200000
104-10330-10070
2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency
INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY
Washington, DC. 20505
13 December 1996
MEMORANDUM FOR:
Executive Director
SUBJECT:
Assassination Records Review Board
(U)
Identity of Human Sources
(We request that this memorandum be returned to CIA
once the Review Board has completed its deliberations on the
issues discussed below.)
1. (U) Issue. The purpose of this memorandum is to
relate CIA's concerns to the Review Board regarding the
release of the true names of human sources of intelligence
which appear in the JFK Collection and to present a proposal
on how this problem could be addressed.
I. Factual Background
2. (U) In general, CIA "sources" are foreign
nationals, recruited and living in a foreign country, who
provide information to the U.S. Government under a promise
of confidentiality. Their act of passing information to the
U.S. is generally against the national interest of their own
country and would be considered espionage, which is a
capital offense in most countries. Just as in this country
when a spy is caught, should a CIA source be discovered, it
would be "headline news, even 30 years after the fact. The
Review Board will recall that when former National Security
Agency employee Robert Lipka was arrested approximately a
year ago for espionage he allegedly committed 30 years
earlier, this received a lot of attention in the United
States. Lipka is currently awaiting trial in the U.S. for
his alleged espionage activities.
3. (U) This month, the Review Board will be
considering approximately 50-60 true names of human sources
for release. These particular sources range from encrypted
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assets to one-time contacts. It is our understanding that
additional source names appear throughout the JFK Collection
and will be reviewed in the future. It is important,
therefore, that the Review Board and CIA agree on a
consistent method of dealing with source names appearing in
the JFK Collection at this time so as not to impede the
future review of documents.
4. (C) The Review Board has recently developed a
policy for releasing the true names of covert CIA employees.
Although there are many similarities between covert
employees and sources, there is an important difference that
should be reflected in the way the Review Board looks at
this issue. With CIA covert employees who are mentioned in
this collection, it has been possible in some instances to
go to them and seek their permission to reveal their names.
Some of these former employees have even been made available
for interviews and depositions. With most sources, it is
not possible to do this. First, CIA has dropped contact
with some of these sources and may not be able to locate
them. Attempting to find these individuals would create
some risk of creating suspicions that they were or are
associated with this Agency or the U.S. Government. If CIA
were unable to locate a particular source, there would still
be some risk in releasing his name. Just because CIA cannot
locate him, does not mean that he is not alive and well-
known in his own community. Even if we were able to locate
a source without risk to his safety, it is probable that he
would not want to be visited by the CIA again after so many
years. More than likely, sources do not now want their past
association revealed when they have undoubtedly moved on in
their lives to do other things. Some may be in political or
private enterprise positions where CIA affiliation would
damage them professionally and/or harm them and their
families personally.
5. (U) Another important distinction that needs to be
taken into account is the difference between CIA and Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI). "sources." Perhaps the most
significant difference is that many FBI sources provide
information with the understanding that the information and
the source will be publicly revealed. FBI sources are often
used in criminal prosecutions as witnesses. CIA, on the
other hand, promises secrecy and confidentiality to its
sources. CIA sources rarely appear at public trials. In
fact, not only is the identity of CIA sources protected from
public acknowledgment, but also it is closely held within
the Agency itself. Another difference is the fact that a
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foreign national cooperating with CIA is usually committing
a unique violation of his own country's laws--espionage. If
one gets caught committing espionage, the punishment in many
countries is for a capital offense. On the other hand, a
foreigner who cooperates with the FBI is not usually
committing espionage. Cooperation may be with the full
knowledge of his government--such as cooperation in a
criminal investigation. Therefore, the risks for
cooperation with the FBI are not usually as great as
cooperation with CIA. In addition, the FBI has greater
means for protecting individuals who provide information to
it, for example, the witness protection program, which CIA
does not have.
II. Legal Considerations
6. (U) Although Section 11(a) of the JFK Act provides
I that when the Act requires release of information, it takes
precedence over all other laws that would otherwise prohibit
the true names of sources. CIA believes that it is
important for the Review Board to consider the laws, which
have been growing and developing over the years, to protect
classified information because they clearly reflect a larger
U.S. Government policy to protect intelligence sources.
7. (U) By Executive Order (E.O.) and statute, the
President and Congress have made the Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI) responsible for protecting intelligence
sources. In his Directive of 22 January 1946 which
established the Central Intelligence Group, President Truman
made the DCI responsible for protecting sources. With the
establishment of the CIA, Congress also gave the DCI this
responsibility. The National Security Act of 1947, Section
103 (d) (3), codified at 50 U.S.C. §403 (3) (c) (5), requires the
DCI to protect intelligence sources from unauthorized
disclosure. In addition, §403 (3) (d) (2) requires the DCI to
ensure that risks to the United States and those involved in
the collection of intelligence through human sources are
minimized.
