https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/da5849886487c21a68151e81690427d8.pdf 50485a1698ca47ea77eb69e1923ad544 PDF Text Text DL(2)/E.R. Rettie/crad EXTERNAL AFFAIRS _Jb ) . ! _W • \ AFFAIRES EXTERIEURES MEMORANDUM Mr. McCardle TO A SECURITY SituriH DATE FROM Da E.FL Rettie REFERENCE Rifirence SUBJEa Sujat Status and Future of the Joint Intelligence bureau. S E C R E T October 1 5 , 1965. NUMBER Numiro DOSSIER FILE OTTAWA MISSION ENCLOSURES Annum DISTRIBUTION In considering the documentation on this question, including Mr. Houde's October 6 draft (on which you asked for my comments), I have become more convinced than ever that certain arguments against the incorporation of some or all of JIB into this Department should be exhaustively considered before a final decision is made as to what our departmental recommendation should be. Although these arguments may not be new, nor indeed necessarily persuasive, I think they should be restated. A major and natural reaction oi members of this Depart2. ment is that the personnel of JIB would for the most part be a very welcome and substantial addition to our research facilities, The need for such an addition has long existed and there can be no doubt that the expert and non-rotational staff of JIB would orovide continuity and background for a departmental research branch which we could only with difficulty find elsewhere. Indeed rauch of the work which JIB has perforvaed for this Department in the Dreparation of background papers has been precisely that which this Department would itself have undertaken if it " had had the staff to do so. Nevertheless, my impression is that this Department has a much more acute requirement for research and continuity in political fields than in economic fields (where there are several other government departments and agencies to assist us). I am doubtful whether JIB personnel could ever be expected, especially t1ose without forei.n service experience, to'develop into a body to meet this need. It is a problem which I believe this Department will sooner or later have to solve by hard decisions'as to the allocation of our limited staff of Foreign Service Officers. .2 Ext. 407A/B1I. (Admin. Services Dlv.) 000829 �- 2 - SECRET 3. It is also evident that economic research has not been the whole function of JIBfs work concerning this Department. Quite apart from the strictly military aspects of JIB's intelligence work, there have been areas of their responsibility such as the Arctic programme and debriefing of defectors, travellers, etc., which we would not normally regard as falling under the rubric of research. That is to say, the intelligence produced by these JIB operations would be of interest to this Department, but would not fall within the conceivable ambit of our External operations. It seems unlikely to me that these activities could ever become the responsibility of this Department, even though administratively we could find some means for permitting JIB to continue to function as a semi-autonomous unit of this Department, at the same time I doubt whether certain of these functions such as the interrogation of defectors and travellers, etc. could simply be transferred to any other government department. So far as I can gather, military intelligence would not be interested in the broad range of the enquiries encompassed within this programme, although they might have particular interests to pursue. The same would, I think, apply to the RCMP. k* This leads me to suggest that from some other points of view as well, there might be something to be said for maintaining some or all of JIB in an autonomous role. The major argument perhaps is that JIB best approximates to an objective collector and producer of intelligence with little or no tendency towards tailoring its product to the policy objectives of particular government agencies. I do not suggest that the fear of such tailoring need loom large in our considerations because if we are sensible there would be no conscious attempt to influence JIB's judgment. On the other hand, unconscious direction can be quite as insidious and damaging to the output of an intelligence agency. There might never be an actual clash of viewpoints such as our American friends experienced before CIA was firmly established as the principal United States organ in the field. Nevertheless, there is something in favour of an autonomous JIB as a long term measure to prevent any one agency of government attempting to capture (even unwittingly) a central intelligence role suited to its own particular objectives. 5. A somewhat related argument is that the Department of External Affairs is only one of a number of non-military departments and ayencies of government that have an interest in JIB output. The Departments of Trade and Commerce and Finance, the Bank of Canada and occasionally other government departments as well, can all claim to rank as substantial consumers of JIB products. 7hilst I see no particular harm in bringing JIB /3 �- 3 - SECRET within our Department's control, I can equally see that a tendency would perhaps"develop to have it serve our interests (e.g., in the political fields mentioned in paragraph 2 above) in priority to those of other consumers. Naturally, we could assume that the end results might not be undesirable insofar as our Department, in economic matters, normally tends to reflect the substantive views of others rather than our own. Nevertheless, the possibility of occasional friction and waste motion cannot I think be entirely ruled out. 6. I think the two foregoing arguments reinforce the concern which the Department must feel at the prospect of inviting a more public identification with an existing intelligence organ. Although some administrative arrangements to disguise that identification night be possible, I think our departmental image as a whole, both in relation to foreign governments and to Parliament, might tend to suffer. Generally speaking, I think Canadian interests.would be best served if the intelligence community could remain as diffuse as it now is, provided of course that it is properly coordinated and directed. — > i 7 • _ > J. 7. If these considerations are valid, the best answer might be to have a non-consumer of intelligence assume responsibility, on an agency basis, for the operation and administration of JIB (or such t>art of it as is not' absorbed in the military intelligence structure). B. There are some less elevated considerations which militate in the same direction as well. If JIB were to become autonomous (apart of course from policy control by the IPC and perhaps day-to-day direction by JIC), this Department would achieve certain advantages: (a) The justification of budgetary provision for the JIB would be mounted, not by External Affairs as sole proprietor of the agency, but rather by a consortium of interested departments which could speak with increased authority to the Treasury Board* (b) on the assumption that the Director of JIB would continue to hold a seat on the JIC, a possibly inevitable confrontation between a military and a civilian approach to a given intelligence or policy problem .'ould tend less to become a bilateral confrontation between the Department of External Affairs and National Defence Headquarters. /4 000831 �- 4 - (c) SECH The channels of communication between ourselves and foreign intelligence communities would presumably continue to benefit from the existence of a JIB channel with all its advantages of expert knowledge, continuity of personnel and relative absence of preoccupation with policy concerns. This admittedly suggests a degree of overstaffing in our liaison arrangements but one which would commend itself to any organization such as this Department or National Defence which suffer from the usual problems of rotational staff. (d) Although we might assume that morale problems in either our Foreign Service or in JIB would not arise with the incorporation of the latter, I am not too sure that this would in fact prove to be the case. Indeed, although it may be somewhat unfair of me to quote him, Mr. J^owen himself stated a bare four y^ars ago "inevitably. JI3 staff would tend to be regarded as inferior in status to career FSOs. with all the resulting morale problems with existing^difiiculties in recruiting good quality new staff*. There might also be from time to time a reverse feeling of envy in the Foreign Service directed towards the non-rotational, easy livinp: of the desk officer in the JIB "Res§arch Branch" of the Department. I need not remind you of the long tussle in the State Department over the same sort of problem regarding rotational and non-rotational staff. 9, As you can see from the foregoing, I am not yet persuaded that JIB's incorporation into External Affairs would be entirely a good thing. An additional argument which can also be recently attributed to Mr. Bowen, but x>/bich I am not yet competent to offer an opinion on, is that the transfer ''would be construed by CIA and the Pentagon as reflecting a reduced Canadian interest in intelligence for defence, and raore emphasis on t'^ose activities in which cooperation is less close". I suppose the same effect might result from creating an autonomous role for JIB, although at the same time CIA at least might have a friendly feeling towards something a little closer in Canada to its own image in the USA. 3.A. Rettie, 000832 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDDF00002 Title A name given to the resource Status and Future of the Joint Intelligence Bureau, Rettie to McCardle. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 15-Oct-65 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Global Affairs Canada, Special Registry File 1-2-14-1, pt. 1. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Government of Canada Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource Cold War Defectors Description An account of the resource Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en