Chapter 2. The Military Services and the Joint Operating Plan, 1946–1949
Immediately following World War II, American policy makers looked for ways to achieve major reductions in the military budget. Despite the spectacular successes achieved by the Army and Navy COMINT organizations during the war, they quickly became prime candidates for reorganization and for major reductions in their resources. As the Pearl Harbor investigations continued, interest in intelligence matters also increased dramatically. For the first time, U.S. intelligence operations came under outside scrutiny. By 1946 service COMINT officials found that they were no longer able to act as free agents in making many of the basic decisions affecting their COMINT operations.
Their days of complete autonomy were numbered. Other fundamental intelligence relationships were also changing. Within the COMINT community, the addition of the State Department to the membership of the COMINT policy board changed not only the composition of the board but the scope of its intelligence interests as well. At the international level, the Great Britain-United States negotiations to extend COMINT collaboration into the postwar period were nearing completion. Finally, in the military itself, there now existed demands for closer cooperation between the Army and Navy COMINT organizations.
In addition, developments during World War II forced a new reassessment and push toward unification of the military services at the national level. Despite widespread agreement on the need for postwar organizational reform of the military services, there existed deep philosophical differences and suspicions among the services that could not be resolved easily. As debate progressed during this period it became clear that Congress would have to legislate a structure that would be acceptable to the military services.
All of these activities – foreign negotiations and unification – impacted on the COMINT structure that sought to achieve its own degree of unification within the intelligence organizations of the War and Navy Departments. As a principal means of achieving closer cooperation, the service COMINT organizations responded to these pressures by establishing a joint operating agreement. This new alliance called for a collocation of the Army and Navy COMINT processing activities in the United States, as well as cooperation in their COMINT collection and reporting programs. While the services remained organizationally independent, the joint operating agreement did call for a totally new managerial concept, namely, operating on the basis of shared" or "joint" control over a number of COMINT targets and resources. While this was a difficult period of adjustment for the COMINT services, they not only survived but made some significant COMINT contributions during this time.
As the services moved into the postwar period, they found that peacetime operations, rather than simplifying the conduct of their COMINT operations, brought new problems and highlighted even more the glaring disunity of the U.S. COMINT structure. By 1946 the harsh realities of the new situation began to hit home. Operationally, the services had lost their wartime targets of Germany and Japan, and the source of many spectacular successes. At the same time, the services were confronted with the specter of rapidly shrinking resources. Shortly after V-E and V-J Days, their parent headquarters ordered drastic reductions of their COMINT facilities. Demobilization actions were under way with dire consequences for the service COMINT operations.
While the services no longer had the urgency of a wartime situation to support their requests for resources, the likelihood of going through an extended period of austerity did have one practical effect. It forced the services to reevaluate their joint posture and to think more seriously about closer cooperation between their organizations. Because of the new public investigation of Pearl Harbor with its intensive probings into intelligence matters, the COMINT officials saw that they would be vulnerable, once again to charges of duplication of effort and inefficient use of resources if they continued to maintain totally separate and independent COMINT organizations.
Fortuitously, in the postwar period a new operational target emerged for the U.S. COMINT services. As the hostility of the Soviet Union toward the West became more apparent, the Army and Navy began to plan for a major adjustment of their COMINT coverage, to focus on Soviet targets. But the realignment was not all that simple. Some very fundamental questions existed concerning intercept and processing that could only be answered on a communal basis. For example, what were the new collection priorities? What were the new intelligence priorities? Who would establish these priorities? What were the interests and roles of the non-military consumers? How would the intercept and processing of the Soviet material be divided between the services? It became obvious that the service COMINT organizations, as constituted, could not answer these questions.
Because of these problems, the services perceived an immediate need for accomplishing some form of cooperation that went well beyond the scope of any previous efforts. The military authorities fully recognized that, at best, they had made only superficial progress toward the establishment of closer cooperation between their organizations in the production of COMINT. Earlier moves toward closer cooperation, dictated by wartime necessity, had been carefully designed to be limited in scope, as well as to avoid any interference with the primary interests of each service. The wartime agreements had accomplished little more than a basic division of labor and had avoided the real issue of establishing a centralized cooperative effort. In the main, the spirit of the earlier measures seemed to reflect an inherent attitude that cooperation in COMINT matters was a necessary evil, rather than any real conviction about the benefits of centralization or cooperation.
