Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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4. In Part II, the Gunn memorandum takes back part of what it gave in the previous section. It sets up a test of importance to the assassination story vs. evidence of harm. Essentially, it advises that the Board will weigh the CIA's evidence but, if within its view, the true name being considered for postponement is important to the assassination story, the Board will release it. This means for those few individuals who may be viewed as important to the story, truly substantial evidence must be brought to bear. Absent such evidence, the Board will release, and the only recourse left to the Agency would be an appeal to the President.5. The Directorate of Operations Memorandum. The basic concern with the steps for handling names as contained within the memorandum is as follows. For officers who retired under cover, the first step will be to contact them and ask if they want their true name released. Per the comments on page three supra, this should be the last step of the review, not the first.A. Other Comments. The resources and data bases which will be researched for each name should be clearly established and followed in a uniform manner. Deviation from a set, orderly process will open CIA determinations to criticism, objections and dismissal, i.e. release of a name that should be postponed.B. In addition to the data bases described -- retirement records, annuity pay records, the office of
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security, insurance lists -- consideration might be givento the Northwest Federal Credit Union, and overt data basessuch as Phonedec. Like the IRS and OPM, the credit unionmight not be able from a legal standpoint to provide anaddress. However, it would probably be prepared to contactan individual and ask that he be in touch.C. A comment must be made about the idea ofuniversally releasing the true names of overt employees. Tothe extent that any current employee, even overt employee,may be sent overseas on TDY under light cover, the releaseof his or her true name via these JFK documents which willreceive widespread review could jeopardize his overseasmission and possibly, place his life in danger.6. These thoughts are intended to be talking points as   we commence to sort out the manner in which we will deal   with the true names. Clearly, we need to begin to quickly   identify those names which can be released, those on which   there is some question, and those few on which we really   need to dig in our heals.6. I would be glad to discuss with you any of the   issues raised herein.Gary M. Breneman
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# SECRET - WORKING PAPER5 March, 1997Memorandum For: Chief/HRGFrom: Barry HarrelsonSubject: Name Issue / Status of ReviewReference: Meetings with ARRB staff (Marwell & Gunn)4 March 1997## Name IssueI met with Gunn and Marwell (separate meetings) to discuss the reopening of the names issue per my memo to you. Both Gunn and Marwell reacted positively. They found the proposal to be reasonable one and they are willing to work with us in approaching the Board. However, both said they could not predict the Boards reaction. Per Marwell, one member of the Board (Anna Nelson) seems to believe that if a person worked for the CIA it should be known.Apparently our timing is excellent. Marwell is planning to propose to the Board that they change the process from the focus on individual postponements to documents. Under the new approach his staff would have the authority to negotiate with the Agency on the release of documents, and only issues/documents of disagreement would be placed before the Board. Marwell is convinced that even with an additional year they will not finish the project with the current approach. He sees our proposal on the names as an example of how the process would work.Marwell recommends that we include examples of documents containing names of little or no connection to the story. Bob Skwirot (he was in the meeting with Marwell) said that there were a number of names that appeared in only one document and that the number of names had reached 590. Marwell wants to start immediately on preparing a joint list of important/releasable individuals.Action: Advise DO, OGC, upper management of our proposal to reopen the name issue (how?). Need to decide what level would sign the memo to the Board, and who would prepare the memo. If you agree I can send a copy of my memo to you to Linda and Fred for background use.HRG and DO team will collect examples of documents and prepare (with ARRB staff) a list of individuals. The DO should focus on any person on the list that needs protection and prepare the evidence ASAP (i.e. not wait for the issue to be resolved).SECRET
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SECRET - WORKING PAPER## New ARRB Review ProcessMarwell and I spent some time discussing how a new process would work. He would like to test the process for the April meeting. The following is a rough outline with my comments:1) HRG reviewers would review the documents the same as they do now (postponements would be blue highlighted). [no change in our procedures]2) ARRB staff would review the blue highlighted document.a) If they agree, they would stamp the document "ARRB approved" and return it to HRG to process for NARA.b) If they disagree they would highlight in yellow (creating green highlighting) If the two staffs cannot resolve the issue, then the document would go before the Board.[Major change: ARRB staff would no longer record all the proposed postponements, no DO damage review, no detailed determination letter requiring HRG reviewers to use the "grid" to determine what happen.]3) Non-issue documents would be sent to the ARRB staff when ready for NARA. At that time the ARRB staff would prepare a simplified final determination notice and letter to the Agencies..[ No action would be required; HRG would file the final determination notice with the document).4) "Green" highlighted documents that go to the Board would be handled the same as today.[The expectation is that a lot less documents would require Board action. ]Comments: With some fine tuning, I think this process could work, and we would be able to complete the re-review of documents released in 1993 and 1994 by Oct. 1998. Completing the entire project will depend on how quickly the "non-related" material and the "addition records" are reviewed by the ARRB staff.SECRET
