U Olcott Kent Pettee and Kendall

8/17/2019 U Olcott Kent Pettee and Kendall

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Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 2 (Extracts, June 2009)21

Al l stat ements of fact, opi ni on, or a nal ysis expr essed i n t hi s arti cle ar e th ose of theauth ors. Nothi ng in the arti cle should be constru ed as assert in g or im plyin g US gov- er nm ent endorsem ent of an art icle’s factua l statements and i nt erp retati ons.

“Peeling Facts off the Face of the Unknown”

Revisiting The Legacy: Sherman Kent,Willmoore Kendall, and George Pettee—Strategic Intelligence in the Digital AgeAnthony Olcott

To be “th e fat her of i nt el l i gence an al ysis,” as Sherm an K ent ha s so often been cal l ed, m ean s ofcour se th at K ent wa s it s found er, but i t al so m eans th at h is in tell ectual “genetics” l ie deep wi th inour ent er pr ise. Th e K ent l egacy has sur viv ed because hi s appr oach to i nt ell igence ana lysis ser vedth e U ni ted Stat es extr em ely w ell for a l ong ti m e. H owever, as hap pens wh en env ir onmentsun dergo dr am ati c chan ge, successfu l adap tat ions for one envi r onment can p r ove to be m uch l ess

effi cacious—per hap s even f ata l—in a new envi r onm ent . One need onl y consid er th e doom h ang- in g over th e tw o professions th at K ent held u p as the m odels th at h e wi shed t he “i nt el li gencepr ofession” to em ul ate—th e “l ar ge un iv er sity f acult y” and “our gr eatest m etr opoli tan newspa-

pers” a — to see how pr ofoun dl y our envi r onmenthas chan ged. b

I n add it ion to extin ctions, though, profoundchan ges of envir onment a lso can r eveal th e ada p- t i ve vir tu es in stru ctu res and approaches that d idnot th ri ve in the past . K ent h ad at least t wo con- temporar ies, Wi ll m oore K end al l and George Pett ee,wh o outl i ned qui te di fferent a ppr oaches to str ategic analysis c Their v iews found l i t t l e t r act i on i n

th eir day but now seem to anti cipat e in str ik in g ways the vision of the futur e of th e in tell igencecomm uni ty pu bli shed by the dir ector of n ati onal i nt ell igence (DN I ) in 2008. This suggests the“path s not fol low ed” have im port ant lessons for how t he i nt ell igence pr ofessi on mi ght chan ge ifth ose of us who pr acti ce i t w ish t o escape th e loomi ng exti ncti on of t he tenur ed fa cult y memberand t he professional j our nal ist .

a Sherman Kent , Str ategic In telli gence for Am eri can Wor ld Poli cy, (P rinceton, NJ : Pr inceton Univer sity P ress, 1949), 74–5.Hereafter ci tat ions from th is work are given in the body in parent heses.b For dat a on the d ecline of these professions see htt p://ww w.stat eofthenewsm edia.org/2009/and F ra nk D onoghue, The LastProfessors (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009). What professors teach has changed dramatically, as well, particu-larly in t he l iberal a rts curriculum tha t wa s the basis for much of Kent’s assert ions about “the l iberal tra dit ion.” For moresee Har old M. Greenberg, “Int elligence of the Pa st; Int elligence of the Futur e,” in Loch John son, ed., Str ategic In telli gence,( Westpor t, C T: P ra eger, 2006).

c J ohn Heidenrich does a cogent job of explainin g the differences betw een ta ctical and st ra tegic intelligence in “The St at e ofStrategic Intelligence,” Stud ies in I ntelli gence 51, No. 2 (2007). He a rgues th at stra tegic intelligence has essentia lly beenforgotten by t he IC.

The views of Kendall and Pettee found little traction in their day but now seem to have important lessons for how the intelligence profession might change if those of us who practice it wish to escape extinction.


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Revisiting Past Strategic Thinkers

22Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 2 (Extracts, June 2009)

Th i ngs to Rem em berabout St r ategicIntelligence

Kent’s best-known publicwork wa s prescriptive, notdescriptive—th a t is, Kent w roteit from a kind of self-exile fol-lowing the postwar dismember-ment of his OSS r esearch uni tas par t o f the S ta te Depar t -ment’s bureaucrat ic bat t le toreta in ownership of int elli-gence. Tha t K ent w a s describ-ing not w ha t exis ted as hewr ote in 1947 but w ha t heurged shoul d exist places incont ext the a tt ention he devotesto the na tu re of the int elligence

an a lyst and the relat ionshipthe ana lyst should have withthe policymaker. a

The policymaker, whom Kentdubbed “th e consumer” of intel-ligence, was t hus not so muchan a bs t ract en t i ty as i t was t heforeign service officer w hoclaimed superior knowledge ofth e countr ies in w hich he or she

ha d served an d thus a greed touse t he products of Kent ’sresearch unit only t o the degreetha t i ts f indings coincided w ith

a The da te show s, for example, on page172, where K ent speculat ed on w hether ornot Truma n w ould try to be nominat ed forpresident in 1948.

th a t officer ’s previous under-sta ndings (Kent , 114). K ent’s

cont empt for such consumerswa s w ithering: he ci ted Hit lera s th e prime exam ple of a con-sumer who had “bri l lianthunches” but w ho did not t ry to“a na lyze the why of his success-ful intu ition,” preferringinstead t o see his intui t ion a s a“na tura l , persona l , and infal l i -ble source of t rut h” (Ken t, 204).

Wha t Kent saw to be Hit ler ’smistake—tha t the dicta tor hadfailed to probe more deeply—highlights an other point aboutKent: his view of real i ty wa sprofoundly and unsha kably Pla -tonic. Nearly every line of St ra - tegic I nt el l i gence derives fromthe convict ion tha t for a ny s i tu-a t ion, for every occurr ence, forevery phenomenon t here exists

Nearly every line of Strategic Intelligence derives from the con- viction that for any situation, for every occurrence, for every phenomenon, there exists a single truth.