Seeking to shelter their vital COMINT functions from further budget reductions, the military authorities intensified their efforts to achieve closer cooperation and coordination between their COMINT organizations. The likelihood of further budget reductions and the question of survival of their separate COMINT organizations forced the two organizations together.
A few Army and Navy officials, aware of the magnitude of the COMINT successes during World War II, became the prime movers in the effort to preserve the Army and Navy COMINT structures. Three officers in particular stand out in the postwar era – Colonel W. Preston Corderman, USA, Colonel Carter W. Clarke, USA, and Captain Joseph N. Wenger, USN.[] As early as 1943, these officers took the essential first steps in pressing for the preservation and fusion of the military COMINT resources. Over the next few years, they consistently took the lead in facilitating a dialogue between the services to foster the preservation of military COMINT resources. For the most part, they sought to promote service discussions covering a broad range of organizational relationships, such as division of responsibility on cryptanalytic tasks, the feasibility of joint operations, and possible ways to avoid unnecessary duplication. Each of these officers encountered varying degrees of opposition, sometimes from within their own service, and sometimes from the other service. Despite the continuing lack of enthusiasm encountered at various echelons of the military structures for consolidation, they had the foresight to view COMINT as a national asset that would be vital in meeting future U.S. intelligence needs. Corderman, Clarke, and Wenger never wavered in their single-minded determination to save the existing military COMINT structure from a dismantling process through budget cuts.[]
Of the postwar intelligence machinery, the establishment of the Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board was probably the most important component for the Army and Navy. With the creation of ANCIB in March 1945, Corderman, Clarke, and Wenger succeeded in establishing the nucleus for a structured, communal approach to the basic handling of COMINT matters – and in moving the services toward toward greater cooperation in their intelligence relationships. Operating with a very limited charter, ANCIB quickly emerged as a policy mechanism for the COMINT services and brought a new semblance of unity and order to the COMINT structure.
Reinforcing their goal of creating a self-governing mechanism for the COMINT agencies, the leaders brought about the establishment of an expanded policy board – the State-Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board – in December 1945. The members established STANCIB as the primary governmental mechanism to coordinate and guide the activities of the COMINT structure and to assist in its reorganization during the postwar period.[] In retrospect, the development of a strong role for the policy board stands as a tribute to the military leaders, particularly when recognizing that STANCIB was operating without an official charter.
Despite the fresh dialogue and new perspective on a broad range of COMINT matters, one critical element was still lacking within the COMINT structure that could prevent STANCIB from acting as the COMINT broker, at either the international or domestic level. While the services had achieved considerable progress in expanding their dialogue at the policy level, they had not made similar progress in designing an operational plan that would enforce closer cooperation at the working level. Unless some additional leverage was brought to bear upon the services, the authorities recognized that the Army and Navy had gone about as far as they could – or would – go in achieving closer cooperation at the working level. Since voluntary merger was not likely to occur, direct intervention by higher authority was inevitable.
The proposal to merge the Army-Navy communication intelligence activities had been under periodic discussion by the services as early as 1942. The Army authorities generally supported the proposals for merger, while naval officers were unanimously opposed. For the Army, Major General George V. Strong, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, repeatedly expressed his strong support of the concept.[] From the outset, however, the naval authorities opposed the concept of merger. Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, supported the position of the Navy's intelligence and COMINT officials that its COMINT operations should remain under exclusive naval control.[]
The Navy's persistent opposition to the centralization of cryptologic resources stemmed, in large part, from its perception of its fundamental intelligence needs, as contrasted with those of the Army. The Navy considered that its intelligence requirements expressed statements of need for intelligence information of a strategic nature and of national-level interest, that could be properly handled only by a full-scale technical center under the operational control of the Navy. In contrast, the Navy perceived the Army's intelligence requirements as reflecting needs of a more limited nature, which were exploitable in the field at a tactical level. Leaving little room for negotiation on the issue, the Navy generally discouraged exploration of the concept of merger during the 1940s.
