Mi 64/2 R. . Wy UU 3/97 WED 15:53 FAX 202 724 0457 . ARRB To: J. Barry Harrelson | Fax#t: 703-613-3063 ae — CIA HAS NO OBJESTION TO ject: DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR Subject: Segregated Collections _ Date: April 23, 1997 3 DOCUMENT Pages: _7, including this cover sheet. Today the Board adopted the attached guidelines. } From the desk Of... . J.Jveramy Gunn General Counsel Aseacsination Recorde Review Board 600 E Street, N.W. Washington, 0.C. 20530 . (202) 724-0086 . Fax: (202) 724-0487 HW 55157 Docld: 32404520 Page 26
eee 4 HW 55157 04/ 23/87 WED 15:53 FAX. 202 724 0457 ___AKKB . wivue A CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT Assassination Records Review Board ; . Guidelines for Review of Postponements in the Segregated Collections _ Adopted: April 23, 1997 Background In order'to ensure that the Review Board will be able to complete its task of reviewing all identitied assassination records, the Board recently took two significant steps. First, on November 13, 1996, it adopted guidelines with respect to reviewing “Segregated Collections” with regard to information that is “not believed relevant” (NBR) to the | assassination. Second, in February 1997, the Review Board requested Congress to extend its tenure for one additional year. . . It is the Review Board’s judgment that, even with the assumption that our operations - may be extended through Fiscal Year 1998, the Review Board cannot hope to complete review of postponements in. the Segregated Collections under the current method of review. In particular, a reasonable modification of current postponement standards © would greatly expedite and facilitate the release of.additional information and records. Otherwise, the Review Board might cease operations without having reviewed: claimed postponements in tens of thousands of pages of FBI and CIA records. Postponement Criteria for the Segregated Collections In a further effort to enhance the Review Board’s work, the Review Board now issues these revised guidelines for the review of records in the Segregated Collections.’ (These guidelines do not affect the FBI’s Core and Related Files or the CIA's 201 file on . Oswald.) The four principal factors that underlie these review guidelines are: first, continuing, to the greatest reasonable extent, the Review Board's established guidelines for postponements that have emerged over the past two years, second, establishing guidelines consistent with the Review Board's decision regarding NBR records; third, establishing reasonable and workable guidelines that will enable the. 1The regulations adopted by the Board.on November 13, 1996, define “Segregated Collections” as including first, FBI records that were requested by: (a) the House Select Committee on Assassinations (“HSCA’) in conjunction with its investigation into the Kennedy assassination; (b) the Church Committee in conjunction with its inquiry into issues related to the Kennedy assassination; and (c) by other bodies (e.g., Pike Committee, Abzug Committee, etc.) that relatetothe Kennedy —i«. assassination; and second, CIA records including (a) the CIA's Sequestered Collection of. 63 boxes as well as one box of microfilm records and the microfilm records (box 64), _ and (b) several boxes of CIA staff “working files.” DoclId: 32404570 Page 29
ee s 1 HW 55157 04/23/97 WED 15:54 FAX 202 724 0457 AKKB oe ——— ——" - wvue pe . -2- Review Board, the ARRB staff, the CIA, and the FBI to complete the significant amount - of work that remains, and finally, to provide reasonably consistent standards for the review of postponements that would apply equally to CIA and FBI records. The following are, in summary form, guidelines for reviewing postponements in the Segregated Collections.’ SO CIA Source and FBI Informant and National Security Asset Postporiements - There are, of course, similarities and differences between FBI informants and-CIA | sources. Like FBI.informants and national security assets, CIA sources may or may not be paid for the information that they provide and they may or may not be providers of information over the long-term. When providing information to the Bureau, FBI a informants generally are understood to be cooperating with law enforcement officials for _ a legal and legitimate. purpose. It is often the case, although not always, that FBI - informants understand that at some point their name might surface in conjunction with a criminal prosecution and that they may need to‘testify in court. Foreign CIA sources and FBI national security assets, however, are not necessarily deemed to be cooperating with law enforcement officials but may, in fact, be committing the crime of espionage against their native country by cooperating with US authorities. Furthermore, unlike FBI informants, CIA sources and FBI national security assets presume that their names will not be released publicly and they certainly presume (in the ordinary course) that their identities will not surface in criminal trials. As a practical matter, it is generally much easier today for the FBI to locate a former informant who resides in the United States than it is for the CIA and FBI to locate former sources and national security