U.S. intelligence goals in the fifties and sixties
Sino-Soviet relations and the Taiwan Straits Crisis
The Sino-Soviet Split
The Soviet attitude to China's desire for nuclear weapons

 
 

U.S. intelligence goals in the fifties and sixties

Interviewer

Dr. Cline could you describe the process by which the Office of National Estimates came to be?

Cline

The Office of National Estimates was a creation uh, long uh, wanted by some of the experts in the intelligence business, but actually uh, brought to fruition in the Korean War period. Uh, the uh, the crisis caused by the North Korean invasion of South Korea and the American intervention to save South Korea caused everyone in the U.S. government to take a much harder look at intelligence. And one of the needs was to speed up and to improve the quality of the judgmental papers being written about probabilities uh, the kind of future consequences, uh, hard intelligence analysis that uh, C.I.A. had always been supposed to do but had not in fact had a very good opportunity to do before the Korean War. Uh, when uh, BeatIe Smith, Walter BeatIe Smith, the famous war time deputy to Dwight Eisenhower became the head of C.I.A., President Truman appointed him shortly after the uh, Korean War broke out. He set about to organize an effective system of collecting all information from all sources and reaching the most sophisticated uh, estimative judgment possible about probabilities and future courses of action. That was the estimate system and it was created on the advice of the senior experts in C.I.A. as soon as Beatle Smith became the director of Central Intelligence.

Interviewer

...He didn't only deal with the C.I.A...

Cline

Oh the concept--uh the concept was a Central Intelligence concept. Of course C.I.A. after all was the Central Intelligence Agency working with the army, uh the navy, the air force, the State Department, the F.B.I. and some other agencies of government. But the truth is that in its early years, 1947, 8 and 9 the inter-agency process was imperfect uh, almost uh, a tragedy. The uh, other agencies uh, in the intelligence business were not very keen on being coordinated by C.I.A., C.I.A. had a very hard bureaucratic uh, development getting good people and itself organized to do its job and uh, to be uh fair, the president and the policy makers didn't show a great deal of interest in intelligence in this period. They took things somewhat for granted and used their own hunches and judgements uh, to base policy on so the uh, inter-agency group uh, had to be consulted for estimative uh, reports but they were consulted in such a spasmotic and piecemeal way until the Korean War that uh, their paper really wasn't very useful and the process was so tardy and desultory that they were seldom ready with something that anyone in policy level really needed. Now all that changed because President Truman and his principle advisors suddenly waked up that uh as they thought of it at the time World War III may be about to begin. Maybe the Soviet uh, backing and army of North Korea means that a world-wide conflict, it's true, uh, began. Uh, at any rate we all think about it, we ought to have the best intelligence possible so the C.I.A was uh, always instructed to but in 1950, began to coordinate that is bring together the best intelligence and the best judgements of all of the intelligence agencies of the United States government, that's what central intelligence is.

Interviewer

Probably the greatest challenge facing intelligence in the early fifties was trying to estimate what the Soviets had in the way of weapon systems that could strike the continental United States. Who was doing most of the work on that in the early fifties?

Cline

Uh, well, the military agencies of course, were deeply uh, involved in making estimates of the various weapon systems. The C.I.A. and the uh, atomic energy agency were especially involved in the scientific estimates the--and that was one of C.I.A. IS stronger points that it took out of uh, uh, the other agencies uh, the science and technology information and put it together particularily to make an estimate about what the Soviet Union was capable of doing uh, to make weapons. Of course the nuclear bomb was the key uh, of the Soviet Union didn't have one until September of '49, and for many years in the uh, uh, late forties, fifties, even into the sixties, counting the probable number of uh, uh, nuclear weapons was intelligence target number one. And there automatically you shared the economic approach, the science and technology approach of C.I.A. and the military approach in the army, navy and air force. But, uh, at the same time of course, uh the limitations related to weapons carriers and in the late forties and early fifties, the key question was how many uh, bombers uh, could uh, deliver a nuclear weapon, uh, what range did they have, were they uh, theater weapons, which meant they could attack Western Europe, a subject that was studied ad infinitum, and then of course gradually the question became, could the bombers as they became longer in range reach the United States, which areas were vulnerable as targets and how many bombers were there. So we ww-went from studying uh--uh nuclear bombs to nuclear bombers and of course we ended up uh, in the later fifties and early sixties uh, studying missiles a different and superior form of uh, bomb carrier.