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# Pending IssuesAs part of the change in process, Marwell wants the Board to focus on outstanding substantive issues as opposed to micro managing the review. We discussed the following:1) Nosenko. ARRB staff needs to review the non-related material and make a recommendation to the Board. Marwell leans toward not treating all of Nosenko as assassination related. Could be a hard sell with some Board members. Should we request that Nosenko meet with the Board? Marwell thinks they would react favorably.2) Personnel Files. Again the first step is to have his staff confirm that only a part of a file is related and that those documents are in the released material.3) Gibson FBI file issue; we need to present case to the Board4) LI 9. Continuing to protect will be a hard sell given that Newman has published identity; we need to present case to the Board.5) CRC Financial Files. ARRB staff needs to review## Annual Report and ExtensionMarwell ask me to draw you attention to the Annual Report and the request for an extension. He would still like a letter from the Agency (could be addressed to him) along these lines: "reviewed Annual Report""note that the Board has ask for extension""support the request/feel it is in interest of Agency and public /or something along these lines"## Other issues (not discussed with Marwell/Gunn)Linda (OGC) says CI Staff has ask Gunn to rewrite his notes, and opposes Gunn's suggestion to release pages from the CI histories he reviewed. Gunn indicated in his notes that some of the pages should be released and might be considered assassination records. We are going to run into similar problems with the other histories. Gunn will be in HQ tomorrow to re-do his notes. She will discuss the “pages issue" with the goal of having him drop the request to release. As to the question of designating the pages as assassination records, she will inform him that CI will oppose. If he insist, she will refer back to HRG.
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# COVER SHEETTo: J. Barry HarrelsonFax #: 703-613-3063Subject: Segregated CollectionsDate: April 23, 1997Pages: 7, including this cover sheet.Today the Board adopted the attached guidelines.![photo of CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT]From the desk of...T. Jeremy GunnGeneral CounselAssassination Recorde Review Board600 E Street, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20530(202) 724-0088Fax: (202) 724-0457
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# Assassination Records Review BoardGuidelines for Review of Postponements in the Segregated CollectionsAdopted: April 23, 1997## BackgroundIn order to ensure that the Review Board will be able to complete its task of reviewing all identified assassination records, the Board recently took two significant steps. First, on November 13, 1996, it adopted guidelines with respect to reviewing "Segregated Collections" with regard to information that is "not believed relevant" (NBR) to the assassination. Second, in February 1997, the Review Board requested Congress to extend its tenure for one additional year.It is the Review Board's judgment that, even with the assumption that our operations may be extended through Fiscal Year 1998, the Review Board cannot hope to complete review of postponements in the Segregated Collections under the current method of review. In particular, a reasonable modification of current postponement standards would greatly expedite and facilitate the release of additional information and records. Otherwise, the Review Board might cease operations without having reviewed claimed postponements in tens of thousands of pages of FBI and CIA records.## Postponement Criteria for the Segregated CollectionsIn a further effort to enhance the Review Board's work, the Review Board now issues these revised guidelines for the review of records in the Segregated Collections.[^1] (These guidelines do not affect the FBI's Core and Related Files or the CIA's 201 file on Oswald.) The four principal factors that underlie these review guidelines are: first, continuing, to the greatest reasonable extent, the Review Board's established guidelines for postponements that have emerged over the past two years; second, establishing guidelines consistent with the Review Board's decision regarding NBR records; third, establishing reasonable and workable guidelines that will enable the[^1]: The regulations adopted by the Board on November 13, 1996, define "Segregated Collections" as including first, FBI records that were requested by: (a) the House Select Committee on Assassinations ("HSCA") in conjunction with its investigation into the Kennedy assassination; (b) the Church Committee in conjunction with its inquiry into issues related to the Kennedy assassination; and (c) by other bodies (e.g., Pike Committee, Abzug Committee, etc.) that relate to the Kennedy assassination; and second, CIA records including (a) the CIA's Sequestered Collection of 63 boxes as well as one box of microfilm records and the microfilm records (box 64), and (b) several boxes of CIA staff "working files."
