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with their perceptions of basic democratic principles. This will require a clear definition
of opportunity-based warning which specifies both procedural methods and objectives. It
will also require a clarification of associated terminology to neutralize potentially
“loaded” words or phrases. Having laid this foundation it will then be necessary to
address specific concerns which arise when the government moves to take advantage of
opportunity-based warning.
The Doolittle Report, submitted to President Eisenhower in 1954, demonstrated an
acute appreciation of how important public perception is to proactive intelligence operations.
Promoting expanded covert operations against the Soviet Union at the height of the
Cold War, the committee observed:
It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy [the U.S.S.R.] whose
avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever
cost. There are norules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human
conduct do not apply. If the U.S. is to survive, long-standing American concepts
of “fair play’’ must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage
and counter-espionage services. We must learn to subvert, sabotage and
destroy our enemies by more clear, more sophisticated and more effective
methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American
people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally
repugnant philosophy. 118
Even in a time when the threat was clearly defined there was an innate hesitation to
engage in active measures against a dedicated opponent. In a nation where the convention
of “never start a fight, but always finish one” has been a precept handed down over generations,
the public has difficulty reconciling its ethics with the secrecy and duplicity of
intelligence work. In a world less threatening, and yet more unstable, it is even more vital
to address the American concept of “fair play” when justifying the need for proactive
intelligence measures.
The definitions of threat-based warning proposed by Mary McCarthy and John
McCreary (and used earlier in this paper), provide a solid framework for the definition of
opportunity-based warning: Opportunity-based warning is the process of communicating
judgments about opportunities which may advance U.S. security or policy interests to
decisionmakers. Such communications must be received and understood in order for
leaders to take action that can encourage, enhance, or focus the opportunity for the greatest
strategic advantage. This definition states the methods and objectives associated with
opportunity-based warning, highlighting both the similarities and the differences between
the two warning types.
Inflammatory language was purposefully excluded from the definition. However, its
proactive tone may elicit impressions — embodied in words like predatory, opportunistic,
118 Loch K. Johnson, Secret Agencies: U.S. Intelligence in a Hostile World (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1996), 138.
81