13-00000 To understand the magnitude of the effort involved in reviewing these documents for declassification, it is important to place them in some context. The CIA's collection of documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy consist of approximately 2° 230, 000- 300 000 ) pages of material. This jucludes 64 boxes o) rin foun soa pr provide eatot CATS ominittee yy, J 9, and prey on Assassination) re ar material on Lee Harvey Oswald President Comma dn TS ae / Z ou might thi Cia sancasmenies ' document assassination as a result of specific inquiries received from the Warren Commission or the House Select Committe. SAG 4a inves gah ond Assassinations. $fkere-were some documents thet dig exist(be the assassination, but they were only brought together in resporse ree ES ee St SE STEAD to investigations of the event. I have prepared a chart that illustrates this very point. a As you can see, prior to President Kennedy's assassination porte lip peld only a small file Ne ours ee Harvey Oswald that consisted Ap Clt Kyy Aone L401 of Hosen (tian i neg fable 2-docoments (per Lf Po: ad “Navy, the FBI, and newspapeelippings-3 have prongs slong a copy of Oswald's file as it existed before the assassination so that you can see first hand how slender it was at the time. As I have 3
13-00000 \ at noted, we have declassified the CIA documents { in this file, émto the National Archives. The records in this file dealt with Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 and | his activities prthe-t5S. after his return in 1961. By contrast, it : Ctawrrwl oT was only after the assassination that CIA ‘Cliectakall the rest of ON the material on Prwede ips 33,000 pages in total.” fee “4, the 17 boxes of Oswald records, aren 40% percent of the documents originated with the FBI, and about 20% originated from the State Department or elsewh taff is still goi p ent or elsewhere, My sta is still going Ade through the material compiled at the request of the House Select ssinations, which includes 63 boxes of pap paper Total tains 72 reels of" microfilm... ofter ge Commiuttéé cieckom records and one box that’ in pant over Wisrarinel ve , (However) vy we es ate that within the 63 boxes of pape records, approximately i % i cn from the ripest 7 VOM 4 a4 re av ae aK nn y arr =< Or eM Ome ond 4 Kithough ov our holdings do include many documents from other agencies, we nonetheless have a substantial collection of CIA documents that will require a considerable effort to review. A prelimin of these files has provided us some indications of what they contain. Although the records cover a wide variety of topics, they principally focus on CIA activities concerning Cuba and Castro, Oswald's defection to the Soviet 4
13-00000 ih if Me, x” Union, and Oswald's subsequent activities in Mexico City and New Orleans. They also include a large number T of name traces . SASS As requested by the staff of the House Select cos as well as n,{C material relating to the Garrison investigation,|Cuban exile activities}\eesies nf ‘onal Waterg a The CIA cannot Bjmply-set-1q deciassify-exrelease Sem ty x _ documents unilaterally because of the limits in the Privacy Act (which protects the names of American citizens against unauthorized disclosure), the sequestration of many documents by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and the fact that many of the documents belong to agencies other than the CIA. However, we have already taken the necessary steps to lift the sequestration, coordinate with other agencies and begin the cannot be released to the oublic for a variety of reasons, including privacy concerns or the exposure of intelligence sources and | methods. Let me take a moment to give examples of this type of material. During the investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, I understand that security and personnel files were requeste Te gen ployees. These files contain fitness reports (performance evaluations), medical evaluations and credit checks on individual CIA officers.
13-00000 CDR inna GB to the question of who killed President Kennedy,these and other personal documents ultimately ended up in the sequestered collection of documents. I do not believe that the benefit to the public of disclosure of this information outweighs the clear privacy interest of the individuals in keeping this information confidential. Similar privacy concerns exist with documents containing derogatory information on particular individuals where the information is based on gossip or rumor. Our files also contain names of living individuals who provided us intelligence information on a promise of confidentiality. We would not disclose}this informationjin breach of such a promise. Where we cannot disclose such information ip the public, the as (ha, sgency willfor-witting t\ make redactions (Sukstitute generic : > ~ : ton jor summarize {§erinformation in order to ensure tha the maximum amount of information is released while still protecting the identity of an agent or the privacy of an individual Pees aN, Ses The effort required to declassify the documents related t the assassination of President Kennedy will be daunting. However, it is an important program, and am personally committed to making it work. Even in this time of diminishing resources within the Intelligence Community, I have directed the (5 ” + allocation of +5 ait time positions to expand the History Staff, and to form the Historical Review Group that will undertake the interest.