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-2-Review Board, the ARRB staff, the CIA, and the FBI to complete the significant amount of work that remains; and finally, to provide reasonably consistent standards for the review of postponements that would apply equally to CIA and FBI records.The following are, in summary form, guidelines for reviewing postponements in the Segregated Collections.[^2]## CIA Source and FBI Informant and National Security Asset PostponementsThere are, of course, similarities and differences between FBI informants and CIA sources. Like FBI informants and national security assets, CIA sources may or may not be paid for the information that they provide and they may or may not be providers of information over the long-term. When providing information to the Bureau, FBI informants generally are understood to be cooperating with law enforcement officials for a legal and legitimate purpose. It is often the case, although not always, that FBI informants understand that at some point their name might surface in conjunction with a criminal prosecution and that they may need to testify in court. Foreign CIA sources and FBI national security assets, however, are not necessarily deemed to be cooperating with law enforcement officials but may, in fact, be committing the crime of espionage against their native country by cooperating with US authorities. Furthermore, unlike FBI informants, CIA sources and FBI national security assets presume that their names will not be released publicly and they certainly presume (in the ordinary course) that their identities will not surface in criminal trials. As a practical matter, it is generally much easier today for the FBI to locate a former informant who resides in the United States than it is for the CIA and FBI to locate former sources and national security assets.Despite these differences -- differences which would generally suggest a greater degree of protection being owed to CIA sources and FBI national security assets -- the issues in terms of postponements are fundamentally similar.[^2]: The existing "NBR" guidelines allow the Review Board to remove from detailed consideration those records or files that truly have no apparent relevance to the assassination. Nevertheless, a significant number of files in the Segregated Collections contain records that shed some light on issues that the HSCA explored as potentially relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy. The following criteria would apply to all records in the Segregated Collections, including records containing some NBR redactions.
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# CIA SourcesThe Review Board established guidelines, during its December 1996 meeting, for handling CIA source issues and applied those guidelines at the January 1997 meeting. These guidelines directed the protection of names and identifying information of CIA sources in cases where the identity of the source is of low public interest or is peripheral to the JFK assassination. The Board's decision was based on two factors: the concern that since CIA sources generally live outside the United States, they could risk harm if their identities were revealed. Moreover, many of the sources referenced in CIA records appear infrequently and are of relatively low public interest. Therefore, in records where the identity of the source is of importance for understanding the assassination, the CIA will be required to provide additional evidence to support the protection of the source's identity. In cases where the identify of the source is peripheral to the assassination story, the information will be postponed until 2017.# FBI National Security AssetsFBI national security assets should be treated in the same manner as CIA sources.# FBI InformantsInformant issues represent the largest category of postponements in the FBI's Segregated Collection, as they do in the "core" FBI assassination files. They also provide the greatest opportunity for streamlining the review process. Currently, there are ten members of the Bureau's JFK Task Force who are responsible for researching individual informants in response to evidence requests from the Review Board. They retrieve and review the informants' files and attempt, through DMV, Social Security, and other database searches, to determine if the informant is alive. Under current Review Board standards for "core" files, this work is necessary to provide evidence to support redacting the informant's name, regardless of whether the informant provided information. Removing the requirement of proving whether informants are alive in the Segregated Collections would free up significant resources that could be deployed to reviewing unprocessed HSCA subject files.The new approach to HSCA subjects is to protect informant-identifying information,[^3] An example would be the case of John Scelso (pseud.). The Board found that his identity is relevant to the assassination story and CIA offered evidence of a continuing need to protect the identity. In this case, “Scelso" documents would continue to be scheduled for release in five years.[^4] Six work full-time on informant evidence, four devote about half their time to informant evidence.
