APPfOT FOH REIEASE1SM CIA HISTORiCflL RP^JEW KIOGRAM
TITLE: The Nacure and Methods of Economic intelligence
AUTHOR: Max F. Millikan
. ISSUE:
YEAR:
IN
INTELLIGENCE
A collcciion o! aiilclcs on Ihe historical, operational, doclrlnal, and Ihcorcilcal aspects ol intelligence.
All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence aic those of the authors They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of Ihe Central Intelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present Nothing in the conienis should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of an article's factual statements and interpretations.
THE NATURE AND METHODS OF ECONOMIC INTEJXIGENCE
by Max F. MilUkan
I.What Is Our Problem?
D
URING the first halfRR was engaged in taking an Inventory of its Ignorance concerning the economy of the Soviet Bloc The main purpose of this inventory was toasis forrogram of basic research to which ORR should address itself.rogram must springlear conception of why Ihe USneeds foreign economic intelligence, what foreignIntelligence Is, what role ORR should play in the total economic intelligence effort, and how the peculiar character of the Soviet economy and of our Information about itthe methods that we use. This introduction Is devoted to some comments on these four topics.
Why does the solution of our national security problems depend In part upon adequate foreign economic intelligence?
Foreign economic Intelligence serves at least five purposes in the design of policies to preserve our national security. These five purposes, which should be kept continuously In mind in planning our economic research program, are as follows:
I. To estimate the magnitude of possible present or future military or other threats to ourselves and our allies. Aenemy can undertake successfully only those "Military operations which its economy Is capable of sustaining. In the very short run, its strength may be measured in terms of the manpower which it can mobilize and the stocks of finished weapons of war and military supplies which It has on hand.
Increasingly In modern times, however, military potential lor anything but the briefest campaigns has come to depend upon the total economic resources availableation, Including those necessary to support the civilian economy as well as those necessary to produce and operate the instruments of war.
A clear picture of the magnitude of the present and possible future military or other threat Is needed to guide us as to the over-all magnitude of the defense effort in which we must engage in order to preserve our freedoms In the event of war.
estimate the character and location of possiblefuture military or other threats. Decisions which theany other potential enemy make with regard to howallocate their resources limit what they can choose tothey elect to invest largely In military installations InEast, their potential for attack in Europe Isrestricted. This isatter of Judging theirbut rather of seeing what limitations are placed onof action open to them In the future by decisionsmake today about the allocation of their total resources.
A principal purpose of thus estimating the character of military or other threats with which we may possibly be faced Is to guide us in designing our own defense effort so that it will protect us against real rather than Imaginary dangers.
assist us in estimating, within the range of thethe intentions of the USSR or any other potentialeconomic resources of the enemy and their presentpermit him to select anyange of possiblecourses of action. Within this range certainevents may furnish Indications as to whichSoviets intend to pursue and where and when.
These indications of intentions may be very important In assisting us to adjust our defense preparations to meet the most probable dangers.
help policy-makers decide what we can do toor probable military or other threats by Impairingeconomic capabilities to carry them out This includes
measures that can be taken to weaken him in advance ofand thus delay or prevent his decision tohem, as well as measures to weaken or destroy theasis of his military power should he choose to commit it in general war.
Economic intelligence can help In suggesting such measures, in estimating their effectiveness, and in forecasting the enemy's probable reaction to them.
o assist in estimating the probable development of the relative strengths of the East and West over the next few years if global hostilities areajor purpose of these comparisons Is to guide US policy-makers. Thefour objectives are concerned with steps which the United States can take to defend Itself against actionsostile power. Equally important is the design of that political policy which will have the best chance of achieving our objectives without hostilities. Essential to the planning ofolicy is the most accurate estimate possible of the relative economic strengths of both sides. There arc equally grave dangerserious underestimate anderious overestimate of future Soviet economic strength. Either will produce policies more likely to bring on war than will an accurate estimate. The evaluation of Soviet strength implicit In various of thefor US policy now being advanced in this country varies widely from great economic weaknesses to very considerable economicrime goal of authoritative economicis to provide the Information that will narrow the "guess area."
What is economic intelligence?
Briefly, economic Intelligence is intelligence relating to the basic productive resources of an area or political unit, the goals and objectives which those in control of the resources wish them to serve, and the ways in which and the effectivenesshich these resources are in fact allocated In the servicehese various goals. Thereumber of confusions as to the nature and limits of economic Intelligence which call for clarification.