13-00000 were es i. aad ee tis al en ; 7 Hate Aboleexe: EEL GEIL ok a fpvincunmente-elied tithe assassination fDeesdent wee Bo Kennedy,I-de-have-certain technical reservations about the pont mechanism established by the joint resolution to achieve this an Se result, I intend to address only Intelligence Community concerns; A I will defer to the Department of Justice on any additional a problems posed by the joint resolution. éd to the assassination j can be 7é Ft Ming shin coviow anthowar} in an outside body is inconsistent with my statutory responsibility to protect released to the public} intelligence sources and methods. (in addition; tanr-concemes that placing responsibility for classification determinations in a Review Board that has no [partiewl expertisé in aWaVolL mew ates Ph LR LORRI St 6 aats shaw aw ee oh Hg pet * ahha a= tas? dads Yaad Begente wes cee ee 8 * “ Ssupqesuen an - = = assassination materiglis bound to result in delays in releasing the material. It wiiT also result in a duplication of effort since Origindting agencies will have to review the decision of the - Executive Director to releasé particutar-decuments. I share your beli f that the review ofdocuments be done in
13-00000 origtsating agencies and completed within a reasonable period of time. ASI have indicated, the CIA has already begin this process. Documents : iat an agency determines cannot bé released to the pubhig ould The n be reviewed by membersOf the Review Board, who could operate with a lean staff. Ay dispute between an agency and the Review Board overthe release of a document could then be resolved by tha Président or his designee. This arrangement would ensure {Hat the initial review of documents is accomplished quickly yho are in place and have the necessary substaftive experience to dsclassify documents while at the sa decisions wadeto withhold i PS Lh ha Atv rscnad etd. bat may =! Second, I am concerned that th ate time providing an independ ent review of all Ste 5 rx ‘rh. : joix# resolution contains no provision requiring security clearances or secure document handling by the Assassination Materials Review Board or its staff. it took the necessary steps to safeguard that informatio Third, I am concerned that the joint resolution does not provide the Agency with the opportunity to object to the release of CIA information contained in documents originated by Congress or the Warren Commission. Under the joint resolution, documents originated by these entities can be released directly by the Executive Director of the Assassination Materials Review
13-00000 Board without any review by the President or other Executive Branch agencies. (or e again, this provision conflicts with my . statutory responsibility toxprotect sources and methods; that duty should not be delegated to an wutside body. I believe that the joint resolution should provide thatan agency that originated information found in another's documentshould have the release of this "third agency” information in a timely fashion Fourth, the joint resolution defines "assassination material" broadly to include any records that relate "in dny manner or degree to the assasSigation." I believe we’have already identified these documents as a result of previouS inquiries from investigative bodies, such athe Warren Commission and House Select Committee on Assassrhations. These investigations were thorough, and any additiénal request$Nor information should bear some reasonable relgtionship to the JFK assassination. Perhaps a panel of distingywiShed historians could be formed to provide advice to the’Review Board as to what, if any, additional material should ve reviewed. Fifts, the joint resolution a 30-day period for agencies or departments to appeal decisions by the Executive Director to release informationls-Fhig may not provide sufficient time for meaningful review of what could prove to be large
13-00000 o *» vohumsk of material at one time. (ire € initia documents is done by the Executive Dire should be amended to pr at an agency may request a reasonable sion of time to determine whether documents aay be released, a Hinally, section 6 of the joint resolution, which outlines the = grounds for postponement of public release of a document ais € joint resolution Fer-example; theres) no provision for postponing release of < documents that may contain Executive privilege or deliberative process, attorney-client, or attorney work-product information. Se . while such privileges could be waived in the public interest and are not likely to arise with respect to factual information directly Ss, related to the JFK assassination, they would be unavailable under
13-00000 6 May 1992 NOTE FOR: DCI FROM:|_ SA/DCI aie Sx Re: JEK Testimony - as S* Attached is the draft JFK testimony, as prepared by oca.. “San draft has been coordinated with OGC, the Center for the Study of Intelligence. (both Dave Gries and Ken McDonald), and the DO. The handwritten edits are mine and Dave Gries'. A briefing book with Q's and A's will be ready by COB Friday. As Stan's cover note suggests, the testimony must be coordinated with others in the Executive; OCA's preference is to send it out tomorrow. Dave and I agree that the section of the draft testimony commenting on the proposed legislation (pp. 7 et seq.) is too long and runs the risk of overwhelming the positive message you relay in the first part of the statement. It seems to me that while you should lay down your objections to the legislation's scheme clearly (and even forcefully), you should do so in language that will leave the impression (which is consistent with the reality) that (1) you are in agreement with their basic objecti¥as relating to the material in question and (2) that you are doing, and will continue to do, all that you can to accommodate the release of material consistent with your statutory obligations. In particular I think it unnecessary to reiterate your "statutory responsibility to protect sources and methods" more than a couple of times. Moreover, I think the paragraph on the definition of “assassination material" (middle of p.9) unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. One of the impetuses for the JFK resolution, after all, is the notion (crazy or not) that previous inquiries were insufficient in scope; this paragraph feeds right into that criticism. Some of the other "technical" criticisms (i.e., paragraphs on pp. 9-10) seem important to make (especially if the basic model of the legislation is adopted) but might be better included in a post-hearing letter to the committee or something. Again, otherwise I fear you run the risk of leaving the perception of trying to nitpick the concept of JFK material declassification to death. a LoS Ss |. Neal ;
13-00000 OCA 2149-92 19 May 1992 MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, Center for the Study of Intelligence Chief, Administrative Law Division, OGC FROM: David M. Pearline Deputy Director for Legislation, OCA SUBJECT: Follow-up to DCI's 15 May JFK Testimony 1. We have reviewed a transcript of the Director's 15 May testimony on the JFK Assassination Materials Resolution to identify those questions with respect to which CIA committed to provide answers for the record. A copy of the transcript with relevant portions marked is attached. 2. The following specific questions require follow-up action: a. How much material has been destroyed by CIA that we may never know about? (p. 5) b. Why was the Oswald file opened at the CIA 14 months after his defection? (p. 5) c. Was Oswald in fact a Soviet spy? (p. 5) d. Was that picture in his [Oswald's] file that was thought to be him, was that an error? Or was there something involved in that you can shed some light on? (p. 5) e. (W]hat consisted of new information [in the Oswald file] that the public had not already had in its published files somewhere? (p. 14) f. (W]Jould the establishment of such a panel of outside experts [by DCI, to review redactions in the absence of legislation] . . .violate the Privacy Act? (p. 16) 3. I assume CSI, in coordination with appropriate components, will take the lead on all questions except for the last. I understand OGC will take the lead on the Privacy Act question. (Note: OGC advises that the issue of why Oswald's file was not opened for 14 months after his defection is addressed in the Findings and Recommendations volume of the HSCA Report at pp. 200-202.) I appreciate your assistance in preparing proposed responses for the record. anna we : . cv oa . “ . Br in es D - MT Pearline Attachment
