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58But, again, whatever the future course of this legislation, CIA is proceeding even now to review for declassification the relevant documents under its control. Further, we will cooperate fully with any mechanism established by the Congress and the President to declassify all of this material.Chairman GLENN. Thank you, Mr. Gates.Mr. Sessions.TESTIMONY OF THE HON. WILLIAM S. SESSIONS, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; ACCOMPANIED BY DAVID G. LEITCH, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICEMr. SESSIONS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. I have a complete statement which I will file, and there are some diagrams which I will also make available for the record, and a photograph of the files themselves.Chairman GLENN. Without objection, your entire statement will be included in the record.Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to appear before you to testify about FBI investigative records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I applaud this process and your efforts. It is fundamental that Government exist to meet the needs of its citizens. An examination of these issues is directly related to satisfying the intense interest and concern of our citizens about the circumstances surrounding that tragic event some 29 years ago.From the outset, I would like to state emphatically that I favor maximum disclosure, consistent with the law and the legitimate need to protect certain small but highly sensitive categories of information. I can assure you that the FBI will work cooperatively through the Department of Justice with both the Senate and the House to develop a comprehensive approach to these important issues.As you know, the Government has conducted a number of reviews of the assassination. The Warren Commission, the House Assassinations Committee, and the Church Committee all conducted reviews that I believe can be best categorized as exhaustive. It is my understanding that the FBI provided massive amounts of information to those entities to help ensure that they accomplished their missions. Once again, we desire to be as helpful as we are able.Immediately following the shooting of President Kennedy, the FBI began a massive investigation. An intense effort was made. Related investigations were conducted and much information was exchanged, as Director Gates has noted, between the various agencies. As is the case with all major investigations, thousands of pages of documents were created to record the results of these efforts and to facilitate the investigations.Many different kinds of information were recorded in the FBI files. The results of thousands of interviews of witnesses, other individuals with possible helpful knowledge, and contacts with confidential informants were memorialized. Communications between the FBI headquarters and our field offices, and vice versa, were included, as were communications between the FBI and other agencies. Forensic reports were recorded. In all, FBI files relating to the59assassination contained over 499,000 pages of documents, with a few more pages added every time the FBI follows up on a new allegation or a new issue arises.After Congress amended the Freedom of Information Act in 1974, the FBI began receiving requests for information relating to the assassination. By 1978, four years later, over 200,000 pages of material had been processed and made available to the public through the FBI's public reading room. Many authors, journalists, historians, and others have visited and revisited these materials, which remain available today as a valuable source of historic information.I would like to briefly describe to the Committee a breakdown of FBI records relating in some way to the assassination. The FBI has four core files that relate directly to the investigation of the assassination. Our cooperation with the Warren Commission and the investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby-those are the four core files. There are approximately 499,000 pages in these files, 263,000 of which are duplicate pages that were cross-filed, third agency records, and some FBI records that have not been processed pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.Approximately 223,000 pages, or 94 percent of the records we have processed, have already been released to the public. In addition, the FBI has several other much smaller files as a result of other directly related investigations, such as the investigation of Marina Oswald, and these files comprise approximately 22,000 pages, 13,000 of which are duplicate, third agency, or unprocessed pages. Fifty-eight percent of these pages processed pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act have been released to the public.Of the pages available in the FBI reading room on the main floor at FBI headquarters, approximately 189,000 pages, or 94 percent, are available in their entirety. The remaining 12,000 pages in the reading room reflect some degree of redaction. The information that has not been disclosed or that has been redacted to some degree falls within the exemptions that are enumerated in the Freedom of Information Act and the protections of the Privacy Act.This includes information that, one, is classified on the basis of national security; two, would disclose the identities of individuals who specifically requested confidentiality; three, would disclose the identities of confidential informants or sources; four, is highly personal information about individuals; or, five, originated with other Government agencies and those agencies specifically requested that the information not be released based upon exemptions applicable to those particular agencies.While I strongly favor maximum disclosure under the law, there are certain types of information that are particularly critical to successful law enforcement investigations and national security; for example, information that is properly and appropriately classified, information that would identify confidential sources, and information that would disclose sensitive investigative techniques or the types of information the disclosure of which could negatively impact upon our ability to fulfill our mission. Information in FBI files that has not been disclosed publicly falls largely within these descriptions of information.In any case, I believe it is extremely healthy for the country to have these issues aired and to be resolved. The public interest dic-