Allen Dulles and More Christmas Cheer            

   An email responding to my post of "Be Of Good Cheer," herewith and 
edited makes a valid point that lower level analysts frequently get
it right -- but policymakers distort their product to support the
operational role of the CIA, vis:

> Reminds me of Allen Dulles' literary claims of espionage success. The 
> files showed what a disaster he was, with most of his OSS reports
> discarded as worthless. Still, there is more than a grain of truth in the
> lower-ranking analysts claims to have gotten it right.  The real question 
> is what was the CIA's policy when it hit the President's desk? Two very
> different stories. There is no great disinformation conspiracy,
> just bureaucrats rewriting analysts reports to fit the political theory of
> their bosses....
 
(Identifying data deleted by R.McGehee)

Subject: Re: Be of Good Cheer

I cannot comment on Dulles' OSS claims as I have avoided OSS history out
of inability to handle the sheer mass of info available.  Your
views re lower level analysts getting it right probably have much truth.
As I discovered in my "Vietnam days" policy dictated intelligence with
William Colby and others ensuring that no info challenging our policy
saw the light of day. However, the rejection of reality started from 
the very first days from just after WWII and prior to the creation 
of CIA.

Later even Sam Adams, the number one analyst/protestor on Vietnam, had 
little knowledge about the Communists "People's War," written about
ad naseum by Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh and even Mao Tse tung.

Agency analysts do not use open source data/datum -- and herewith lies
one major cause of its egregiously terrible intelligence. Another is 
the multi-leveled bureaucratic structure of the CIA that authorizes 
politicized bureaucrats at all levels to hack away at raw intelligence 
until it supports policy.

In my last few years in the CIA as a skeptic I saw that distoring 
intelligence to support policy was a universal truism. This can be 
deducted particularly from Mel Goodwin's experience re CIA intelligence
on the Soviet Union. William Casey was a total practicioner of this 
phenomenon.

Unfortunately efforts to protect the CIA's past dominate today. 
My concern is how an intelligence agency can ever be effective against 
terrorism, WMD, drugs, etc., when it cannot get it right over such 
long term and huge requirements as the USSR and Vietnam; and, when
policy writes intelligence.

For a successful career in the CIA one must accept that the Emperor 
wears gorgeous robes -- stating the obvious kills the messenger.

To become an intelligence Agency the CIA must be re-structured -- but Tenet
apparently does not see this -- or does not know this -- or does not care
-- or more likely, wants the CIA to enforce policy not write accurate
intelligence.

Ralph McGehee
http://come.to/CIABASE