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In the first place, there isendency to regard the whole of economic intelligence as encompassedere inventory of available resources of labor, rawnd instruments of production. This inventoryecessary part butart of the total economic problem. An inventory of resources by itself without an understanding of the goals which they are designed to serve or of the methods employed to allocate them in the service of those goals can tell us little about capabilities, vulnerabilities, or intentions. The Allied Powersotal steel capacity which Is more than four times as great as that of the Soviet Bloc, but such aIs highly misleading. For the United States to achieve Its minimum goals, evenime of crisis like the present, steel must be allocated to many uses which the Soviets regard as of low or negligible priority.
odern economy is characterizedighly complex web of interconnections among its various parts. The capacities of the economy may be limited less by the over-all availability of resources thanailure to keep all theinterrelations in balance. Thus tank production, for Instance, may be limited not only by Ihe availability of steel from which to manufacture the tanks but also by the steel available to make the rails and the freight cars necessary to carry steel from steel plants to tank plants, or, more remotely, by the steel required for the machinery necessary to mine the coal to operate the railroads. Thus economic intelligence must be as much concerned with the goals which resources are to serve, and the ways in which they are related to each other, as with the physical inventory of the resources themselves!
Another problem relates to where economic intelligence leaves off and political, military, and scientific Intelligence begin. Since the social organismhole and these ways of dividing it are somewhat arbitrary analytic inventions, precise lines between the segments are impossible to draw. In very rough terms, scientific intelligence follows the progress abroad of new scientific ideas through the research and development phases. When these techniques and methods begin to be employed broadly in production, they become the
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province of economic Intelligence. Military intelligence Is.
cerned with the character and capacities of the militaryof foreign countries and with foreign targets for our own military efforts. Where the character of the military establishment depends upon rates of production or where the target of our military effort Is the economy of theenemy, the lines between military and economic become blurred. The output of final military equipment and the physical targets on which our military forces mustarerime concern of military Intelligence.he other hand, economic analysis Is required to portray the complex nexus of economic support on which militarydepends and to pursue the economic chain reactions which might result from the destruction of particular producine facilities.
The overlapping between political and economic Intelligence Is even greater. One of the best ways of studying the goalsollectivized state wishes its economy to serve Is to examine the institutional machinery that It establishes to guide economic processes. Thus certain of the institutions of government, althoughense political phenomena, may have profound economic significance. On the other hand,conditions are of course an important determinant of the attitudes, loyalties, and composition of politicallygroups. In these borderline areas, it Is the purpose and object of investigation rather than the disciplines employed that determine whether Intelligence Is properly to be termed economic or political.
A final point of importance which the analyst must keepis that economic intelligence is not always theas economic information. Even the most basicshould always be produced in relation toof some Intelligence consumer. The CentralIs charged with producing foreign economicto the national security, and the consumers ofare those US Government officials charged withthe nationalast amount of Information
indeed, almost allforeign economies may
be relevant to national security problems, but it Is not economic intelligence until its relevance to those problems is made clear. It is the function of intelligence not to pursue knowledge for its own sake but rather to throw light on the probableof present or future action. Though the intelligence analyst isolicy-maker, he must constantly strive to keep In mind the relevance of information to policy problems, which alone can transform information into Intelligence.
What is the role of ORR in foreign economic intelligence?
Many US Government agencies are engaged in theand collection of foreign economic intelligence.we cannot determine our program of research on the basis of the foregoing statement of the purposes and nature of economic Intelligencee must also consider how our activities can be made to reinforce rather than to duplicate the great amount of work which others must carry on in theof their own missions. Our recent survey of foreign economic Intelligence throughout the US Governmentumber of conclusions as to what the focus of our activities should be.