But the developments associated with the end of World War II brought about a general reopening of the feasibility of the merger concept. By V-J Day (14 August 1945), a number of new problems confronted the services that involved both operational and political considerations and that forced them to take a new look at their cryptologic organization.
At the same time, there existed a number of parallel developments at the national level that also seemed to threaten the COMINT services. Confronted with the reality of budget cuts, the services recognized that they would have to acquire new priority tasks in order to justify the continuance of their separate organizations. Moreover, the concept of centralization had acquired new credibility and momentum within the upper levels of the government. There existed growing pressures, emanating from both the presidential and congressional levels, to establish a new centralized intelligence agency and to accomplish, in some form, an integration of the military services. Once again, the issue for the military organizations related directly to the question of their continued existence.
Because of these factors, the Army and Navy command authorities moved to a position that clearly supported a merger of the COMINT services. A few days after the surrender of the Japanese, because of budgetary retrenchment actions and the loss of the major wartime targets, the Army and Navy command authorities clearly supported a merger of the COMINT services. An exchange of Army-Navy correspondence appeared to set the stage for accomplishing a merger action. General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, in a letter of 18 August 1945 to Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, recommended a complete physical merger of the COMINT processing activities of the Army and Navy.[] He proposed that the Joint Policy Board (ANCIB) study the proposals and develop specific recommendations on "how to insure complete integration." In his response of 21 August 1945, King expressed complete agreement with Marshall. King also noted that he had directed the Navy members of ANCIB to work with the Army representatives in the development of recommendations.[]
With the Marshall and King exchange, the basic decision to merge the COMINT activities was made. All that remained was simply the matter of developing the ways and means for executing the decision for merger. On the surface it looked simple. Implementing the merger became the responsibility of ANCIB and its working committee, ANCICC.
On 28 August 1945 ANCICC responded by establishing a Subcommittee on Merger Planning (SMP). In its instructions to the SMP, ANCICC noted that the subcommittee had the task "of making recommendations in implementing the decision of General Marshall and Admiral King that the Army, Navy intercept, cryptographic, and cryptanalytical activities be merged under joint direction." The ultimate objective of the committee was to accomplish a prompt and complete merger of Army and Navy organizations in one location under ANCIB.[]
One of the main tasks assigned to the committee was the selection of a site for the consolidated COMINT operations. Because of the need for direct exchange between producers and consumers, the committee concluded that the activity should remain in the Washington area. ANCICC presented an analysis and comparison of the Army site at Arlington Hall with the Naval Communications Annex (which it called the Mount Vernon Seminary). Because of its greater potential for expansion, the committee selected Arlington Hall as its first choice for the relocation of all COMINT activities. The Arlington Hall site of ninety-six acres was considerably larger than the Navy site of thirty-five acres. In its final report of 7 September 1945, however, the committee concluded that both sites should be retained, with COMINT activities to be located at one, and communications security activities at the other.[]
During the policy deliberations within ANCIB, Colonel Corderman, Chief, Army Security Agency, reiterated the traditional Army position for an immediate and complete physical merger of the two organizations. While Captain Wenger, head of OP-20-G, fully supported the concept of eventual consolidation, he personally espoused the view that merger should be accomplished as a gradual process in order to accommodate differences in organization and methods. These differences in approach, however, did not affect the final report that recommended a complete merger.[]
But the situation soon changed within the Navy. The command authorities of the Navy, supporting the traditional naval view concerning central authority, overrruled Wenger at the eleventh hour. When ANCICC considered the final report on 12 September 1945, a new Navy submission completely nullified Wenger's earlier concurrence and indicated that even the concept of gradual consolidation went further than the Navy was willing to go. The Navy memorandum stated that
a full physical merger of Army and Navy communications intelligence activities does not seem desirable to the Navy. . .
