Question: Can you talk a little about the origin of the Congressional Research Service?

Goldman: It was established in 1914 to provide the U.S. Congress with an independent source of research and analysis, on a nonpartisan basis and distinct from the executive branch. Although Congress can acquire any report from the State Department or the CIA, often times what they get from these organizations will support administration policies. So the Congress wanted its own independent source of information, and that’s what we do.

Question: What does the CRS do and how does the process work?

Goldman: There are over four hundred research analysts, and we address every issue of legislative activity. There are five interdisciplinary research divisions including: American Law, Domestic Social Policy, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, Government and Finance, Resources, Science and Industry. In this division, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, there are between eighty and ninety research analysts, over half of them are foreign area specialists like me. Many of them are defense analysts who deal with weapons, arms control, and issues such as veteran’s health benefits, so all issues that Congress deals with legislatively. We also have sections that deal with foreign policy processes and global issues and international trade and finance. Our job is to write reports for the Congress, which the Congress jealously guards. Although these reports are not classified, the Congress directs us not to distribute them indiscriminately around the city.

The requests come from members of Congress, committees, and their staff. Sometimes it’s just a telephone call, you pick up the phone, they ask a question and you give an answer. Sometimes it’s a request for a briefing or a memo. Sometimes it’s a request for an in-depth study that requires multiple analysts half a year to work on. So anything from simple information transfers to very complex analytical work, and we have a range of different experts that respond to those requests.

Also, we try to stay at the forefront. So a lot of the big research projects that we do are in the category that we call anticipatory. There has not been a specific request for it, but we believe that the Congress should be thinking about this, need to be thinking about it, and if our management agrees that this is a worthwhile project, we launch the project in expectation that it will find an appreciative audience on Capitol Hill.

Question: Where do the majority of requests come from?

Goldman: This might be hard to believe but CRS receives over half a million requests annually. Most of it is just information transfer that is not handled by research analysts like me, but by research librarians and information technology specialists. Most of that comes from the offices of individual members. A lot of the more sophisticated and complex analysis that we do comes from the requests of the professional staff of the committees who themselves have a lot of expertise in the field. For example, some of my more important clients are the House of Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the armed services committees of the two chambers, the intelligence committees and so on. But also there are some members who have a very strong interest in Russia, Russian affairs and U.S. Russian relations, whose offices are regularly calling with requests for work.  I would not distinguish between the House and the Senate, because even though there are four times as many House members as there are Senators, Senators have bigger staff and we get most of our requests from staff. So I am not sure that there is a big difference there.

Question: Is there a predominant nature to the requests? In other words, out of the five major research divisions who gets the most requests?

Goldman: I am not sure who gets the most requests. That probably varies dramatically depending on what kind of issues the Congress is looking at. For example, right now in the midst of this huge financial crisis I bet the Government and Finance division is working overtime. As you can imagine, in August and September during the Russia-Georgia conflict my phone was ringing off the hook. This division, that is the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade division, produces more reports than other divisions. I don’t know exactly why that is, but we may be the most productive division in terms of that kind of paper output.

Question: What is the typical background of the analysts who work at the CRS?

Goldman: The vast majority have graduate degrees. There are a substantial number of PhD’s, but my no means a majority. A significant number of former academics like me, who came from a university teaching background, but still sort of a minority. Virtually everybody has a graduate degree, but the background varies greatly depending on the field. In the field of foreign affairs there are limited career opportunities outside government and academe. If you are an electrical engineer or a specialist in international finance, however, there are all sorts of career opportunities in the real economy that are high paying and prestigious. In this division, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, it has been a buyer’s market for so long that the quality of the analysts is exceptionally high. When I was hired in 1979, there were 400 applications for this position. But when CRS advertises for a specialist in electrical engineering or international finance, I am sure the pool of applicants is much smaller because the salary doesn’t compete as well as it does for the pool of political scientists and history majors.

