Although the appointment of the chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) does not require the advice and consent of the Senate, the planned designation of retired Ambassador Charles Freeman to the position in March 2009 focused attention on the NIC by Members of Congress and by many in the public. Most believe congressional criticism was undoubtedly a factor in Mr. Freeman's ultimate decision to withdraw his name from consideration. In May 2009, then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced the appointment of Christopher A. Kojm as NIC chairman. Mr. Kojm had earlier served as deputy director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and as a professor of international affairs practice at George Washington University. The NIC is responsible for the U.S. intelligence community's most authoritative assessments of major issues affecting the national security. The NIC is a component of the U.S. intelligence community that is not well known even though it is less shrouded in secrecy than most other intelligence offices. Inherent to intelligence efforts is analysis of data collected. The first statutory responsibility of the DNI is to ensure that national intelligence is provided to the President, department heads, military commanders, and the Congress. Although this responsibility along with intelligence appropriations is sufficient to permit the DNI to establish analytical offices, the National Security Act also specifically establishes the NIC and defines its role at the center of the government's intelligence analysis efforts. By law, the NIC is to consist of "senior analysts within the intelligence community and substantive experts from the public and private sector, who shall be appointed by, report to, and serve at the pleasure" of the DNI. The senior analysts are known as National Intelligence Officers (NIOs). There is no statutory requirement that a chairman of the NIC be designated. The NIC is to produce "national intelligence estimates for the United States Government, including alternative views held by elements of the intelligence community." National intelligence estimates and other NIC products are defined as setting forth the judgment of the intelligence community as a whole on a matter covered by such product. Members of the NIC serve on a full-time basis as the senior intelligence advisers of the intelligence community to the rest of the federal government. They are part of the Office of the DNI (ODNI) and are not assigned to any other intelligence agency. By law the ODNI cannot be co-located with any other element of the intelligence community; currently the ODNI headquarters is located in a separate building in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. In 2011 the NIC consisted of a chairman, vice chairman, counselor, chief of staff, director of a strategic futures groups, and a senior advisor on global health security, in addition to some 14 NIOs. Currently, NIO positions are responsible for the following geographic and functional areas: Africa Cyber issues East Asia Economic issues Europe Military issues Near East North Korea Russia and Eurasia Science and Technology South Asia Transnational Threats Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation Western Hemisphere At present, the National Security Act, as amended, provides that the DNI appoints the members of the NIC and they serve at his pleasure, unlike the preponderance of career analysts in the various agencies. In recent years these appointments have been balanced among individuals who have served in the Foreign Service, the Defense Department, and the intelligence community, along with a number of persons from academic life or nongovernmental organizations. None of the NIC appointments require the advice and consent of the Senate. The responsibilities of the NIC are further set forth in intelligence community Directive Number 207, National Intelligence Council . Directive 207 requires that the NIOs, acknowledged experts in their areas of responsibility, provide intelligence assessments to the National Security Council, military decision-makers, and Congress. To accomplish this, NIOs may task agencies to provide analytical support. They may also work with officials in the ODNI to establish requirements for collection efforts by the various agencies (changing collection efforts can involve the major realignments of technical systems such as satellites). The NIC provides necessary preparatory and briefing materials for the DNI in his capacity as head of the intelligence community. There can be tension among these duties; involvement in preparing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and other assessments requires wide-ranging substantive expertise, participating in managing the collection effort requires detailed understanding of sophisticated technical systems, and providing staff support to the DNI can be time-consuming. In the past 15 years there has been a tendency to include more NIOs who have served in non-governmental positions in think tanks or universities along with ambassadors and retired military leaders. Some argue that such backgrounds help ensure the relevance of analytical products but do not necessarily provide the detailed understanding of the limitations of collection capabilities. Others maintain that it is only essential that NIOs understand which intelligence collection disciplines are most useful in answering which analytical questions and that detailed knowledge of technical systems is not required. Another potential danger is that the NIOs might become so committed to supporting the DNI in meetings and testimony that they have insufficient time for more detailed analytical work. The NIC produces coordinated assessments of the intelligence community's views, including NIEs, the NIC's "flagship product," that "provides the authoritative written judgments of the [Intelligence community] on national security issues for the United States Government." NIEs are initiated by senior civilian or military policymakers, Congress (by request or mandated in legislation), or by the NIC itself. After terms of reference are approved, the NIC assigns analysts to produce a draft. The NIC evaluates the draft, which is subsequently forwarded to intelligence agencies. Representatives from the agencies then meet "to hone and coordinate line-by-line the full text of an NIE." NIEs are reviewed by the DNI and the heads of relevant intelligence community agencies. Once approved, NIEs are disseminated to the President and to senior executive branch officials and Congress. In general, the members of the NIC are not public spokesmen for the intelligence community. They may testify before congressional committees and give occasional public talks to think tanks or academic meetings, but they are not policymakers and are not charged with informing the public. Their work is essentially internal to the federal government. On occasion some NIEs or specially prepared summaries are released to the public and become part of policy debates. In December 2007, an unclassified summary of an NIE on Iran's nuclear programs was released inasmuch as it included judgments at variance with an earlier assessment. Older NIEs of historical interest are occasionally published by CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence or are included in the State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States series. Long before establishment of the NIC, during World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) included a large number of eminent scholars who prepared reports based on all available intelligence. After the war, these functions and some of the scholars were eventually transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In 1950 an Office of National Estimates (ONE) was established in the CIA. The office included a Board of National Estimates (BNE) consisting of some 5-12 experts, chaired by former Harvard historian William L. Langer. The BNE's estimates were to reflect the views of the entire intelligence community, not just the CIA; the goal was to ensure that the President and other senior officials had the collective wisdom of all agencies based on all evidence to avoid the mistakes that were made prior to Pearl Harbor. The then-Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Walter Bedell Smith, personally selected experts in the field in strategy, political science, economics, and other social sciences along with individuals with broad experience in intelligence. Among those selected was a Yale historian, Sherman Kent, who succeeded Langer in 1952 and remained as head of the BNE until 1967. Eventually the ONE had a professional staff of 25-30 specialists and a support staff. At first members of the board were expected to be generalists; later on, elements of specialization developed. They had access to CIA products but also to intelligence produced in other intelligence agencies. Although the members of the BNE worked directly for the DCI, the relationship of the Office of National Estimates with the CIA's analytical component, the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), varied over the years. In 1952 the ONE was subordinated to the DI; in 1966 it became directly under the supervision of the DCI. The BNE set the pattern for NIEs and other less formal inter-agency assessments. The analytical standards were high and conclusions focused on issues that analysts believed policymakers would confront. NIEs became integral parts of most national security policymaking efforts, and more than 1,500 NIEs were published over the 23 years of the BNE's existence. Inasmuch as the estimates (drafted by the BNE and later by the NIC) were considered the DCI's estimates, they did not necessarily reflect the views of CIA analysts or those of analysts in other agencies. BNE estimates such as those addressing the Soviet Union's strategic capabilities provided the foundation for U.S. defense planning and arms control negotiations during the length of the Cold War. NIEs during the Vietnam War tended to be more pessimistic in regard to South Vietnam's capabilities than were assessments from Defense Department analysts. A major embarrassment was the board's judgment in September 1962 that the Soviet Union would be unlikely to deploy offensive missiles to Cuba. The following month photographic evidence revealed that missile bases were in fact being installed, a revelation that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Over time there were concerns that the board had become too inward-directed and had lost contact with policymakers. In 1973 DCI William Colby abolished the board and established a number of positions designated National Intelligence Officers (NIOs).