Documents / FOIA release

(EST Pub Date) the Office of Scientific Intelligence, 1949-68- (Volume Three, Annexes Viii, Ix, and X)

Central Intelligence Agency · 1972-06-01 · 243 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This is Volume Three of the CIA Directorate of Science and Technology Historical Series on the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), 1949 to 1968, written by Karl H. Weber in June 1972 and approved for release in 2008. It holds three annexes, on OSI publications, OSI's external assistance and contracting program, and OSI's interaction with the National Security Agency. The released text covers production planning, review boards, current intelligence periodicals and future threat forecasting. It does not discuss UFOs.

  • p. 12 # TOP SECRET By 1955, an OSI Research and Production Plan was in an advanced stage of…
  • p. 19 …Bloc capabilities in the scientific and technological frontier areas where unique advances of military or economic…
  • p. 22 …lead to new types of advanced weapons or otherwise affect the balance of power, was evident…
  • p. 34 …They now serve a 2-4 month period rather than the earlier 4-6 month period…
  • p. 47 …Chinese development of advanced weapons, much more space has been given in the Scientific Intelligence Digest…
  • p. 51 …of the Soviet satellite program had been reported and evaluated well in advance of the launching.
  • p. 86 …that the hope of emerging nations to attain advanced status hinged largely on the development of…
  • p. 141 …As scientific intelligence has become more involved in advanced technical detail, the use of consultants to…
  • p. 181 …funds too far in advance. XI. Administrative Problems By FY 1957, the OSI external support program…
  • p. 187 …systematically to information on the USSR to determine whether future advances in specific fields were probable…

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## TOP SECRET

responsibility in the area covered, and the Daily Surveyor does not have a formal review mechanism. All OSI publications with the exception of contributions to estimates are reviewed and coordinated by other Agency offices with overlapping substantive interests.

On occasion, OSI publications are coordinated with substantive experts in the field being evaluated. One of the earliest of these reviewing groups was the Boston Scientific Advisory Panel which was established in 1951. Other groups of experts, such as the Webster Panel for nuclear energy and the Hyland Panel for strategic weapons, were subsequently established and have provided valuable substantive review of OSI production. In addition, certain OSI contractors have performed substantive review of OSI production prior to publication.

D. Consumers of OSI Publications

Since its establishment, OSI publications have been prepared to serve a variety of readers. In the early days many reports were prepared at the direct request of such consumers as the Department of State, the Research and Development Board and the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group. For example, within six months of OSI's establishment the WSEG had requested a comprehensive survey of Soviet capabilities with respect to U.S. strategic bombing.

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 243 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.