13-00000 Draft: 14 May 1992 Rj 7 Lon id 2606 STATEMENT OF ROBERT M. GATES DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BEFORE THE 7 SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION AND _ NATIONAL SECURITY : COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 15 MAY 1992
13-00000 Mr. Chairman, I am here today-at-your request to-provide my views on House Joint Resolution 454, "The Assassination Materials Disclosure Act of 1992," and to describe the nature of documents held by the CIA that relate to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important matter, just as I did before your Senate counterparts last Tuesday. Let me begin by stating that I am in complete agreement with the purpose underlying the joint resolution--that efforts should be made to declassify.and make available to the public as quickly as possible government documents relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We hope that opening up and. giving journalists, historians and, most importantly, the public ‘access to governmental files will help to resolve questions that still linger over 28 years after the assassination. Further, I believe that maximum disclosure will discredit the theory that CIA had . anything to do with the murder of President Kennedy. Even before introduction of this joint resolution, I recognized the need for greater public access to CIA documents of historical importance. Two months ago, I announced the establishment of a new unit within CIA that will be responsible for declassifying as many historical documents as possible
13-00000 30-year-old documents, I have directed the History Staff in the f consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods. This new unit, the Historical Review Group, in the Agency's Center for the Study of Intelligence, will review for “declassification documents 30 years old or older, and national, intelligence estimates on the former Soviet Union that are 10 years old or older. In addition to the systematic review of pa 37 174 de pts Center for the Study of Intelligence to assemble CIA records a 7R focusing on particular events of historical importance, including the assassination of President Kennedy. The Historical Review Group will then examine the documents for the purpose of declassifying the records. Because of high interest in the JFK papers, I am not waiting for legislation or other agencies to start declassifying documents belonging to CIA. The Historical Review Group, at my direction, already has begun its review of the documents related to the | assassination of President Kennedy, and I am happy to report that the first group of these records, including all CIA documents on eo Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination, has been OO | declassified with quite minimal deletions and transferred to the/ “ole National Archives for release to the public. This is, I acknowledge, a small fraction of what we have, but it is an earnest of my commitment immediately to begin review for - declassification of this material. And, indeed, as I speak, the reviewers are going through a substantial n Aymber. of, oats) | He a , e My ; and I anticipate that many of these will be sos.) | on pie 4 fe, wp GE
13-00000 AS we Carry out our program to declassify Kennedy assassination documents, our goal will be to release as many as possible. In fact, I recently approved new CIA declassification guidelines for our Historical Review Program which specifically direct a presumption in favor of declassification. I believe we can be very forward leaning in making these documents available to the public, and I have instructed the Historical Review Group to take this attitude to heart. In this spirit, the Agency is making publicly available these new guidelines for historical review and declassification. a In connection with these historical review guidelines, I have recently commissioned a task force to review Agency procedures under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I have instructed this task force to ensure that our internal FOIA procedures are consistent with the approach that I have described for historical declassification. Although the task force will have to explore the difference between current documents that often are requested under FOIA and 30-year- old documents that are placed into the historical review program, my intention is to bring to the FOIA process a much more positive attitude toward declassification and release of Agency records. To understand the magnitude of the effort involved in reviewing the JFK papers for declassification, it is important to 4
13-00000 place them in some context. CIA's collection of documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy consists of C jael approximately 250,000-300,000 pages of material. This includes 64 boxes of copies and originals of information provided to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations and 17 boxes of material on Lee Harvey Oswald accumulated after President Kennedy's assassination. Unfortunately, and for reasons that I do not know, what we are dealing with is a mass of material that is not indexed, is | uncatalogued? and is highly disorganized—all of which makes the - review process more difficult. The material contains everything from the most sensitive intelligence sources to the most mundane news clippings. These records include documents that CIA had in its files before the assassination, a large number of records that CIA | received later as routine disseminations from other agencies, as well as the reports, correspondence, and other papers that CIA — prepared in the course of the assassination investigations. I should emphasize that these records were assembled into the present collection as a result of specific inquiries received from _. the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations. I have prepared a chart that illustrates this point. | As you can see, prior to President Kennedy's assassination CIA held only a small file on Lee Hatvey Oswald that consisted of 34 documents (amounting to 124 pages), some of which
13-00000 originated with the FBI, State Department, the Navy, and newspaper clippings. (Although I reported slightly smaller numbers to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs earlier this week, a subsequent count by my staff revealed these exact numbers.) Only 11 of these documents originated within CIA. I brought along a copy of Oswald's file as it existed before the assassination so that you can see first-hand how slender it was at the time. As I have already noted, we have declassified © the CIA documents in this file with quite minimal deletions and provided them to the National Archives. The records in this file dealt with Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 and his activities after his return in 1962. By contrast, it was only after - the assassination that CIA accumulated the rest of the material on “?_ Qswald--some 33,000 pages—-most of which CIA-received from ~ other agencies after November 22, 1963. There has been some comment on this pre-assassination Oswald file and how little it contained. I want to reemphasize that this is but the first installment~an example of our intentions. All of the assassination-related documents we have . . ca will be reviewed for declassification, and we will transfef/thé) pee declassified documents to the Archives as they are completed, rather than waiting until work on the entirety has been concluded. | The committee has asked about documents in our possession generated by other agencies. In fact, much of the material held by 5