The veterans of intelligence service during WW II who wrote about the role of intelligence in national strategy after the war: fromleft, S herma n K ent (1903–86), Willmoore K enda ll (1909–68), a nd G eorge Pet tee(1904–89). Only Kent (shown in 1967 CIA portra it)remained in th e field after the w ar to put his th inking into pra ctice—he retired from CIA in 1967. By the t ime Kendall , a teacheran d political philosopher (ima ge court esy of Universit y of Da llas), critiqued K ent’s book in 1949, he had been out of int elligence fortw o years. Pet tee, an economist , came into wa rt ime intelligence, like the others, from acad eme. He published his book on intelli-gence in 1946 while he wa s tea ching at Amherst College. (The ima ge a bove is from Amherst ’s 1947 year book, Ol io . ) Pett ee went onto w ork in operat ions research in organizat ions a ssociat ed w ith J ohns Hopkins U niversity. (Pettee photo courtesy of Amherst Col-lege Archives a nd S pecial C ollections, by permission of the Trustees of Amherst College.)


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a s ingle t rut h. Kent s ta tes thisassumption most c lear ly in a

footn ote, when h e explains:By “objective si tu ati on” Im ean t he si tu ati on as it existsi n t he un derstan di ng of som ehypothetical omn i scientBein g. I mean t he sit uati onstr i pped of t he subjecti vechar acteri sti cs wi th w hi ch apr eju di ced h um an obser ver i salm ost cert ain to endow i t . Iuse th e w ord “pr obable”because, w h er eas kn owl edgeof th e objective situation i s ofhi ghest desir abil it y, any non- omn i sci ent B ei ng (i.e., anyfrai l h uman bein g) probably can never appr ehend th e tr ueobjecti ve fact. H e shoul d,however, str ive unti l i t hur ts[empha sis in original] (Kent,41 –42).

Discovering “true objectivefacts” is not only ardu ous, but ita lso is cumulat ive. As Kentwr ote: “Resear ch is th e onlyprocess wh ich w e of the liberalt ra di t ion a re wil ling to admit iscapa ble of giving us the tru th ,or a close approxima tion t otr ut h” (Kent , 155). The fru its oftha t research, an d thus th e pol-icyma kers’ a bility to a pproxi-mat e the t ru th , w ere pu t bad lya t r isk by the (to Kent) frivo-lous postwa r “demobiliza tion” ofhis resear ch t eam. Kent usedth a t t erm in “The Need for a n

Intelligence Literature,” whichhe w rote in 1955 for t he ina u-gura l issue of Studi es in I ntel l i - gence in par t t o a rgue tha tintelligence wa s now firmlyenough esta blished to be con-sidered a profession.

I t is worth unpacking wha tKent m eant . For one thing, aprofession, unlike a job,requires special t ra ining and aperiod of tut elage. It is a lso notsomething for w hich a ll peopleare f i t . “Twenty men with amenta l rat ing of 5 put t ogetherin one room will not producethe ideas of one man wit h ament a l rat ing of 100, a nd youcannot add m inds as i f theywere so ma ny fract iona l par tsof gen ius.” (Ken t , 174–75). Aprofession is a lso someth ing inw hich people enga ge for rea -sons oth er tha n money—“Peo-ple work at [intelligence] untilthey a re numb, because theylove it, because it is their life,an d because the rewa rds areth e rewa rds of professiona l

a ccomplishment ” (Kent, “Need”:2).

More importantly, however,ma king intel ligence ana lysis aprofession also endowed th ea ctivity w ith self-justifyinga ut onomy. It is the rigor of theselection process a nd th e w ill-ing self-a bnega tion of itsrewards th at just i fy the mostdistinctive feat ure of Kent’s

vision of stra tegic ana lysis—the s tr ic t separa t ion of ana -lysts an d pol icymakers thatremains a un ique feat ure of USintelligence to this da y. Kentga ve three rea sons for main-ta in ing a space betw een a na-lyst a nd policyma ker, the mostimporta nt of which was tha t

“captured” intelligence ana-lysts w ill end up “swingingbehind t he ‘policy’ of th e opera t -ing unit ” a nd [thus be] “prosti-tut ing itself in t he production ofwha t t he Nazis used to cal lkam pfende Wissenscha ft (roughly, knowledge to furthera ims of sta te policy)” (Kent ,200).

K ent Ch ann el i ng Wal terL i p p m a n n

The source quot ed to justifyKent ’s remedy for the da nger of“prostitut ion” is Wa lter L ipp-ma nn ’s clas sic of 1922, PublicOpinion. a The passage tha tKent ci tes, wh ich explains t ha t

the only wa y to safegua rd“impart ia l a nd object ive ana ly-sis” (Kent , 200) is t o keep th e“staff which executes” as sepa-ra te a s possible from “the sta ffwhich invest igat es ,” a s “para l-lel but q uite dist inct bodies ofmen,” a ppears nea r th e end ofLippmann’s book, in the sec-tion “Orga nized In telligence.”

J ust a s Kent’s book wa s inman y wa ys a react ion to hisexperiences during World WarII , so wa s Lippmann’s a reac-tion t o his durin g World Wa r I.Although h is blood wa s not

a A versi on is ava ila ble at : htt p://infomo-tion s.com/etext s/gut en-ber g/dir s/et ext 04/pbpn n10.h tm .

Kent gave three reasons for maintaining a space between an- alyst and policymaker, the most important of which was that “captured” intelligence analysts will end up “swinging behind the ‘policy’ of the operating unit”


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quit e as blue as Kent ’s, a Lipp-man n too was h igh-born a ndweal thy, a H arvard ma n toKent ’s Ya le, a nd just enougholder t o ha ve been pressed int opublic service dur ing WorldWa r I, as a n una cknowledgedad viser to P resident Wilson.Lippmann emerged from theexperience with th e para doxi-cal but not uncommon convic-tion t ha t d emocra cy is too goodan inst i tut ion to be t rusted toordina ry people. The pr oblem,he argued in Public Opini on , istha t huma ns can on ly knowwell the things tha t l ie in th eirimmediat e experience. B eyondth a t, t heir knowledge becomesincrea singly second-ha nd,based upon wh at Lippma nntermed “th e pictu res in theirminds,” which leaves th em open

to error or, even worse, makesth em susceptible to outrightmanipulat ion. b

a Kent’s father, William, was a three-termcongressman, w hile through his motherhe wa s related to Roger Sherma n, one ofthe f ive drafters of the D eclara tion ofInd ependence. His uncle founded theThacher School, in Ojai, California, andhis family donated the land north of SanFra ncisco which became th e Muir WoodsNational Monument.b Lippmann a lso used the w ord “stereo-types” for those “pictures,” repurposing aword tha t , unti l he changed i t to wha t wemean today, had meant st ock phrases thatoccurred constant ly in a given kind of textand so did not require tha t typesetters setthem a new each t ime, but ra ther just keepthem a s “stereotypes” ready to be slappedinto pla ce.