Question: The Congressional Research Service has an outstanding reputation for objective and nonpartisan analysis; what sources of information do CRS analysts rely on in order to achieve this?

Goldman: From the very beginning, the most entry level analyst has to be familiar with the broad range of resources available, and if the analyst doesn’t have that, than he is not ready to start on day one. In the case of Russian affairs, that means in addition to reading the U.S. and Russian press one must be familiar with Washington think tanks that constantly have public programs and meetings, and publish background papers and reports. There are experts here in Washington that are very knowledgeable, so when I get a question I can pick up the phone and call these experts and sometimes they pick the phone and call me. We have different areas of comparative advantage. I can also send email inquiries halfway around the world and get an answer the next day. Resources such as the Johnson’s Russia List which provide a wide variety of interpretations. There is also Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, and the Jamestown Foundation. So that’s an example of the kind of resources that I use, and different disciplines have different comparable sources of diverse information.

In addition, all the big embassies here have Russia specialists on their staff. They all have at least one Russia specialist in Washington whose job it is to track U.S. - Russian relations. I make it my business to know these people, so when something comes up I can ask, what does your government think about this?  

Also, we travel. I travel regularly to Russia, Japan and China. I am going to Tashkent in May; I am going to Mongolia in July. So I meet foreign officials there, and foreign officials are constantly coming to Washington. For example, when the head of the Russian division of the Japanese Foreign Ministry comes to Washington, he emails me the week before and tells me that he is going to be in town, come see me and let’s have a talk.

Finally, to help us achieve an objective and nonpartisan analysis, we utilize what is called a multilayered review process. This is our supremely important quality control mechanism. We at CRS can’t begin to compete with CIA or INR at the State Department in terms of manpower, but what we do have is objectivity as an ideal. In the real world there is no such thing as 100% complete objectivity, it’s not humanly possible, but it’s an ideal to which we strive in a very self-conscious way.

So let me describe the process. When I undertake a research project, the first thing I do after it has been approved by management, is schedule a research design review meeting and ask colleagues from this division and other divisions to sit in, hear my research proposal and give me their input. Then I do my research, and before I write the report I do another public meeting, I call it a presentation of findings. I sit down with my colleagues and management and I say to them, this is the paper I am about to write, if you think I got this wrong or I need to shift emphasis or there are some things that I missed this is your last chance to intervene before I write the paper. Then I write the report and circulate it among my colleagues for peer review. My colleagues each give their comments in writing, I am not necessarily required to accept their suggestions, but certainly we respect each other’s opinions as professionals and this is a very important source of input. I incorporate their suggestions and do a revised draft. I then give it to the division level management who will read it and look at the substantive accuracy of it, the analytical soundness of the analysis and the conclusions and also make sure it meets CRS’s rather stringent standards of objectivity and balance. The report comes back to me with written comments and suggestions. I do a revision, and then this draft goes to the CRS review office which is a professional editorial office where it goes through a final scrub. They contact me with more suggestions and fixes, and after it goes through this third filter only then it is ready to go out.  

Question: In your opinion, how much impact does the information provided by the CRS have on making legislature?

Goldman: That is a difficult question to answer. It depends very much on individual Members of Congress and on the specific issue. We have a lot of competitors out there. Many think tanks generate reports, position papers and so on. The big difference is that they all have a policy agenda they keep pushing and we don’t. So our comparative advantage is, whether it’s a very conservative republican or a really liberal democrat, if they ask CRS a question they know they will get a straight answer. In those areas where congress plays a decisive role, there have been times when our reports have been very influential.

You get mentioned by members of congress on the floor, they say “the Congressional Research Service says this” and that gets used in support of a position during a debate on the floor. There are a lot of options out there, and the members are by no means limited to or primarily rely on CRS. Different members have their own preferences for whose policy agendas they like.

Question: How much influence do the CRS reports have compared to the reports produced by the Intelligence Community especially with regard to issues such as Foreign Affairs and Defense?