13-00000 CIA originated with other agencies or departments. For example, in the 17 boxes of Oswald records, approximately 40% of the documents originated with the FBI, and about 20% originated ‘with the State Department or elsewhere. Our staff is still going through the material compiled at the request of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which includes 63 boxes of paper records and one box that contains 73 reels of microfilm. The microfilms-in part overlap material in other parts of the collection. We estimate that within the 63 boxes ef paper records, approximately 27% originated with a variety of other U.S. government agencies, private | organizations, and foreign and American press. Mr. Chairman, you have also asked about assassination ~ materials that may be held by other Intelligence Community agencies. The FBI will describe its holdings separately, which I assume include both intelligence and law enforcement records. The National Security Agency and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research report, after a preliminary search, that they have identified a relatively small amount of material responsive to previous inquiries by the Warren Commission, the Church Committee, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The Defense Intelligence Agency, which did not come into existence until 1961, has identified no assassination material to date, and it anticipates that any holdings‘it might have would be
13-00000 minimal because its mission at the time of the Kennedy assassination focused upon foreign order of battle. Although our holdings at CIA do include many documents from other agencies, we nonetheless have a substantial collection of CIA documents that will require a considerable effort to review, and, as | said earlier, at my direction, this review for _declassification-is now underway. A preliminary survey of these files has provided us some indications of what they contain. Although the-records cover a wide variety of topics, they principally focus on CIA activities concerning Cuba and Castro, Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union, and Oswald's subsequent activities in Mexico City and New Orleans. They also include a large number of name traces requested by the staff of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as material relating to the Garrison investigation and Cuban exile activities. CIA cannot release a number of documents unilaterally because of the limits in the Privacy Act (which protects the names of American citizens against unauthorized disclosure), the - sequestration of many documents by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and the fact that many of the documents belong to agencies other than CIA. However, we have already taken steps to lift the sequestration, to coordinate with other agencies, and to begin the process of declassification. If necessary, in the absence of legislation, I will ask the House of
13-00000 _ performance evaluations), medical evaluations and credit checks Representatives for a resolution permitting CIA to release the results of the declassification effort on the sequestered documents. While I expect a large amount of material can be declassified under our program, I assume that there still will be information that cannot be released to the public for a variety of reasons, including privacy concerns or the exposure of intelligence sources and methods. Let me take a moment to give examples of this type of material. During the investigation by the House Select:Committee on Assassinations, I understand that security and personnel files were requested on a number of. Agency employees. These files contain fitness reports (or on individual CIA officers. Although irrelevant to the question of who killed President Kennedy, these and other personal documents ultimately ended up in the sequestered collection of documents. I do not believe that the benefit to the public of disclosure of this information outweighs the clear privacy interest of the individuals in keeping this information confidential. Similar privacy concerns exist with documents containing derogatory information on particular individuals where the information is based on gossip or rumor. Our files also contain , names of individuals who provided us intelligence information on a promise of confidentiality. We would not disclose their names in breach of such a promise. Where we cannot disclose such information to the public, the Agency will make redactions and summarize the information in order to ensure that the maximum 8
13-00000 amount of information is released while still protecting the identity of an agent or the privacy of an individual. If legislation is not passed by Congress and signed by the President regarding the JFK papers, to enhance public confidence and to provide reassurance that CIA has not held back any . information relevant to the assassination, I would appoint a panel of distinguished Americans from outside of government, perhaps including distinguished former jurists, to examine whatever documents wé have redacted or kept classified. They would then issue an unclassified public report on their findings. The effort required to declassify the documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy will be daunting. However, it is an important program, and I am personally committed to making it work. Even in this time of diminishing _ resources within the Intelligence Community, I have directed the allocation of 15 full-time positions to expand the History Staff and to form the Historical Review Group that will review the JFK _ documents and other documents of historical interest. I believe these actions attest to the seriousness of our intent to get these papers declassified and released, and to open what remains classified to outside, non-governmental review. It is against this background that, in response to the committee's. request, I cite our few technical reservations about the mechanism established by the joint resolution to achieve this same result. I f
13-00000 intend to address only Intelligence-Community concerns; I will defer to the Department of Justice on any additional problems posed by the joint resolution. First, vesting in an outside body the determination as to whether CIA materials related to the assassination can be released to the public is inconsistent with my own statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods. Second, I am concemed that the joint resolution contains no provision requiring security clearances or secure document handling by the Assassination Materials Review Board or its staff. Third, I am concemed that the joint resolution does not provide the Agency with the opportunity to object to the release of CIA information contained in documents originated by Congress or the Warren Commission. Under the joint resolution, documents originated by these entities can be released directly by the Executive Director of the Assassination Materials Review Board without any review by the President or other Executive Branch agencies. | Fourth, the joint resolution provision for a 30-day period for agencies or departments to appeal decisions by the Executive Director to release information may not provide sufficient time for meaningful review of what could prove to be a large volume of material at one time. | mn .
13-00000 Fifth and finally, section 6 of the joint resolution, which outlines the grounds for postponement of public release of a document, makes no provision for postponing release of documents that may contain Executive privilege or deliberative process, attorney-client, or attorney work-product information. While such privileges could be waived in the public interest and, in fact, are not dikely to arise with respect to factual information directly related to the JFK assassination, they would be unavailable under the joint resolution in the rare case that they might be needed. These are technical problems that I believe can be solved in ways that will, in fact, expedite the release of documents bearing on the assassination of President Kennedy. But, again, whatever the future course of this legislation, CIA is proceeding even now to review for declassification the relevant documents under its control. Further, we will cooperate fully with any mechanism established by the Congress and the | President to declassify all of this material.