The only wa y t ha t America’spolicyma kers might be keptreasonably on task, Lippma nnargued, wa s to create “intel l i-gence bureaus” t ha t w ouldserve in each of the govern-ment ’s 10 depart ment s as per-ma nent repositories of deeperknow ledge. These “int elligenceofficials” (Lippmann’s term)would be “independent both ofth e Congressiona l committ eesdea l ing wi th t ha t depar tment ,an d of the Secretary a t th ehead of it” so tha t “ t hey shouldnot be enta ngled either in deci-sion or in a ction.” To ensur ethis freedom from “decision oraction,” t hese groups of “intelli-gence officia ls” would h ave t en-ure for life, “with provision forretirement on a libera l pen-sion,” regular sabbat icals , a nd

could be dismissed “only a fter atr ial by professional col-leagues.” c

Th e L i ber al Pr ofessi ons

Lippma nn a nd Kent investedth eir in telligence professiona lswith so much a utonomybeca use th e P lat onic model onwhich they both ba sed theirthinking was an inna tely hier-ar chica l one. The “liberal t ra di-t ion” to which K ent refers had

c Lippman, chapter 26, part 3; ta ken froman online version, a vaila ble at : ht tp://info-moti ons.com/etext s/gut en-ber g/dir s/et ext 04/pbpn n10.h tm .

i ts roots in imperia l Rome,where the th ings tha t men

might know w ere divided into“art s and ski l ls” ( techne inG reek, hence “techniques” a nd“technology”), which wereappropriat e to s laves, an d t heintellectu a l realm of free men(liber = La tin for “free”), whichincluded rhetoric, or the powerof persuasion, an d leadership. d

For th at reason, despite a ll ofKent ’s at tempt s to describe asystem of intelligence an aly sis,wha t h e advocat es relies almostentirely upon a self-defininga nd self-policing elite t ha t,beca use it enga ged in the self-less str uggle to draw evernea rer to tru th , is not t o be sec-ond-guessed by politicians ora nyone else. To be sure, K ent ’sa na lysts were not to funct ionentirely independently, butth eir relat ionship t o policyma k-ers was to “stan d behind them

w ith t he book opened at th er ight pa ge, to cal l their a t ten-t ion to the s tubborn fact th eyma y neglect.”

The a na lyst-policyma kermodel, as Kent ma kes plain, istha t of “professiona l man” an d“client ” (Ken t, 182). J ust likethe self-policing tenured “intel-l igence s ta ff” th at Lippma nnenvisioned, Kent’s a na lysts w ill

ha ve “horse sense” (Kent , 164),wit h “a set of well-stocked an d

d There are m any explana tions of thispoint. A recent and quite readable one isW.R. Connor, “Liberal Arts E ducat ions inthe Twenty-First Century,” keynotespeech at American Academy for LiberalEducat ion, date not given:ht tp: //w w w.a a le.or g/pdf /conn or.pdf.

Kent’s analysts will have “horse sense,” with “a set of well- stocked and well-ordered brain cells.”


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well-ordered brain cells” (Kent,65). They w ill be “w ise men”

wh ose “mysterious inner selvesa re of the kind wh ich producehypotheses of na tiona l impor-ta nce” (Kent , 161) an d, a s such,a re not to be confused wit h G er-ma n or Soviet “par ty ‘intellectu-als’ purporting objectively toprove such phenomena a sArya n S upremacy,” a s Kentwr ote in a d ismissive footnote(Kent, 200).

Analysts envisioned thus as“professiona ls,” Ken t can belit-tle th e consumer wh o “insiststh a t n o idea is t oo complica tedfor the 300-word summa ry”beca use, by r ejecting th e deeperknowledge of the an a lysts, sucha consum er is contributin g toth e “demora lizat ion of his int el-ligence sta ff ” (Kent , 176). Theconsu mer w ho chooses to fun c-t ion without giving the ana -lysts “sharp an d t imely

guidance” is to Kent t he maincause of “the w orst sicknesswh ich ca n a fflict int elligence,”beca use “w hen int elligenceknows l i t t le or nothing of wha tl ies behind a request ,” the a na -lysts “lose desire to part ici-pat e,” become “dumb an dunhappy automatons” who“long ago… quit car ing” (Kent ,183).

Most tellingly, Kent a ssertstha t “pardonably wrong diagno-sis an d understa nda bly inade-qua te presentat ion” must beforgiven, just a s one might for-give “th e dent ist w ho pulls outthe w rong tooth” or th e “lawyer[wh o] loses a case” (Ken t, 194)beca use “wh en the findings of

the intelligence arm are regu-lar ly ignored, the consumershould recognize tha t h e isturn ing his back on t he instru-ment s by which Western ma nha s, since Aristotle, stea dilyenlar ged his horizons—those ofreas on and scientific meth od”(Kent, 206). Indeed, Kentargu es darkly, unless a na lystsare spar ed from a l l the normalrules, regulat ions, a nd consider-a tions of their own efficacy, “th ew hole quest ion of the preserva-t ion of the democra t ic way mayitself become somewh at aca -demic” (Kent, 147).

On e Road N ot Tak en:Wil l moore K end all

Although Willmoore Kendallis one of four colleag ues w homKent tha nks for “readings ofthe man uscript and ma ny kindsof advice” (Kent , x), i t is ha rd t oima gine tw o men more dissimi-lar in t heir backgrounds a ndbeliefs—no blue blood, Kenda llwa s the son of a blind, it iner-an t preacher who had movedhis fam ily from Kent ucky toOklah oma, where Kendal l was

born.a

S elf-ta ught , K endal lenrolled in university a t a ge 14,won a Rhodes Scholarship, andnearly completed a P hD in

a Much of wh at follows is based on J ackDavis, “The Kent-Kendall Debate of1949,” Stud ies in I ntelli gence 35, No. 2(1991).