First, our survey revealed that one of the most urgent needs of the Government is for some central spot where all the economic Intelligence collected and produced throughout the Government can be brought together and focused on national security issues. In recognition of this need the NationalCouncil has directed that the Central Intelligence Agency shall perform this coordinating function. Although this paper is directed at our production program, our plans forproduction within ORR must take full account of these coordinating responsibilities which go along with oureffort
A second conclusion of our survey has been that the area most in need of substantial additional economic intelligenceis the Soviet Bloc This is partly because the Iron Curtain as made access to Soviet economic intelligence more difficult, partly because the Soviet economic potential is perhaps the
most critical key to our national security, and partly because,ariety of reasons, the economic potential of other areas crucial for our national security, such as Western Europe, has been much more extensively studied- The mature economies of Western Europe have long been an object of study by both academic and governmental economlsU The EuropeanProgram has stimulated intensive analysis of the cliar-actcristlcs. needs, and prospects of the Marshall PlanThus, tbe economic research efTort in man-hours directed at the USSR and Its Satellites has been vastly less than that applied to Western Europe, although, because of the Iron Curtain, the effort required to produce comparableis many times greater. For these reasons, we have concluded that the principal effort of ORR In Intelligence production must be focused for the Immediate future on the economic problems of the Soviet Bloc*
We began this research efTort with an inventory of our knowledge of tbe USSR itself. This, of course, isart of the problem. The economies of the European Satellites, whose analysis was our second task, are likewise crucial to the Soviet economic potential. Recent events have highlighted the importance of China to our estimates of Soviet strength andinal source of Soviet strength, which must be another object of our efforts, is the resources that the USSR could draw upon either now oronsequence of future developments outside the present boundaries of the Bloc.
* The Soviet Bloc excludes Yugoslavia and Finland and Includes tha European Satellites (East Otrmany. But Austria. Poland.Romania. Hangary. Bulgaria, tnd Albania) and the Eastern Satellites (Comm unlit China and Comm unlit Korea).
A final weakness of the intelligence effort as revealed by our Inventory Is that the demands which have been placed on the limited number of analysts working on the Soviet economy have been so frequent and insistent that analysts have had little or no time to do the basic research necessary to supply answersonfident and authoritative form. If our effort is to be useful at all. It must beufficient scale and of
sufficient depth touch {firmer factual foundation' for the estimating process than economic Intelligence has been able lo produce In the past.
Peculiarities of economic Intelligence concerning the Soviet Bloc
Thereumber of special characteristics of the Soviet economic intelligence problem which shape In Important ways the methods that can be used to study it. These are not.all characteristics which make the problem more difficult than that of other areas- We may consider first some of the things about the Soviet economy which simplify our problem, look at some of the factors which make it difficult.
The fact that the Soviet economy is centrally planned to achieve the goalsmall group of men acting collectively facilitates analysis enormously. In the free economy of the United States the tastes and desiresillion different unpredictable people all have an Influence on what in fact occurs. The behavior of major sectors of the economy is greatly affected by the individual plans of countless consumers, eachifferent and somewhat unpredictable quantitative weight. In the USSR there Is one set of plans which dominates all others. Thus It Is only by inadvertence that anything can occur which, from the point of view of the master plan, is Irrelevant or unimportant. This makes the second Job of economic intelligence described abovenamely, theof the goals and objectives which those in control of resources wish them to servea great deal easier. Almost anything that happens can give us some clue.
A related point, true to some extent of every economy but especially true of the Soviet, is that everything depends on everything else. The Interconnectedness of the economy and its subservience to the master plan mean that there are many different ways in which an economic fact can be ascertained. Steel production can be estimated directly from evidence as to the location and capacity of steel mills or lndirecUy fromof the manpower employed and of tho Iron ore or coal
or alloy metals or other inputs available, from the total output of all the products made with steel, or from the capacities of transportation facilities serving the steel industry. The lack of direct evidence on some of the things that we most want to know, as revealed in the results of our inventory of ignorance, emphasizes the very great importance of giving priority to the interrelations of the parts of the economy. Thus the third task of economic intelligence, to explain all the complex ways in which resources are in fact allocated to various uses, isessential toonsistent picture of the Soviet economy.
A third fact that shapes our methods is that technology and the laws of nature are no respecters of iron curtains. The Soviets do many things differently from the way in which we do them, but in many other things they have no choice but to follow the only industrial technique that exists. Thus the electrolytic process which produces sodium hydroxide and chlorine inevitably produces them in the same ratio in the hSSR as In the United States. We can learn many of the technical limitations on what they are able to dotudy of US industrial practices. But this must be done with care, since we know that in some cases the Soviets appear to be incapable of applying our techniques even where they know about them, whereas in other cases they have devised superior methods. Nevertheless, with appropriate caution, useful first approximations can be reached by the comparative method.
One implication of this for research plans Is that there must be present In ouruch heavier dose of technical and engineering thinking than Is customary in economic studies.
