Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
[104-10337-10002.pdf — page 22]
assembled for the JFK assassination investigations. All isbeing processed for declassification, with some 227,000pages already released. Some seventy percent of thereleased material contains redactions, although later in thebriefing we noted that as our experience has grown theredaction standards have evolved and now most material (upto eighty percent) is being released whole. Some 25 seniorannuitants, working closely with a DO team led by Wickham,have been performing the initial review. Pereira pointedout that we are not only reviewing the assassinationrecords, but those records bearinmg on our own investigationof the assassination. Pereira identified the five academichistorians who make up the Board, and said they aresupported by thirty full-time Board staffers headed byformer Berlin Documentation Center chief David Marwell.Pereira said that the 1992 Act specifies that the Board musthave "clear and convincing evidence" if we want to postponerelease, and said that the Board requires "currentjustification" if we want to protect agent identities,sources and methods, or liaison identities. Under the law,the Board has the authority to release all information, andmust justify in the Federal Register within fourteen daysany redactions. The Board sees the full text of alldocuments. Pereira said that we negotiate with the Boardthe use of summaries or generic descriptions (such assubstituting "a northern European station" for Helsinki) andthat the Board is making an"honest effort" to see the connection between thirty yearold information and current damage to Agency equities.Dupart asked rhetorically whether the Board understood theconcept of ongoing liaison, with Wickham saying that theBoard clearly had a different perspective from the DO, andthat the ADDO, General Counsel, Cover Staff and others havebriefed the Board in detail to address this "problem."Harrelson pointed out that our joint teltaps had recordedOswald himself, although we assured the clearly unhappyDupart that we are trying to protect the fact that liaisoncooperated in the teltaps. We also noted our effort toprotect the identities of covert Agency employees, althoughwe are working particularly hard in cases where the Agencyemployees now reside overseas. Pereira said we areconcerned about the cumulative erosive effect on our coverand our ability to conduct operations. He noted that theBoards tends to focus on individual specific cases withoutrecognizing the broader cumulative impact of their discretedecisions. (S)2. Cipriani described the appeals process specified in the   1992 JKF Act. She also lent Sheehy a copy of the act, which   he studied carefully during the briefing. Under the 1992   act, documents related to JFK carry the "presumption of   release," with the Board defining which records fall under   the act. We have to justify any redactions or   postponements, and Board decisions can only be appealed to
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the President himself (which, as *Cipriani* dryly noted, tends to inhibit appeals.) The act also specifics very short deadlines, with only 30 days for the President to make his decision. (This means we have only about seven days to get our appeals out of Hqs and to the White House--a practical impossibility.) Our only appeal to date involved three issues: (i) a cable implicating senior Mexican officials in (our joint teltaps), (ii) the identification of the very sensitive Helsinki Station, and (iii) the identity of a Nicaraguan source. In fact our appeal took several months, with the Board being very accommodating about the delay, and we finally were able to give the Board enough justification and explanation that they changed their position and spared the White House the decision. Healey noted that the Agency declassification team includes a DO team (as noted above,) and asked why we hadn't been able to head off the problem. Cipriani responded that new information arises for the Board to consider in making its determination, and Wickham elaborated by noting that the DO is reluctant to reveal sensitive current information to protect old material. He characterized this as a problem of "DO culture." At the same time, he cited the specific example of the Mexicans declining to meet the DCI on his recent Latin American trip as illustrative of Mexican sensitivity to the liaison issue. We later noted that the only other appeal thus far involves the FBI, and the White House has told the Bureau to resolve the matter with the Board. (S)3. Pereira noted to the staffers that we're dealing with very short deadlines involving enormous volumes of material, and illustrated by showing the staff a bulky recent Board declassification notification which we must review to confirm we have no problem with the material involved. In response to a Sheehy question, Harrelson reminded staff that the original redaction and submission to the Board took place in 1992-3, and as noted above, our redaction standards and judgements have evolved since then. Further, we have to double-check each release to confirm we concur, and in some cases compare substitute language. Sheehy asked why we would object to such a thing as the acknowledgement of Tokyo station, and seemed impressed and persuaded when Wickham patiently explained that both the Japanese and Ambassador Mondale have strongly recommended against confirming the existence of the station. The Japanese are very sensitive to any public acknowledgement of our liaison relationship. Wickham noted that the Board is trying to document Oswald's travels, and wants to identify stations reporting such travel. Pereira said that we recognize the need to report the facts, but want to protect details that do not add to the story but harm our equities. In response to a Healey question, Pereira said we are making progress in giving the Board staff the context and framework necessary to appreciate and support our concerns. He said the staff tries very hard to give the Board necessary background, and
