The United States Intelligence Board was set up by President Eisenhower in 1957. It’s purpose was to provide a consolidated channel for all intelligence chiefs across the various intelligence bodies in the United States government to provide advice to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).
Its creation came on the recommendation of the Presidential Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities (later renamed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, or PFIAB, by JFK), which was critical of the effectiveness of the Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles, in coordinating the government’s intelligence efforts. A key part of the problem was that the Director of Central Intelligence was also the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; the latter competed with other intelligence agencies for resources and prestige.
The USIB was often referred to during the Cuban Missile Crisis, often as a short-hand way of implying consensus amongst the intelligence community.
Here’s a list of its members as of late-1962 through early-1963.1
Name | Position |
---|---|
John McCone | Chairman / Director of Central Intelligence |
Lieutenant General Marshall S. Carter | Deputy Director of Central Intelligence |
Roger Hilsman | Director of Intelligence and Research, Department of State |
Lieutenant General Joseph F. Carroll | Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense |
Major General Alva R. Fitch | Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army |
Rear Admiral Vernon L. Lowrance | Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (Intelligence), Department of the Navy |
Major General Robert A. Breitweiser | Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, United States Air Force |
Lieutenant General Gordon A. Blake | Director, National Security Agency |
Major General Richard Collins | Director for Intelligence, Joint Staff |
Harry S. Traynor | Assistant General Manager, Atomic Energy Commission |
Alan H. Belmont | Assistant to the Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation |
USIB Members in 1965
If you’re looking for the membership of the board in April 1965, the National Security Archive has posted a posed group portrait from April 28, 1965, with the members identified in the caption.
- Data sourced from: John McCone, “Statement on Cuba by Director of Central Intelligence,” 6 February 1963, in “Cuba: Subjects, Testimony, Director McCone, 2/6/63-2/26/63” folder, Box 316, National Security Files, John F. Kennedy Library. ↩