Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis
Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis
Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis
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Figure 7: Detail of a U-2 Photograph of an SS-4 MRBM<br />
Launch Site, San Cristobal, Cuba, 14 October<br />
1962. This evidence confirmed that Soviet missiles<br />
were being installed in Cuba.<br />
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, photograph in the John Fitzgerald<br />
Kennedy Library, Boston, MA, PX 66–20:7 14 October 1962.<br />
What tipped off the overhead surveillance were two HUMINT<br />
reports of “a Soviet truck convoy that appeared to be towing ballistic<br />
missiles toward the San Cristobal area.” 69<br />
That these reports were<br />
taken seriously is one of the curious serendipities that occur from time<br />
to time in intelligence analysis (<strong>and</strong> other research-based domains).<br />
What prompted the CIA <strong>and</strong> DIA analysts to take these reports<br />
seriously while earlier accounts had been dismissed remains a mystery.<br />
Garthoff asserts that it was new information taken in context with<br />
the observed “pattern of SA-2 surface-to-air missile sites in Western<br />
69 Graham Allison <strong>and</strong> Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban<br />
Missile Crisis, 2 nd Edition (New York, NY: Longman, 1999), 220. Cited hereafter<br />
as Allison <strong>and</strong> Zelikow, Essence of Decision. Raymond Garthoff also notes this to<br />
be the case. See Garthoff, “US <strong>Intelligence</strong>,” 23.<br />
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