Doc ID: 6878993
Doc Ref ID: A4269382
AGENCY: NSA
DATE: 03/24/97
PAGE: 1
JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM
IDENTIFICATION FORM
AGENCY INFORMATION
RECORD NUMBER: 144-10001-10153
RECORDS SERIES :
:
AGENCY FILE NUMBER :
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
ORIGINATOR : NSA
FROM
ΤΟ
TITLE :
DAVID MARWELL, ARRB
RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS POSED BY JFK ARRB
DATE 06/01/95
PAGES : 3
SUBJECTS :
1960'S INTERCEPTION OF SOVIET/CUBAN/MEXICAN DRUG SMUGGLERS
WHAT ACTIONS WERE TAKEN BY NSA FOR THE IMMEDIATE JFK ASSASSI
1960'S COLLECTION/DECIPHERING/ANALYZING COMMS CAPABILITIES
DOCUMENT TYPE: LETTER
CLASSIFICATION : +
RESTRICTIONS : 1B
CURRENT STATUS : ✗
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/01/95
OPENING CRITERIA :
ORIGINATING AGENCY'S DETERMINATION REQUIRED
COMMENTS
CONTAINS SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION
original
ARRO
pubviessic to
b
[R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED
[R]
Released pursuant to Executive Order 14176, DECLASS. OF RECORDS CONC. THE ASSASSINATIONS OF PRES. JFK,
SEN. RFK, AND THE REV. DR. MLK, JR.
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Doc ID: 6878993
ACNITED
DEFENSE
SEBE
STATES DESMENIC
Doc Ref ID: OP SECRET
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND 20755-6000
N5P4-033-95
1 June 1995
:
Mr. David Marwell
Assassination Records Review Board
600 E Street NW, 2nd Floor
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Mr. Marwell:
(FOUO) In response to your letter of March 9, 1995 we tasked appropriate elements of
NSA Operations and Archives as well as the Legislative Affairs 
Office (LAO) and Office of
General Counsel (OGC) to search for information responsive 
to your questions. The following
represents the composite response of these elements.
(U) "What technical capabilities did NSA have during the early 1960's for collecting,
deciphering, and analyzing communications?"
(TS-CCO) NSA had an excellent capability to meet the SIGINT challenges of the 1960's. We
had field sites in position to copy the signals of interest in the 
USSR, both High Frequency and
Line-of-Sight, in Cuba, and those communications exchanged 
internationally between coun-
tries. We accomplished this through a mixture of fixed sites manned 
by armed forces 
personnel,
airborne and shipborne platforms, exchanges with Second 
and Third Parties, and clandestine and
special sources. We exploited many enciphered communications 
of interest, but not Soviet dip-
lomatic and agent communications and those of a few other 
countries that employed very sophis-
ticated cryptosystems. Our analytic capabilities were excellent, both 
in our civilian and military
workforce.
(U) "What COMINT did NSA actually intercept during the early 1960's from the Soviet
Union, Cuba, and Mexico, from organized crime or international drug 
smugglers?"
(TS-CCO) NSA produced COMENT on many facets of the Soviet target, from leadership com-
munications to military command and control, from scientific 
and technical research and devel-
opment to international trade and industrial endeavors, exploiting 
many low-to-medium grade
cipher systems on these targets. On the Cuban target, we produced 
many products on all facets
as weli, from military command and control to international 
trade, from domestic industrial and
agricultural endeavors to diplomatic and agent communications
. We also produced product on
Mexican targets, mainly diplomatic and military. There were no 
reflections in any of these 
prod-
ucts of any activity that might have been related to the assassination
, only post-assassination re-
flections of U.S. political and protocol developments and Cuban releases 
of statements denying
crime or narcotics smuggling at that time. One organization did 
follow international arms trade
activity and issued product reports, but there was nothing to tie any 
of their reporting to the as-
sassination.
(U) "What actions did NSA take in the immediate wake of President Kennedy's assas-
sination? For example, did any agency task NSA to perform any functions 
regarding the assas-
sination? Was any task force, group directorate, or other entity 
at NSA formed or charged with
any responsibilities for collecting information that in any way 
pertained to the assassination of
President Kennedy? Was any traffic analysis performed? 
Were any product reports produced?
Were there any TSRs?