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13-00000Wickham seconded Pereira's assessment that we have a very good working relationship with the staff. Under the provisions of the act, the Board will be working until October 1997, dealing with CIA, FBI, DepState, as well as private individuals and even foreign governments. They are interviewing people, and as Pereira noted, "getting theories." (S)4. Staff, even those who asked pointed questions like Healey and Sheehy, seemed satisfied. Majority staffer Eberwein, perhaps reflecting concerns voiced by deputy majority director Dupart about protecting Agency sources and methods, however, expressed concern later about possibly amending the '92 act to moderate the act's bias toward release. Indeed, she contacted OCA lawyer Cindy Ellis and asked her to draft language amending the act. It had not been my impression during the briefing that staff had been especially concerned about the act to the point of intending to modify it, and its also unclear whether Eberwein was acting on behalf of senior majority staff or the membership in asking OCA to suggest modifications to the act. (S)Richard E. SchroederDCI/OCA/CLG15 April 1996Distribution: DCI/CSIDO/ORMSDO/IMSOCAOGCRES chronoCL BY 620119CL REASON 1.5CDECL ON X1DRV FM HUM 4-82SECRET
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SECRETTO:Richard E. Schroeder-C-FROM: Linda C. CiprianiDATE: 04/15/96 05:30:04 PMSUBJECT: Re: DRAFT--OCA MFR on 10 Apr 96 HPSCI JFK Docs BriefLooks OK to me - I was especially pleased to read that the staff was concerned about the the presumption for release in the Act and asked Cindy Ellis to draft language modifying the act. If Cindy needs any help, I would be very happy to give her some suggestions!!I would greatly appreciate being kept informed as this progresses.Thanks LindaCC: John Pereira, J. Barry Harrelson, Fred Wickham @ DO, Linda CiprianiSECRET
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SECRETTO: Richard E. Schroeder-C-FROM: John F. PereiraDATE: 04/16/96 02:40:06 PMSUBJECT: Re: DRAFT--OCA MFR on 10 Apr 96 HPSCI JFK Docs BriefThe MFR looks basically fine.Two minor suggestions:Par 1.- change "our own investigation" to the House Assassinations Committee's investigationPar 1, last sent. change last part of sent to read *without always focusing on the broader cumulative impact of their discrete decisions.*CC: J. Barry HarrelsonSECRET
[104-10337-10014.pdf — page 0]
# 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992## RELEASE IN FULL200024 November, 1998Memo for the RecordSubject: JFK Records Review - Lessons LearnedThe CIA's JFK Collection is made up primarily of records pulled together for the Warren Commission, House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB). It contains a significant amount of duplication and non-JFK related material. The current index is flawed and contains gaps. Release standards were liberal; basically only source identities and information, names of agents, employees under cover, Agency locations and foreign liaison activities were redacted. There is no evidence in the Collection to indicate that the Warren Commission conclusions were wrong.I. The JFK ActMandated review and declassification projects can be two-edged swords. The JFK Act forced the Agency to review records that should have been opened years ago. The legal requirement to presume release, backed up by an independent review, resulted in the opening of documents that clearly would not have been released under other programs. However, the Act and the Review Board created by the Act imposed un- realistic deadlines, inflexible standards and procedures which created a major drain on all Agency review resources and had an over-all negative effect on the Agency's release program.Unrealistic Deadlines: The release dates set by the Act did not take into account the start-up time and costs (searches, inventorying and indexing) of a project of this magnitude, nor the time it would then take for a page-by- page review and sanitization of classified documents. For example, initial indexing of the collection was done on a crash basis using overtime employees and resulted in a flawed database. The revising, re-indexing and updating of that database took several thousand man-hours and continues today.Mandated Procedures: NARA's and ARRB's interpretation of the law created a time-consuming, labor-intensive review process that meant an inordinate amount of time was spent by both the Agency and Board staff on issues which were marginal to the story and to processing decisions by the Board. For example:a. Under the JFK Act every piece of paper in the collection was considered a "unique" assassination record. The result is a staggering amount of chaff and duplication.
