Is the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which has given valuable advice to U.S. presidents since the Eisenhower administration, on the way out? New York Times columnist William Safire and other PFIAB watchers--people in the "unofficial" intelligence community, as it is called--think so.
To determine whether this is a good idea, it is important to look at the board's history and accomplishments.
In 1953, Congress, favorably impressed by the work of the First Hoover Commission, established six years before, set up another. Both commissions--named after their chairman, former President Herbert Hoover--were created to study the organization and administration of certain aspects of the government. Among other things, the Second Hoover Commission examined the condition of U.S. intelligence.
In 1955, the commission's task force on intelligence reported that the quality of U.S. intelligence was unacceptable. World developments, including the advent of nuclear weapons, had made "adequate and timely intelligence imperative to our national security," the task force said. "The preservation of the United States requires an effective intelligence capability." Moreover, the panel declared, it was essential that U.S. intelligence "be given the support necessary to protect our national security." The second Hoover Commission recommended, therefore, that the president appoint "a committee of experienced private citizens, who shall have the responsibility to examine and report to him periodically on the work of Government foreign intelligence activities."
The panel that was established, originally named by President Dwight Eisenhower the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, was renamed by President John Kennedy the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. (By calling it "Piffiab," the acronym becomes pronounceable.)
PFIAB's size has varied over the years. Its members (currently 16), like those of other presidential appointive bodies, submit their resignations--which are not always accepted--when a new president takes office. Kennedy neglected for a time to appoint new members to the board, considering PFIAB, along with the Operations Coordinating Board, which he abolished entirely, "useless impediments, bureaucratic obstructions to a vigorous, activist foreign policy."
In the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco a few months after his inauguration, Kennedy changed his mind. He reconstituted the board, at the same time giving it its present name. Despite the name change, however, PFIAB's duties as outlined by Kennedy were largely the same as those of Eisenhower's board. Nevertheless, although several Kennedy appointees were holdovers from the earlier panel, his choice of two heads of large, high technology corporations signified an important change in the nature and direction of the board. The "private-enterprise, know-how, can-do" connection has been an essential element of the board's makeup ever since.
New concerns
In neither mission nor membership did PFIAB undergo substantial change in the Nixon or early Ford administrations. In 1976, however, President Gerald Ford expanded the board
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