Gl a rs Oo 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 19 20. 21° 22 235 29) 12 24 || TOP SECRET ‘ Mr. Aaron. That's correct. Mr. Kirbow.. Several weeks in advance, ‘Mr. Aaron, That is correct, and then what happened, apparently, was that -~ two things happened. One, the Greek press, our intelligence officers, embassy people with. the exception of the embassy in Cyprus, all became preoccupied with what was going on with the Aegian Sea, and there was a struggle between the Greeks and the Turks over the oil there, and that became a hot item. And there was also concern about conflict, and there was a big intelligence collection on that subject. And so Cyprus became kind of a sidelight. That's one thing. | | | | The second thing that happened. was we got some raw intelligence which said Tonides has decided to cool it, don't worry, and so forth. And the Agency analysts accepted that, and in effect said temperatures are dropping, things are cooline off and so forth, so that even though what they predicted would precipitate a coup began to take place, they didn't stick -with their own original estimates. So they were kind of led astray with both this innundation of foreign information and the. fact that -- that's how the post mortem put is, onto saying if you want to see or if you want an example of when this general point took place, the Ic ‘staff says that's at least one of them. | | Senator Huddleston. I want to make sure it was the | TAP CrenetT Docld: 32423515 Page fF
10. 11 12 | aa 15 16 17 1s 19 50 21 22 on. c> R4 25 TOP SECRET | os intelligence communi ty staff that made that judgment. | Mr. Aaron. That is correct. In fact, that really ought to be capitalized. . | Senator Huddleston. I think it ought to be left in there to give a little more flavor to the report. _ Mr. Bader. Senator, may I speak to the other side before you make that decision? And Mr. Kirbow can speak for himself. Senator Huddleston. I hate to be thoroughly confused by the facts though. | | “Mr. Bader. I think in the beginning it is bracketed because there is some disagreement among the staff as to the appropriateness and usefulness of putting this in, this information into this particular ‘report. Let. me separate the two: elements of this footnote or suggested addition to it. . The one goes to the question of. the analytical bias. This is a very difficult and complicated point to make, and as David — i a -has suggested, there is the perjorative weight to the word | "bias." It isa complicated point to understand and analysts worry: about this a great deal as they approach the estimative and other intelligence business because they are constantly faced with the problem of how to anticipate the - in some cases how to anticipate the rational behavior. “The word "bias" here is used in the sense that the analyst is biased in the direction of thinking that individuals Docld:32493515 Page @
act rationally when they make decisions. My objection to including the second half of this conclusio is that it isn 't really importantly related, or related at all to the paragraph that it is part of. I think the first part of it that has to do with Cyprus is an illustration of the problems that raw intelligence in great quantity give. the analyst, who is working a crisis situation, is perfectly ‘TOP SECRET ~2 Ov cn AS Gl Oo: HF | appropriate, as far as” the substance of it is concerned, to (ee) 9 the paragraph, the second part of which, of this analytical: 10 || bias I think flows from that paragraph.. As‘a start, I think 11 || you would need a great. deal more explanation in the text to 12. talk about this. | | we “135 It seems.to me it is a throwaway point that comes at the 14 || end of it,,though I accept it as an issue: 15 As far as the intelligence community tasks, seeing this 16 || as one of the reasons for failing to foresee the coup in 1? Cyprus in 1974; it is perfectly correct. That is what the le intelligence community. staff post mortem: does in fact say the 19° hesitations that some of us: had, or I had about the conclusions 20 of this is that we had not done Cyprus as a case study. We 21 haven't taken testimony on it. We have the one statement ~~ 22 that comes from a credible source, which is the IC staff in 93. its post mortem. : | ‘ : 24 || . - Senator Huddleston. Which we are quoting. 25 Mr. Bader. Which we are quoting. So I think the TAP Fenner. Docld:32423515 Page 3