French literat ure before sw itch-ing t o politica l philosophy. H isf i rst book wa s on basebal l andlat er works included a stu dy ofJ ohn Locke, art icles on t he poetJ ohn Mi lton , and a quant i t a -tive stu dy of America n votingbehavior.

By a l l accounts Kendal l wasthe an t i thesis of an “organiza-

t ion ma n,” unable to s tay onspea king terms w ith more tha none colleague a t a time, an d—tojudge at least by th e t ran-scripts of some his pu blic pre-sentat ions—savagelycondescendin g t o those he con-sidered intellectua lly his inferi-ors , so it is unsurpris ing t ha tKenda ll played n o discerniblerole in th e forma tion of the CI Aor the founda tion of the “int elli-

gence pr ofession.” b

The one public instance whenKendal l did lay out histh oughts on int elligence, how-ever, ma kes clear t ha t Kendal lwould ha ve argued vigorouslywith Kent . Already back atYale, c Kenda ll reviewed Kent ’sStr ategic I nt el li gence for theth en-new journa l Worl d Poli - tics. d The review breaks intotw o part s. The first is devoted

b If t he “Dia logues in Americanism”offered in Kend all’s posthumous collectionCont ra Mund um is indeed the tran scriptof his comments at a debate with h isto-r ian J ames McGregor B urns , Kendal lwould have been a t errifying person withwhom t o disagree. See Cont ra Mun dum,266–81.

Kent asserts that “pardonably wrong diagnosis and under- standably inadequate presentation” must be forgiven, just as one might forgive “the dentist who pulls out the wrong tooth”


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to inconsistencies in Kent’sargument , or to places w hereKent (in K enda ll’s view) fails todra w out t he full conclusion ofwha t he ha s been say ing. Manyof these criticisms still reso-nate—Kendall agrees, forexa mple, with K ent’s fea r tha tth e security requirements ofcovert collection would makeovert collection difficult, butgoes even furt her, to assert t ha t“our present intelligencear ra ngements… enormous lyexaggerate the importance ofcovert collection, and yet per-mit it to yield shockingly sma lldividends.” a It is in th e secondpart of the review, however,tha t Kenda l l cr i t iques what hesees to be Kent’s “st a te ofmind,” wh ich he a rgues hasfour ma jor sh ortcomings (Ken-

da ll, 548–52).

Firs t , Kent sa w t he intell i -gence needs of wa rtime a ndpeacet ime as essent ial ly t hesame, which Kenda l l viewed as

c This does not m ean K endall ha d no t ieswith the In tel l igence Community. Hisnam e appears on a n umber of reports forthe Operations Research Orga nization(ORO) until at least the mid-1950s. Thesubjects include an overview of China, astudy of psychological war fare a s wa gedby North K orea, a nd th e sequence of ques-t ions to be used when giving Koreandefectors polygra ph test s. See precis ofORO r eports at : ht tp://ww w.korean -w a r.com /Arch iv es/2002/04/ms g001 52.h t m.d Willmoore Kenda ll, “The F unction ofIntelligence,” Wor ld Poli tics, Vol 1, No. 4(J uly 1949): 545. Subsequent citat ions intext .

a da ngerous mista ke. Wa rt imeintelligence needs are prima -rily ta ctica l—th e enemy isknown an d th e goal is c lear—wh ile in peacetime, Kenda lla rgued, intelligence needs arestra tegic, because policymak-ers faced w ha t Kendal l cal led“th e big job—th e carving out ofUn ited Sta tes dest iny in theworld a s a w hole.” (Kenda ll,548). This w a s not a ma tt er ofempirical fact, but rather ofwha t K endal l e lsewhere cal ls“ethics.”b

Although Kenda ll obviouslyhad v iews about what tha t des -tiny should be, he did not t a kethe t r iumph of those views a s aself-evident scientific “fact,” asdid Kent . Ra ther he definedtha t dest iny a s a bel ief system

which, he argu ed adam an tly,wa s not th e property of some

a In a footnote to that r emark Kenda ll con-tra sts open source collection to covert,arguing t hat “an intel l igence agency inFran ce” could learn fa r more about theUnit ed Stat es from an airma il subscrip-t ion to the New York Ti mes than i t mightfrom four French agents sent to “dispenselar gesse in Wash ingt on.” He also speaks ofhow ana lysts might have “continuous andinstant aneous access” to the “raw da ta ofthe developing si tuat ion in th e outsideworld” by using “interna tional t elephone,”rat her than r ely on documents andreports forwarded from overseas, w hich,as he noted, “as a ma tter of course are outof dat e.”b See the essay “The Majority Principleand the Scientific Elite,” in Nellie Ken-dall, ed, Wil lmoore Kenda l l Cont ra M un- d u m , (Universit y P ress of America, 1994),93–102.

sma ll, self-selected elite t oestabl ish, but ra ther wa s to be

decided by wh a t K enda ll con-sidered to be sole determina ntof “right ” in a democra cy—th e“one-half of the members, plusone” wh ich const itut es thema jority of any g roup. (Ken-dall, Cont ra M undum , 93). TheKent “st at e of mind,” Kenda l la rgues, view s “t he course ofevent s” to be “a t ape, all printedup inside a ma chine; and th ejob of int elligence is to t ell theplan ners how it rea ds.” (Ken-dall, 549) Far better, he argues,to understan d th is course as“something you try t o influ-ence.” c Kenda ll also rejectedKent’s division of intelligenceinto “domestic” an d “foreign,”beca use tha t prevents a na lystsfrom examining how U S a ct ionsmight change a given s i tua t ion.