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For example, one cable was files and processed 58 times in the collection.b. The ARRB required that all sanitized documents be reviewed by the Board and that each postponement (deletion) be acted on individually. Even after the Board changed procedures and accepted staff recommendations instead of reviewing each document, the detailed tracking, recording and coding of every deletion within each document required processing resources well beyond what would be considered reasonable for such a project. A most sanitized documents contained multiple deletions (one contained more than 1600 deletions and many over 100).Inflexible Standards: The level of evidence required by the Board to postpone what was generally considered protectable information was extremely high and usually required docmentation of "current harm”. Defenses based on general principles such as official cover or sources and methods were not acceptable. This required the Agency to dedicate significant resources to prepare evidence to support recommended postponements. Again, much time was spent on issues that were marginal to the JFK story. For example, several major evidence packages involving several offices and presentations by senior agency officers and officials were needed to secure Board agreement to protect Agency physical locations and names of employees and other persons not related to the JFK story.Three times during the six years of the project, including most of this past year, the JFK review effectively shut down all other aspects of the Historical Review Program and had to borrow additional resources from other offices and review projects to meet deadlines. The JFK review will continue to require a significant portion of HRP's resources through FY99.II. The ProcessThere are a number of basic lessons from the JFK review that are applicable to other historical/systematic review projects:* We need reviewers with broad Agency experience, which can be either managerial or substantive.* We need to establish early on what information is already in the public domain and address the issue of “official release" in the context of each project.* Develop a strategy/policy with the IROs concerning the release of information. Be smart about it; do not accept stonewalling by them on relevant information that can be
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* released. At the same time, avoid confrontations with them on marginal or non-relevant information.* On-site Directorate reviewers are the most effective way to handle the internal coordination requirements of a large project. Without the DO's JFK team on site it would have been impossible to complete the JFK project.* Develop guidelines and processes for coordinating Third Agency documents; include other agencies in discussions; do not drop documents into the black hole of other agencies' FOIA offices without this advance discussion.* Maintain written, up-to-date, project-specific declassification guidelines. This is no small task. A "declassification guide" must be flexible; no guide can anticipate all the issues which will arise in a review. After six years, we were still revising the JFK guidelines in the last month of the project.* In establishing deadlines, allow sufficient time to do a thorough, professional job as required by the project activities (see Unrealistic Deadlines above).* Ensure we have adequate support people for routine processing tasks; declassification involves both tough substantive analysis--and a lot of routine processing.* If possible, inventory/index all materials before the review and processing begins. Experienced indexers are a must. Identification of duplicate documents should be a key part of any inventory or index.### III The Requests(being drafted)Attachment I. [incomplete draft attached]Description of the JFK CollectionAttachment II. [being drafted][statistical summary of collection including size and status of documents (RIFS, SANS, DIFS, NBR, etc.)]
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# Memo for the RecordSubject: JFK Records Review Project and Lessons LearnedThe CIA's JFK Collection is made up primarily of records pulled together for the Warren Commission, House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB). It contains a significant amount of duplication and non-JFK related material. The current index is flawed and contains gaps. Release standards were liberal; basically only source identities and information, names of agents, employees under cover, Agency locations and foreign liaison activities were redacted. There is no evidence in the Collection to indicate that the Warren Commission conclusions were wrong.I. Background (1992-1995)The setting up of the Historical Review Program by DCI Gates in early 1992 coincided with growing interest in Congress to require federal agencies to declassify records related to the assassination of President Kennedy. DCI Gates decided to start declassification process before Congress passed legislation:*   testified before Congress on 12 May 1992 about CIA`S new openness policy and announced the declassification of the first folder of Oswald's 201 (also known as the pre-assassination file).*   six boxes of the Oswald's 201 were reviewed and transferred to NARA by Oct. 1992.The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act) was signed 26 October 1992:*   it called for Presidential-appointed Assassination Records Review Board composed of non-government individuals;*   established “a presumption of immediate disclosure” for records relating to the assassination.For first two years of its existence, the Historical Review Program focused primarily on the review of JFK assassination records:
