as reiterated in paragraph 6c of the draft

GMS-1, the NRO has operated under streamlined management procedures

and with the minimum number of personnel. I firmly believe that in

documenting our management procedures, we should strive for the

minimum documentation and that we should avoid overemphasis on detail.

If our procedures are spelled out in detail, we will have set in motion a

trend toward increased paperwork, a diversion of talent and attention

from operations to administration, inevitable increases in personnel

required, and the eventual impairment or loss of our quick reaction

capability and project-oriented can-do attitude.

As to overall philosophy of NRP documentation, I recommend adoption

of the following principles:

Keep the paperwork as low as possible.

Avoid trying to make all procedures for all programs and projects

uniform. There is no advantage in forcing uniformity across diverse

projects being conducted within different services and agencies. I think

we should be careful to keep the emphasis on making projects work

rather than making procedures uniform.

c. Don't lose essential flexibility by formalizing unnecessarily.

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Avoid the "completeness complex." The justification for each

document should be that it actually helps get the NRO job done, and this

should be self-evident, rather than that it makes documentation of all

procedures complete.

Use the services of formal management documents very sparingly --

to cover matters which require general distribution, and infrequent amendment or revision. Use simple wires or letters to concerned individuals

for all else.

5. I appreciate very much the opportunity to comment on these proposed

documents prior to publication.

JOHN L. MARTIN, JR 1 Atch

Brigadier General, USAF Comments

Director

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1. General Comments on 22 October DDNRO Memorandum:

"NRO Management DocumentsPei/Vat 36885-65)

a. As to the three general categories of documents under consideration:

I think the General Management Series is a good idea, for

a few directives.

I also agree that some of the contemplated Project Management Series may be useful, but I do not believe that the scope should 'be

as broad as indicated. I see no need to publish these at all when the

Directors concerned can satisfactoril work out details. As an example,

we have been operating the quite

successfully, without a single dispute, even thou two separate NRO

Program Directors and organizations are involved. We do not have

any Project Management directive or equivalent, and I can not see how

the issuance of one could help, but it certainly could harm by upsetting

the present harmonious arrangements or by unnecessarily limiting our

flexibility to make mutually acceptable changes. I believe the directives

in this series should be limited to those (hopefully, very few) project matters

which require higher (than Program Director) level decision on interagency

management roles, such as the CORONA project. I strongly recommend

against including project or program directions, approvals, etc. , in this

series; these should be kept fast and flexible by using our special wire

messages, as in the past and at present.

(3) I recommend that the Support Activities Management Series

by very much smaller in scope than indicated. I think progra.mmibg,

budgeting, and other matters which vary between projects and programs

should be handled by individual letters to the personnel concerned.

2. Specific comments on the 20 October draft GMS-1:

a. Reference par 6a(2), I very much prefer, and recommend the title

"DOD Satellite Reconnaissance Program Office." The SAFSP mission

is concerned with developing and operating satellites, not with space.

Therefore, I recommend that the word "space" be changed to "satellite"

in paragraphs lb, 6a(2), 7e, 9d(4), and also in the block diagram of the

overall organization. (Note that there are two paragraphs 9; I refer to

the first one).

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I suggest that enabling documents which are listed in paragraph

2 be cross referenced in the body of the directive to support all key

provisions which require the issuance of internal directives within the

individual services and agencies participating in the NRO (such as

those supporting par 6b, for instance). The adequacy of these

documents will determine the worth of the CMS document.

The phrase "through overflights" in par 3a should be changed

to "through satellites or overflights, " Overflight by aircraft is not in

the same category as overflight by satellite; the latter has been, and

is still being, argued publicly by the US in the UN as being perfectly

legal.

Suggest "intelligence requirements" in par 3b be changed to

"intelligence collection requirements," to be consistent with the basic

NRO charter.

Reference par 4, we often have semantics problems with certain

security words. The old DISCOVERER project was clandestine.

However, for several years now, the satellite reconnaissance part of

the NRP has not been, and is not now clandestine; it is merely highly

classified. Aircraft overflights are clandestine.

f. Reference par 7c, this description of the functions of the NRO

staff omits entirely one of its major functions, namely that of assiting

the Program Directors by performing for them those duties and tasks

which necessarily must be carried out in Washington. This point is

of varying importance to the different Programs of the NRO, for reasons

noted below, but is of major importance to SAFSP. When SAFSP was

established in September 1960, all intervening Air Force echelons were

eliminated, including the entire Air Staff at Hq USAF and the entire

AFSC staff. (Eliminated, not merely condensed into a minature Air

Staff). Yet, major Air Force and AFSC resources are involved, and

there are numerous tasks that the Director, SAFSP must have done

in Washington. Therefore, SAFSS was established simultaneously for

two purposes: (1) to assist the Secretary as he might require (2) to

assist the Director, SAFSP as he might require for those aspects of

his responsibilities that required actions in the Washington area. I

served 4 years on the Staff, with this arrangement of responsibilities,

under which we literally worked for the Director, SAFSP, in whatever

function he required Washington assistance, in addition to serving the

Under Secretary, as he required. The subsequent establishment of the

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NRO has not altered this original need or the initial responsibility of

the staff to perform it. With the establishment of the NRO, this function

was formally extended to cover all NRO Program Directors equally,

to the extent that they require it (as outlined in the basic NRO organisation

memorandum of 23 July 1962, which is the principal NRO document which

Gh4S-1 will supersede). However, in practice, no Program Director

requires much of this function except SAFSP, as all of the others and

major portions of their resources are located in Washington. Therefore,

I recommend that the lead sentence in par 7c be changed to read, "The

functions of the NRO Staff are (1) to assist the DNRO, as he requests, in

the management and conduct of the NRP, and (2) to assist the NRO

Program Directors, as they request, in accomplishing Washington area

functions and tasks in support of their assigned responsibilities. "