A characteristic which has advantages and disadvantages is that prices, markets, and money flows, the stock In trade of much economic analysis, have limited meaning in the USSR We are spared the uncertainties of the capitalist business cycle and monetary dislocations are of little significance. On the other hand, we are largely denied the benefits of moneyommon measure of otherwise incommensurable activities Most of our thinking must be not in terms of rubles but of tons and bushels and bales, of numbers of machines of innumerable
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different kinds, ofOowst^per hour, and the like. To add all these things up to an Index of capabilities, ve must concoct our own common measuringask of no small complexity.
On the negative side Is the obvious fact that Information
currently coming out of the Soviet Bloc Is very limited indeed. This does not mean, however, as is sometimes concluded, that our knowledge is Inevitably correspondingly limited- Radical economic changes do not occur overnight even In the USSR, and information on earlier periodsood deal morePiecing this together with what we are getting now. exercising some ingenuity in making inferences from the known about the unknown (through the interrelations of thend directing the collection of crucial missing pieces of Information through the channels available to us. It Is possible to puturprisingly reliableWhat the scarcity of current Information means is not that we are condemned to Ignorance about the Soviet economy but rather that to find out what we need to knowreat many more hours of painstaking research, of imaginative Interpretation, and of fitting and adjusting than would be necessary in the study of an open economy. Theof this conclusion is to be found in the estimates of research time required which were compiled by the various divisions during the course of the Inventory.
A final characteristic of the Soviet problem is that because of the coats and difficulties of collecting information, much more time and thought must be devoted to determining what pieces of additional information would be most revealing if we could secure them This point should not beAs the Inventory discloses, the Information required to give the answers that we needood many subjects is believed to be largely available In Washington. In those cases, what is needed is principally much more intensive miningather low-grade ore. In other cases, however, field collection appears to be the only way of filling In certain critical gaps. In studying an open economy one would normally ask for much more information than one expected to use and
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then sort out the useful parts when It came. When the cost of Information in money and lives Is high, however, much more careful consideration must be given to which pieces ofare the vital ones. One of tho principal responsibilities of ORR Is to give this kind of guidance to the information collecting agencies
The considerations set forth in this introduction do not determine the details of our research program or of our method of tackling it, but they doramework of Ideas within which the research program may be carried forward. The next task is to spell out method and content somewhat more precisely.
IL General MethodsShall We Go About It? The dilemma of the clamorous customer versus the banc study
The central question of how we should allocate our time has already been referred to. The problems to whose solution we are asked to contribute are very urgent. Events will not wait for the orderly, patient, exhaustive research which alone can give satisfactory answers to these problems, if we were to devote ourselves exclusively to amassing all the facts we need, we would have to tell harried policy-makers that we would be glad to advise theminears. Wc neither should nor can stay in an ivory tower that long. Even If It were possible to devote ourselves exclusively to exhaustive and encyclopedic studies for the nextonths. It Is highly likely that at the end of that period many of the problems that we would be asked to help with would have changed so that our results would no longer be particularly applicable.
On the other hand, if we succumb completely to the very real pressure upon us to answer all current requests for prompt Information, we will never have any Information better than the slim fragments that we can now supply. Thus our dilemma is,ense, whether to be encyclopedic and irrelevant or operational and Incompetent
1?
Clearly the only tolerable solutionompromise between these two extremes. We must try to answer the mostof the problems put to us from day to day as quickly and as competently as possible. But we mustajor part of our energies for Improving the foundation of knowledge from which better quick answers can be given.
The necessity for this compromise has two furtherThe first is that It is possible to pursue this twofold objective only if weertain minimum of research resources substantially larger than that which the UShas allocated to these problems In the past.
The other implication of our compromise is that since we cannot hope to have enough resources fully to exploit all the available information about the USSR, we must be very sure that we use our scarce research resources to fill in those areas of our ignorance which most seriously limit our estimating ability. We must concentrate our scarce manpower on finding out those things that the US Government needs to know most. The identification of these priority areas is one of the most puzzling problems facing Intelligence.
How do we determine bask research priorities?