13-00000 Statement of Admiral William O. Studeman, USN oo _ Deputy.Director of Central-Intelligence . . .-.-. --/-.— . —— our views on House Joint Resolution 454, "The Assassination” ~~ - ~ Before the Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law Committee on the Judiciary. i , U.S. House of NOS 2A SOP ~~ Mr Chairman, I ain here today at your request to provide Materials Disclosure Act of 1992," and to describe the nature of documents held by the CIA that relate to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important matter. | Let me begin, as the Director did last week in testifying on this subject, by emphasizing that I am in complete agreement with the purpose underlying the joint resolution--that efforts should be made to declassify and make available to the public as quickly as possible government documents relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We hope that opening up and giving journalists, historians and, most importantly, the public access to governmental files will help to resolve questions that still linger over 28 years after the assassination.. Further, -we-believe that _ maximum disclosure will discredit the theory that CIA had anything to do with the murder of President Kennedy. *
13-00000 Even before introduction of this joint resolution, the ~ "” Director recognized the need for greater public accesstoCIA. oe documents of historical importance. Two months ago,he ts announced the establishment of a new unit within CIA that will be responsible for declassifying as many historical documents as _possible consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and... _.. ... methods. This new unit, the Historical Review Group, in the © oon ~~~ A gency's-Center for the Study of Intelligence, willteview for ~~~ ~~ __......-.-- declassification documents-30-years-old-or-older,-and-national ------- ---- — intelligence estimates on the former Soviet Union that are 10 years old or older. In addition to the systematic review of 30-year-old documents, the Director has directed the History Staff in the Center for the Study of Intelligence to assemble CIA records focusing on particular events of historical importance, including the assassination of President Kennedy. The Historical Review Group will then examine the documents for the purpose of declassifying the records. a Because of high interest in the JFK papers, we are not | waiting for legislation or other agencies to start declassifying documents belonging to CIA. The Historical Review Group already has begun its review of the documents related to the __ assassination of President Kennedy, and the first group of these records, including all CIA documents on Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination, has been declassified with quite minimal deletions and transferred to'the National Archives for release to the public. This is but a small fraction of what we have, 2
13-00000 ‘but it is an indication of our commitment immediately to begin review for declassification of this material. And;indeed, as I " speak, the reviewers are going through a substantial number of © documents, and we anticipate that many of these will be released shortly. As we carry out our program to declassify Kennedy assassination documents, our goal willbe to release as many as - possible. In fact, the Director-recently-approved-new CIA: -- ~~~ -- ~~ declassification guidelines for our Historical Review Program which specifically direct a presumption in favor of declassification. The Director believes that we can be very forward leaning in making these documents available to the public, and he has instructed the Historical Review Group to take this attitude to heart. In this spirit, the Agency is making publicly available these new guidelines for historical review and - declassification. —— In connection with these historical review guidelines, the Director has recently commissioned a task force to review Agency procedures under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The mission of this task force is to ensure that our internal FOIA procedures are consistent with the approach that I have described for historical declassification. Although the task force will have to explore the difference between current documents that often are requested under FOIA and 30-year-old documents that are placed into the historical review program, our intention is to bring to the 3
13-00000 FOIA process a much more positive attitude toward declassification and release of Agency records. To understand the magnitude of the effort involved in - reviewing the JFK. papers for declassification, it is important to ... place them in some.context. CIA's collection of documents ——_--_.__-__ . related to the assassination of President Kennedy consists of * approximately 250,000-300;000 pages of material. This includes’ “~~ .-64-boxes-of copies and-originals.of information-provided-to the -.—~—.—~-~ - Warren Commission and the House Sélect Committee on Assassinations and 17 boxes of material on Lee Harvey Oswald accumulated after President Kennedy's assassination. Unfortunately, what we are dealing with is a mass of material that is not indexed, is uncatalogued, and is highly disorganized--all of which makes the review process more difficult. The material . contains everything from the most sensitive intelligence s sources to the most mundane news clippings. — These records include documents that CIA had in its files before the assassination, a large number of records that CIA received later as routine disseminations from other agencies, as well as the reports, correspondence, and other papers that CIA _ prepared in the course of the assassination investigations. I should emphasize that these records were assembled into the present collection as a result of specific inquiries received from the Warren Commission or the Housé:Select Committee on Assassinations.
13-00000 Prior to President Kennedy's assassination, CIA held only a small file on Lee Harvey Oswald that consisted of 34 documents = (amounting to 124 pages), some of which originated with the FBI, State Department, the Navy, and newspaper.clippings. Only 11 of these documents originated within CIA. .As I have already.noted, .. | we have declassified-the CIA documents in this file with quite minimal deletions and provided them to the National Archives. The records in this file dealt-with Oswald's defection to the Soviet - Union in 1959 and his activities after his return in 1962. By contrast, it was only after the assassination that CIA accumulated the rest of the material on Oswald--some 33,000 pages--most of which CIA received from other agencies after November 22, There has been some comment on this pre-assassination Oswald file and how little it contained. I want to reemphasize that this pre-assassination material is but the first installment of all the material that we will review--an example of our intentions. All of the assassination-related documents we have will be reviewed for declassification, and we will transfer the declassified documents to the Archives as they are completed, rather than waiting until work on the entirety has been concluded. We have been asked about documents in our possession generated by other agencies. In fact, much of the material held by CIA originated with other agencies or departments. For example, 5
in the 17 boxes of Oswald records, approximately 40% of the documents originated with the FBI, and-about 20% originated ~ with the State Department or elsewhere. Our staff is still going through the material compiled at the request of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, _.-.._.._-__._ Which. includes.63 boxes.of paper_records-and-one-box.that- contains 73 reels of microfilm. The microfilms in part overlap __. > material in other parts of the collection: We estimate that within . ~---. -the 63-boxes of paper records,- -appreximately- 27T% originated. ‘with: a variety of other U.S. government agencies, private organizations, and foreign and American press. We have also been asked about assassination materials that may be held by other Intelligence Community agencies. The FBI will describe its holdings separately, which I assume include both intelligence and law enforcement records. The National Security Agency and the State Department's. Bureau of Intelligence and ~ Research report, after a preliminary search, that they have identified a relatively small amount of material responsive to previous inquiries by the Warren Commission, the Church Committee, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The Defense Intelligence Agency, which did not come into _._.. existence until 1961, has idéntified no assassination material to__ date, and it anticipates that any holdings it might have would be minimal because its mission at the time of the Kennedy assassination focused upon foreign order of battle.
