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BRIEF NIC HISTORY
The National Intelligence Council, now in its twenty-fifth
year, continues to produce "estimative"
intelligence—forward-looking assessments of
national security issues—for senior US policymakers.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the
Central Intelligence Group (1946) and the early
CIA that succeeded it (in 1947) had an Office of
Reports and Estimates (ORE) that wrote estimative
intelligence. (ORE-1, issued in July 1946, dealt
with Soviet foreign and military policy nearly a
year before President Harry Truman declared a US
policy of containing Soviet expansionism.)
An Office of National Estimates (ONE) came into
being in 1950 with the division of ORE into three
functional offices, one to conduct basic research,
one to write brief daily reports, and ONE—whose
sole task was to produce coordinated "National Intelligence
Estimates." (That autumn the first such National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) dealt with prospects
for Communist armed action in the Philippines. NIEs
continued to develop as a special process in which
the organizations that comprise the US Intelligence
Community pool and assess their knowledge on subjects
of national security interest and then look beyond
the current situation to estimate likely outcomes.
To improve responsiveness to intelligence needs
and to better engage the Intelligence Community
members in the drafting of estimative intelligence,
the Office of National Estimates was succeeded in
1973 by National Intelligence Officers. This group
of substantive experts became the National Intelligence
Council in 1979. The Council reports to the Director
of Central Intelligence in his role as head of the
Intelligence
Community and represents the coordinated views
of the Community as a whole.
Over the past quarter century the National Intelligence
Council has developed into an all-source center
of strategic
thinking. Drawing on the best available expertise
inside and outside government, it provides the Director
of Central Intelligence and US Government policymakers
with an authoritative voice addressing the complex
international issues of today and identifying and
illuminating those that lie ahead.
Want to Know More?
Two articles that shed light on National Intelligence Estimates were published
in CIA's intelligence journal in 1991.
- One, A
Crucial Estimate Relived, was
written in 1964 by Sherman Kent, who as head of
the Office of National Estimates was directly
involved in an NIE that, in mid-September 1962,
reasoned that the Soviets would not put offensive
intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cuba. In
less than a month, photographic intelligence proved
the estimate wrong. In reflecting on the lessons
learned, Kent discusses the estimative process
in general as well as that erroneous estimate
in particular.
- The other article, The
Primary Purpose of National Estimating,
was published in conjunction with the 50th anniversary
of the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and
is a theoretical estimate that might have been
issued three days before the Japanese attack occurred.
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