Interviewer

But when there were different scenes as there were between say the C.I.A.'s estimate and the navy's estimate of how many bombers the Soviet Union was likely to be able to make in two or three years...how many in the air force estimate... presumably the evidence that those agencies had to work on was essentially the same although they came to very different conclusions...

Cline

All of the agencies shared information after 1950 on uh, what kind of uh, weapons the Soviet Union might be able to produce. The evidence however was spongy enough particularily as to future capabilities and above all future intentions, what the Soviet military leaders really intended to do as distinct from what they conceivably could do that the different agencies tended to come to different conclusions and that's not unnatural uh, there were genuine scientific and uh, technical arguments. Well on the other hand it's hard to escape the feeling that in part the agencies tended to conclude uh, judgements, reach judgements uh, in conclusion based on their expectations, their fears perhaps uh, about Soviet behavior, uh when the evidence was simply not very clear. And the reason you almost have to conclude that is that uh, they agencies came up with such different answers. Uh, I think the C.I.A. tended to be rather conservative because its approach was a fundamentally uh, technological and economic, what uh, what was uh, the signs about the direction the Soviet ecomony was moving and how was it able to divert resources to weapons. And that is a very fact-oriented thing although our facts, certainly weren't uh, always very satisfactory to--as a base for making the final judgements. The air force uh, was notorious uh, perhaps, at least famous, well known, for taking a very high profile view of Soviet uh, capabilities and intentions. They--in those early days nearly always expected the Soviet Union to produce more weapons, whatever the type we were talking about, but particularily, if it was airplanes uh, then any of the other agencies expected, their uh, sort of classical uh, rival in contrast was the army and the army nearly always expected uh, military uh, power to be put into uh, other weapons which were indeed important as well as airplanes. So there was a tendency to have a kind of institutional uh, uh, point of view uh, I don't think that's unreasonable, I think it was good to have the same evidence looked at from many points of view and it was essentially the job of the C.I.A staff to try to find a reasonable central and uh, uh, defensible rationale for making a choice among these different views. If uh, the C.I.A. could not reach a uh, a uh, defensible uh, compromise uh, that the agencies would agree to of course, each agency was entitled to express its dissent in what we call the footnote, an opinion contrary to the--the main group.

Interviewer

Do you think it'd be fair to say that uh... services in general tended to project onto their opposite numbers in the Soviet Union, their own attitudes in other words, SAC for example reckoned that any sensible super power would want an awful lot of bombers.

Cline

I think it is reasonable to expect uh, without any suggestion of uh, uh, hypocrisy of cynicism uh, for air men to expect bombers to be produced in numbers, that they're going to have to cope with uh, they believe in bombers in they expect the enemy to do so. Yeah, there's a certain mirror imaging effect in intelligence analysis uh, inevitable. It's uh, of course I think less in the intelligence community than in most communities because intelligence analysts are trained to be skeptical of their own hypothesis. They're asked to look at the evidence from a variety of view points and I'm sure that the air force uh, tried to uh, be as uh, objective as they were able. On the other hand uh, some of us uh, were inclined to believe that the intelligence estimates got uh, slightly hyped up in the chain of command uh, uh, so that uh, perhaps on some occasions uh, uh, an air force officer might be uh, urged uh, to increase the uh, range of his estimate by a non-intelligence officer who usually would be his superior. Now, I--I don't think that probably was a very blatant but there was a little bit of a tendency to inflation of the uh, weapons estimates and we tended to blame not just the air force, but in particular in the days of the arguments over the--the bomber gap uh, the SAC, the uh, uh, bombing command, the b--the big bomber command, strategic air force command...

Sino-Soviet relations and the Taiwan Straits Crisis

Cline

I think it's inevitable that uh, the representatives of the different military services tended to feel instinctively that there was a greater probability of uh, Soviet weapons of the kind they were concerned with uh, being produced. It--it was natural and of course, intelligence officers are trained to try to reduce those institutional biases. I am afraid that probably the most likely error if it existed was when the policy level people in the army, navy and airforce read the draft intelligence estimates, they might be inclined to say, hey you guys are minimizing the threat to us and how the hell are we going to get our budget the next if you don't face up to the threat from the Soviet Union. I'm sure there was some of that. But I was always impressed with the attempt by the uh, intelligence community as a whole to arrive at a reasonable forward guess.

Interviewer

Was that kind of institutional pressure coming from any particular area of the armed forces more than an other?