The memorandum also pointed out that
the Navy must retain complete control over all elements of naval command, so that the Navy will be free to meet its interests, solve its special problems . . . [and] must, therefore, have complete control over its operational intelligence.[]
The Navy's abrupt reversal of its earlier position brought to a complete standstill the entire move toward consolidation. On 26 September 1945 ANCICC closed out the activities of its Special Committee on Merger Planning and referred the matter to ANCIB for guidance.[] ANCIB, however, had no authority to resolve the conflict between the services and looked instead to the departmental authorities for resolution. In trying to pick up the pieces, Marshall and King exchanged four additional letters during September and October 1945. But the letters reflected no change of positions, as each simply reiterated the previous position of its intelligence service, with no specific suggestions offered for compromise. []
On 14 October 1945 King reported to James V. Forrestal, secretary of the navy, that he and General Marshall continued to agree that the coordination of signal intelligence activities could be improved, but they had not achieved a solution satisfactory to both services. King noted that both services agreed that the processing of some types of traffic should be jointly undertaken, but the exact manner in which this might be accomplished remained unresolved.
The Army favors a complete merger of our cryptanalytic Units under one director, whereas the Navy, desirous of insuring its control of operational intelligence essential to naval commands, does not favor a complete merger but would rather effectuate the desired results by joint effort under joint direction.[]
By December 1945, however, new participants appeared on the scene. General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced General Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz relieved Admiral King as Chief of Naval Operations. In a positive move toward solution of the problem, Eisenhower reopened the issue in a letter of 2 January 1946, suggesting that "we should make a fresh start on this entire subject." Remarking about their earlier experiences as commanders of combined forces, Eisenhower commented that "we both know how vital it is to resolve any differences of opinion and to achieve complete integration as soon as possible." His proposal was very simple. He proposed that the Army and Navy members of ANCIB should either solve the problem by themselves or develop alternative proposals for decision by Eisenhower and Nimitz.[]
Nimitz readily accepted Eisenhower's suggestion for making a fresh start on the issue of how to integrate and coordinate the COMINT activities of the Army and Navy. As evidence of a softening of the Navy's position, Nimitz instructed the Navy members of ANCIB to consider the problem with open minds, free of any restrictions stemming from earlier policy guidance.[]
With the new push from Eisenhower and Nimitz, the COMINT officials of the Army and Navy began to reassess their earlier positions. In lieu of having a solution directed by higher authority, both services obviously preferred to solve the problem at the COMINT level. Even the monolithic Navy, after having derailed the earlier efforts toward merger, indicated a surprising new willingness to go along with the move toward consolidation. As the spokesman for the Navy COMINT organization, Wenger pressed again for the concept of gradual consolidation as representing an attainable solution.[] Similarly, the Army advocates of consolidation ultimately modified their earlier position on merger and came to acknowledge that the objective of a complete merger would have to be deferred for a later date. Corderman, one of the main proponents of merger, had also insisted previously that the senior joint official selected to head the merger should be identified as the "Director" rather than "Coordinator." Before the new negotiations were over, however, Corderman would yield on this point as well.[]
The Navy resubmitted Wenger's earlier concept paper as its new bargaining position. In effect, the naval authorities supported a position that went one step further in the move toward consolidation but that still fell short of complete merger. The Navy officials would support a concept described as the establishment of an "effective working partnership" between the Army and Navy. In a modification of Wenger's earlier paper, the Navy proposed the establishment of a new position, the Coordinator of Joint Operations (CJO). The CJO would not function as a czar with unlimited authority, but rather would have the responsibility for facilitating interservice coordination and cooperation. Under the terms of the new Navy proposal, the services would function as coordinating but independent organizations. Some joint operations would be established. Further, the services would ensure a continuous cooperation an exchange of information on all other COMINT problems. Policy control of the structure would be vested in a Joint Policy Board (ANCIB-STANCIB) that in turn would reflect the interdepartmental authority of the chief of staff, U.S. Army, and the commander in chief, U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations.[]
By early 1946, the British-United States of America Agreement (BRUSA) negotiations, initiated in 1945 to establish postwar collaboration in COMINT between the two nations, were nearing completion. Since the concept of BRUSA collaboration was predicated in part on the existence of centralized controls of COMINT activities within both countries, the approaching ratification and implementation of the agreement brought a new, compelling urgency for the United States to put its own house in order. These international considerations, coupled with the departmental pressures stemming from the Eisenhower-Nimitz exchange, prompted new discussions in STANCIB concerning possible ways to merge the Army and the Navy COMINT organizations.