Also, reference par 7c, in the second sentence, the qualification

"for NRP matters" should be deleted. All personnel serving on the Staff

should be responsible and responsive solely to the Director, NRO Staff

without any qualification. (note the provisions of the 11 August agreement

concerning allegiance to parent service or agency).

Reference par 7c(2), the phrase "establishing both long and short

range launch schedules" should be altered to conform with reality. The

long range mission planning rates are established by the DNRO in the

process of his budget and program approval, not by the Staff. The long

range schedules are subsequently established by the Director, SAFSP in

the process of contracting for the hardware, and these schedules are part

of the contracts. The Staff establishes the desired short range schedules;

the actual schedules followed throughout the complex of contractors, launch

base, etc. , are established by the Director, SAFSP, with the objective of

following the desired schedule as closely as possible. In the relatively

simple THOR based CORONA aystem, we succeed quite well; in the more

complex systems we do not have this same degree of flexibility.

i. Also, reference par 7c(2), recommend "selection between available

on-orbit target options," which fully describes the Staff's responsibility

for each project, rather than "on-orbit payload tasking selections."

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Reference par 7c(7), "Managing" is not the correct word unless

"scheduling" or "tasking" is added in front oi"the processing. " The

actual processing and production is managed by contractors (EK), and

by the Commander SPPL, who is responsible directly to the Director,

SAFSP. Also, management of the R&D referred to is not assigned to •

the Staff; it is assigned to a joint three-man CCB which is chaired by a

member of the Saeft. fr.?

Reference par 7e, and also first par 9, subpar d(4), my additional

duty is Deputy Commander, SSD, for Satellite Programs, not Vice

Commander.

1. Reference par 7g, the wording of this paragraph is contradictory to

explicit provisions of the 11 August Agreement. It clearly presupposes

the assignment to the CIA of the responsibility for development, procurement and operation, for entire satellite projects, as well as partial

responsibility for split-management satellite projects. It should be

reworded to be consistent with the Agreement.

Reference par 8, I recommend adding a sub-paragraph stipulating

that, until the DNRO has approved the actual development of a project,

that no code name or individual special clearance will be used, in order

to avoid proliferation of code names and individual clearances for studies

and proposed projects not actually approved for development.

Reference par 8e, the last part of the last sentence is incredible, and

surely must be an error. The DNRO cannot possibly discharge the system

engineering and integration responsibilities described in the DOD-CIA NRP

Agreement; he must delegate this responsibility for each project to a

single Program Director, along with the necessary authority. This point

should be made clear in the GMS-1 directive.

Reference first paragraph 9, subpar c, the phrase "under their

jurisdiction" is not clear, and does not provide the necessary latitude

to get the job done. I recommend that "determine need-to-know for

clearable persons actively working on NRP matters under their jurisdiction" be changed to "determine need-to-know and clear clearable

persons when the need-to-know is based upon a responsibility assigned

to them by the DNRO. "

Reference first paragraph 9, subpar d(4), change "Office of Special

Projects, Secretary of the Air Force (SAFSP)" to "Directorate of Special

Projects, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force (SAFSP)," and change

"Director, SAFSP" to "Director of Special Projects (SAFSP)," These are

consistent with existing orders, documents, stationery, etc.

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Reference second paragraph 9, subpar d, this clearly means

that no NRP communications will go to the Sec Def, Deputy Sec Def, or

Sec AF without specific prior DNRO approval. Does it also mean that

no CIA NRP communications will go to the DCI except through the DNRO?

If it doesn't, the paragraph will not be correct as written, and should be

changed to reflect the actual situation, or deleted.

Reference par 10, I recommend that a specific identification be

made of all the particular NRO documents that are being superseded, and

that these documents be listed explicitly, rather than using the blanket

phrase "supersedes any conflicting NRO documents, past or present."

The latter course is unquestionably easier, but is contradictory to the

main purpose of the new documents. If various parts of some documents

are to be rescinded only where they conflict with the new series, but

otherwise remain in effect, the tasks of complying is made much more

difficult. There is more room for misunderstanding since each must, on

his own, decide which parts of old directives have been superseded by

new ones, and to what extent. Furthermore, I think the past documents

which are being superseded should be reviewed comparatively with the

new ones at the time the new ones are written. There are a number of

NRO agreements and internal NRO documents and directives that have been

issued previously, which have been effective to varying degrees. It would

seem that the old adage that "he who is ignorant of history is doomed

to repeat it" should be resp-ected in this new undertaking by reviewing all

of the old documents, in the actual process of writing the new, and

specifying explicitly those that are being superseded, and to what extent.

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