zo TF BF GW WD KB oO LO il 12 14 15 16 1? 18 19 20 el Re 29 25 DoclTd: 32425515 Page 10 |; were being furnished great ; amounts of raw intelligence at their TOP SECRET Ic staff reference takes away most of the problems that I have. My recommendation would really be here that we. keep the first part and drop the second part, that is, the. analytical bias. I think the first footnote or part of the text is” an . illustration, is an example of just w what we're talking about, and the rest of the part of it. I think on the second part we are talking about analytical bias. There is not. enough text to really give the reader a sense of quite what we mean about it. So that would be my recommendation. I think Mr. Kirbow has another view.. Mr. Kirbow. Mr. Chairman, this was, I think, four or more times, I know specifically considered by the staff with all of the people that appeared to have: an interest in it being» present, and it had been decided as a policy type matter that since all of the original information had been furnished both to the policy makers at the highest level, and that they theniselves had a requirement and were levying on the. intelli- gence community , on this new Aegean Sea problem, that they too request, along with the analysts fumbling this, and even this last bit of raw intelligence which came from a source in Athens, and by the way, a new source, not: ‘one that we had relied on before or had great trust in being absolutely good, s TAR creep eT u
TOP SECRET _l || raw evidence, was made available. The decision had been made \ 2 | that -- the final concluding words in the paragraph discussing 5 |} this sort of thing would read something like the failure to take 4 || effective action to prevent such invasion was a policy failure 5 || and not an intelligence failure, and 1 think that basically 6. we don't ever hold post mortems inthe intelligence community 7 || on the failure of the Secretary of State or the President or 8 || the Secretary of Defense to a in accordance with a policy 9 procedure. We always hold post mortems on, kind of down at 10 || the level of the analyst, and what .did he get and did he fail 11 to properly advise. a | 7 12. | The record before this Committee, except for the post _ 137 mortem -- and we have no great weight given to the post mortem - 14 that I can see from any evidence in the record, or anything 15 cited by ‘the intelligence community, I just think it unfair - 16 for this Committee to decide, without almost a preponderance - ay of evidence, to kind of indict those analysts that were working _ 1s this problem at that time, placing no blame whatever on the. 19 policy makers who had exactly the same information plus all 20 of the other information that: the analyst never has as to what eHd 1 8} the policies of. the governments really are in this case. _ begin 2a : an ae 22 - Secondly, I agree perfectly with Mr. Bader on this analyst 23 bias. americans are the product of our background, and we \- 24 always weigh other people as best we can, if you are in the 25 ‘analytical business, based upon your own experiences. and TAP Creprr Docld: 324273515 Page 121
“_ oO oO PP Zee) 10 n 12 13 14 15 16° 1? 18 - 19> 20 21 22 \ 24 z£95 TOP SECRET whatnot, and I just don't think that to rub these two together here, also, it makes a good point for the Committee, if you are going to use them at all, it should be put in another section. And thirdly, there really hasn't been a Cyprus study or even a comment from the State Department or anyone else as to whether or not the information they had was adequate to meet whatever decision they wanted. And I just. don't think it well serves the Committee that we don't have a better picture, that this kind of recommendatio is kind of a conclusion drawn, I think, from among the staff and not totally supported by investigation. | Mr. Aaron. Well, just let me say, I think. you have heard the arguments, so I want to clarify one point, and that is the point about. intelligence failures versus policy failures is made on the paper on page 4lb. I think we all agree on that | statement. It simply says there is a difference between the two. The U.S. had intelligence on the pssibility of a Turkish invasion of Cyprus in '74,' The problem of taking effective action to prevent such an invasion was a policy question on intelligence failure. | I think we capture that point, and on the other point, this is simply drawing on documentary evidence available to the staff to illustrate a point. | | Senator Huddleston. We also have something ofa disclaimer toward the effort on the reflection of the intelligence analysts TAR CFene? Docld: 32423515 Page 12