On 13 February 1946 STANCICC considered at length the earlier Navy proposal for closer cooperation of the Army-Navy communications intelligence activities.[] Moving very quickly on the issue, on 15 February 1946 STANCIB approved in principle the framework for a new concept of Army-Navy cooperation in COMINT. The Navy's insistence on establishing a "Joint Effort under Joint Direction" prevailed in the discussions of the COMlNT policy board. STANCIB accepted the framework for a new period of Army-Navy cooperation in COMINT, based on the Navy's earlier proposal of "joint" but "separate" COMINT activities.[]
The STANCIB decision ruled out the possibility of any actual merger of Army-Navy COMINT processing activities. Instead, the services would now undertake new initiatives to achieve closer cooperation on all phases of the COMINT process. This improved cooperation would be achieved by establishing closer working liaison day-to-day in the functional areas of intercept, analysis, and reporting. Integration of technical personnel from the opposite service would also take place – primarily on analytic problems – at Arlington Hall and the Naval Communications Station. The new agreement, however, pertained only to the collection and production of information from foreign communications. It excluded such intelligence functions as estimates or the dissemination of COMINT information as finished intelligence.
The COMINT organizations would coordinate their activities but would remain totally independent organizations. In addition to the integration of Army-Navy personnel on certain analytic problems, STANCIB divided the Army-Navy responsibility for some targets along the traditional lines and identified others as a "joint" responsibility, to be placed under the direction 0f the new Coordinator of Joint Operations. To implement this new concept of Army and Navy cooperation, STANCIB directed the chiefs of ASA (Army Security Agency) and OP-20-G to draw up the details of a plan and statements of general principles governing the roles and responsibilities of the services and the Coordinator of Joint Operations.[]
By approving this new concept of "partner ship," STANCIB succeeded in keeping its efforts to reorganize the U.S. COMINT structure in tandem with the progress of the BRUSA negotiations. By 1946 STANCIB, although lacking a national charter, had succeeded in positioning itself as the primary U.S. authority and spokesman for policy negotiations with foreign nations on COMINT matters. At the same time, STANCIB also greatly enhanced its stature as the central organization for promoting closer cooperation between the U.S. services.
Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, STANCIB chairman
On 5 March 1946 the U.S.-U.K. representatives formally signed the British-United States of America Agreement, which authorized continued postwar collaboration in COMINT matters on a governmental basis. Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, STANCIB chairman, signed the agreement for the United States, and Colonel Patrick Marr-Johnson, representing the London Signals Intelligence Board, signed for the United Kingdom.[]
As a follow-up to the BRUSA Agreement, a "Technical Conference" took place in London several months later. The primary task of this conference was to develop the overall blueprint for the development of technical appendices to the agreement. Over the next few years, this initial effort resulted in the development of a number of appendices to the BRUSA Agreement, which governed such areas as security, collection, liaison, and other aspects of collaboration.[]
Colonel W. Preston Corderman, USA
Captain Joseph N. Wenger, USN
On 22 April 1946, six weeks after ratification of the BRUSA Agreement, STANCIB issued the "Joint Operating Plan" (JOP). The JOP also became known as the "Corderman-Wenger Agreement," named for the principal Army and Navy negotiators (Colonel W. Preston Corderman, USA, and Captain Joseph N. Wenger, USN).[]
As an integral part of the plan, STANCIB approved an expansion of its own charter. This change provided for the establishment of a fundamentally new position, the Coordinator of Joint Operations. The new coordinator, it was hoped, would become the driving force in unifying the COMINT structure. According to the charter, the CJO would function in a dual capacity and under dual command lines. First, the CJO would function as an executive for STANCIB, and thus would be responsible for directing the implementation of STANCIB's policies and directives relating to intercept and processing tasks, as well as for all joint projects with other U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies. In addition to his STANCIB role, the CJO would acquire a new leadership role within the Army and Navy COMINT structures on day-to-day operations involving joint tasks. Organizationally, the CJO would have dual subordination lines, reporting to STANCIB as the CJO, and to his individual service in his capacity as chief of a military COMINT organization. []
