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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## FOR CLUREI

OSI was also to support other OCI publications such as the Current Intelligence Review and the Situation Summary (merged in 1955 to become the Current Intelligence Weekly Review).

In the early 1950's, the Agency had a category of publications entitled the CIA Memoranda. These memoranda represented an Agency view and were issued only on subjects which were, or soon were to be, under high-level policy consideration. They were not to be issued very frequently, lest the currency be debased. General supervision of their production was to be exercised by a Panel consisting of the Assistant Directors for National Estimates, Current Intelligence, Research and Reports, and Scientific Intelligence. No evidence has been found indicating OSI preparation or coordination of such memoranda.

OSI participation in OCI publications by the preparation of items within OSI has never been entirely satisfactory. As early as 1952 OSI was aware that it must improve its performance in fulfilling its current intelligence responsibilities. At that time only one article in a period of one year had been submitted to the Current Intelligence Review. In November of 1952 the requested the

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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.