CIA Intelligence Community Staff

National Intelligence Programs Evaluation Staff 1963-72, Intelligence Community Staff 1972-1992, Community Management Staff 1992-2004

Welcome! I’m Tom Griffin and this is my intelligence history newsletter. Feel free to share this article with the button below. If this email is truncated, please check the website.

Last month, I wrote about the struggle over the role of the US Director of National Intelligence following the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard. On Friday, MSNOW reported that Acting Director Bill Pulte had begun swingeing cuts at ODNI.

With some questioning whether ODNI should even exist, today’s subscriber profile focuses on the CIA staff which formerly carried out much of its role. Whether this history of CIA-Pentagon turf wars provides much precedent for current controversies is open to doubt. The current political battle hinges in part on issues of domestic intelligence which are traditionally the province of the FBI. This piece may nevertheless be useful for understanding the environment in which past intelligence debates played out.

The Intelligence Community Staff moved from Langley to the US Civil Service Commission Building in downtown Washington DC in 1977, emphasizing its distance from the CIA (Ajay Suresh, CC4.0).

The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) had responsibility for co-ordinating the US Intelligence Community from 1947 until 2005, when a Director of National Intelligence was appointed separate from the CIA. From 1963, the DCI was assisted in this role by the National Intelligence Programs Evaluation Staff, which became the Intelligence Community Staff in 1972, and the Community Management Staff in 1992.

Many DCIs came to feel that their community role gave them responsibility without power. One complication was that the majority of agencies in the intelligence community came under the ambit of the Department of Defense. Some military intelligence officers were critical of CIA authority, most notably Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, who headed the Intelligence Community Staff in 1973-4. Others welcomed CIA advocacy of intelligence in the competition with other defence priorities.