8. (U) Protecting the identity of individuals working
with or for CIA has been of particular concern to U.S.
lawmakers since the establishment of the Agency. For
example, with Section 6 of the Central Intelligence Act of
1949, 50 U.S.C. 1949 $403g, Congress specifically exempted
the CIA from the provisions of any law requiring the
publication or disclosure of the organization, functions,
names, titles, salaries or numbers of personnel employed by
the Agency. Although the purpose of this law is to protect
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employees of the CIA, and not assets or contacts, it
indicates Congress' intent from early on to protect those
working covertly for the U.S. Government.
9. (U) In 1980, Congress passed the Classified
Information Procedures Act (CIPA) which sets out pretrial,
trial, and appellate procedures for criminal cases involving
or potentially involving classified information. Working
with the Department of Justice and the courts, CIA has
successfully protected intelligence sources from public
release even in criminal trials where there are heightened
(i.e., constitutional) considerations favoring disclosure to
the defendant of all government information relevant to the
defense. CIPA allows for in camera ex parte hearings in
which the judge can rule on questions of admissibility and
relevancy of classified information, including the identity
of human sources who may have information pertaining to the
defense, before it is introduced either to the defendant or
defense counsel, or in open court. In some cases involving
CIA, the judge has ordered that CIA information be turned
over to the defense, but only in some unclassified form such
as in a summary. In other cases, judges have reviewed the
classified information and ruled that the harm to national
security outweighs the defendant's legal rights to the
information. In still other cases, the defense was never
notified that CIA even had information bearing on the case
as the judge ruled that the mere fact that CIA possessed
this information was classified and outweighed any rights
the defendant had. Moreover, under CIPA, the Attorney
General has the authority to drop a prosecution in those
cases where the risk to national security is too great.
10 (U). In 1982, Congress acted to protect human
intelligence sources by passing the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act of 1982, 50 U.S.C. $421 which criminalizes
the revelation of a source's identity. This Act subjects
anyone who reveals information that identifies a covert
agent to prosecution with up to 10 years in prison and
$50,000 in fines. A covert agent includes: (a) a U.S.
citizen whose intelligence relationship with the U.S.
Government is classified and is acting abroad as an agent,
informant or source of operational assistance to an
intelligence agency; and (b) an individual, other than a
U.S. citizen whose past or present intelligence relationship
to the U.S. is classified information and who is a present
or former agent or informant of, or is of operational
assistance to, an intelligence agency.
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11. (U) These statutes are just a few examples of a
larger government policy to protect human sources from
public disclosure. There has also developed over the years
a significant amount of case law which further implements
this policy. For example, in Sims v. CIA, 10 S.Ct. 1981
(1985), the Supreme Court held that pursuant to the National
Security Act, the DCI had the authority to protect from
release to Freedom of Information Act requesters the
identities of individuals conducting research on projects
financed by CIA. The Supreme Court further stated that the
DCI's authority to protect sources was broad, and was not
limited to only those individuals who were guaranteed
confidentiality.
12. (U) Most recently, President Clinton signed an
Executive Order on classified national security information
which came into effect in October 1995. Although it
requires that agencies make greater declassification efforts
than the prior Executive Order, Executive Order 12958
affords human sources extra protection from its
declassification provisions. Under E.O. 12958, information
that is over 25 years old and has historical value must be
declassified within five years. However, information
revealing the identity of a human source may continue to be
protected.
13. (U)
In
The above federal statutes and case law show
a long-standing practice of protecting human sources who
provide intelligence information to the U.S. Government.
carrying out its statutory obligations, the Review Board
should give serious weight to this policy and afford the
protection of human sources the highest priority.
III. Operational Considerations
14. (U) As the Review Board is well aware, in order
for CIA officers to effectively collect intelligence around
the world, they cannot acknowledge publicly that they work
for CIA and, conversely, CIA cannot acknowledge a particular
individual's affiliation with it. This is true even more so
with sources. In addition to the risk to a source's
personal safety, discovery of a CIA source would also reveal
any operations he was conducting and CIA case officers with
whom he was meeting or might even cast suspicion on the
1 (U) The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. §552 is another
example of a federal statute that allows for the protection of human
sources. Although the FOIA generally mandates release of government
documents, exemption b(3) allows for withholding from release
information that is exempted from disclosure by statute. The National
Security Act has been held by the Supreme Court to be such a withholding
statute. Sims v. CIA, 105 S.Ct. 1981 (1985).
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affiliation of innocent family and friends. This is no less
true with a source who no longer works for the Agency. A
source's prior affiliation with CIA is normally still
classified in order to protect him, his former contacts at
CIA, the CIA facilities at which he may have been meeting
with case officers, the cover mechanisms employed to protect
his affiliation with CIA, and the operations which he
conducted.
15. (U)
The public disclosure of an individual's
affiliation with CIA could and, in fact, has threatened the
safety and lives of not only the source, but also their
families, colleagues, officials of foreign governments and
other foreign nationals with whom they have had contact.
