INTELLIGENCE REFORM

Material from the 1990s

E - G

Gentry, John A. "The Intelligence Reform Debate." Defense Intelligence Journal 2, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 65-79.

Gentry supports "appointment of a commission composed of individuals of significant technical, managerial, and ethical stature" to study the issues surrounding intelligence reform; however, the focus of this article is on issues that military intelligence needs to address.

[Glickman, Dan] [D-KS]. "Glickman Calls for Releasing Intelligence Community Budget." National Security Law Report 16, no. 2 (Feb. 1994): 1, 2, 6-8.

Remarks at January 27, 1994, breakfast of ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security. Also reprinted in American Intelligence Journal 14, no. 3 (Autumn/Winter 1993/1994): 74-76.

Godson, Roy. "Intelligence Reorganization." American Intelligence Journal (Winter/Spring 1992): 25-30.

Godson, Roy, Ernest May, and Gary Schmitt, eds. U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads: Agendas for Reform. Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1995. JK468I6U18

Clark comment: This volume consists of 18 papers originally presented at meetings of the Working Group on Intelligence Reform or written by Group members. The papers range quite broadly across the intelligence landscape -- from definitional discussions to the intelligence industrial base to counterintelligence issues to military intelligence concerns and beyond.

For Cohen, FA 74.5, U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads "is considerably better than the run-of-the-mill collection of articles.... Individual contributions stand out, among them David Kay's superb description of Iraq's success at hiding its nuclear program from U.S. intelligence... The authors do not march in lockstep ... and represent a variety of political views.... Those interested in provocative but informed discussion of where American intelligence stands at the end of the Cold War, and where it should go, should start with this book."

Jonkers, AIJ 16.2/3, agrees, commenting that the "book is recommended reading for all interested in contemplating the structure of US intelligence in a changed world."

Garthoff, PSQ 111.3, comments that while there "is some unevenness in the contributions and in gaps between them..., over all the book certainly makes a contribution to what should indeed be a major debate on an important subject of public policy."

To Warren, Surveillant 4.3, this "is the book for policy wonks with an intelligence focus.... The papers contain no startling pronouncements or innovative suggestions, but they do present a coherent background from which to view the current impetus for reform or reorganization of the intelligence community."

Flanagin, NSLR, Oct. 1995, notes that this "compendium of papers ... is not a consensus report. The contributors represent different orientations ... and their differences of opinion are illuminating. The book offers a set of alternatives rather than a single agenda for reform."

Collins, WIR 15.3, finds the book "a welcome collection of reading materials" for those teaching courses on intelligence.

Goodman, Allan E. "The Future of US Intelligence." Intelligence and National Security 11, no. 4 (Oct. 1996): 645-656.

Goodman' s theme is that "virtually none of the reforms aimed at preparing the intelligence community for the missions and analytical challenges of the twenty-first century is likely to be adopted." The concern is that, absent fundamental organizational change, "Americans will do what we have always done with intelligence organizations when a war is over: gradually dismantle what remains and leave ourselves vulnerable to the nastiest of surprises."

Goodman, Allan E., and Bruce D. Berkowitz. "Intelligence Without the Cold War." Intelligence and National Security 9, no. 2 (Apr. 1994): 301- 319.

The authors' thesis "is that intelligence after the cold war will best serve US national security by focusing on the relatively few problems where it can make a genuine unique contribution.... [T]he central purpose of intelligence is to warn the President and the National Security Council (NSC) of foreign threats to American interests.... [T]he product should focus on those hard-to-collect and understand problems and issues on which there is both a vital need-to-know what is happening and a high degree of difficulty in finding answers from conventional and open sources.... [F]urther [budget] cuts lie ahead, and ... they can be accomplished by eliminating obsolete programs that were either devoted to monitoring the Soviet Union's power projection capabilities or to collect information on or conduct operations against Warsaw Pact forces.... [O]ne could dismiss all of the analysts and still not reduce spending by more than 10 per cent. To cut intelligence spending significantly, one must reduce spending on technical collections systems." Solutions are offered.

Goodman, Allan E., and Bruce D. Berkowitz.

1. The Need to Know: The Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Covert Action and American Democracy. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1992. Click for Twentieth Century Fund, The Need to Know...

2. In From the Cold: The Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Future of U.S. Intelligence: Background Papers. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996.

Green, Brian. "The Intelligence Control Schism." Air Force Magazine, Sep. 1996, 14.

ProQuest: "The DOD, the CIA and the House and Senate intelligence and defense panels are fighting over a major effort to reform foreign intelligence operations because each organization has an ambitious reform agenda and each wants the reform package to reflect its respective interests and perspectives."

Greenberg, Maurice R., and Richard N. Haass. "Making Intelligence Smarter: [Excerpts of] Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations 1996." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 135-144.

Under the rubric, "Additional Views," Betts suggests that the report focuses too much on the perspective of the policymaker: "One of the most important functions of intelligence is not to ease the job of the policymakers but to complicate it, to tell them things they do not want to hear."

Abramowitz and Kerr find it ironic that "[s]ince the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military has increasingly dominated the intelligence process." They "believe this trend needs to be checked and a better balance struck between civilian and military participation and in how intelligence funds are spent."

Text of this report is available as: Council on Foreign Relations [Richard N. Haass, Project Director]. Making Intelligence Smarter: The Future of U.S. Intelligence -- Report of an Independent Task Force. New York: Public Affairs Office, Council on Foreign Relations, 1996.

Gries, David.

1. "Intelligence in the 1990s." Studies in Intelligence 35, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 5-11.

2. "A New Look for Intelligence." Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 1 (Jan. 1995): 170-183.

There are several key issues regarding the U.S. Intelligence Community that require further attention. These include "the need to clarify organizational relationships, increase public accountability, simplify classification practices, and adjust several core activities."

Grossman, Larry. "Intelligence in a World of Change." Government Executive, March 1992, 11-15, 35.

Forward to Reform - 1990s - H-K

Return to Reform 1990s Table of Contents

Return to Reform Table of Contents