The second problem w ith th eKent “mind set” wa s to see the

business of government, andth erefore of int elligence, a sproperly being conducted by pro-fessiona ls, the “producers” beingth e intelligence officers a nd t hepolicy pla nners t he “consum -ers.” To Kenda ll, this m a kesa na lysts “mere research assis-ta nts t o the G eorge Kennan s.”Un like Kent , th e liberal elitist ,Kendal l was a “majori tar ian,” a

c Kendall ma kes a useful dist inctionbetween unattainable absolu te prediction (“General DeGa ulle wil l come to powerthis da y six months”) and the more desir-able conti ngent pr edi ction . (“The follow ingfactors, which can be influenced in such afashion by a ction from the outside, wil ldetermine whether, and if so, when Gen-era l DeG au lle will come to power.”) Ken-da ll, 549.

Kendall argued, intelligence needs are strategic, because pol- icymakers faced what Kendall called “the big job—the carving out of United States destiny in the world as a whole.”


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deeply lit era l believer in democ-ra cy who saw t he legitima te

functions of US government a sbeing performed by “th e peo-ple,” as indicat ed by the ma jori-ties of voters w ho ha d electedtheir va rious r epresenta tives. a

Although he ha d s trongbel iefs about w ha t is moral an dwha t is not , Kenda l l regardedhis beliefs—a ll beliefs—as lyingoutside the “r ight-wrong” pa ra -digm. “Rightn ess” is not in Ken-da ll’s view t o be determined bya n elite corps of enlightenedspecial is ts , but ra ther by astrict ma jority. To Kenda ll, thetrue uniqueness , an d t he value,of America lay in th e fact tha t i tis a s close to a genu ine democ-racy as huma ns ha d yet pro-duced—meaning that if youdisagreed with a na t ional pol-icy, the proper route to chang-ing i t lay not in capturingcont rol of a fun ctiona l bureau-

cracy, but ra th er in convincinga ma jority of the populace toa gree with y ou. Thus th e mindsin w hich the pictures should bechan ged belong t o “the pol i t i - cally r esponsible laym en,”meaning the lawma kers, aswell, presumably, as t he mindsof those who elect t hem. It isintr iguing to ima gine the argu-ments tha t K ent and Kenda l lmust h ave ha d on this score

when Kent defended his notion

a Kendall argued tha t America has tw omajori t ies, one which determines w ho w illbe president, and another, the compositeof many sma ller majori t ies, who make upthe majority of elected representatives.The two ar e almost alwa ys—and shouldbe—in opposition. See “The Two Majori-ties,” Cont ra Mu ndum , 202–227.

th a t democracy could be pre-served only by a non-demo-cratic, self-selecting and self-policing elite.

The th ird shortcoming w a sKent ’s “cra ssly empirica l con-ception of the research processin t he social sciences,” a politi-cal scientist ’s oblique dig a t t hehistorian’s tendency to equate

intelligence value to volume ofda ta . Kenda l l a rgued tha t theresearch pr ocess should a lsooffer scope for “‘th eory’ a s it isunderst ood in economics an dsociology” (Ken da ll, 551). In th e“empiricist” w orld of Kent , th ebiggest cha llenge wa s to findbet ter wa ys to “process” whatKenda l l cal led “a t idal wa ve ofdocument s.” To Kenda ll, th echallenge rather is to enable

an alysts to “work under condi-tions calcula ted t o encoura gethought .” Kenda ll points outtha t , a l though Kent makesma ny references in h is book tosocial scientist s a nd social sci-ence, he “never employs in t ha tconnection th e words theory a n d theorist. ”

The distinction Kenda ll wa sma king comes q uite close towha t G regory Treverton muchlat er cha ra cter ized a s the dif-ference betw een a puzzle and amystery. b Kent wa s a puzzle-solver—indeed, his signa tur egift t o friends w a s a so-called

b Gregory Treverton, “Risks and Riddles,”Smithsonian, J une 2007.

“buffalo block,” a ha ndcraft edwooden puzzle th a t could onlybe ta ken apa rt , an d rea ssem-bled, in one, an d only one, intri-cate a nd precise wa y. c Kenda l l ,by contr ast , wa s more of a mys-tery solver, wh o argued tha tbel ief systems are a rbi t raryconst ructions tha t—impor-ta nt ly—can never be proven tobe true or fa lse. d As he w rote inone essay, “You can not d educefrom a n ethical ju d gm en t … acanon of scientific proof,”because “Science tells us notwha t t hings to do but how t o dothings” (Kendall, Cont ra M un- du m , 100–101).

Fina lly, Kenda ll accused Kentof “uncritica l optimism” inassuming tha t th ere wouldalwa ys be adequa te numbers to

perform t he ta sks “upon w hichth e int elligence functiondepend s” (Ken da ll, 552). ToKenda ll, there could be “nomore dangerous assum ption.”In fa ct , Kenda l l argued, thesupply of specialists “in fieldsother than History” (Kendall’spart ing dig at Kent) was cr it i -cally short, and would growworse. Wha t K endal l a ppears t ohave been a rgu ing was th a t

real “high-level foreign positiveintelligence” wa s not a n issue of

c Ha rold P. Ford, “A Tribute t o Sherm anKent,” Stud ies in In telli gence, Fall, 1980.d This point is a rgued at some length inKendall’s Th e Basic Symbols of the Am eri - can Poli ti cal System, Ca tholic Un iversityof America P ress, 1970, reissued 1995.

Kent was a puzzle-solver.… Kendall, by contrast, was more of a mystery solver, who argued that belief systems are arbitrary constructions that can never be proven to be true or false.


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fact-finding, but ratherrequired coming to understandbet t er how huma ns make andmodify their beliefs.

