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Prepared by: Daniel Byman Reviewed by: Rick Cinquegrana
Interviewee: Richard Betts and Robert Jervis Subject: Intelligence Community reform
Interview Method: Interview
Place: Columbia University
Date: November 2, 2002
Participants: Daniel Byman, Richard Betts, Robert Jervis
Record of interview:
Professor Betts and Professor Jervis are Professors at Columbia University. Betts has worked on
several inteligence reform investigations, including the Bremer Commission and the Church
Cominittee and has authored numerous artcies and books related to inteligence. Jervis advises
the National Inteligence Council and has written on intelligence reform in the past.
Reviow of Various Recommendations
‘The key for assessing reform is understanding the unintended consequences. In general, there
should be a presumption against reform, as there are clear costs with regard to confusion and
lost work. in addition, both believed that there will always be successful attacks - the key is
reducing the frequency and convincing people not to rearrange the system after every terrorist
success.
Betts and Jervis crtcized several proposals
+ They noted that separating the functions of DCI and ClA Director could create a czar without
leverage. Unless the DCI had budget authority, the position would simply be an empty one;
+ Areworking of the inteligence Community aia Goldwater-Nicholsis impractical as there is no
key issue (such as fighting wars) around which to organize the Community. Priorities wil change,
and you may be saddled with an improper organization system if you do.
+ They were concerned that an NIO for terrorism might lead the NIC to drop an important N10. In
addition, they worry that this would improperly relieve all the regional NIOs of their responsibilty
for terrorism
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Betts and Jervis called for decreasing the emphasis on support for military operations. Politically,
it would be foolish to decree this, but rather the DCI should simply emphasize other priovtes.
Betts and Jervis offered several ways to improve Inteliigence Community expertise. The CIA no
longer has a bad name, so recruiting should be easier than during the late Cold War.
Recommendations include:
+ Developing a broader, society-wide expertise on the Middle East comparable to the past
emphasis on Russian and Chinese. This would involve programs similar to the National Defense
Education Program and the Foreign Language and Area Studies program. The Intelligence
Community would have to recognize that few of those trained (at say the undergraduate level)
‘would go to work for Intelligence - rather, by producing broader overall competence, the
Inteligence Community in general would improve.
+ Ensuring that there are "excess" people working an issue, in order to allow for training and
valuable (For developing expertise) research.
+ Rebuilding the professor in residence program.
+ Creating programs similar to "scholar/dipiomat" centers, where experts from outside spend a
‘week with the inteligence Community, which would help the Community some and perhaps pique
the scholars’ interest
* Giving analysts and office managers incentives to make contact with the broader commurity.
+ Building an “intelligence reserve" similar to the military reserve. Have someone come in to read
up on cable traffic on less prominent issues (e.g. Tajikistan) for one weekend a month. In the
event of a crisis, these people are on call
+ Increasing transfers from the rest of the government to allow the exchange of talent at middle
ievels (e.g, retired foreign service and the miltary). This will require changes to civil service rules.
+ Rationalizing security procedures so the best new-hires don't go elsewhere while they are
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waiting for approval
* Conducting more "post-mortems” or "lessons learned” studies.
Miscellany
Neither Betts nor Jervis had done much work on the FBI. That said, they both believed that the
FBI's culture, focus, and structure all could be changed with aggressive leadership and a new
incentive structure.
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