13-00000 Although our holdings at CIA do include many documents from other agencies, we nonetheless have a substantial collection of CIA documents that will require a considerable effort to review, and, as I said earlier, this review for declassification is now underway. A preliminary survey of these files has provided us some indications of what they contain. Although the records cover a wide variety of topics, they principally focus on CIA activities concerning Cuba and Castro, Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union, and Oswald's subsequent activities in Mexico City and New Orleans. They also include a large number of name traces requested by the staff of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as material relating to the Garrison investigation and Cuban exile activities. CIA cannot release a number of documents unilaterally because of the limits in the Privacy Act (which protects the names of American citizens against unauthorized disclosure), the " - sequestration of many documents by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and the fact that many of the documents belong to agencies other than CIA. However, we have already taken steps to lift the sequestration, to coordinate with other agencies, and to begin the process of declassification. If _ necessary, in the absence of legislation, we will ask the House of Representatives for a resolution permitting CIA to release the results of the declassification effort on the sequestered documents. We hope to work with you, Mr. Chairman, to remove any obstacles that might arise in releasing the sequestered documents. 7
13-00000 While we expect that a large amount of material can be declassified under our program, I assume that there still will be ‘information that cannot be released to the public fora variety of = reasons, including privacy concerns or the exposure of intelligence sources and methods. Let me take a moment to give examples of this type of material. During the investigation by the House Select-Committee on Assassinations, I understand that security and personnel files were requested on a number of Agency employees.- These files contain fitness reports (or performance evaluations), medical evaluations and credit checks on individual CIA officers. Although irrelevant to the question of who killed President Kennedy, these and other personal documents ultimately ended up in the sequestered collection of documents. I do not-believe that the benefit to the public of disclosure of this information outweighs the clear privacy interest of the individuals in keeping this information confidential. Similar privacy concerns exist with documents containing derogatory information on particular individuals where the information is based on gossip or rumor. Our files also contain names of individuals who provided us intelligence information on -a promise of confidentiality. We would not disclose their names in breach of such a promise. Where we cannot disclose such information to the public, the Agency will make redactions and. summarize the information in order to ensure that the maximum amount of information is released while still protecting the identity of an agent or the privacy of an individual.
13-00000 If legislation is not passed by Congress and signed by the President regarding the JFK papers, to enhance public confidence and to provide reassurance that CIA has not held back any information relevant to the assassination, the Director has stated that he would appoint a panel of distinguished Americans from outside of government, perhaps including distinguished former jurists, to examine whatever documents we have redacted or kept classified. They would then issue an unclassified public report on their findings. - mom = The effort required to declassify the documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy will be daunting. However, it is an important program, and both the Director and I are personally committed to making it work. Even in this time of — diminishing resources within the Intelligence Community, the Director has allocated 15 full-time positions to expand the History Staff and to form the Historical Review Group that will review the JFK documents and other documents of historical interest. I believe these actions attest to the seriousness of our intent —to get these papers declassified and released, and to open what _ remains classified to outside, non-governmental review. It is against this background that, in response to the committee's request, I cite our few technical reservations about the mechanism established by the joint resolution to achieve this same result. I intend to address only Intelligence Community concerns; I will
13-00000 defer to the Department of Justice on any additional problems - posed by the joint resolution. | First, vesting in an outside body the determination as to whether CIA materials related to the assassination can be released to the public is inconsistent with the-Director's statutory . responsibility to protect intelligence sources.and methods. Second, we-are concemed that the joint resolution contains no provision requiring security clearances or secure document handling by the Assassination Materials Review Board or its staff. - Third, we are concerned that the joint resolution does not _ provide the Agency with the opportunity to object to the release of CIA information contained in documents originated by Congress or the Warren Commission. Under the joint resolution, documents originated by these entities can be released directly by the Executive Director of the Assassination Materials Review Board without any review by the President or other Executive Branch agencies. Fourth, the joint resolution provision for a 30-day period for agencies or departments to appeal decisions by the Executive Director to release information may not provide sufficient time for meaningful review of what could prove to be a large volume of material at one time. 10
13-00000 Fifth and finally, section 6 of the joint resolution, which outlines the grounds for postponement of public release of a document, makes no provision for postponing release of documents that may contain Executive privilege or deliberative process, attorney-client, or attorney work-product information. While such privileges could be waived in the public interest and, in fact, are not likely to arise with respect to factual information directly related to the JFK assassination, they would be | unavailable under the joint resolution in the rare case that they — might be needed. These are technical problems that we believe can be solved in ways that will, in fact, expedite the release of documents bearing on the assassination of President Kennedy. But, again, whatever the future course of this legislation, CIA is proceeding even now to review for declassification the relevant documents under its control. Further, we will cooperate fully with any mechanism established by the Congress and the President to declassify all of this material. 11
13-00000 ’ ‘* SECRET ce SECRE Central intelligence Agency Washington. 0 C.20505 OCA 2157-92 22 May 1992 The Honorable John Glenn Chairman , Committee on,Governmental Affairs ___ United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Mr. Chairman: ~ I am writing to correct for the record two statements I made when I testified before the Committee last Tuesday on the Assassination Materials Disclosure Act. I testified that there were 33 documents, amounting to approximately 110 pages, in the Oswald file that was declassified and released to the public. A subsequent count by my staff revealed that the file actually contains a total of 34 documents, amounting to 124 pages. I gave the correct numbers when I testified last Friday before the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security of the House Committee on Government Operations. In addition, I was asked at your hearing by Senator Cohen whether the State Department or the CIA had had any contact with any Soviet officials concerning KGB or GRU files relevant to the Kennedy assassination. I answered that there had been no contact between the CIA and the Russian KGB on this matter, and I added that the State Department might have requested those files, but I was not certain. At the time, I believed that that was an accurate answer. I have since discovered, however, that in January 1992 an Agency official did ask the new Russian internal service (MBRF) for any information related to the Kennedy assasSination. The Russians advised us, after reviewing their file holdings on Oswald, that they had nothing that would add to our knowledge or to the 22 November 1991 ABC television special on this issue, which they termed “detailed and. objective." CL BY (2196777) DECL OADR DRV FM LIA 3-87
