Randall Forsberg, director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, told the crowd that the documents left her with an impression of "an institutional bias toward worst-case scenarios."

Documents indicate a struggle by analysts to quantify Soviet deployment of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) that continued from the late 1950's through the 1970's.

"Soviet ICBM deployment programs have followed an uneven course marked by spurts of activity, long pauses, and abrupt cutbacks of what initially appeared to be large-scale program," an October 1965 intelligence estimate concludes.

Even with this unprecedented release of information, Forsberg charged that the agency continues to maintain secrecy "vastly in excess of national security needs."

"I feel that the information available to citizens is woefully inadequate," Forsberg said.

In response, Gershwin said the intelligence community has to balance the public's right to know with the country's national security interests.

"We may be damned if we do and damned if we don't," Gershwin said. "I'm not sure which way we'd rather be damned."

"We were operating against a society that made an effort to deny us and deceive us," added Roy Godson, an associate professor of government at Georgetown and author of numerous intelligence-related articles.

Other newly declassified estimates include "Main Trends in Soviet Military Policy" and "Strength and Deployment of Soviet Long Range Ballistic Missile Forces."

Today's panel discussions will feature former CIA Director Robert Gates '64 and McGeorge Bundy, a former Harvard professor and a former special assistant to the president for national security affairs