The most seductive answer to this question Is contained in what we may call the "bottleneckince economic warfare, cold or hot. was first thought of, economists have sought for the bottleneck, the single critical item, the key facility without which the enemy's military economy would collapse. The history of the search for such bottlenecksecord of failure, connniiing the economist's faith, that,ittle time, resources are highly substltutable one for another. This does not mean that economic warfare is bound to be Ineffective. On the contrary, the very fact that resources are Interchangeable means that to deny an enemy any resource is to weaken directly or Indirectly his military potential This Is particularly true In an economy which, like the Soviet, has for years been directedingle set of goals. Any economic activity recognised by the Kremlin as not essential
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to these goals would have been abandoned long since, 'As*
wherever we make an economic attack upon the USSR, Itikely to hurt. But itelusion to expectimited ) attackmall segment of the Soviet economy will cripple
Soviet strength. It is not the capacityarticular facility
or the availabilityarticular commodity which ultimately
limits the capabilities of the Soviets so much as their total
resources and their ability to organize them effectively.
This does not mean that all things are equally important The selection of the more critical commodities and industries is one way of cutting the problem down to size. But when one has done all the pruning possible, the number of critical sectors of the economy remains too great to tackle them all exhaustively at once.
A second method of determining priorities for research is to see what basic research would be most relevant to the problems to which we are being asked to give current answers now. The dangers in this problem-approach to priorities are obvious. It leads one always to concentrate one's research on yesterday's rather than on tomorrow's problems. Basic research, by definition, takes time. The problems which may be urgent when the basic research that wc start today is finished cannot be clearly foreseen and are almost certain to be different from those which are plaguing us now.
Furthermore, any attempt to list even the most urgent of the problems facing us at the moment reveals how many there are and how much of the total world economic picture isto their solution. As part of our study of foreign economic intelligence for the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency attempted to outline the requirements for such intelligence in terms of currentery incomplete sampleist ofop priority problems, some of them as broad as the total military potential of the USSR.
) Again, we cannot wholly discard this criterion. We must try to foresee tomorrow's problems and guide our research accordingly. There are some aspects of the Soviet economy
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which we can take the risk of neglecting. But we mustroad enough job to hedge ourselves somewhat against the errors In our own forecasting.
A third possibility Is to take some aspect of the study of each commodity and concentrate on that aspect alone for all commodities across the board. Thus one could take some section of the Outlineasle Commodity Study used in the preparation of the Inventory and Oil In that section for every item first, leaving other sections until later. One could devote the entire energies of ORR to the study of requirements, for example, or to techniques and methods of production, or to the organization and plans for each Industry, or to levels of output, or to some other aspect.
This principle of selection Is almost certain to beby itself, since the answers to most of the questions which policy-makers are going to ask Involve putting together all of the partsasic study to get at the conclusion. Thus an estimate of capabilities requires an estimate of the balance between supplies and requirements to achieve whatever may be the goals and plans of the Soviet rulers. An estimate of vulnerabilitiesnowledge of the availability ofat present production rates and also an estimate of how goals and plans would be affected If that availability were to be cut by our actionoint far below requirements. If the designasic study is properly drawn. Information about all the parts of that study is required to arrive at conclusions, and no single part can be left out entirely If satisfactoryare to be reached.
The Investigation of each of these methods of determining priorities on our research time leads us back to theconclusion with which we startednamely, that the encyclopedic and exhaustive analysis of most of the parts of the whole economy is the only way in which we can arrive at sound and authoritative answers to the questions that arc being asked. But we have already determined that we do not have the time or the resources to carry through this number of systematic basic studies from beginning to end How, then, can we resolve this puzzling dilemma?
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y Io6kmS at the present state ^'Wv
ourkr^ledge. What we have Just proved Is that we need to
astf most sectors oTthe
Sonet economy toensible estimate of capabilities
vulnerabmtics. or intentions. But we have not pZTl^i
aboutevery aspect. What wealreaoy
Certainthehe
Poa*le. We know the Soviet Union is at least capable of certain minimum actions, and we can set certain ceihngs on
toe SfafWeo Eta! rf.he most" closer and closer together
the Methoduccessive Approximations. The Method of Successive Approximations
t?ethodnS me specifications of WhSthe of all the significant
anns- flnd services which should be studS
he Princ,palabout them which we would hke to solve? This was the first assignmentInour inventory and resulted in the outlines produced asTguidetoT
s to see how much of the outline you can
isOmC' each ofOnnation^er aspects. It ^wTpossess may
S lmarEln of error'but ^er partseajter, 0ur inventory was designed to bring us
?hat^ow and what we do not know about each of our major problems with resoect
nant^at
namely, that our ignorance of certain important matters Is much greater than our ignorance of others.