13-00000 Sree The Honorable John Glenn To avoid disrupting our continuing efforts to gain access to the Russian files on Oswald, the fact that the Agency has had direct contacts with the Russian service on this topic must remain classified. For the purpose of correcting the public record, I suggest the following unclassified statement: In response to a request from the US embassy in Moscow, the Russians have reviewed their file holdings*’on Oswald. They havé advised us that - they had nothing that would add to our knowledge or to the 22 November 1991 ABC television special on this issue, which they termed "detailed and objective. * I enjoyed the opportunity to testify -before the Committee, and I hope that these corrections prove helpful. A similar letter is being sent: to-Ranking Minority Member Roth. Sincerely, Robert M. Gates Director of Central Intelligence cc: Senator Cohen Senator Boren Senator Murkowski
13-00000 “SEGREL Central intelligence Agency Washington. D.C. 20505 OCA 2157-92/1 22 May 1992 The Honorable William V. Roth, Jr. Ranking Minority Member Committee on Governmental Affairs United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Mr. Roth: I am writing to correct for the record two statements I made when I testified before the Committee last Tuesday on the Assassination Materials Disclosure Act. I testified that there were 33 documents, amounting to approximately 110 pages, in the Oswald file that was declassified and released to the public. A subsequent count by my staff revealed that the file actually contains a total of 34 documents, amounting to 124 pages. I gave the correct numbers when I testified last Friday before the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security of the House Committee on Government Operations. In addition, I was asked at your hearing by Senator Cohen whether the State Department or the CIA had had any contact with any Soviet officials concerning KGB or GRU files relevant to the Kennedy assassination. I answered that there had been no contact between the CIA and the Russian KGB on this matter, and I added that the State Department might have requested those files, but I was not certain. At the time, I believed that that was an accurate answer. I have since discovered, however, that in January 1992 an Agency official did ask the new Russian internal service (MBRF) for any information related to the Kennedy assassination. The Russians advised us, after reviewing their file holdings on Oswald, that they had nothing that would add to our knowledge or to the 22 November 1991 ABC television special on this issue, which they termed “detailed and objective." CL BY (2196777) DECL OADR DRV FM LIA 3-87
13-00000 _ The Honorable William V. Roth, Jr. To avoid disrupting our continuing efforts to gain access to the Russian files on Oswald, the fact that the Agency has had direct contacts with the Russian service on this topic must remain classified. For the purpose of correcting the public record, I suggest the following unclassified statement: In response to a request from the US. embassy in ‘Moscow, the Russians have reviewed their file holdings on Oswald. They have advised us that | they had nothing that would add to our knowledge or to the 22 November 1991 ABC television special on this issue, which they termed “detailed and objective." I enjoyed the opportunity to testify before the Committee, and I hope that these corrections prove helpful. A similar letter is being sent to Chairman Glenn. Sincerely, Robert M. Gates Director of Central Intelligence cc: Senator Cohen Senator Boren Senator Murkowski
13-00000 a “The Honorable John Glenn The Honorable William V. Roth, Jr. SUBJECT: Corrections on DCI Testimony before the Committee on Governmental Affairs OCA/LEG/SMDunne:me/37916 (21 May 1992) OCA 2157-92 Distribution: Original ~ Addressees -~ DCI ~ PDCI - ExDir - DpDO “= D/OCA ~ D/CSI C/DCI History Staff - ER - OCA Records - Leg Subj File - SMD Signer File - SMD Soft File el el aed at oe oe oe oe oy )
13- 00000. ;Sei1ator John Glenn News Release IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Jack Sparks (202) 224-5635 May 12, 1992 Leonard Weiss (202) 224-4751 Statement of Senator John Glenn Chairman, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Hearing on S. J. Res. 282, "The Assassination Materials Disclosure Act" - May 12, 1992 The bill before us today, S.J. Res. 282, is the “Assassination Materials Disclosure Act of 1992." The legislation was introduced by Senator David Boren and Senator Arlen Specter. An identical bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by our colleague, Representative Louis Stokes. The legislation would require the government to release records to the American public which are "relevant to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." The bill would establish an independent review board within 90 days of enactment, and this board would work as guickly as possible to release the records to the public through the National Archives and the Government Printing Office. The bill creates a strong presumption on releasing documents. The onus will be on those who would withhold documents to prove to the Review Board and the American people |. why those documents must be shielded from public scrutiny.” a It is also important to stress that the legislation does not authorize, any official investigation of the assassination. Its only purpose is to create a process by which the American public may be given the most complete access to review relevant records, and make their own observations and assessments. The Committee's work and the hearing today is likewise limited to this purpose. This bill is the result of a climate of suspicion and distrust that has grown over the years regarding the official explanation of the assassination of President Kennedy. It is a climate nurtured by many books, articles, television programs, and the recent movie "JFK." Disclosure of information is the only reliable way to maintain the public trust, and dispel distrust. Those of us who knew President Kennedy personally and remember where we were when we learned of President Kennedy's assassination must exercise our responsibility to the next generation of Americans, whose historical knowledge of the