no Gt 10 il 12 13 14 15 16 1? 19 20 21 22 2) 25 TOP SECRET 10. it seems to me, It seems to me we are talking about improving the analytic operation, and it just seems appropriate to point to some specific instances, especially when we -are quoting some other group that has a certain amount of stature... I don’ t know that we can make that any stronger there. We could say this - possibility was indicated by the Committee or the intelligence community staff report, or emphasize that it is the community staff, the intelligence community staff itself indicated this possibility. | | Mr. Aaron. Just say "saw this as part of the problem." Senator Huddleston. Yeah. | , diGenova. The word itself also emphasizing the self-. analytical aspect. | : | Mr. Maxwell. The latter part of that quote, I'm not sure whether it doesn't detract from the impact, saying the intelligence community saw this as one of the veasons for failing to foresee the coup in cyprus, because it seems to imply that analysts will make predictions based on what they believe rational people will do seems a fairly straightforward point, but it breaks up the impact of the earlier statement. Mr. Aaron. Well, as. far as the latter statement is concerne I would agree with Bill' S ‘point here that it. doesn’ t necessarily flow - Exom -the thing we are talking about before, which is the abundance of -— _ TAR 2EARPET Docld: 32423515 ‘Page 13 7 - ‘ : N
10 -11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19. 20 21 22 23 24 25 you? You say "in this connection". is involved in that case. There is not really. The thing is, and I agree that it is a very complicated problem. It just. with. .It is the kind of points that people need to understand -is no way to do that. But it is just an effort to try to give a different side to the problem. NOP, 13 -example, from the text, that goes before it, from the general | ‘point which goes to another country and makes it a separate TOP SECRET ll _ Senator Huddleston..°: You. are relating two problems,. aren't Mr. Aaron. It:turns out that there is another problem tha strikes me as one which, because it: is. a problem, and. I think as Charlie says, it isa big thing that ° we all have to live that this is a problem, you know. We don't make any recommen- dations about how people ought to be irrational. I mean, there Mr. Bader. Mr. Chairman, one possibility is that we could separate these two, the intelligence community staff and its reflection on the Cyprus problem,which flows directly, as. an. to the specific; and then perhaps include this analytical bias point, as part of the body of the larger paper that supports this, the backup. paper’. | | Mr. Aaron. See, I have the feeling is the quote read: An old and familiar analytical problem," we'd all feel more comfortable with the quote because it would not have the persjorative little twist’ to it, and maybe we should -- one of ‘the things that we could do, we'd. simply say, is to take TP 2ren rT Docld: 32423515 ‘Page 14
LO 11 12 13 14 15 ; 16 17 18. 19 20 21 22 23 ‘ 24 29 12 TOP SECRET | the quote off of "and" and just: say "An.old and familiar analytical problem" that perhaps, I mean, we wouldn't be doing. much violation to “the statement of the IC staff, and we would - not be removing the perjorative. | | | Senator Huddleston. Would it be any better to paraphrase that rather than taking it in full? 7 Mr. Aaron. Yeah, we could do that, too. . Maybe we could do that -- why don't we take that and do a paraphrase, and maybe you can put that paraphrase in | such a way that it would help meet the complexity of the problem: | | Senator Huddleston. You're talking about improving the professionalism or effectiveness of analysis. It seems to me one of the things we have to do. is to find some way to overcome the natural tendency of people to do what it says here, expect » that rationality will prevail, or expect that. people won't do obvious and very rational things. I would like to see the reference in there somewhere, just -to give a little extra impetus and emphasis to this one section and I believe this whole question of analysis is one that is very important Do you have any thoughts on that? Mr. inderfurth. I agree. Senator Huddleston.: All right, would you agree with an attempt to do a Little paraphrasing there instead of a quote? _ TAR A2eAReET , Docld: 324273515 Page 15