Under the Joint Operating Plan, there were two key positions that governed the conduct of COMINT operations. These were the CJO and the chairman of the working committee (STANCICC) of the COMINT Policy Board (STANCIB). The chief of the Army and Navy COMINT organizations rotated yearly as the incumbent of each position. This rotation of the senior service officials gave each service a continuing and powerful voice in the "coordination" and "policy" roles.[]
The STANCIB-STANCICC structure served to facilitate resolution of some disagreements, but there were still problems. The rule of unanimity still prevailed on the policy board as well as on its working level committee. Thus, whenever STANCIB-STANCICC failed to reach a unanimous decision on an issue, it remained unresolved.
Vandenberg, as chairman of STANCIB, recommended that the first coordinator be selected from the Army because of its wartime COMINT activity.[] Following this recommendation, STANCIB selected Colonel Harold G. Hayes, chief of the Army Security Agency, as the first CJO on 1 May 1946. The operating chiefs of ASA and OP-20-G came responsible to Hayes for accomplishing those tasks that he allocated to them.[] Hayes was "to coordinate," however, and not "to direct." It was an important distinction.
Colonel Harold G. Hayes, Chief of Army Security Agency, first coordinator of Joint Operations.
Under the plan, the Army and the Navy maintained their independent COMINT organizations. The Joint Operating Plan directed that the responsibility for each COMINT problem be allotted to the Army or Navy in such a way as to prevent any duplication or overlapping of effort. Thus each service continued to control a large percentage of its own intercept and processing capacities. Each service also performed "tasks of common interest," such as work on weather targets. Although the CJO allocated these tasks to the services, the actual intercept facilities remained under the tasking and control of the services. The CJO, however, did control and coordinate the intercept coverage and reporting on the "Joint Tasks."
The term "joint" applied generally t0 all tasks not strictly Army or Navy. These tasks represented areas of special interest. The CJO exercised his authority over these tasks by establishing a committee'on group structure, designed along functional lines, that reported to him. These areas included intercept, processing, and liaison activities.[]
Administratively, three subordinate groups assisted the CJO: a Joint Intercept Control Group (JICG), a Joint Processing Allocation Group (JPAG), and a Joint Liaison Group (JLG).[] A deputy coordinator served as the chief of each group. While the CJO was to use existing facilities whenever feasible, each service also assigned personnel to him for his own staff support. This included clerical, administrative, and analytical assistance. The coordinator's senior assistant was from the opposite service and normally served as chief of the JPAG. Captain Charles A. Ford, USN, served as the first chief of JPAG. The officer in charge of the Joint Liaison Group was also from the opposite service. Commander Rufus L. Taylor served as the first chief of the JLG under Hayes. The officer in charge of the Joint Intercept Control Group was from the same service as the coordinator; Lieutenant Colonel Morton A. Rubin, USA, served as first chief of the JICG.[]
The mission of the Joint Intercept Control Group was to develop a plan for intercept coverage that would provide intelligence of maximum value to the consumers. The JPAG allocated processing responsibilities to the Army and Navy. As the U.S. overseer of foreign liaison, the JLG arranged for and supervised U.S. working arrangements in COMINT with the United Kingdom and Canada. In addition, six standing subcommittees of the COMINT policy board served as advisory committees in the areas of intercept, direction finding, cryptanalytic research and development, communications intelligence and security, traffic analysis, and collateral information. In this complex structure of functional groups and STANCICC subcommittees, the deputy coordinators of the groups and chairmen of the STANCICC submmittees were under the direct supervision of the CJO.[]
After the establishment of the JOP in April 1946, additional organizational changes took place affecting the STANCIB structure. After examining a draft of the BRUSA Agreement, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, expressed an interest in obtaining membership on STANCIB.[] Adding the FBI to its membership on 13 June 1946, the board and its subordinate committee became the United States Communication Intelligence Board (USCIB) and the United States Communication Intelligence Coordinating Committee (USCICC).[] When Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, assistant chief of staff, G-2, became the second Director of Central Intelligence in June 1946, USCIB agreed to expand its membership once again by including the DCI as the representative of the newly established Central Intelligence Group (CIG).[] (The CIG came into existence on 22 January 1946.)