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-4-without requiring the Bureau to make a showing that the informant is alive. This protection would extend to individuals characterized as symbol-number informants, "PSIS," "PCIs," "established sources," "panel sources," and the like - designations that indicate an ongoing relationship with the FBI. It would not extend to individuals who requested that their identity be protected in an isolated contact with the FBI or to local and state law enforcement officers.The "informant-identifying information" to be protected would include the customary (i.e., informant-specific) portions of informant symbol numbers and file numbers, informant names, and -- at least potentially - descriptions of, and information received from, the informant. How much, if any, of the latter type of information should be redacted would be the principal focus of staff-level discussions with the FBI. The staff's principal goal in this process, with regard to each informant, would be to release as much information that is relevant to understanding the assassination as possible. In discussions with the FBI, the staff would be prepared, if necessary, to concede redaction of informant-identifying information that is unrelated to the assassination in order to ensure that more pertinent information is released.[^5]The presumption will be that an informant's identity will be released if the informant provides "positive" information about an assassination-related issue. To overcome this presumption of release for informants with "positive" information, the FBI would need to make a particularized showing that the identifying information should not be released. To the extent that an informant's identity is protected, it will be postponed until 2017.## CIA Employee Name PostponementsOver the past year the CIA has addressed the employee name issue and has released some names that it had previously asked the Board to postpone. But during that time the list of names has grown to a size that had not been imagined at the time the work began. To date, the Review Board staff has identified in the JFK Collection over 650 names of CIA employees. These names appear in more than 1000 documents already reviewed by the Board and numerous additional records that have not yet been processed. While some of these employee names are important to the assassination story, many appear only a few times in the entire JFK Collection and seem to add little, if any, important information.[^5]: In HSCA subjects, there typically will not be information about Ruby, Oswald or the assassination itself. However, in a file on, for example, Sam Giancana, there may be informant reports on Giancana's support of anti-Castro activities, and reports from the same informant on day-to-day numbers operations in the Chicago area. The staff would set a higher priority on release of the former reports than on the latter.
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CIA's argument to protect employee names emphasizes a number of points. First, since many employees are "under cover," the maintenance of that cover is critical to gathering intelligence. CIA argues that identification of a name can identify the cover provider and jeopardize operations, Second, although the majority of names are of retired CIA employees, CIA has a confidentiality agreement with them and many do not want their past Agency affiliation released. The argument here is that release may jeopardize business relationships or personal safety. Such arguments have already been presented to the Board. Their merit can only be determined on a case-by-case basis. However, due to the volume of names in the JFK Collection, the individual review and evaluation of each case would delay significantly the review of documents and ultimately lead to less total Information becoming available to the public.CIA has proposed, and the Review Board agrees, that CIA employee names be treated in a manner similar to that applied to Source names: to postpone until 2017 those employee names that are of low public interest or are of peripheral interest to the assassination. It will be presumed that employee names will be released if their identities are important to the assassination story *unless* the CIA is able to provide specific information of a potential harm of release. (CIA acknowledges the presumption of release unless specific evidence is provided to the Review Board that harm to national security or to personal safety would result from the release of the employee name.)### FBI "Foreign Counterintelligence" PostponementsIt is presumed that the FBI will, at least partially, carry over its post-appeal standards for disclosing "FCI" activities targeting Communist-bloc nations. To the extent that the HSCA subjects reflect "FCI" activities against other nations that have not been addressed by the Review Board in the "core" files, the FBI will be allowed to redact direct discussion of such activities, *unless* the information in the proposed redaction meaningfully contributes to the understanding of the assassination.### FBI and CIA Foreign Liaison PostponementsThe criteria for these postponements would not, in the abstract, depart significantly from the Review Board's current approach of releasing information received through liaison channels, while protecting direct acknowledgment of the source of the information. In practice, however, the staff would be more flexible in protecting text that implies, although may not unambiguously state, that a foreign government is the source of particular information. Nevertheless, the more significant the information is to any assassination-related issue, the more information would be released under these guidelines.
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# CIA Stations and Other IssuesOver the past two years the Review Board has established other guidelines that will continue to guide the review process, some of which will be outlined here. For CIA stations, all locations related to the Mexico City story will be released during the period 1960-69. Outside of that window, they will be released on a case-by-case basis should the identity of the station be critical to understanding the assassination. Other stations, except for those identified as particularly sensitive, will be released from the beginning of the Kennedy administration until the publication of the Warren Commission report, (i.e., January 1, 1961 to October 1, 1964). Outside of these windows, stations will be postponed. Cable prefixes, dispatch prefixes, and field report prefixes would be postponed or released according to the same windows as the stations to which they refer. CIA job titles also are redacted or opened along with the station at which the officer served.Crypts would be released along lines similar to other information. All "LI" crypts, except those considered particularly sensitive would be released through October 1, 1964, as are "AM" crypts and U.S. government crypts. In other areas, only the digraph is protected. Again, the exception is sensitive crypts, which would be protected in their entirety. After October 1, 1964, the presumption shifts towards protection of the crypts, except those that provide meaningful information about the assassination story. (For example, crypts pertinent to Garrison-era documents would likely carry the same presumption of release as those generated during the Warren Commission.)Surveillance methods will be released if the nature of the surveillance has a material bearing on information related to the assassination unless CIA provides evidence demonstrating the political or operational sensitivity, in which case the information will be released in 2017.e:\arrb\regs\eview.wpd