10 ll 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 TOP SECRET 2B | Senator Hart of Colorado. Well, if I had my ‘aruthers, I'd leave the direct quote. oo | | | Senator Huddleston. Well, I think the direct quote has’ one thing going for it, and that is, it is a direct quote, and it is taken from a group that is identified. | Mr. Aaron. I think if we just take the quote of "the old and familiar analytical bias" section. _. Senator Huddleston. ‘the word "bias" has a connotation — I think that might make it hard to understand. | Mr. Aaron. We might have to move that little paragraph ~ ‘to a little later, where it would fall in better. Mr. Maxwell.- Just for those people, for the late reader, perhaps in the top paragraph on 41, the carryover, 4lc, the . carryover paragraph, it may make sense to try to illuminate | what is the kind of policy maker's lust for the latest fact, because it is not on its face, I think, so clear that the policy maker would be or would want that raw fact, and yet it. -is the latest cable or the latest SIGINT or whatever. Mr. Aaron. I think we need a little! introduction here -about policy makers want the latest news. . Mr. Maxwell. That's the point. Mr. Aaron. And producers of finished intelligence have to compete. | Mr. Maxwell. That's my point. | And’ the bottom paragraph, is there a need for an TO PR ee pee . Docld: 32423515 Page 16
10 li le. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 RS 4 24 29 that point as well. trying to predict or foresee or suggest the trend of our and they never knew it was going to happen, and the Nixon concerned about. et recommendation, we might just adda factual example at the. ‘it too is recent, it's well known, and there's nothing inflamma TOP SECRET ou example, or does it speak for itself, that the analysts aren't in part sufficiently informed about. national policies and programs. I mean, one example traditionally has been covert action, but I wonder if there are other examples that would make Mr. Aaron. Oh, yes, there are other examples. I think a lot of the -- or one of the major ones, for example, analysts relationships with Japan, were unaware of the trip to China, shocks had a major impact on a lot of other things we were 7 Mr. Maxwell. That may be a good example to capture the point here, if people think it is not as clear. | . Mr. Aaron. Well, that is my example. Mr. Kirbow. But that's also the thing we take up in’ Recommendation No. 29, that policy decisions don't feed down fully or rapidly enough to keep the analysts in the main stream sometimes. Mr. Maxwell. Perhaps if it is going to be our first bottom of 4lc to make it clear how important that is. Mr. Kirbow. The China trip may well be an example, because tory, I mean, nothing serious happened before or after. So. I | TAR CGFeRer Docld: 39493515 Page 17
10 ‘dl (12 —_ 14 -15 16 1? 18 _ 19 20 21° 22 23 eo 4 20 ; quite beyond Japan. That's one you could look at very carefully}: other areas. any other -- -it seems to me we have made an unnecessarily long sentence if we just eliminated that middle section of it. “sight on our part. I believe we had. discussed that very thing. | intelligence activities, and the Committee finds that such -de-emphasizing~ in.one of its reports ‘that covert action is | TOP SECRET 15 think you can use that as an example. — Mr. Aaron. And of course, the China trip had impacts because it had a big impact on the Soviet Union and a couple of | Now, turning -- and beyond that I don't think there are Senator Huddleston. Well, let me suggest on 4lc, the first paragraph after the section we were just dealing with, there in that one paragraph that. might really have more impact. be t : Mr. Kirbow. Mr. Chairman, I think that is just an over- Senator Huddleston. I was wondering if (a) ought to be (a). | Mr. Kirbow. Intelligence is the principal. purpose of all of-our . collection is unacceptable -- Mr. Maxwell. I think, Charlie, it has to be (a). Covert action. | | | | Mr. aicenova. There is a point I think the Committee is. ‘| that important, that it is an extreme tool to be used, and it would follow therefrom that really the principal purpose would ata 2 eR Docld:32493515 Page 18. .
