Schlesinger Report

Schlesinger Report

The Schlesinger Report, originally titled A Review of the Intelligence Community, was the product of a survey authorized by U.S. President Richard Nixon late in 1970. The objective of the survey was to identify and alleviate factors of ineffectiveness within the United States Intelligence Community (IC) organization, planning, and preparedness for future growth. The report, prepared by James Schlesinger, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was submitted to Nixon on 10 March 1971.

The survey was the first of the IC reform attempts to specifically address the growing technological capabilities of the IC and their impact on the collection process. The report highlighted two “disturbing phenomena” within the IC: an “impressive rise in…size and cost” and the “apparent inability to achieve a commensurate improvement in the scope and overall quality of intelligence products.” The report analyzed issues pertaining to organizational fragmentation, lack of interagency centralization, costly emerging technologies, duplication of collection and analysis, and institutional disorganization, and offered the administration several practical options for improving IC functions. Major recommendations included: creating a Director of National Intelligence (DNI), strengthening the role of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and establishing an interagency coordinator for national intelligence functions.