assets. Despite these differences -- differences which would generally suggest a greater degree of protection being owed to CIA sources and FBI national security assets -- the issues in terms. of postponements are fundamentally similar. . eel 2The existing “NBR” guidelines allow the Review Board to remove from detailed . consideration those records or files that truly have no apparent relevance to the assassination, Nevertheless, a significant number of files in the Segregated Collections contain records that shed some light on issues that the HSCA explored as potentially relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy.. The following criteria would apply to all records In the Segregated Collections, including records containing some NBR redactions. . Docld: 32404520 Page 30
64/23/97 WED 15:54 FAX 202 724 0457 ARID ; ye | CIA Sources The Review Board established guidelines, during its December 1996 meeting, for — handling CIA source issues and applied those guidelines at the January 1997 meeting. These guidelines directed the protection of names and identifying information of CIA © sources in cases where the identity of the source is of low public interest or is peripheral to the JFK assassination. The Board’s decision was based on two factors: the concern that since CIA sources generally live outside the United States, they could risk harm if their identities were revealed. Moreover, many of the sources referenced in CIA. records appear infrequently and are of relatively low public interest. Therefore, in records where the identity of the source is of importance for understanding the assassination, the CIA will be required to provide additional evidence to support the protection of the source's identity.* In cases where the identify of the source is peripheral to the assassination story, the information will be postponed until 2017. FBI National Security Assets FBI national security assets should be treated in the same manner as CIA sources. ~N FBI Informants . Informant issues represent the largest category of postponements in the FBI's Segregated Collection, as they do in the “core” FBI assassination files. They also provide the greatest opportunity for streamlining the review process. Currently, there are ten.members of the Bureau’s JFK Task Force who are responsible for researching individual informants in response to evidence requests from the Review Board.‘ They retrieve and review the informants’ files and attempt, through DMV, Social Security, and other database searches, to determine if the informant is alive. Under current Review Board standards for “core” files, this work is necessary to provide evidence to support _redacting the informant’s name, regardless of whether the informant provided information. Removing the requirement of proving whether informants are alive in the Segregated Collections would free up significant resources that could be deployed to reviewing unprocessed HSCA subject files. _ . re The new approach to HSCA subjects is to protect informant-identifying information, 3An example would be the case of John Scelso (pseud.). The Board found that his identity is relevant to the assassination story and CIA offered evidence of a continuing need to protect the identity. In.this case, “Scelso” documents would continue to be scheduled for release in five years. . ‘Six work full-time on informant evidence, four devote about half their time to. informant evidence, . HW 55157 DBocld:324045270 Page 31
-4- without requiring the Bureau to make a showing that the informant is alive. This protection would extend to individuals characterized as symbol-number informants, “PSls,” “PCls,” “established sources,” “panel sources,” and the like -- designations that indicate an ongoing relationship with the FBI. It would not extend to individuals who ‘requested that their identity be protected in an isolated contact with the FBI or to local and state law enforcement officers. The .“informant-identifying information” to be protected would include the customary (i:é., informant-specific) portions of informant symbol numbers and file numbers; informant names, and -- at least potentially -- descriptions of, and information recéived from, the informant. How much, if any, of the latter type of information should be _tedacted would be the principal focus of staff-level discussions with the FBI. The Staff's ‘principal goal in this process, with regard to each informant, would be to release as much information that is relevant to understanding the assassination as possible. In . discussions with the FBI, the staff would be prepared, if necessary, to concede . redaction of informant-identifying information that is unrelated to the assassination in order to ensure that more pertinent information is released.