As the membership of the policy board increased, the civil agencies such as the Department of State, FBI, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began to participate in the activities of USCIB and the JOP of the Army and Navy. (The National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA on 18 September 1947, superseding the CIG.) As members of USCIB, however, they participated only as observers in the activities of the Joint Intercept Control Groups and the Group. From 1946 to 1949, these committees of USCIB and the CJO were the primary mechanisms available to the intelligence consumers for expression of their intelligence priorities and specific requirements for COMINT information.[]
A major problem area for the JOP proved to be intelligence requirements. The military services continued to handle their requirements basically on a service-to-service basis. For example, the Army G-2 tasked the Signal Security Agency for its COMINT requirements, with the same parallel applying to the Navy. However, the area of "joint" interests remained poorly defined, both for military targets and for other broad targets of interest to civilian agencies. Despite the organizational change in the COMINT structure, the civilian agencies quickly recognized that they still had no real voice or representation in the adjudication or establishment of intelligence priorities.[] Changes were taking place, however, that would give a new prominence to the consumer role, as well as a greater participatory role for the civilian agencies in the operations of the COMINT structure.
After operating for three years under a purely interdepartmental charter, USCIB acquired a new national charter in 1948. The new National Security Council Intelligence Directive Number 9, "Communications Intelligence," established USCIB as a national COMINT board reporting directly to the National Security Council rather than to the military departments. The charter, however, was not appreciably strengthened, and still reflected a preponderance of military membership. But the change of subordination, coupled with the establishment of CIA in 1947, meant that the military COMINT community could no longer act in a totally independent manner.[]
Under the JOP, the primary vehicle for the dissemination of COMINT to consumers was the published translation or bulletin, issued in a standard format prescribed by the JPAG.[] The Army and the Navy generally issued separate bulletins on their respective targets. Bulletins on joint interest targets were published as joint Army-Navy products. Within this overall framework also existed a number of separate reporting series for major categories of information such as Soviet COMINT. As provided in the BRUSA Agreement, bulletins were exchanged with GCHQ.[]
The creation of the JOP marked the introduction of major changes involving producer and consumer relationships. These changes provided the consumers with greatly expanded technical information in COMINT reporting and granted them greater access to COMINT activities. At its thirtieth meeting, 27 April 1948, USCIB approved a CIA request for greater access to COMINT activities.[] This decision authorized all of the consumer agencies to receive unfinished products considered necessary for the fulfillment of their mission of producing finished intelligence. In addition, consumers now had the option of placing indoctrinated representatives within the COMINT production organizations of the Army and the Navy. The ground rules governing these relationships required that specific arrangements be worked out in each case, primarily through working-level contacts or through the service COMINT authorities. Lacking resolution via these channels, the consumer still had the option of referring the matter to USCIB for further consideration.
