Minutes of the Thirteenth Meeting of the Committee, Held in Conference Room "G", at the Ministry of Defence S.W.I, on Friday, 3rd February, 1950 at 10.45 a.m.

3. REVIEW OF WORK IN HAND CONFIDENTIAL GUARD (Previous Reference: J.I.C. (50) 11th Meeting, Minute 2). THE COMMITTEE continued their discussion at the previous meeting on the reports which were at present in course of preparation. MR. REILLY said that since their previous discussion on this question, he had had a further opportunity of reviewing the subject and had also had a discussion on the matter with the Joint Intelligence Staff. As a result, it now seemed to him that there was no overlapping between the various reports in course of preparation on Soviet intentions and activities, and they appeared to fit in to a general overall pattern. He expressed the desire, however, to know the views of other members of the Committee on this matter and said that he would always be grateful for their suggestions regarding the programme of work and work in hand at any time. CAPTAIN BAKER-CRESSWELL said that the time taken to prepare reports was steadily increasing. He suggested that this tendency might be obviated if Departments provided the Joint Intelligence Staff with fully detailed briefs as early as possible after the terms of reference or a draft report was received. Such procedure should, at the same time, make the work of the Joint Intelligence Staff very much easier. The Committee would be aware that certain reports begun a year ago were not yet completed and, whilst he appreciated that the question of available manpower in the Departments was an important factor bearing upon this problem, he considered that, as a general principle, reports should be completed as speedily as possible. MAJOR GENERAL SHORTT suggested that the work of the Committee might be facilitated if terms of reference were only issued with the authority of the Directors and after discussion by them at one of their meetings. This procedure would enable full investigations to be made by Departments to see whether a particular requirement could be met by reference to departmental papers or by previous reports by the Committee. If a requirement could not be met in this manner, the Committee would then have an opportunity of satisfying themselves of the necessity to prepare a special report and they could discuss and agree an appropriate terms of reference. He also suggested that it might be possible to reduce the volume of work if the Committee did not undertake the preparation of reports which were largely of a political character, and if it could be agreed that the arrangement for the preparation of quarterly and monthly intelligence summaries for the Western Europe Commanders-in-Chief Committee, and possibly also in the near future for the various Regional Planning Groups under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, could be amended so that the intelligence required could be provided by means of half-yearly basic reports with quarterly revisions thereto. If such an amendment proved to be unacceptable to the organisations in question, then they should be asked to justify their requirement for more frequent information. A further saving might be effected if the procedure whereby we prepared periodic reports commenting on certain papers received from the United States Central Intelligence Agency were discontinued. -2-