The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act now endows the DNI with the authority to control and direct the U. S. intelligence community, including most of its money and personnel. The director of central intelligence (DCI), who was the titular head of the intelligence community (IC) for 58 years, stays on as the head of the CIA, which is part of an intelligence community of 15 departments, bureaus, and agencies. The IC today, as in the past, is an informal confederation-more a cartel, really—of autonomous agencies with a structure intended to divide authority among them. Indeed, the organization of American intelligence reflects the dominant political culture — that it is desirable to “divide and rule” an establishment that potentially could affect freedoms and civil liberties. The IC today comprises 15 separate entities:
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
National Security Agency (NSA)
Intelligence units of the army, navy, air force, and marines National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and, separately, the Coast Guard, part of the Department of Homeland Security Counterintelligence unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Intelligence division of the Department of the Treasury Intelligence division of the Department of Energy (DOE)
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the Department of State Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
These agencies are organizationally scattered throughout the executive branch, further fragmenting the community. In addition, their disparate and specialized missions, structures, and institutional affiliations guarantee that they all compete against each other to secure benefits for themselves. For example, the DIA; NSA; army, navy, air force, and marine intelligence; NGA; and NRO all fall under the Department of Defense (DOD) and therefore reflect the missions and priorities of the military establishment. The other intelligence units—with the exception of the CIA—either are or belong to a cabinet-level policy department in the executive branch and so reflect the bureaucratic imperatives of their cabinet secretaries. The CIA, on the other hand, is an independent U. S. government agency, much like the Federal Reserve Bank, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and hundreds of others, now reporting to the president through the DNI and the NSC. Each IC agency contributes to the broader intelligence mission in discrete and specialized ways, while simultaneously participating in the larger effort of providing policy leaders with the comprehensive and collective judgment of the intelligence community—neither an easy nor an inexpensive task.
Between 1946 and 2004, the DCIs performed three functions. First, the DCI was authorized to put together, submit, and control the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) budget (one of three intelligence budgets, the other two controlled by the secretary of defense), which is the intelligence community budget, integrating intelligence requirements that policymakers feel are necessary during any given budgetary cycle. Second, the DCI managed the country’s counterintelligence programs, a responsibility shared by some IC agencies. Third, the DCI as IC chief was responsible for protecting sources and methods. Most of what is secret about the intelligence process is the way it is done—the sources from which information is obtained and the methods used to obtain it. This secrecy is mainly for the protection of these sources and methods; otherwise, U. S. intelligence would be unable to gather and analyze the information necessary to understanding adversaries and issues relevant to U. S. security. “Protecting sources and methods” forms the basis for all classification and compartmentation schemes in the government, an area over which the DCI retains complete control.
These three responsibilities — submitting a community budget, conducting counterintelligence, and protecting sources and methods—were the only ones the DCI exercised in his statutory role as head of the intelligence community. Even in this capacity, however, the DCI was more a coordinator, only able to exercise soft power techniques like persuasion and influence. To overcome this deficiency, the typical DCI needed to bring to his office attributes that enabled him better to manage the community—a personal relationship and access to the president, the skills of an excellent negotiator, and the patience of a mediator. Some DCIs were very successful in doing this, but most lacked these qualities and therefore were less successful in their community responsibilities.
Because the heads of IC agencies — except the CIA—reported directly to their policy principals, the DCI’s relative position in the White House pecking order also came into play in the bureaucratic politics of the intelligence community. This was especially so regarding the Pentagon’s intelligence units, over which the secretary of defense loomed—and still looms — large. From time to time, a particular secretary of defense would give lip service to allowing the DCI greater authority over the defense-related intelligence organizations, but no defense secretary ever relinquished any significant amount of power to the DCI. It took an act of Congress and substantial compromise finally to get the Department of Defense to relinquish some authority and moneys to the new DNI in 2004.
The DNI’s ability now to manage the IC in an effective way depends largely on the president’s backing. This is so because the 2004 act provides for a substantially weaker DNI than that sought by the 9/11 Commission report. Consequently, while the act endows the DNI ostensibly with substantial power, the wielding of that power depends on presidential endorsement. Short of that, the DNI is a mere coordinator, reminiscent of the role the DCIs played for 58 years as titular heads of the IC.
The DNI’s authorities are now limited. Under the law, the DNI has a say in hiring the heads of the intelligence agencies but has no authority to fire them. The DNI can move money from one agency to another to meet needs, but always within strict limits. Under the law, the DNI has only limited authority to reprogram funds and transfer personnel from the Defense Department, while the department still keeps control over its massive intelligence agencies as well as 30 percent of intelligence moneys. The DNI, under the law, is supposed to develop and determine all agency budgets, but he is only empowered to monitor the implementation and execution of intelligence spending. Moreover, while the legislation puts the new national intelligence chief in the position of commanding the attention of agency heads, weakened authorities do not assure greater intelligence coherence and effectiveness. Indeed, given the weakness of law, the new position constitutes an additional bureaucratic layer, further separating the titular head of U. S. intelligence from collectors and analysts who reside within the agencies.
Given the fluidity of the international order and the response of the American government to it, it is almost certain that American intelligence will continue to evolve in unpredictable ways in the near future.
Some of the changes that U. S. intelligence will experience are already in the offing, what with the establishment of the position of a new national intelligence director and consolidation of the country’s counterterrorism institutions. Undoubtedly, American intelligence 20 years from now will look considerably different from the way it does now, for new challenges will compel it to reinvent itself to meet them. However, the history of American intelligence as illustrated in its people, institutions, and actions shows that its fundamental principles at least are immutable and an essential part of the American democratic enterprise.
World History