An oth er Road N otTaken : Geor ge S. Pet tee

Given Kendall’s famouslyarrogan t a nd content ious per-sonality, i t is li t t le surprise tha this views on stra tegic int elli-gence fa iled to gain t ra ction. Itis less clear, however, why theviews of G eorge Pet tee werealso lef t by the wa yside as theUS Int ell igence Communitywa s ta king i ts present form. a J us t a year younger tha n Kent ,G eorge Pet tee was yet a nother

aca demic wh o got put t o workin wa rt ime Wa shingt on. P ulledfrom Amherst College’s D epart -ment of Political S cience, P et-tee q uickly rose t o become chiefof the E uropean E nemy Divi-sion of the Foreign E conomicAdminist ra tion (FEA), w hichprovided industrial targets forAllied bombers a nd a lso tried t o

a Certa inly Pettee wa s less colorful tha neither Kent or Kenda ll . He did appear tohave an enthusiast ic following at Ha r-vard, his alma ma ter (PhD,’31), whoobjected when he was denied tenure, in1941. See The Cri mson, 13 March 1941(at: h tt p://w ww.t hecrim son.com/a rt i-cle.aspx?ref= 463935). Pett ee’s obitua rysuggests a productive but quiet life. SeeN ew York T im es, 29 November 1989.

l imit enemy a ccess to stra tegicraw mater ia l s.

In t ha t sense, Pet t ee’s wa r-time a ctivities were similar t othose of Kent , who ha d ha r-nessed open source informa tionto provide operat iona l supportto t he inva sion of North Africa .U nlike Kent, however, wh o

came awa y from th at experi-ence convinced of th e value t ha t“objective facts” might offer t ostra tegic an alysis , Pet teeemerged deeply skeptical of t hevalue of such data—particu-lar ly a f ter he could s tudy t heUS St ra teg ic Bombing Sur-veys b that were produced toga uge t he effica cy (or, quit eoften, lack of efficacy) of targetrecommendations made by him

a nd h is colleagues.

Tha t skepticism informs TheFu tur e of A meri can Secr et I ntel- ligence, c wh ich K ent a cknowl-edged as “a t ra i l breaker in th eliterature of strategic intelli-gence” (Ken t, xi). To Pet tee, t heproblem was no t tha t t he da tahe an d his colleagues ha d pro-vided wa s itself incorrect—theyha d more or less gott en rightthe a mount of s teel the Nazis

b See ht tp://en.w ikipedia .org/w iki/Strategic_Bombing_Survey_(Europe) andht tp://w w w.ibiblio.org/hyper wa r/AAF/US SB S/ind ex.ht mlc George P ettee, The Futur e of Ameri canSecr et I nt ell igence, Infan t ry Journa lPress, 1946. Hereafter, cites appear intext .

ha d produced, the oil they w ereconsum ing, an d so fort h—but

rat her tha t those f igures hadproven t o be simply numberstha t the a na lys t s themselvesha d embedded into cont extsand assumpt ions tha t in fac twere completely wrong. As hewrote, “We won the wa r… inspite of, a nd not because of, thefact that our intelligence sys-tem showed man y fai l ings”(Pettee, 2). d

I t wa s not th e errors of thepast , h owever, tha t drove Pet-tee’s concern, but r at her h iscer ta inty t ha t peacet ime wouldface the Uni ted S ta tes wi theven grea ter chal lenges tha nha d th e just -finished wa r.Un like Kent , wh o saw “Arya nsupremacy” and similar doc-tr ines as m an ifest ly falsebeliefs tha t bet t er dat a coulddisprove, Pet tee was a s tudentof revolut ions, e who had

a rgued, even while an instruc-to r a t H arvard , tha t t ota l it a r i -a nism was a logical a nda t t ract ive opt ion t ha t could be

d Pettee wa s even more insistent on thispoint in a lecture he gave to the In dustrialCollege of the Armed Forces in 1950, wh enhe argued: “The J apan ese underestimatedus an d most seriously underestimat ed oureconomy. The Germans underestimatedour economy. They un derestim at ed theRussian economy, a nd w e know very well ,also, that the Germans underestimatedth eir own economy. We underestima tedthe Germans , the J apanese, and t he Rus-sians. The B rit ish underestimated t heGermans , the J apanese, and the Rus-sia ns.” See htt p://w ww.n du.edu /libr a ry /ic1/L50-101.pdfe His book, Th e Pr ocess of Revolu ti on(Har per, 1938, reprinted S henkma n 1971)is cited by 46 other books and a rt icles,according to G oogle Scholar.

It was not the errors of the past that drove Pettee’s concern, but rather his certainty that peacetime would face the United States with even greater challenges than had the just-finished war.


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bat tled only by overt govern-ment counterpropaga nda—

wh a t he term ed “consciousguidance” a t ha t could providean even more at t ract ive al ter-na t ive narra t ive to thosetempted by the blandishmentsof host ile ideologies.

Like Kendal l , Pet tee a rguedtha t beliefs exis t separa telyfrom dat a . In a t a lk given to theIndu stria l College of th e ArmedForces (IC AF) in 1947, Pet teesaid tha t , in addi t ion to theirphys ical economies of produc-t ion and t rade, nat ions alsohave wha t h e te rmed an “e th i -cal economy ” b tha t can proveeven more importa nt t ha n th eother t w o kinds. In his book,Pe t tee asser t s tha t i t wa s theNa zis’ a bility to “predict a n dinfluence th e process of event son th e genera l economic-politi-cal-psychological level” thatdetermined t heir ea rly success,

while “we, a t t he t ime, wereonly surprised an d dismay ed byboth th e process of events a ndthe a ppa rent Nazi a bi li ty tocont rol it” (P ett ee, 29).

The pea cetime cha llenge, ofcourse, wa s Marxism, w hichPet tee saw a s a “sociologicalweapon” th at , despi te being“a bout 80 yea rs old today [in1947]” is “more modern… th a n

an ything you ha ve ever known”

a Por te r Sa rgent , War and Ed ucation, Bos-ton, 1943, 249 (at:ht tp://w w w.ar chive.org/st rea m/wa ra ndeducation09032mbp/wa ra ndeduca tion009032mbp_djvu.txt).b IC AF, 3 J an ua ry 1947. At url:ht tp ://w w w.nd u.ed u/libr a ry /ic1/L47-063.pdf

(ICAF, 9). Pett ee war ned th a tthere is “a long record of Ameri-can ignora nce or misunder-s ta nding of wha t ma kes worldpolitics opera te” th a t can n olonger be tolerat ed if theUn ited Sta tes is going to“a ccept a ctive leadership of th eworld in seeking positive mea nsto el iminat e the causes of wa r”(Pet tee, 39). Pett ee wa rned th at“Russia will do her best to use amodern a pproa ch t o the prob-lems wh ich a rise, to ca ll hershots , an d i f we t ry t o play ourpart with out the t ools ofth ought t here will be no ques-tion of the outcome” (Pettee,44).

