Page 137 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 137 of 237

The original charter for the DIA provided that the new agency was to: (1) draw up a consolidated budget for all
the intelligence units within the Pentagon; (2) produce all Defense Department estimates for USIB and other
elements of the intelligence community; (3) provide representation on USIB in the person of its director; and (4)
develop plans for integrating the intelligence schools run by the various services.

Although the original list of functions seemed relatively modest, an expansion of the DIA's responsibilities was
clearly implied in its authorization by McNamara to provide "overall guidance for the conduct and management"
of all duties retained by the individual services.

And with the inevitability of Parkinson's Law, the DIA quickly added to its domain. By 1964, when the DIA
became fully operational, it had more than 2,500 employees. It had acquired 38,000 feet of Pentagon office space
and had submitted a request for a separate $17,000,000 building.

It had succeeded in eliminating the separate service intelligence publications and supplanting them with two of its
own; and it had launched a Daily Digest, which was viewed by the CIA as duplicatory and competitive to its Own
Central Intelligence Bulletin.

The DIA had also supplanted the J-2, the intelligence staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both on USIB and in
supplying information to the Chiefs themselves. It had replaced the services in the production of "order of battle"
intelligence-estimates of the size and deployment of enemy forces. And it was occasionally providing information
directly to the President without funneling it through USIB. The DIA did so on request in 1963 when Kennedy
wanted quick intelligence on whether the Guatemalan Army would be able to handle expected Communist riots.

By 1964 the DIA's control over military intelligence had expanded to such a degree that the services were reduced
to the role of providing technical information on enemy weapons, running the attache system and collecting -- but
not analyzing -- raw intelligence.

Most significantly, the leaders of the Invisible Government had decided to remove the service intelligence
agencies from USIB. Only a veto by President Johnson could prevent the DIA from becoming the sole military
voice on the board. Allen Dulles' apprehensions were being realized.

"There is, of course, always the possibility," Dulles had observed with monumental understatement, "that
two such powerful and well-financed agencies as CIA and DIA will become rivals and competitors." [1]