Cline

Well the air force of course had a very strong element called SAC, the Strategic Air Command,: the big bomber boys. And they naturally uh, tended to exaggerate the probability that the Soviet Union was going to be building and equally formidable force uh, to the uh, American bomber system. In fact the uh, Soviet Union never did match up to the American uh, level and moved ahead into the missile age before we did. So that was the great drama of weapons estimates in the uh, 50s.

Interviewer

Can I ask you briefly about the occasion when you had to present to uh, President Eisenhower the evidence that you had about Soviet ICBM testing and how that information was recieved?

Cline

Well, in mid 1957, we had a very confused and uncertain uh body of evidence about uh, what in fact was missile testing. Uh, they were firing missiles from uh, central Asia to uh, Kamchatka and uh, they were indeed practicing uh, orbitting a small earth satellite vehicle, what we now simply call satellites. Uh, that evidence of course was from communications Intelligence, from espionage from uh, everything imaginable, and uh, of course we were beginning to get a little U-2, uh, photography. So uh, I felt that the conclusions were not very clear as to where the Soviet Union was going. But that it was indeed on the edge of a breakthrough into some new weapons situation. One where the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union would be changed and that we should present it to the National Security Council and the president. I had a little argument with my boss, Allen Dulles over that who said, it's just too damn confusing and complicated to present to the president at this stage. But then one day, when we were briefing uh, President Eisenhower on something else--the economic situation of the Soviet Union, he suddenly said to me, now doc--Doctor Cline you wanted to present something about this new activity out in uh--the uh, missile range didn't you, and I was absolutely flabbergasted, because I didn't have my papers or any information with me. But I did in fact give a minute or two presentation to the full National Security Council pointing at my economic map to show where the base was and where the target was. I got a rather uh, strong response from President Eisenhower who was keenly interested and uh, asked more about the weapons possibilities than the satellite orbiting possibility, but asked sensible questions as to range and so forth. I did my best to answer then, as a matter of fact I think that probably was the only formal presentation of this subject that was given before the Sputnik in the fall of uh, 1957, that made us all aware that a new missile age, a new weapons age had uh, come about.

Interviewer

...What did you know at the time--what did the United States know about the battle that we now know was going on between Khrushchev and Mao over the Chinese request for an atomic bomb from the Soviets?

Cline

Well, what we knew was mainly from the speeches of Soviet and Chinese leaders themselves about what seemed to be doctrinal and ideological arguments. It was clear to me and the small staff of e experts I had studying not just the Soviet Union and uh, China but the relationship between the two, the Sino-Soviet staff which I--I directed, that uh, there were fundamental disagreements taking place and we began to try and zero in on what they were. Frankly we had a very confused and uncertain picture of where the disagreements were and it turned out that they rested on sort of basic geo-political and uh, they even cultural antagonisms, some personal uh, disagreement between Mao and uh, the Russian leaders, so that it was hard to get hold of. But, uh, when I went to Taiwan, when I left Washington in 1957, I uh, knew that this was a likely prospect that the rift between those two countries would grow rather than uh, diminish and the longer I spent in Asia the more sure of it I was and I came to feel that the uh, crisis over the Taiwan straight in 1958, was a d--dividing point, a real split between uh, China and Russia which in fact, I--I'm sure now uh, was the case.

Interviewer

Why was it and what happened?

Cline

Well, I think it--uh, the uh evidence which accumulated gradually was that uh, uh, Mao Zedong who was rather careless about the lives of Chinese people because he had so many of them as he said, uh, really wanted to see a conflict arise of global proportions over the confrontation with the uh, Republic of China and Taiwan the rival regime, the original ruling regime in China. And I think uh, Mao Zedong calculated as the Chinese do that if you can sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, you don't suffer very much and he wanted the Soviet Union to attack in Europe in order to uh, take the pressure off China and Asia. Uh, he would have liked to see I believe a US-Soviet war. Uh, Khrushchev went racing out to China and uh, had some personal confrontations with Mao, which he described later in his memoirs and uh, obviously Khrushchev scared the hell out of--Khrushchev was--had the hell scared out of him by Mao Zedong uh, over the uh, willingness to engage in a major war, Khrushchev didn't want any of it. And I think the split went rapidly after the Taiwan Strait Crisis. If the United States had not supported the Republic of China though it did so only rather indirectly, uh, and uh, the Republic of China survived in Taiwan, that uh, pressure from the mainland, uh, it's hard to know what would have happened. But since the Mao effort failed there was no WW3 uh from then on, Khrushchev began withdrawing nuclear weapons assistance from China and in fact cut off by 1960 all of industrial aid to China, a gap in relationships which lasted for many years.

