NIC Collection

[John Simkin]

"The origins of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) can be traced back to the period after World War II when there was increased interest in providing substantial research on subjects of national security interest and their likely outcomes. Officially created in 1979, the NIC reports directly to the director of the CIA. The NIC performs a number of outreach functions, including reaching out to non-government experts in academia and the private sector and providing a focal point for policy-makers interested in the organization's diverse areas of inquiry. Scholars and the general public will enjoy browsing through their recent publications area, which features documents such as "Mapping the Global Future". Visitors who wish to delve deeper into the ways in which the NIC devises its studies will appreciate the section dedicated to explaining analytic methodologies. Historians and political scientists alike will want to take a look at the declassified National Intelligence Estimates on China from the period 1948 to 1976."

The collection of documents has this to say:

The NIC Collection includes hundreds of declassified National Intelligence Estimates and other publications produced by the National Intelligence Council or its predecessor organizations, the Office of National Estimates and the Office of Reports and Estimates. The NIC database, housed within CIA's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room, includes some 1100 documents that have been declassified and made available to the public, either partially or in their entirety, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The earliest of these dates back to 1946; several were published as late as the 1990s. Additional items are being added regularly. Collectively, they constitute an important historical record of Intelligence Community analysis at the highest level; individually, many make for fascinating and instructive reading.

Here's the NIC Collection website:

http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_foia_intro.html

I liked this one:

"Would the loss of South Vietnam and Laos Precipitate a Domino Effect in the F?" dated 6/9/64

The conclusion was no. "We do not believe that the loss of South Vietnam and Laos would be followed by the rapid, successive communization of the other states of the Far East. ...With the possible exception of Cambodia, it is likely that no nation in the area would quickly succumb to communism as a result of the fall of Laos and South Vietnam. Furthermore, a continuation of the spread of communism in the area would not be ineorable..."

So much for what we were told.

Steve Thomas