Like Kent , Pet t ee saw thesolut ion in research: “th ere is

no cas e of failu re [of policy inthe interwar year s] tha t can notbe fully expla ined by ignora nceof economic and political factsa nd relat ionships” (Pet tee, 44).B u t u n l i k e Kent , Pet t ee ar guedtha t research, the ga thering offacts, is useless if conductedsepara tely from the functions ofpolicy. As he w rote, “The fa il-ure t o define clea rly t he specialprovince of ‘st ra tegic’ or

‘national policy’ intelli-gence… meant in the pas t tha tth e conduct of th e work la ckedal l the at t r ibutes which only aclea r sense of purpose ca n give”(Pettee, 65).

Pet t ee also urged tha t int ell i-gence ana lysis should become a

specialized a ctivity, with itsown school, case histories forstudy, professional as sociat ion,and a journal (Pettee, 99–100).However, Pett ee did not w ish tosee intelligence a na lysis becomea profession, beca use he saw amore important task—the cre-a tion of “a doctr ine for stra te-gic int elligence” (P ett ee, 97).Un like a profession, w hich isself-justify ing a nd self-policing,a doctr ine depends upon out-come—as Pettee wrote, strate-gic int elligence an a lysisrequired “a doctr ine of method,namely what da ta to seek asessent ial t o the solution of aproblem” (Pet t ee, 97).

Un like Kent , whose an alystspursued subjects ba sed on th eir

own “h orse sense,” Pett eewarned that “ individual ini t ia-tive can only lead t o disorderunless the individual under-s ta nds th e purposes and s tr uc-tur e of the program in w hich heplays a pa rt… . The remedy formisguided initiative must beth rough leadership from abovea nd par ticipat ion from below ina common d octr ine” (Pett ee,97). I t wa s the “fundamenta l

lack of doctrine,” P ett ee wr ote,tha t w as a “nota b le chara cte r is -tic of wa rt ime intelligence agen-cies” and “ remains… an outwa rdindication of the fundamen-ta l ly ama teurish basis” onwh ich st ra tegic int elligencecont inued t o be approached(Pettee, 95).

“Fundamental lack of doctrine [was a] notable characteristic of wartime intelligence agencies [and] remains…an outward indi- cation of the fundamentally amateurish basis” on which strategic intelligence continued to be approached.


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a nd circumst an ces” (Pet tee,117). A government that could“find the t rut h in a s i tua t ion,a nd could recognize th e trut han d act upon i t when i t foundit” would be “less tha n a pana -cea,” but it w ould be “a positivetest a nd s ign tha t democrat icgovernm ent could learn how t ounify int ention an d conse-qu ence” (Pett ee, 118).

Pet tee wa s even more specifica bout th e necessity of linkingan alysis to purpose in the ta lkhe ga ve to IC AF in 1950, wh erehe outlined an idea l view ofhow intelligence a nd policyshould function together:

U p at t he top is some ki nd ofnat ional brain takin g in dataon the sit uati on, esti mat in gthe sit uati on, and maki ngdecisions—th e fun dam ent al ,hi gh-l evel poli cy deci sions….There is a flow of inform a- ti on about t he si tuat ion fr omth e wor l d t o the gener al staff.Th at i s th e i nt el l i gence fun c- ti on…. Th er e i s also th eresear ch fu ncti on, whi ch i sstu dyin g thi ngs di sti nct fr omw hat th ese other peopl e stud y—an d ar e di sti nct n ot becauseth ey ar e dom esti c, not b ecauseth ey ar e foreign , bu t becausenobody kn ows them yet. T heyar e peel i ng f acts off th e face ofth e unkn ow n…. Resear chmu st pr ovid e in tell igence wi thdat a, int el l igence m ust pro- vid e research w it h data, an dth i ngs have to corr ela te atl ower l evel s…. I f t hat cycl e—

K en da l l , Pett ee, andVi si on 2015

Pettee did not share Kendall’sdisdain for the “G eorge Ken-nans,” the unelected bureau-crat s of policy pla nning, but hedid insis t t ha t s t ra tegic intel li -gence could only be as good as

the policy-formation apparatustha t sa t a top i t . a In his book’sf ina l chapter, Pet t ee arguedth a t, even if “all of the prob-lems of the a ctua l processing ofintel ligence” t ha t he deta i ls“can be given ra dical solu-tions,” there still remains af inal requirement , tha t t here be“officia ls or offices in t he gov-ernment competent to act uponth e conclusions.” (Pet tee, 103)

Pet tee’s words w ere differentfrom those of Kenda ll, but heseems t o have ha d somethingvery like the “carving out ofUn ited Sta tes dest iny in theworld” in mind w hen he wrotetha t “ the Uni ted S ta t es cannothave a na t ional pol icy compar a-ble to its commit ment s unless itha s the means t o form such apolicy a nd ba se it upon t he bestpossible knowledge of th e fa cts

a Indeed, at the 1950 talk Pettee quipped,“There is anoth er side to the old point tha twa r is too importa nt a mat ter to beentrusted entirely to soldiers. I t hink i t ispossible that, under the conditions wehave reached, we can a dd: Peace is tooimporta nt a ma tter to be entrustedentirely to civilians ” (5).

the flow of in form ati on, decision, comm and, an d acti on— is r ati onal , then you are usin gyour r esour ces to sui t yourpu r poses, an d th e conse- quences ar e com i ng out i naccordan ce wi th your i nt en- t i ons. I f t h e consequ ences ar enot comi ng out i n accordan cewi th your in tent ions, ther ei s…a fai l ur e of functi on som e- wh ere in th at cycl e. b

