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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President

For Immediate Release December 13, 1995

Vice President Gore Announces Reforms For Intellegence Community

Vice President Gore today (12/11) unveiled new initiatives to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the federal government's intelligence agencies, part of the Administration's ongoing efforts to make government work better and cost less.

At the direction of President Clinton, the Vice President's National Performance Review (NPR) has cut federal bureaucracy. We currently have the smallest federal government in 20 years.

The intelligence community's latest report -- NPR Phase II -- details 14 initiatives to reinvent U.S. intelligence agencies.

"The intelligence agencies are consolidating and streamlining, maintaining intelligence leadership while meeting the challenge of decreasing resources," said Vice President Gore.

The intelligence report, presented by Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, consolidates intelligence collection sites worldwide, implements administrative and management reforms, and consolidates the mapping and imagery activities of all 13 intelligence agencies.

Director Deutch said the creation of a consolidated National Imagery and Mapping Agency "will foster the development of new technologies and supply military commanders and policy makers with significantly improved information." Director Deutch said the report also details plans to integrate the acquisition of military and intelligence satellites.

The intelligence community will consolidate much of its operations in the Washington area and cut in half the amount of warehouse space it leases in the Washington area. The CIA's warehouse consolidation effort came about after the reinvention team found a warehouse filled with bamboo snowshoes that had been gathering dust since 1947.

The plan detailed in the report also reduces the cost and increases the efficiency of support activities such as foreign language training, the reuse of excess property and the purchase of equipment and supplies.

For example, the report calls for the expansion of a paperless travel-processing system developed by one of Vice President Gore's Reinvention Laboratories at the National Security Agency. The new system cuts the cost of administering travel by 70 percent, and was recently recognized by Business Travel News as one of the four best travel management systems in either the public or private sector.

The intelligence community has been actively working with the Vice President's National Performance Review since 1993. As a result of the reforms announced today and others that are underway, the intelligence agencies are cutting costs and reducing bureaucracy. The three largest agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, are reducing their personnel at a rate more than twice the rate of the rest of government. By 1999, these agencies will have reduced personnel by 25 percent.