® The presumption will be that an informani's identity will be released if the informant provides “positive” information about an assassination-related issue. To overcome this presumption of release for informants with “positive” information, the FBI would need to make a particularized showing that the identifying information should not be released. To the extent that an informant’s identity is protected, it will be postponed until 2017. iegeete - CIA Employee Name Postponements. Over the past year the CIA has addressed the employee name issue and has released some names that it had previously asked the Board to postpone. But during that time , the list of names has grown to a size that had not been imagined at the time the work began. To date, the Review Board staff has identified in the JFK Collection over 650 names of CIA employees. These names appear in more than 1000 documents already reviewed by the Board and numerous additional records that have not yet been processed. While some of these employee names are important to the assassination Story, Many appear only a few times in the entire JFK Collection and seem to add little, if any, important information. ‘In HSCA subjects, there typically will not be information about Ruby, Oswald or the assassination itself. However, ina file on, for example, Sam Giancana, there may be informant reports on Giancana’s support of anti-Castro activities, and reports from the same informant on day-to-day numbers operations in the Chicago area. The staff would set a higher priority on release of the former reports than on the latter. HW 355157 DBocld:3274045270 Page 32
HW 55157 a: . _G4/723/97 WED 15:55 FAX 2Uz 724 U4ar Arr o ——_—_s" —eowe es * _ -5- CIA's argument to protect employee names emphasizes a number of points. First, since many employees are “under cover,” the maintenance of that cover is critical to gathering intelligence. CIA argues that identification of a name can identify the cover provider and jeopardize operations. Second, although the majority of names are of retired CIA employees, CIA has a confidentiality agreement with them and many do not want their past Agency affiliation released. The argument here is that release may jeopardize business relationships or personal safety. Such arguments have already ‘been presented to the Board. Their merit can only be determined on a case-by-case basis. However, due to the volume of names in the JFK Collection, the individual review and evaluation of each case would delay significantly the review of documents and ultimately lead to less total information becoming available to the public. CIA has proposed, and the Review Board agrees, that CIA employee names be treated in a manner similar to that applied to Source names: to postpone until 2017 those employee names that are of low public interest or are of peripheral interest to the assassination. It will be presumed that employee names will be released if their identities are important to the assassination story unless the CIA is able to provide specitic information of a potential harm of release. (CIA acknowledges the presumption a _ot release unless specific evidence is provided to the Review Board that harm to national security or to personal safety would result from the release of the employee name.) FBI “Foreign Counterintelligence” Postponements It is presumed that the FBI will, at least partially, carry over its post-appeal standards for | disclosing “FCI” activities targeting Communist-bloc nations. To the extent that the HSCA subjects reflect “FCI” activities against other nations that have not been addressed by the Review Board in the “core” files, the FBI will be allowed to redact direct.discussion of such. activities, unless the information in the proposed redaction meaningfully contributes to the understanding of the assassination. FBI and CIA Foreign Llaison Postponements The criteria for these postponements would not; in the abstract, depart significantly from the Review Board's current approach of releasing information received through liaison - channels, while protecting direct acknowledgment of the source of the information. In practice, however, the staff would be more flexible in protecting text that implies, although may not unambiguously state, that a foreign government is the source of particular information. Nevertheless, the more significant the information is to any assassination-related issue, the more information would be released under these _ guidelines. DocId:324045270 Page 33
HW 55157 CIA Stations and Other Issues ‘Over the past two years the Review Board has established other guidelines that will continue to guide the review process, some of which will be outlined here. For CIA "stations, all locations related to the Mexico City story will be released during the period 1960-69. Outside of that window, they will be released on a case-by-case basis should the identity of the station be critical to understanding the assassination. Other stations, except for those identified as particularly sensitive, will be released from the beginning of the Kennedy administration until the publication of the Warren Commission report, (ie., January 1, 1961 to October 1, 1964). Outside of these windows, stations will be postponed. Cable prefixes, dispatch prefixes, and field report prefixes would be _ ‘postponed or released according to the same windows as the stations to which they refer. CIA job titles also are redacted or opened along with the station at which the officer served. oo OO Crypts would be released along lines similar to other information. All “LI” crypts, except those considered particularly