Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report

The Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report (also known as Intelligence Survey Group (ISG) and the Dulles Report) was one of the most influential evaluations of the functioning of the United States Intelligence Community, and in particular, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The report focused primarily on the coordination and organization of the CIA and offered suggestions that refined the US intelligence effort in the early stages of the Cold War.

As World War II ended, the United States had to decide what to do with regard to its Intelligence structure. Not wanting to relive another Pearl Harbor, and with the growing threat of the Cold War, the United States decided to establish an Intelligence agency that operated continually rather than only during times of war and conflict. The National Security Act of 1947 (signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1947) implemented a permanent, non-military, Intelligence agency called the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency that evolved out of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The CIA was not to be part of the military command structure, nor was it to have a domestic role or police power and was to be under the control of the newly established position of Director of Central Intelligence. In addition to creating the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Act of 1947 established the United States National Security Council (NSC). The National Security Council was composed of the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (now titled, Director of Central Intelligence), and other key members to advise the President on national security and foreign policy matters.

The National Security Act of 1947 also modified the structure of the United States military. The Act created the Department of the Air Force from the existing United States Army Air Forces as a response to the emerging significance of air power. In addition, the National Security Act merged the War Department and the Navy Department under one department known as the Department of Defense. Although Admiral James Forrestal and the Navy were originally opposed to having a unified Department of Defense, integration allowed for top-level coordination efforts between all three branches and provided a continuing voice for the military as the Secretaries of the three military branches were permanent members on the National Security Council.

The First Hoover Commission is also known as the Eberstadt Report and the Task Force on National Security Organization of the First Hoover Commission. Between 1948 and 1949 the U.S. government conducted two investigations into the national intelligence effort as a response to the changing role of the U.S. federal government. Congress passed the first investigation, the First Hoover Commission, unanimously while the second, the Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report, was conducted through the NSC per President Truman's request.

Former President Herbert Hoover was chairman of the 12-member bipartisan Congressional Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch, which was established prior to the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. As part of the commission, the Task Force on National Security Organization (led by Ferdinand Eberstadt) examined the effectiveness of the intelligence agencies and reviewed federal bureaucracy. After a series of hearings, the Hoover Commission submitted a 121-page report written by Eberstadt's task force on January 13, 1949. The Eberstadt Report found that the National Security Act of 1947 soundly constructed the national security organization; however there remained organizational and qualitative inadequacies in national intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. The report's biggest criticism concerned the lack of coordination efforts between the CIA, the military, and the State Department that resulted in duplication efforts, and subjective and biased intelligence estimates.

Other key findings of the Eberstadt Report were:

Despite the efforts of the Eberstadt Report to modify the national intelligence organization, the Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report, submitted to the NSC on January 1, 1949, overshadowed the Task Force on National Security Organization's findings.

The purpose of the Dulles Report was to "evaluate the CIA's effort and its relationship with other agencies." NSC officials and DCI Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter thought that it was important to review the development of the intelligence system since World War II in order to determine how the NSC should exercise its routine oversight of the CIA. With the development of the industrial war machine and the emergence of a Cold War, America was vulnerable to potentially catastrophic attacks. With the realization that intelligence would serve as the first line of defense, the NSC thought it was necessary that the newly formed CIA's performance was as efficient as possible.