92. Memorandum From the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant for Research and Intelligence (Eddy) to the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Administration (Peurifoy)0

SUBJECT

  • Functions of the Advisory Committee on Intelligence (ACI)

As is set forth in Departmental Regulation 183.5,1 effective July 1, 1946, the Special Assistant, with the advice of the ACI, is charged with the responsibility of implementing the Department’s intelligence objectives and policies. Under the “Russell Plan” the ACI is the bridge between the Special Assistant and the four Geographic Research Divisions, [Page 226] but since the resignation of Mr. Russell,2 as well as during preceding weeks, a series of incidents has made me question whether the ACI can continue to perform that function. The next regular monthly meeting of the Committee will fall on Tuesday, February 4, and I should like at your early convenience to talk with you about the issues involved since you will be taking Mr. Russell’s place on that Committee.

In brief, the authority and representative character of ACI has been questioned by ARA and NEA, and instructions regarding security, approved by the ACI, have been rejected by their two Research Division Chiefs. Furthermore, in the case of one Office Director, negotiations have been initiated directly by him with the Director of Military Intelligence of the War Department with regard to an NIA Directive, which would seem to me to certainly be covered by DR 183.5-I(c).

It would not seem to me useful to reconvene ACI nor to go through the motions of securing its concurrence unless it is understood throughout the Department that the ACI has competent jurisdiction on at least three points:

(1)
Supervision of the research and intelligence projects on the technical side.
(2)
Common security measures applicable to all operations and personnel in Research and Intelligence, including the Research Divisions, to insure confidence of the intelligence services of other departments who will otherwise decline to distribute to us their secret materials. (In certain intelligence centers there is already a segregation of material which is kept from the State Department members on the grounds that we cannot maintain security precautions necessary to an intelligence organization.) Special security measures have been approved by ACI, but they have been rejected or ignored by certain units of our research organization. I have had no reply to the enclosed memorandum to Mr. Braden.3
(3)
Liaison with the National Intelligence Authority and with its member intelligence agencies on matters of positive intelligence.

Since I was appointed with the approval of Mr. Acheson to serve during the pleasure of the preceding Secretary of State, it would seem to me essential that I should make this situation known to Mr. Acheson at an early date if this office is to function at all, no matter who may replace me. In view of the intimate association of the present Department Intelligence plan with Mr. Russell’s office, I would prefer to consult with you before reporting to Mr. Acheson or calling another meeting of the ACI.

William A. Eddy 4
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees—State Department, Lot File No. 122, Records of the Secretary’s Staff Committee 1944-47, Box 94. Confidential.
  2. Department of State Bulletin, September 8, 1946, p. 471.
  3. Russell resigned as Assistant Secretary of State for Administration effective January 20.
  4. Not attached and not found. At the end of the source text the attachment is identified as a memorandum from the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Research and Intelligence, October 18.
  5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.