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* there were two major releases of Agency records (August 1993 and August 1994) of approximately 227,000 pages;* joint HRG/DO teams reviewed additional assassination related collections at National Archives (Warren Commission), the SSCI (Church Committee and the Ford Presidential Library (Rockefellow Commission) plus numerous referrals from other federal agencies (FBI, State, Army, etc.).Due to delays in the appointment of its members and the time required to hire and clear a staff, the ARRB did not actually begin reviewing documents until May 1995. It became clear in immediately that the ARRB would require the release of far more information than the Agency had released in the 1992-94 review. In mid-1995 HRG began a re-review of the previously released sanitized documents:* approximately 80% of the 227, 000 pages release in 1993-94 contained deletions* resources were taken from other projects and added to JFK project to meet Board's monthly deadlines.## II. The JFK Act and the ARRBMandated review and declassification projects can be two-edged swords. The JFK Act forced the Agency to review records that should have been opened years ago. The legal requirement to presume release, backed up by an independent review, resulted in the opening of documents that clearly would not have been released under other programs. However, the Act and the Review Board created by the Act imposed un- realistic deadlines, inflexible standards and procedures which created a major drain on all Agency review resources and had an over-all negative effect on the Agency's release program.### Unrealistic Deadlines:The release dates set by the Act did not take into account the start-up time and costs (searches, inventorying and indexing) of a project of this magnitude, nor the time it would then take for a page-by- page review and sanitization of classified documents. For example, initial indexing of the collection was done on a crash basis using overtime employees and resulted in a flawed database. The revising, re-indexing and updating of that database took several thousand man-hours and continues today.### Mandated Procedures:NARA's and ARRB's interpretation of the law created a time-consuming, labor-intensive review process that meant an inordinate amount of time was spent by
[104-10337-10014.pdf — page 5]
both the Agency and Board staff on issues which were marginal to the story and to processing decisions by the Board. For example:a. Under the JFK Act every piece of paper in the collection was considered a "unique" assassination record. The result is a staggering amount of chaff and duplication. For example, one cable was files and processed 58 times in the collection.b. The ARRB required that all sanitized documents be reviewed by the Board and that each postponement (deletion) be acted on individually. Even after the Board changed procedures and accepted staff recommendations instead of reviewing each document, the detailed tracking, recording and coding of every deletion within each document required processing resources well beyond what would be considered reasonable for such a project. A most sanitized documents contained multiple deletions (one contained more than 1600 deletions and many over 100).Inflexible Standards: The level of evidence required by the Board to postpone what was generally considered protectable information was extremely high and usually required documentation of "current harm". Defenses based on general principles such as official cover or sources and methods were not acceptable. This required the Agency to dedicate significant resources to prepare evidence to support recommended postponements. Again, much time was spent on issues that were marginal to the JFK story. For example, several major evidence packages involving several offices and presentations by senior agency officers and officials were needed to secure Board agreement to protect Agency physical locations and names of employees and other persons not related to the JFK story.Three times during the six years of the project, including most of this past year, the JFK review effectively shut down all other aspects of the Historical Review Program and had to borrow additional resources from other offices and review projects to meet deadlines. The JFK review will continue to require a significant portion of HRP's resources through FY99.III. The Process and Lessons LearnedThere are a number of basic lessons from the JFK review that are applicable to other historical/systematic review projects:* We need reviewers with broad Agency experience, which can be either managerial or substantive.
[104-10337-10014.pdf — page 6]
* We need to establish early on what information is already in the public domain and address the issue of "official release" in the context of each project.* Develop a strategy/policy with the IROs concerning the release of information. Be smart about it; do not accept stonewalling by them on *relevant* information that can be released. At the same time, avoid confrontations with them on marginal or non-relevant information.* On-site Directorate reviewers are the most effective way to handle the internal coordination requirements of a large project. Without the DO's JFK team on site it would have been impossible to complete the JFK project.* Develop guidelines and processes for coordinating Third Agency documents; include other agencies in discussions; do not drop documents into the black hole of other agencies' FOIA offices without this advance discussion.* Maintain written, up-to-date, project-specific declassification guidelines. This is no small task. A "declassification guide" must be flexible; no guide can anticipate all the issues which will arise in a review. After six years, we were still revising the JFK guidelines in the last month of the project.* In establishing deadlines, allow sufficient time to do a thorough, professional job as required by the project activities (see Unrealistic Deadlines above).* Ensure we have adequate support people for routine processing tasks; declassification involves both tough substantive analysis--and a lot of routine processing.* If possible, inventory/index all materials before the review and processing begins. Experienced indexers are a must. Identification of duplicate documents should be a key part of any inventory or index.## IV ARRB Requests for Additional Information and Records(see attached draft)Attachment I. Description of the JFK CollectionAttachment II. [being drafted-will be available 17 Dec a.m.][statistical summary of collection including size and status of documents (RIFS, SANS, DIFS, NBR, etc.)]