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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national estimates. This has been done in two ways: the first, by the actual preparation of inputs to estimates and subsequent review of the draft estimates provided by the ONE; and secondly, by the preparation of other types of intelligence publications as back-up or depth studies to support certain estimates. This section will deal primarily with the former.

The first estimate with major OSI participation was NIE-18, entitled "The Probability of Soviet Employment of BW and CW in the Event of Attacks upon the U.S.," which was published in January 1951. The entire estimate was drafted by O/SI. In 1951, OSI participation in the estimate production increased greatly. In that year, OSI played some role in the production of 16 estimates, then published under a bewildering array of report designations -- NIE (National Intelligence Estimates), SE (Special Estimates), SIE (Special Intelligence Estimates) and NSIE (National Scientific Intelligence Estimates). By the end of 1951, the ONE working through the IAC had evolved a mechanism for producing and coordinating periodic NSIEs. These estimates were to cover the most important fields of basic sciences as well as weaponry research and development and were to include contributions by various governmental departments and agencies. As far as can

TOP. SECRET

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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.