Interviewer

What was the origin of the Chinese nuclear bomb projects as far as you're concerned? Did it lie in those years too?

Cline

They--they made a formal agreement in 1957, to share the uh, nuclear weapons of course, the Russians knew how to build them, the Chinese didn't. The first two uh, uh, projects were a plutonium production: plant and a gaseous diffusion plant. Uh, we got uh,intelligence about those, we eventually got pictures of them from U-2 photography. And uh, it was clear that the Chinese were copying uh, Soviet equipment to make nuclear weapons. Uh, it also was clear that by 1959 and '60 something had happened uh, those plants uh, stopped being constructed uh, both of the o--the original ones were completed by the Chinese in this sort of half-baked way so that they did eventually produce their nuclear weapons from the Soviet equipment but the--the Russians took away the blueprints and the original assistance in 1960. They cancelled the nuclear agreement. Uh, we now believe in 1958, very promptly right after the uh, Taiwan Strait Crisis.

Interviewer

So you think that it was--what was it like for you as an intelligence officer who knew about this trying to convince uh, your political masters as it were, that this was an important development and that there really was a Sino-Soviet split development.

Cline

Yes, well it was difficult, because uh, the evidence was flimsy as is usually true in hard intelligence cases, you can argue different ways. Uh, as the evidence accumulated I became absolutely convinced ah, of the fact that there was a rift developing and that because of these earlier ideological and doctrinal disputes which we'd observed as academic analyst of what they were saying and writing I was convinced it was very fundamental. We also knew the--the uh, historical antagonism between Chinese and Russian peoples and their long conflicts. So uh, I uh, I set about to try to convince everybody. I had trouble in my own agency, there are a lot of CIA people who didn't agree. Some of them never did agree I guess. But uh, by writing about, by talking uh, whenever I had chance to brief policy makers and later I went back to Washington I did have a chance to talk to uh, President Kennedy aand his advisors, uh, I think we gradually convinced them that the--the differences of behavior and position which we observed were too fundamental and too great not to be a genuine split between the two governments. And not necessarily eternal and irreconcilable and in fact eh, probably uh, those, those rifts are being healed today. But that's uh, long time later.

Interviewer

There was presumably very strongly in American particularily minds at that time, this image of the Soviet Block, was there not of an indivisable thing.

Cline

As so often is the case we are victims of our own terminology. The Sino-Soviet block was the uh, cliche of the period and just as the term, block, in Eastern Europe meant total Soviet domination we tended to think of that in Asia too. The fact is that Soviet Union dominated North Korea and came to dominate Mongolia but it never dominated China.

The Sino-Soviet Split

Cline

China in my view is strategically uh, indigestible. Nobody can totally dominate China. And uh, that's what the Russians discovered. They uh, tried to get the kind of a intrusive controls and intelligence in military bases and things which they had in Eastern Europe and Mao Zedong who was a good communist but a--a very strong uh, nationalistic uh, culturally uh, arrogant Chinese uh evaded and refused to cooperate with the Chi--with the Russians on most of the cooperation they wanted. So the system broke down. And uh, I--I believe that we went into, by 1959, 1960, a long period of what you might call parallel uh, steps against American interests and against lots of other people. But without any friendship or cooperation in fact a very competitive relationship, competitive for the leadership in the communist uh, world revolution as they spoke about it, uh, that uh, brought Moscow and Peking uh, to swords points.

The Soviet attitude to China's desire for nuclear weapons

Interviewer

Do you think there's any validity in the comparison as far as nuclear weapons are concerned between the Soviet attitude to the Chinese desire for their own nuclear weapon and the American attitude to the French desire for their own nuclear weapon?

Cline

Well, I--I think the uh, I think the Americans have a feeling that the spread of nuclear weapons to friends or anyone else is dangerous because future political evolutions may cause uh, real trouble wherever weapons are. The Soviet objection was different. I think the Soviet Union will deploy its weapons wherever it feels it has iron-clad military and political control and when they discovered that they couldn't get that they couldn't get that kind of control over Mao's China, they broke off the nuclear agreement. I think it was a real political contest of wills in the uh--uh Chinese-Russian case, while we had our differences with de Gaulle, I think it was a matter of uh, geo-political philosophy being different.

Interviewer

Okay.