1 2 LO 11 la. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ' 21. 22 20 activities, 13 ahead and during, you wouldn't have any successful covert | useable. . | photograph or a cable and whatnot being, ‘supplied without it TOP SECRET 4K be the production. t Mr. Maxwell. ‘But the principal purpose of all intelligence Mr. diGenova. Well, maybe... Mr. Kirbow. Unless the Chairman feels strongly.. Senator Huddleston. Well, I think we can leave it (a). Mr. Kirbow.. When you really think about it, that is the whole crux of intelligence, though, is the finished part of it. Senator Huddleston. . I think it could very well be the thing. | Mr. Aaron. The principle is lucid. Senator Huddleston.» Well, the principle of the _syaten is to provide our leaders with the guidance they need. Mr. Kirbow. In fact, a lot of finished intelligence, both operations at--all, large or small. Senator Huddleston. The word "finished" . I guess implies — | DO -—" a 5 Mr. Kirbow. Put it to a report form or summary type form, Mr. Chairman, instead of the bits and pieces like a being correlated into an}overall picture. | Senator Huddleston. All xight,. we are in agreement there. ; | That ought to. finish 41c} , Mr. Aaron. All right, rT think we can go. on to. the | Tom erenrr | Docld: 324293515 Page 19
TOP SECRET —s_s, 1 |] recommendations. N“ Coe . 2 |. The first one follows on after your point that you just 3 made, which is that the Committee recommends a system he devise 4 || to assure that intelligence analysts are better, more’ promptly ns) informed on U.S. policies, programs, particularly in the area 6 of their responsibility, and secondly, there isa change in| 7 || the second ‘sentence of‘ Recommendation No. 30. This is not 8 ila Freudian slip. Analysts should be able to advance to ‘super- g ||. grade positions without having tio assume major managerial | 10. responsibilities. ll Senator Huddleston. I saw that when I came through. 12 Mr. Maxwell. David, could I suggest a further amendment? 3 ; a 13 || Major managerial responsibilities and with analytical capabilit e 14 being the principal criteria. ‘Unless you do that, the last 15'|| sentence eliminates the possibility that an analysts with 16 ‘managerial capabilities would be able to advance. 17 Ms. Culbreath. No, he says analyst advancement, so if he 1g || starts advancing -- in the last sentence. ‘19 Ms: Davis. I'm sorry, I don't understand. 20 Mr. Maxwell. For analyst advancement, the: person is an 21 analyst until he becomes a manager, perhaps, so what I'm saying 22 ‘is, if. you say analysts should be able to advance to supergrade 23 positions without having to assume major managerial responsi- ‘- 4 || bilities and with analytic capability being the principal 25 criteria, that ties in both thougts I- think. TAR CFener Docld: 32423515 Page 20
TOP SECRET 1 Mr. Culbreath. with analytical capability as the principal. NS ' 9 || criteria? oO | - | 5 Mr. Kirbow. Would the word "able" bother you there instead 4 || of "being allowed to advance?" . 5 Ms. Culbreath. "Should be advanced." 6 a Mr. Kirbow. If you agree here in principle with what we 7 are trying to say, then we can rewrite this, Senator. 8 Senator Huddleston. - Suppose you approach it from this 9 angle, that supergrade positions should be available to. personn 1- 10 || on, the basis of their analytic capabilities, period. il Mr. Aaron. The flavor of managerial was we made it quite 12 clear in the text that the route up is through the management. t vO 3 i Okay, the third recommendation is that the Director of 14 Intelligence seek to bring in more analysts from the outside, 15 particularly at the middle and upper grade level for both 16 career and temporary positions. | 17 ' The next recommendation, that greater emphasis be placed 18 on the stimulating and development of analytical methodologies: 19 ‘at all levels of management. We might’ just say that this can 20 || be an effective exercise sometimes. I mean, there are a 91.|| great deal of people interested in methodology, and on the 22 other hand, it is one of those things that requires constant 23 attention, and which the Agency itself needs some encouragement ' YO, 24 to continue doing. It has some activities under way now. Tt may 25 ‘be ‘the beginning, but now that they are in a transition, I think DoclId: 32423515 Page ?1