sensitive would be released through October 1, 1964, as are “AM” crypts and U.S. government crypts. In other areas, only the digraph is protected. Again, the exception is sensitive crypts, which would be protected in their entirety. After October 1, 1964, the presumption shifts towards protection of the crypts, except those that provide meaningful information about the assassination story. (For example, crypts pertinent to Garrison-era documents would likely carry the same presumption of release as those generated during the Warren Commission.) Surveillance methods will be released if the nature of the surveillance has a material bearing on information related to the assassination unless CIA provides evidence demonstrating the political or operational sensitivity, in which case the information will be released in 2017. . . e:\arrb\regs\eview.wpd DoclId: 3274045270 Page 34
“We baw t Vitus ae dd Do MAN Li. PAA ANNU | : wyUUL Assassination Records Review Board 600 E Strect NW - 2nd Floor - Washington, DC 20530 (202) 724-0088 + Fax: (202) 724-0457 December 11, 1995 BY FACSIMILE Mr. John Pereira Director | Historical Review Group Center for the Study of Intelligence ‘Central Intelligence Agency Washington, DC 20505 Dear John: As Mary and I discussed with Barry late last Friday, CIA’s long-awaited response to ARRB’s request for evidence about the true names to be considered at tomorrow’s 3oard meeting was disappointing and inadequate. For several months, the Board has been encouraged by the CLA to expect a comprehensive presentation of specific evidence relating to its desire to protect the true names of CLA employees. The Board has delayed action on hundreds of assassination records in anticipation of this evidence. We are frankly concerned not only by the impact the CLA‘s action will have on our work, but also by.the fact that we feel we have been mislead by the Agency in this instance. We urge your full compliance with our request in time tor tomorrow’s meeting. Sincerely yours, avid G. Manvell Executive Director fNuarn Memstas: Juda A. Tuaneim, Chau > Henry & Grath- Keemit © Hall: Willram bo Joyce + Anna K. Nalsonr txecutive Dinccron, David G Alarweil HW 55157 Docld: 32404520 Page 35
THe ce Bes wet : . . ae ‘ ' 2. THE UNCLASSIFIED SAE, COORDINATED 0 NORA ccs/0SB, IS AS FOLLOUS: ee fT WITH “stp SUMMARY : TRILINGUAL SENTOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE OFFICER WITH EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE : Heat TH THE U.S. CONGRESS YEARS W RKING AND 0 OSE YEARS. WERE PERV “AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT POSITIONS. RECEIVED A SENIOR. Execurive - SERVICE AWARD FOR HAVING MADE. OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO, OVERALL RELATIONS WITH THE VARIOUS HOUSE COMMITTEES CONCERNED WITH FOREIGN POLICY (TO INCLUDE THE HOUSE ARMED. SERVICE, APPROPRIATIONS,. SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, SELECT: COMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS, ANO FOREIGN AFFAIRS) .“ TH!S WAS/ COMPLEMENTED BY INDIVIDUAL LETTERS OF COMMENDATION FROM : MAJORITY. AS WELL AS MINORITY MEMBERS OF THOSE COMMITTEES. IN MEXICO, MAINTAINED FRUITFUL CONTACT WITH CABINET MEMBERS AND: | WAS A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE DIALOGUE AND POLICY GUIDANCE BUILDING UP-TO (INTER ALIA) THE DEBT NEGOTIATIONS COMMERCIAL OPENINGS. AGREEMENT AND ENSUING DETAILS: Ss La -TOP SECRET AND SPECIAL COMPARTMENTED CLEARANCES. -ORAFTER: AND/OR COORDINATOR ON MYRIAD’ POLICY, POSITION AND GUIDANCE PAPERS_LMPACTING ON US PUSLIC AND PRIVATE . SECTOR - RELATIONSHIPS WITH | MAJOR PLAYER IN’ ENSURING THAT HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE USG. FULLY UNDERSTOOD ‘THE COMPLEXITIES OF THE EVOLVING POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION 1N -DAILY INTERLOQUTOR WITH | CABINET OFFICERS DURING SLIGHTLY LESS THAN FOUR YEARS IN -IN PREVIOUS WASHINGTON ASSIGNMENT, OEALT EXTENSIVELY WITH THE FULL RANGE OF FOREIGN POLICY ELEMENTS OF THE USG. GAVE IN HOUSE AS WELL AS NUMEROUS INTER AGENCY SPEECHES ON A VARIETY OF MATTERS OF MUTUAL CONCERN. -IN 1978-1980 PERIOD, WORKED FOR THE OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS WITH RESPONSIBILITIES FOR OVERALL RELATIONS WITH ALL COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. RECEIVED A SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE AWARD AND EFFUSIVE LETTERS OF APPRECEATION FROM MEMBERS OF SIX COMMITTEES. -1N VARIOUS MANAGEMENT POSITIONS, TWICE WAS IN CHARGE OF UNITS WHICH EXCEEDED TWO HUNDRED PERSONS. HIRED, FIRED, NEGOTIATED, AND PROVIDED ADVICE, GUIDANCE “AND DIRECTION AS APPROPRIATE. Y . ‘ HW 55157 Docld:32404520 Page 36
I understand that the Summary of Agency Employment (SAE) defines the outer limits of what I may disclose to unauthorized persons concerning my employment by the Central Intelligence Agency. I further understand. that disclosure of information about my Agency employment which is not contained in my SAE may constitute. a violation of my Secrecy Agreement. I Promise that all statements which I make to unauthorized persons concerning my Agency employment will be consistent with my SAE and limited by its content. Date HW 55157 DBocld:324045270 Page 37