[104-10337-10014.pdf — page 42]
# FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARDthe pseudonym without harming the individual. The CIA did not object to the Review Board's policy to release pseudonyms. The CIA did identify several pseudonyms that it believed to be particularly sensitive, and demonstrated to the Review Board with clear and convincing evidence that release of those pseudonyms would do irreparable harm.c. CIA crypts.i. Review Board guidelines. The Review Board released some CIA "crypts"-code words for operations and individuals. The Review Board also generally released CIA "digraphs"-the first two letters of a crypt that link a particular crypt to a particular location. CIA often created crypts to refer to other U.S. government agencies; for example, the FBI was "ODENVY." The Review Board made a blanket decision to release all U.S. government crypts. The Review Board nearly always released CIA crypts where those crypts denoted operations or individuals relating to Mexico City or Cuba. (The digraph for Mexico City was "LI," and for Cuba, it was "AM.") For all other crypts, the Review Board protected the digraph and released the remainder of the crypt. The Review Board established a few exceptions, and where exceptions applied, the Board required CIA to provide crypt-specific evidence of the need to protect.ii. Commentary. The Review Board had to determine whether it believed that release of CIA crypts would harm CIA operations and individuals. Section 6(1)(B) and (C) of the JFK Act provided the standard for postponement of CIA crypts. The Review Board required the CIA to provide crypt-specific clear and convincing evidence that CIA currently used, or expected to use the crypt and that CIA had not previously released the crypt. Thus, in order to convince the Review Board to sustain postponements, the Board required CIA to research each crypt to determine whether CIA still used the individual or the operation and provide that evidence to the Review Board.As it did with CIA agent names, CIA initially requested the Review Board to sustain postponements of all CIA crypts-even "ODENVY"-the CIA's old crypt for the FBI that CIA had already released in other CIA records. CIA argued that its use of crypts was an operational method that should remain secret, even though CIA had replaced most of the crypts at issue years earlier. CIA believed that if the Review Board released the crypts, researchers would be able to piece together the records and determine the identity of operations and individuals. CIA further argued that the burden of locating evidence on each crypt was too heavy.The Review Board, conversely, believed that CIA conceived crypts as a code to hide the identity of an operation or an individual, and so the Review Board could release the crypts and not compromise the operation or the individual. As with CIA agent names, the Review Board allowed the CIA ample time to locate evidence on each crypt. Finally, the Review Board released a group of CIA crypts from Mexico City with the "LI" digraph. CIA eventually agreed to release its crypts and digraphs in assassination records, and the Review Board eventually agreed to protect certain sensitive crypts.The Review Board recognized that it could not conduct a crypt-by-crypt review for every CIA record that it encountered. CIA records contain hundreds of thousands of crypts. Given the need to finish its work, the Review Board decided that, for all crypts except the "LI," "AM," and "OD" series crypts, it would agree to postpone the location-specific digraph and release the actual crypts. Thus, the Review Board released most crypts in the collection and the most relevant digraphs. The Review Board did make three exceptions to its general rule: it protected the digraph in non-core files when (a) the crypt appeared next to a true name that had been released, (b) when the crypt appeared next to specific identifying information, and (c) when CIA provided clear and convincing evidence that the Review Board should protect the digraph.d. CIA sluglines.i. Review Board guidelines. "Sluglines" are CIA routing indicators, consisting of two or more crypts, that appear above the text in CIA cables. (See illustration.) The Review Board released CIA sluglines according to the same criteria it applied to crypts and digraphs.