[104-10337-10014.pdf — page 45]
# CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW: REVIEW BOARD "COMMON LAW"threatened to appeal to the President to over-turn the Review Board's votes, but theReview Board's position was that the JFK Actrequired release of information where CIAdid not provide convincing evidence to sup-port their postponements. The Review Boardallowed the CIA ample time to gather andpresent its evidence to support its requestsfor postponements as both the CIA and theReview Board hoped to avoid a CIA appealto the President.Ultimately, the CIA determined that it wouldtrust Review Board members with the infor-mation that the Review Board required topostpone the release of the location of asmall number of CIA installations. In aneffort to balance high public interest in thelocation of CIA installations and the need toprotect certain installations, the ReviewBoard decided to establish date "windows"within which it would release CIA installa-tion locations.The CIA never appealed a Review Board voteto the President.g. CIA prefixes (cable, dispatch, field report).i. Review Board guidelines. CIA cable, dis-patch, and field report "prefixes" are identi-fiers that CIA uses on its communications toindicate the installation that generates a par-ticular message. Where the Review Boardhad voted to release the location of a particu-lar CIA installation, the Review Board alsovoted to release CIA cable, dispatch, andfield report prefixes that the installation gen-erated. Likewise, the Review Board protectedcable, dispatch, and field report prefixeswhere it voted to protect the location of theCIA installation.The Review Board replaced the prefixes thatit protected with substitute language similarto that used for CIA installations. An exam-ple of substitute language for CIA prefixes is:"Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in WesternHemisphere 1."ii. Commentary. Once the Review Boardvoted to release the location of a particularCIA installation, the Review Board and CIAdid not disagree that the Board should releasecable, dispatch and field report prefixes.h. CIA job titles.i. Review Board guidelines. The ReviewBoard voted to release CIA employees' jobtitles except when the Board's disclosure ofthe title might reveal the identity of an indi-vidual or CIA installation requiring protec-tion.ii. Commentary. Although the ReviewBoard did not believe that it should vote toprotect CIA job titles, standing alone, it some-times voted to protect titles if they revealedother information that the Review Board hadvoted to protect.i. CIA file numbers.i. Review Board guidelines. CIA organizesmany of its files by country and assigns"country identifiers" within particular filenumbers. The Review Board released nearlyall CIA file numbers that referred to MexicoCity. The Review Board protected the "coun-try identifiers" in CIA file numbers for allother countries with the exception of countryidentifiers "15" and "19." The Review Boardgenerally released all CIA "201" or "person-ality" file numbers where the files related tothe assassination.ii. Commentary. The CIA rarely objectedto the Review Board's release of its file num-bers.j. CIA domestic facilities.i. Review Board guidelines. The ReviewBoard released references to domestic CIAfacilities where the CIA has previously offi-cially disclosed the existence of the facility.The Review Board did not release informa-tion that would reveal the location of domes-tic CIA facilities where the CIA provided evi-dence that the facility was still in use.ii. Commentary. The Review Board rarelyencountered the issue of whether to releasethe location of CIA domestic facilities inassassination records, as CIA officiallyacknowledges most of its domestic facilities.When the Review Board did vote to postponethe location of CIA domestic facilities, itrequired the CIA to provide extensive evi-dence as to why the CIA had to keep the loca-tion of those facilities secret.55