The Review Board will certainly recall the Proenza case
(since this was released by the Board in August 1995) in
which a number of Cuban officials were falsely believed to
be CIA agents. They were arrested, convicted and spent
years in prison for their alleged treasonous activities and
their professional and personal lives were ruined. The
threat of violence to those who are in fact associated with
CIA is even more real. These individuals live and work in
foreign countries, many of which have a local population
hostile to the United States and especially CIA.
If one
should doubt the risks that those affiliated with CIA face,
one only has to recall that, in 1992, two CIA employees were
murdered while waiting to turn into CIA Headquarters in
Virginia. If this type of attack is possible right at the
CIA's front gate, it is not hard to imagine the personal
risks that those working with the CIA abroad face. Clearly,
the risk is that much greater for those who are sources:
for example, as a result of Aldrich Ames' disclosures to
the KGB, 10 Soviets who were covert assets of the CIA were
executed.
16. (U) Incidents such as these clearly demonstrate
that the policy of protecting association with the CIA is an
important one. Individuals associated with CIA have been
and will continue to be subjected to threats, reprisals and
physical injuries from foreign intelligence services,
terrorist groups, and other persons or organizations hostile
to CIA or the U.S. Government. Individuals choose to
undertake these risks for many different reasons, but it is
with the condition that the CIA will protect their
cooperation with the U.S. Government.
IV.
Proposal
17. (U) In light of the foregoing, CIA believes it is
important to work toward a general policy of protecting CIA
sources in the JFK Collection. The Agency proposes that in
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In
If
most cases a substitution for the true name be used.
prior releases of these same documents, the Review Board
agreed to redact the true name and substitute "source."
the Review Board is concerned about tracking particular
sources throughout the records, a particular identifying
substitution can be used for an individual source throughout
(for example, "Mexican source 1").
18. (S) Among the names that are currently being
considered for release by the Review Board, the following
are some that the CIA proposes be treated in this manner:
True name of LIRING/3, an encrypted asset of the
CIA and unilateral penetration of the Cuban
Embassy.
His wife also worked at the Embassy and
he was apparently suspected as being CIA though it
was never proven. LIRING/3 at some point
disappeared and we have no way of knowing what his
current situation is.
True name of ERTHYROID/3, the unilateral
penetration of the Nicaraguan Service.) The Review
Board will recall that it has already been fully
briefed on ERTHYROID/3 and had agreed to the
protection of the fact that he was a unilateral
source.
Anthony C. M. Devere (1041001210022) was [is] a
member of the British Service. As such, he was
[is] a liaison source. This raises concerns about
protection of our liaison relationships.
Moreover, Mr. Devere's identity constitutes
{ "foreign government information" which, as the
Board has already been informed, the CIA does not
have the authority to release.
19. (S) Another type of name that similarly should be
protected from release is the new identity provided to a
defector. Although defectors do not face some of the
dangers that "assets" overseas face, they are still given
new identities for their protection because there is some
risk to their personal safety even in the U.S. For example,
in this collection the identity of Golitsyn appears in
documents being reviewed this month. Since the time of his
defection, Golitsyn has utilized successive identities,
because they have been unofficially disclosed, that have not
2 (S)
Golitsyn's identity had to be changed again. However, there is a
risk that revealing this former identity could lead to the
identification of Golitsyn's current identity.
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been officially released and that are closely held within
the Agency. This is done for his own protection and that of
his family even though they live in the United States. CIA
cannot, at this time, agree to the official release of
Golitsyn's assumed new identities or for that matter of any
defectors that appear to date in the collection.
20. (S) CIA has noted that in some cases a source is
identified by only a first name or a code name. Where CIA
has been unable to identify any information about that
individual or there is no other source revealing information
that has been revealed in the JFK Collection, it would be
possible to release that name. For example, in a few
documents, the name "Tota" appears. To date, CIA has been
unable to determine who this person is and there does not
appear to be any further source revealing information in the
collection. It is probably that "Tota" is just a code name
or a street name known to his colleagues. As "Tota" is a
common name, such a release would not threaten the
particular individual or his family, and as the person can
not be identified it would not seriously undermine the U.S.
Government policy to protect intelligence sources.
21. (U) The Agency recognizes that some names may be
particularly important to the JFK story. In such cases, the
CIA is willing to work with the Review Board to come to the
appropriate resolution. CIA proposes that it conduct a
record search for information on that individual. It may be
that in these cases, if the person is deceased and has no
living family, that the Review Board and the CIA can agree
that the value of revealing the true name outweighs the need
to protect that source from disclosure.
22. (U) It is our hope that the CIA and the Review
Board can work out a mutually agreeable policy regarding the
identity of human sources that will not undermine the
important policy of protecting those who work covertly for
the U.S. Government. As usual, my staff and I are available
to discuss this matter with you.
fol
John 
F.
Perena
John F. Pereira
Chief, Historical Review Group
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DCI/CSI/J.Pereira:
apd/x31805 (13 Dec 96)
G: /CSIFO/SHARED/Pereira.doc
Distribution:
Original Addressee
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CSI/HRP Chrono
- D/CSI
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Barry Harrrelson, CSI/HRP
1 - Linda Cipiriani, OGC
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