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(TS-CCO) Collectors, based on their personal recollections, were alerted to put greater empha-
sis on Soviet Bloc and Cuban military targets to look for signs of increased readiness in their
force posture. Analysts at NSA were also looking for signs of diplomatic reactions to and for-
eign intelligence reporting on the assassination. Any voice and cipher traffic were thoroughly
processed from the surrounding timeframe. Analysts on targets that were unexploitable 
from 
a
cryptanalytic standpoint reviewed traffic patterns to ensure that no deviations indicating unusual
activity had been overlooked.
tion?"
(U) "Did NSA ever collect, isolate, or segregate any records relating to the assassina-
(FOUO) One file, related to Lee Harvey Oswald, was accessioned into the NSA/CSS Archives
in 1986. The LAO holds five files that topically relate in some way to the Assassination. In
1993 NSA searched for and collected documents in response to Public Law 102-526. Copies of
the records responsive to the law are held in the Office of Policy.
(U) "What actions has NSA taken, since 1964, with respect to the assassination? For
example, other than with respect to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), has
NSA had any program to collect any data with respect to the assassination
?"
(FOUO) Since 1964 NSA has answered queries from various congressional committees. Files
about the information provided are held by the LAO and OGC. NSA's only program to collect
data related to the assassination was the response to PL. 102-526.
(U) "What files or records has NSA ever had pertaining to congressional investigations
of the assassination or the intelligence community? For example, are there (or were there) NSA
files on the Warren Commission, the HSCA, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, etc."
(FOUO) The LAO, OGC and Archives holds files related to this question covering all of the
topics except the Warren Commission.
(U) "What records retention (and records destruction) policies has NSA ever proposed
or implemented that might have affected records pertaining to the assassination? You stated, for
example, that records identifying Americans were destroyed in the wake of the Church Commit-
tee investigation, and you suggested that records identifying Oswald might have been among
those destroyed. What were the destruction orders; who implemented them; how many records
were destroyed; and how were records identified for destruction?"
(FOUO) NSA has created records disposition schedules for some documents. However,
SIGINT records disposition remained predominantly unscheduled during the period in question,
and consequently their handling is uncertain. Serialized records (reports) are usually retained
intact and are preserved to this day. The retention or destruction of other types of records were
not handled systematically. The decision to retain or destroy was made by the originating ele-
ments.
(U) "What records from intercepts involving the Soviet Union, the Soviet Bloc, Cuba,
and Mexico from the early 1960's are still extant? For example, does NSA have untranscribed
Cuban tapes from 1963 (but that may subsequently have been broken)? What records does NSA
have from the Bay of Pigs and from the Cuban Missile Crisis?
(SCCO) There are end-product reports, code books on target communications and cipher traf-
fic available dating from the early 1960's on these targets in the NSA archives. Our records
show no instances of codes being broken in which we did not go back and decrypt traffic from
1 Released pursuant to Executive Order 14176, DECLASS. OF RECORDS CONC. THE ASSASSINATIONS OF PRES. JFK,
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the period that had been unexploitable at the time. It is our standard practice to do so regardless
of the circumstances. When such events occur it is also the SIGINT modus operandi to ensure
all voice material having any possible connectivity whatsoever to the event is scanned for intelli-
gence purposes. We found no indications of any SIGINT collection that did not get reviewed.
Such records also cover the missile crisis and Bay of Pigs timeframes as well. There has been an
historical perspective written in 1984–85 on the SIGINT effort during the Missile Crisis that also
touches on the Bay of Pigs, and one is planned on the Assassination (no estimated completion
date).
(U) "Does NSA have files on American defectors to Communist countries during the
late 1950's and early 1960's?"
TS CCO) There was one NSA organization which, as part of their mission, tracked the activi-
ties of such individuals in the 1960's, first manually and later by machine. However, almost all
records of such endeavors and files were destroyed in 1974, and any such activity ceased in the
wake of the Church and Pike Committees' reports on such activities and the subsequent Execu-
tive Order issued. The two exceptions to this would be files on Martin and Mitchell who were
employees of NSA.
(U) "Did any foreign government or intelligence service ever supply NSA with any in-
formation pertaining to the assassination?"
(FOUO) We are unaware of any information of this subject ever being passed by any foreign
government or intelligence service to NSA.
(FOUO) We have also collected a list of personnel who were working the target at the
time or who have contributed to these answers. After you have reviewed these responses, please
do not hesitate to contact us to on (301) 688–6798 with any questions which you have.
Claudia C. Collins
CLAUDIA C. COLLINS
Chief
Information Security Policy
Released pursuant to Executive Order 14176, DECLASS. OF RECORDS CONC. THE ASSASSINATIONS OF PRES. JFK,
SEN. RFK, AND THE REV. DR. MLK, JR.
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