[Presidential Directives and Executive Orders]

PDD-35
Intelligence Requirements

2 March 1995


Presidential Decision Directive 35 (PDD-35) defines intelligence requirements from tier 0 to tier 4. Tier 0 is warning and crisis management. Tier 4 is countries that are virtually of no interest to the United States. The PDD specifically identifies targets that the US intelligence community will not collect against.

Under PDD-35 highest priority is assigned to intelligence Support to Military Operations [SMO]. The second priority is providing political, economic, and military intelligence on countries hostile to the United States to help to stop crises and conflicts before they start. Third priority is assigned to protecting American citizens from new trans-national threats such as drug traffickers, terrorists, organized criminals, and weapons of mass destruction. High priority is also assigned to Intelligence support to activities addressing counter-proliferation, as well as international terrorism, crime and drugs.

The Directive increased the priority assigned by the intelligence collection and analysis capabilities to the proliferation threat. In 1993, the Director of Central Intelligence established the Nonproliferation Center (NPC) to provide IC-level coordination for community nonproliferation programs. IC components are focusing on closing the knowledge gaps related to the proliferation activities of several countries.

This Directive established the Intelligence Priorities Interagency Working Group [IWG] as the forum for identifying foreign policy issues that are of sufficiently critical nature as to require amplified attention from the intelligence community. In addition, agencies represented in this interagency working group have established intelligence requirements groups to collect, analyze and rank strategic intelligence requirements and to represent these agency-level requirements at periodic meetings with the intelligence community to set intelligence requirements.

The FY1997 intelligence budget request was guided by explicit intelligence priorities that the President established in PDD-35. This includes realigned funds within national and tactical intelligence to better cover the top PDD-35 priorities, such as support to military operations and counter-proliferation.


Unlike some other intelligence-related PDDs, the White House has released neither a statement nor a Fact Sheet concerning PDD-35. We will be attempting to reverse engineer the contents of this document based on published reports. If anyone has a copy handy, please feel free to pass it along to us!!

In the mean time, here is what the White House did have to say on the subject:

                               The White House 
                        Office of the Press Secretary 
     _____________________________________________________________________ 
     For Immediate Release                                  March 10, 1995 


                                Press Briefing 
                               By Mike Mccurry 

                              The Briefing Room 

     .... ..... ....

          
                  Q    Mike, is the President going to establish a  
     committee to review the CIA?  And if he is, why is that necessary? 
          
                  Mr. Mccurry:  Well, it's -- look, it's necessary -- 
     there's a limit to how much I can actually talk about the results of  
     that particular presidential directive because it is classified.  I   
     can talk about it probably in general terms that might be helpful.  
     But the President has approved, as I think it was reported in the  
     Post today, that he has signed a presidential directive on  
     intelligence priorities.  But the purpose of it is to give some  
     clearer signals to the intelligence community about what the chief  
     customers of intelligence analysis -- the President and senior  
     foreign policymakers of the government -- what they need to have as  
     we look out into this new world that we live in and assess all those  
     things necessary to protect the national security interests of  
     Americans.  It's important in a time of limited resources for the  
     President and his policymakers to give clear priorities to the  
     intelligence community so that they can gather the type of  
     information that will help them make the right decisions protecting  
     Americans interests around the world. 
          
                  And that's, broadly defined, exactly what this  
     presidential directive does.  It sets up a procedure by which, from  
     time to time, we can review the work of the intelligence community,  
     see that it's addressing exactly those concerns that we have in  
     providing to the President and other principal policymakers and  
     foreign policy the kind of information they need and want so that  
     they can make the right types of decisions. 
          
                  Q    Isn't that what the President's foreign  
     intelligence advisory board was supposed to do? 
          
                  Mr. Mccurry:  No, it doesn't do quite that, Wolf.  They  
     review a range of things related to the work of the intelligence  
     community and provide, as the name would indicate, advice on how  
     better to meet those goals.  In the case of the President and his  
     policymakers, they want to give priorities -- actually want to sort  
     of say, look, here are things we specifically want to have as we look  
     at the decision-making that we're going to have to conduct. 
          
                  Now, the advisory board helps in that effort, but they  
     kind of do a broader gauge review of the work of the intelligence  
     community across a range of issues, not necessarily directed to the  
     strict function of policy-making. 
          
                  Q    Mike, can we construe from the President's  
     directive that he's not happy with the quality or nature of the  
     intelligence he's getting? 
          
                  Mr. Mccurry:  No, you can construe from the directive  
     and from the review that proceeded it that a lot of new thinking has  
     to go in, in shaping America's priorities in the new world we live  
     in.  It reflects, in some ways, the very hopeful nature of the post- 
     Cold War era.  There are certain types of threats that are now  
     reduced, specifically the nuclear threat; we don't have Russian  
     strategic intercontinental missiles aimed at the United States  
     anymore.  So we have a range of security threats that are different  
     in this world.  
          
                  Quite frankly, proliferation remains a concern.  
     Terrorism remains a concern,  International crime remains a concern.  
     And how you structure the priorities of the intelligence community to  
     reflect the new threats that are more urgent in the post-Cold War  
     world is part of what this review and this directive are all about. 
          
.....



THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release September 16, 1997

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia

11:25 A.M. EDT

... ... ... Our first task is to focus our intelligence resources in the areas most critical to our national security -- the areas where, as Director Tenet has said, we simply cannot afford to fail. Two years ago I set out our top intelligence priorities in the Presidential Decision Directive. First, supporting our troops and operations, whether turning back aggression, helping secure peace or providing humanitarian assistance. Second, providing political, economic, and military intelligence on countries hostile to the United States so we can help to stop crises and conflicts before they start. And, third, protecting American citizens from new trans-national threats such as drug traffickers, terrorists, organized criminals, and weapons of mass destruction.


SOURCES:
  • Post-Cold War (PCW) Missions Framework and Its Two Pillars Woodrow Wilson School Policy Conference 401A Intelligence Reform in the Post-Cold War Era
  • GLOBAL ORGANIZED CRIME Mora Stephens - January 6, 1996 Woodrow Wilson School Policy Conference 401A Intelligence Reform in the Post-Cold War Era Conference Director Diane C. Snyder
  • JEREMIAH PANEL Defining the Future of the NRO for the 21st Century Report to the Director, National Reconnaissance Office 26 AUGUST 1996
  • I. Overview and Summary IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century Staff Study Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
  • IV. Collection Synergy IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century Staff Study Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
  • The Failure of Intelligence Review A critique of three recent commission reports exonerating the CIA