Goldman: The intelligence community has a depth of knowledge and information which far surpasses anything that we can match. The difference is that the congress in often suspicious of its objectivity. In other words, can we confirm this with a second opinion? There have been times when I have been called to the offices of a congressional committee, this doesn’t happen often but it has happened more than once, and I was told, we just got this report from such and such intelligence agency, it’s classified, you need to read it here in our offices, we would like you to look this over and tell us whether you think this is a reasonable interpretation. So in effect they are asking for a confirmation of reliability. The congress trusts us because they know that we don’t have a policy agenda. All the analysts here are experts in our field and we make it our business to provide objective analysis to the congress. We are specifically prohibited by law from recommending policy. The congress in effect says to us, we want you to tell us what is going on out there in the world, we want you to explain what the problems are, and we even want you to develop alternative courses of action. We want you to tell us what would be the likely consequences of option A and the likely consequences of option B, but we don’t want you to tell us what you think is the correct course of action. That is our job as legislators.

Question: Are CRS reports classified or are they available to the public?   

Goldman: Although they are not classified they are not routinely available to the public. Our oversight committee has specifically directed us to keep our publications within the capital hill community. That doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t give a single copy to a young Russia specialist who is interested in the subject I am working on, I can do that. What I can’t do is enter into a relationship with some institution and routinely give them all the reports that we write. We are strictly forbidden to do that.

There are two different kinds of CRS products. In addition to the regular reports, there are memorandums that involve a response to a specific congressional request. If the memorandum is in response to a specific congressional request the requester owns that product and we can’t share with congressman B something that we have written for congressman A unless congressman A gives us specific permission to do it. The same thing is true for committees. So with this category, although the reports are still unclassified, there is a much stricter confidentially regimen. This is essential because the members of congress are often making research requests tied to their legislative agenda and they might not want other congressmen to know what their agenda is, as well as the arguments that they will be using in the debate.

Question: There are numerous CRS reports that can be found on the internet, how do these reports enter the public domain?

Goldman: There are many members of congress who believe that because CRS is tax supported agency that is proving balanced and objective research, the taxpayers should have access to it. So the individual members of congress can take as many CRS products as they like, get them electronically and put them on their websites. There are number of congressman who have made it their mission to put hundreds of CRS reports on their websites, then some commercial publishers get a hold of them, offer them on their websites for sale, which is somewhat annoying to the authors of the reports because of course we don’t get a penny for that, and they are profiting from taxpayers supported work, but it’s perfectly legal. So that is how those reports get out there. However, we routinely update our reports and the people who are posting our reports on their websites, and selling them on commercial websites, aren’t necessarily selling the most up to date version of our reports. So just because you found a CRS report on a particular subject, doesn’t mean that you got the last word on it.

Question: Can you perhaps tell us about some of the weird, interesting, or memorable requests you have received during your long and distinguished career as a Russia analyst at CRS?

Goldman: Let me talk about the important ones rather than the weird ones. During the Ronald Regan administration in 1986, I got a request from a committee staff asking for an in depth study of the evolution of Soviet attitudes toward onsite inspection of arms control agreements. I became the project coordinator on this study, two other analysts and I worked on it for half a year. We produced a book length report which concluded that there had in fact been a real evolution in Soviet attitudes to the onsite inspection, particularly under Gorbachev. What had previously seemed as a ridiculous idea, that is to trust the Soviets to honor an arms control agreement, now becomes more plausible because they are beginning to accept the idea of intrusive onsite inspection. That report was actually rather influential in congressional consideration of the INF Treaty which came up a year later. Initially the report was actually criticized by senior officials in the Regan administration but in less than half a year we received feedback that it was widely distributed within the administration among arms control negotiators. So that’s an example of something that I did that had some impact. I dare say that’s an exception rather than the rule.

On the other hand, the average age of a congressional staffer is early to mid twenties, and so we do get our share of questions that if we printed them would make the requestors blush if it became public. Because it betrays a naivety or lack of understanding of what the real world out there that they are asking about.