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Commitee Sensitive TT Doo72510 Committee Sensitive Joint inquiry - Committee Sensitive Team File: Document Number 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 Committee Sensitive Committee Sensitive 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 Committee Sensitive 1 Committee Sensitive 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. Committee Sensitive Committee Sensitive 2

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