The diagra m Pet tee used toillustra te his lecture (facingpag e, a bove) bears a rema rk-a ble, an d very suggestive, simi-lar ity t o the depiction of th eintelligence process offered atth e end of the DN I’s Vision2015: A Gl obal ly N etw orkedand I nt egrat ed I nt ell i genceEnterpr ise , publish ed in 2008(see right). Although th ere ar esome differences in t he det a ils,both diagra ms share the hiera r-chical but integrat ed relat ion-ship of a na lyst a nd policyma kertha t K enda l l and P e t tee bothadvocat ed, an d which Kentwa rned aga inst . While payinglip service to the t ra dition of“speaking t rut h t o power,”(Vision, 8) the D NI’s s ta tementspeaks of fut ure int elligenceanalysis following “a moreinteract ive model tha t blurs th edistinction betw een producera nd consum er” ( Vision , 9) a ndtha t , r a ther tha n “ask ing cus-

tomers, ‘Wha t a re your int elli-gence priorities?’ ana lysts willbe expected t o engage t hem

b 24 February 1950. At ur l:ht tp ://w w w.nd u.ed u/libr a ry /ic1/L50-101.pdf

Pettee was even more specific about the necessity of linking analysis to purpose [than was Kendall].…”At the top is some kind of national brain taking in data…and making decisions.”


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with, ‘wh at do you wa nt t oa ccomplish?’” (Vision, 10)

Conclusion

There are ma ny forces tha tare converging to bankrupt theprofessions of th e tenu red fa c-ulty member a nd t he profes-siona l journa list, but a ll ofth em point in t he same direc-tion—th at society n o longerrequires intermediaries to

sta nd between it a nd knowl-edge, or it a nd events, t odeclar e tha t one set of things(wr iters, ideas, fait hs, politicaltraditions, etc.) is good, impor-ta nt , a nd t rue, while a l l the restis to be ignored. Although th econnection h a s perha ps becomeobscured, both t he universitysystem, as practiced in theUni ted S ta tes , and the US t ra -dition of journa lism (since at

least th e end of th e 19th cen-tur y) derive from th e same setof P lat onic assumptions a s didKent ’s prescriptions for st ra te-gic analysis.

The reason th at the Kentmethod worked so well for solong is t ha t , in t he bipolarworld of the 20th century, thedifferences between ta ctical a ndstra tegic int elligence were notgreat . In t he Cold Wa r, the pre-sumed enemy wa s almost asevident a s ha d been t he realenemies in t he hot w ar fromwhich Kent , Kendal l , an d Pet-tee had a l l just emerged, a ndth e stra tegic purposes of int elli-gence thus seemed clear. BothKendall and Pettee, however,


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32d ll l ( )

understood tha t Ma rxism wa snot a n error to be counteredwith bet ter facts , or a“kam pfende Wissenscha ft ” likeArya n Su premacy to be dis-missed as evil foolishness.

If th e world were indeed asKent ima gined it t o be, with“objective situ a tions” th at could

be discerned by “west ern ma nenlargin g his horizons” th rough“reason a nd scientific meth od,”then s tra tegic an alysts shouldproba bly be the kind of aca-demic, dispa ssiona te elitewhom Kent an d Lippmannenvisioned. It seems far morerealistic, however, to accepttha t our current global terra inis like tha t in a quote providedby J ohn Heidenrich, tha t w e

are in “a competi t ion… for ther ight t o win the heart s , minds,an d a cquiescence of the popula-tion,” on a globa l scale. a

For a l l their clear an t ipat hy t othe emerging Marxist opponentof their day, Kenda l l and P et-tee saw the enemy not a s one tobe proven to be in factual error,but rat her as one with wh ich

a Heidenrich, “The St ate of Stra tegicIntelligence,” citing David Kilcullen,“Twent y-Eigh t Articles” in M i l i t a r yReview (Ma y–J un e 2006): 103–8.

we w ere in a competit ion “forheart s and m inds.” Wha t K en-da ll, and even more so, Pett eerecognized in 1950 is th a t, intha t kind of world, the ul t i -mat e measure of the s t ra tegicintel ligence ana lyst is ut i l i tyand result. In Pettee’s words,“Even if stra tegic intelligence isnot exposed t o public view, theofficials who receive its advicewil l t rust i t a nd respect i t inclose proport ion t o its bat tingaverage” (Pettee, 91). The mea-sure, in other w ords, is th e effi-cacy of the function, rat hertha n th e purported inherentvalue of those wh o perform it .

The professions th a t K entheld up as models for t he int el-l igence ana lyst—journal is t a nd

professor—are va nishing inpart beca use the needs theyonce met n o longer exist a nda lso because competitors h avea ppeared to meet other of th oseneeds fast er, chea per, a nd inmore accessible wa ys t ha n canprofessors a nd t he journa lists.Vision 2015 appea rs t o recog-nize tha t t he profession of int el-ligence analysis faces the sameerosive pressures:

We conf r ont t he chal l enge ofacti ng in an envi ronment thati s more ti me-sensit i ve andopen t o th e fl ow of i nform a-

ti on, in wh ich in tell igencesour ces and ana l ysi s competei n a publ ic cont ext estab- l ished by a gl obal m edi a….Th e typi cal customer i n 2015wi l l be a new gener ati on ofgover nm ent d ecision-m ak er,accustom ed to in stant an eoussupport, comfortabl e wi thtechn ological chan ge, andunfamil iar with intel ligencea s a privileged source[empha sis added] . Su ch u ser swi l l expect i nt el l i gence to pr o- vi de customi zed, i nt er activesuppor t “on demand ,” andw i l l expect to be tr eated aspar tn er —both a sour ce ofinpu t and an u l t i mate in tel l i - gen ce end user (Vi sion, 5).

I t is not c lear w hether theprofession of stra tegic int elli-gence will prove any more resil-ient a gainst t ha t competi t iontha n ha ve the professors a ndth e journa lists. George Pettee,however, at least provided ayardstick by which ourprogress, or lack of it, might bemea sured. As he wa rned, “Theservices wh ich mu st be ren-dered t o US policy by economica nd politica l int elligence will bejudged ult ima tely aga inst themost drast ic s tanda rds. I f incoming year s t he consequencesof American action correspondto America n inten tions th erew ill be world peace and pros-perity ” (Pett ee, 42).

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“Even if strategic intelligence is not exposed to public view, the officials who receive its advice will trust it and respect it in close proportion to its batting average.”

U Olcott Kent Pettee and Kendall

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