- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Kamarck Leads CIA Project on Intelligence Reform

Witner 2004-05

Elaine Kamarck is finishing an ambitious two-year project for the CIA to help the organization think through how to adapt itself to meet the new security threats of the war on terrorism. Starting in the fall of 2003, Kamarck has worked with the CIA to pull together a series of retreats and working papers considering different aspects of the evolving intelligence challenge.

The initial conference, held at the Kennedy School, brought together 50 officials and other experts to consider the breadth of the change ahead, and featured former Kennedy School Dean and Belfer Center Board member Joseph Nye and RAND's Brian Jenkins. The second conference, which was held at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, explored the issue of collaboration with other government agencies and actors and featured Maureen Baginski, the Deputy Director of the FBI for counterterrorism. Last fall the group convened in California to consider how the CIA should be organized internally to facilitate strong analysis, and Tim Roemer from the 9/11 Commission came to discuss their findings on this issue. The next gathering was held in December near Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories to examine both the role that evolving science and technology will play in carrying out the CIA's mission and the challenges of containing the threat of WMD. This meeting included both former Senator Chuck Robb and genomics pioneer Craig Venter.

The final retreat this spring looks at how the CIA relates to the consumers of its intelligence, and will include a number of former intelligence consumers, including Brent Scowcroft and Newt Gingrich as well as Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and Joseph Nye.

"This agency was designed for a different challenge in a different age, and now it is being asked not only to catch up with events, but to stay two steps ahead," says Kamarck. "This project has allowed key agency leaders to interact with diverse thinkers from outside of government to help them think about what challenges they will be facing in the years ahead and how to organize their activity to be most effective in meeting them."

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Kamarck Leads CIA Project on Intelligence Reform.” Belfer Center Newsletter (Witner 2004-05).