During this period, any evaluative process or further dissemination of COMINT became the responsibility of each consumer. Generally, the agencies accomplished this by collating the COMINT with other intelligence information and by preparing special fusion reports containing both COMINT and other intelligence sources, Since most of the USCIB members prepared their own community-wide reports, this resulted in a wide variety of publications. These included a daily summary published by the Department of State; the Army's summary; and the Navy's "Soviet Intelligence Summary," both issued weekly; and various other special reports issued by the Army, Navy, and CIA.[]
To assist the agencies in their evaluation of COMINT, the Army-Navy COMINT bulletins included specific data related to the origins of intercept. In addition, the consumers, on request, could receive unfinished COMINT products considered necessary for their own evaluation.[] Each consumer also prepared its own estimates. This often resulted in a number of different intelligence estimates on any one subject – with no organization producing a consolidated estimate. Thus, the difficulties associated with centralization of the COMINT organizations extended to the entire intelligence process, and to the consumer membership of USCIB such as CIA, State, Army, Navy, and Air Force.
In summary, in response to growing national pressures, and as a principal means of achieving closer interservice cooperation, the COMINT services established a joint operating agreement rather than undertake a merger of their separate COMINT organizations. The mechanics of this new alliance called for a collocation of the Army and Navy COMINT processing activities in the United States, as well as for major organizational changes in their collection and reporting tasks. The move to establish joint service operations reflected a realization of their increasing interdependence as well as of the inevitability of still further changes in the management of COMINT resources. While the services remained organizationally independent, the joint operating agreement called for the introduction of a totally new managerial concept for the services, namely, operating on the basis of "shared" control over COMINT resources.
Because of the magnitude of the governmental changes from 1946 to 1949, the JOP represented a period of great adjustment for the COMINT services, as well as for the entire intelligence community. At a time when the services and Congress were still debating the unification issue, the creation of the JOP occurred harmoniously and by mutual agreement of the Army and Navy. By collocating and integrating their COMINT processing centers at Arlington Hall and the Naval Security Station, the JOP achieved a level of interservice cooperation never previously accomplished by any military organization.
The concept of the JOP was very simple. It called for the services to act as coordinated but independent agencies. In developing the blueprint for the JOP, the primary objective was to devise a structure that by its very nature would promote greater cooperation and dialogue between the military COMINT organizations. At the same time, Army and Navy authorities insisted on maintaining their separate identities and organizations. In the implementation, some elements of the reform process proved to be highly effective as the services actually began to cooperate on COMINT matters. The plan was seriously flawed, however, as it stemmed from a proliferation of military command lines and created a rash of new bureaucratic channels requiring coordination. For example, the CJO functioned under dual subordination, reporting to USCIB as the CJO, and to his individual service as the chief of a military COMINT organization. This dichotomy of authority proved to be not only conceptually unsound but detrimental to the timeliness of COMINT operations.
Another organizational drawback of the JOP structure was that it called for a large committee structure to work on functional matters of an operational nature and to operate under the aegis of the CJO. While these committees soon became pivotal coordination points, they also became representative of a "management by committee" syndrome with all the traditional weaknesses of a committee process, such as procedural delays and the inability to make timely decisions.
In a more positive vein, however, the JOP merits high marks for some very significant accomplishments. Considering the innate service opposition to the concept of merger of their COMINT processing activities, it was a major achievement that the services agreed to adopt a concept of collocation and integration of any kind. By establishing a form of quasi-consolidation, and operating on the principle of gradual change, the JOP constituted a compromise. It provided a logical transitional structure for the services as they entered the postwar period. In addition, the JOP accomplished sweeping organizational changes for the services, such as realignments of operational elements, personnel, and mission without causing a catastrophic upheaval of their operational missions and functions.
By achieving a nominal degree of centralization of U.S. COMINT efforts, the JOP facilitated the ratification of the BRUSA Agreement. Without this tightening of controls over the Army and Navy COMINT activities, the BRUSA Agreement would not have been attainable, as it implicitly called for greater centralized control of COMINT activities within both nations.
Operationally, the JOP facilitated the realignment of U.S. COMINT targets for peacetime, including the assumption of a new national target, coverage of the Soviet Union.
Finally, by virtue of the cosmetic fusion of the two services via the JOP, the Army and Navy COMINT organizations were largely able to survive the chaotic period of demobilization and budget reductions following the war. Despite heavy attrition, these two organizations maintained a solid operational base, along with a cadre of professional talent, for the next cycle of reorganization.