SoIApproximations fa to concentrate our most earnest effortsrief period on the important parts of our problem which we know least
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about This docs not mean that we seek authoritative or final answers in these areas of ignorance but merely that we focus on them until our knowledge is brought upevel equal to or somewhat better than our knowledge of the other parts of the picture. J
When we .have been working in this manner on weak spotseriodonths, we must stand off and take another look at where we are then in relation to the total outline. The weak spots may still be weaker than anything else, or we may have gone far enough with them so that, although we still do not know much about them, they will be In better shape than what formerly was our best evidence. If our second over-all look reveals this to be the case, we must tackle whatever other sectors of our problem are now the weakest, not again with the notion that we are going to find out everything about them, but only that we are going to work on them until our ignorance of some other matter requires more pressing attention. In this business,ittlereat many things is likely to be more helpful than knowing everythingery few things and nothing about others. Each substantial drive to cover an area of ignorance must be intensive enough and substantial enough to permit us to make real progress toward solutions and not merely to hold our own. On tbe other hand, it must not be pursued with such perfectionist zeal that we neglect other areas in which our Ignorance may be only slightly less serious.
In summary, the Method of Successive Approximationsa repeated cycle of review and examination, planning, and several months' production followed by another review in the light both of progress and of changes in the character of the problems to be solved.
Problems in applying the Method
In attempting to apply the Method of Successivecertain common problems and difficulties arise which arerief comment.
A particularly bothersome problem Is that the things which we know least about, and thus the things which it Is most
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important to^tudy. are likely.the things on which we have least information. In general, we know more about rates of production of Important commodities and product* in the Sonet Union than we do about patterns of distribution of thosehis is parti, because much more evidence is available on rates of production. The temptation Is to study the material that we have and draw such generalizations from it as It seems to contain.
In terms of getting answers to our vital problems, however, we cannot permit the available evidence to dictate the nature of our inquiry too completely. Several weeks spent searching for every possible way to button down an illusive fact by ingenious reasoning from other relatedy working out limits on what its magnitude could possibly be from what we know about other parts of the economy, or by laying onrequirement* may be worth many times the same amount of time devoted to extracting, setting down, and presenting all the facts that may happen to beiven body of documents.
Both methods must be employed. Until we haveexamined the available material, we do not know what can be got out of it. But the material available was not designed to answer our questions, and it must be made to be the servant of our investigation and not Its master.
Editor* Note: It Isnlndii* the reader that UAau prepared In UU.
An irritating feature of the Method of Successive Approxi-mations is that it may well involve us in going over the same material several times in search of the answerseries of different questions. This repetition is unfortunate and can be avoided to some extent by Investing some time in Indexing and abstracting. If, however, we examine exhaustively all the materia] available to us for every Implication that it contains the first time we study It, we wOl not complete our investigation for many, many months. It is unfortunate that research by the Method of Successive Approximations involves some waste and some repetition, but it Is better than being able to produce no answers"
IB
The natural Instinct of the researcher who has plenty of time it to"follow the logical process of trying to buildicturehole sector of the economy by first getting an idea of each of its smaller component parts. Thus the logical way tothe value of resources used in chemical production is to find out what resources are used In the production of each of the many different kinds of chemicals. Again this logically Involves breaking each particular chemical into the quantities produced in each specific plant. This suggests that the first step In answering the over-all question is to try to identify all the physical producing facilities and their capacities and rates of operation. In many cases,irst approximation to the aggregate figure can be achieved by short cuts which avoid the necessity of knowing what in detail It is made up of.
Thus one can start, for example, with total resources engaged In chemical production In the United States, or in the war economy of Nazi Germany,roportion of total resources. One can then consider known respects in which the proportion In the USSR must deviate from these examples. Soap is rare In the USSR, and every household docs not have Its DDT spray. Such estimates of the whole before you know the parts usually have wide margins of error, but when current problems are pressing, they are frequently better than nothing at all.
Finally, for this Method to be effective. It should ideally be applied not simply to ORR's schedule of research production but to that of tbe US Governmenthole. Our delineation of areas of Ignorance should beovernment-wide basis, and our production to remedy these weaknesses should be planned In collaboration with other agencies so that we do not all concentrate on the same gaps at once. As thepart of our activities progresses. It should be closely integrated with our production so that the Governmenthole may approach more rapidly an adequate understanding of the Soviet economy.
Original document.
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