13-00000 , “, led assassination of President Kennedy will be significantly improved by the release of these records. Ironically, it was President John F. Kennedy who first required scheduled declassification in the release of Executive Branch national security information. Declassification schedules remained in effect until President Reagan eliminated the requirement in 1981, and President Bush persists in this same practice. It is likely that more government documents related to the Kennedy assassination could have been released over the past 12 years if declassification was still a priority. It is also fair to say that the 1986 amendments to the Freedom of Information Act, including broad law enforcement exemptions, have narrowed the release of Kennedy assassination records by the FBI. , The public interest in the history of the assassination of President Kennedy has been insatiable. In one noted bibliography, a total of 5,134 books, articles, reports, films, or television programs were produced on the subject between the years 1963 and 1979. The Library of Congress has over 250 holdings on the subject. The FBI continues to receive reports, allegations, and requests for further investigation. Indeed, as Director Sessions may testify today, the FBI has recently located and interviewed two of the three “hobos" who were identified as witnesses of the shooting, as well as seven Dallas police officers who were not previously interviewed by government investigators. The speculation about the assassination of President _ Kennedy may be more cruel than the truth itsélf. It is arguable whether the disclosure of new information will dampen the speculation, but I hope that the breadth of information made available wil] answer many questions and provide many history lessons. I view the Committee's mandate as determining whether the process for review and release of the records is fair and appropriate; and that exemptions, when needed, must be kept to a minimum. The Department of Justice has told the Committee that it will recommend a presidential veto of the bill as written. I hope we can find a way to construct a process for release of assassination related records that will be efficient and effective, will gain the confidence of the public, and will address concerns of the Justice Department that are legitimate. The authors of the bill are to be congratulated for working quickly to propose an independent and accountable mechanism to release records related to the assassination. However, we must carefully consider the parameters of the bill. I believe that the major issues include:
13-00000 « i ? & First, how will agencies and others who hold records define the universe of “relevant” Kennedy assassination materials? It is important to be able to go beyond the frame of reference of previous inquiries of commissions and committees, but the question must be asked: Where will the search for documents end? Second, the definition and search for "relevant assassination material” also raises important questions of human resources and costs to organize and make material available to the Review Board. How much will this cost? Third, what is the best mechanism to govern the review and release of records in an independent, accountable, and credible manner. The tension between management and public confidence in the process cannot be overlooked. However, it may be important to simplify the process. The bill proposes a five-member Review Board, with an Executive Director and staff. Are we creating a Rube Goldberg machine, or are these layers necessary? Fourth, we must ask why the bill, which acts in the name of openness in government, also exempts the Review Board from the Government in the Sunshine Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, and judicial review? Fifth, is the issue of standards for postponement of disclosure. I strongly believe that the government should practice disclosure of information as the rule, unless there are demonstrable reasons for protecting the information. It is important to emphasize that while hundreds of thousands of pages of material will be released, the bill contains national security and privacy exemptions, and withholds personnel and administrative records relating to past official inquiries. I personally believe that the agencies and the Congress, which hold Kennedy assassination records should not wait for the passage of legislation, and the resolution of all issues in the bill, before releasing documents. It is my intention to move legislation through the Committee as quickly as possible, but regardless it will take time for whatever authority is created in statute to become assembled, establish procedures, and begin its work. We will hear today how ready key agencies and congressional officials are to release their records. If even some of the material can go out the door without further adjustments, then let's give the public access now. The review board or whatever authority is created will certainly have the . opportunity to face the more difficult issues shortly thereafter. Today we are fortunate to have several experts and authorities to discuss these issues. These include the authors of the legislation, as well as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Director of the Federal Bureau of -~3-
13-00000 ° v Investigation. We are grateful to have our other witnesses as well. Among them is attorney James Lesar, President of the Assassination Archives and Research Center. Mr. Lesar's work represents the track record on public access to Kennedy assassination material under the Freedom of Information Act. He will speak to the nature and limitations of current access arrangements. We also have two prominent twentieth century historians, Professor Ernest May of Harvard University and Professor Athan Theoharis from Marquette University. Each possess extensive experience regarding the federal records of the intelligence and. federal law enforcement communities. We welcome all of you to the Committee.
13-00000 Ae | Lo CIHRG | — ae > fs ‘SUGGESTED AREAS “TO > BE ADDRESSED IN REPORT LANGUAGE (IF NOT ADDRESSED IN THE TEXT OF THE RESOLUTION) 1. Initial Review of assassination materials. It should be made clear that section 5 of H.J.Res. 454, which requires that records not provided to the Archivist for public disclosure be made available to the Review Board within 60 days of enactment, is not intended to preclude agencies from conducting their own reviews and making as much information available as possible before the Review Board conducts its review of assassination materials. Suggested clarifying report language: The Committee notes that some agencies, such as the - Central Intelligence Agency, have already begun to review and release assassination materials. Section § (a) (2), which requires that all records of an official. investigation for which an agency is custodian be made available to the Review Board within 60 days of enactment of the Joint Resolution, is not intended to preclude agencies from continuing any reviews that they have ongoing and transferring documents to the Archives for public release wherever possible. In, fact the Committee encourages such reviews to continue inasmuch ag they can provide for more expeditious release of assasSination materials to the public. 2. @ . a . The legislation on its face does not necessarily documents not provide that the agency or department that originated the information will have any input into a decision to disclose the record, or will even be apprised of such a decision after the fact. Suggested clarifying report language: The Committee understands that existing regulations within the Executive Branch require that classified information originated in one agency may not be disseminated outside another agency to which it has been made available without the consent of the originating agency. The Committee expects that agencies that are custodians of records will follow this practice before providing information to the Archivist under section 5({a)(1) for public release pursuant to section 4. Section 5(a)(2) requires agencies that are custodians of records of official investigations to make such records available to the Review Board. The Board will then make a determination of whether the material qualifies for postponement under the criteria set forth
13-00000 | ay in Section 7 and shall inform the custodian of records and the originating body of the record of its determination. The Committee expects that the Review Board also will consult with the agency or department that originated the information in reaching its determination as to whether public disclosure of the material must be postponed to ensure that it is apprised of relevant sensitivities presented by that information. For example, the Review Board should | consult with the relevant Executive Branch agency that provided information incorporated into a Congressional document before making a decision to release that document and shall inform the originating agency of a decision to release that information. 3. tae postponement. "Intelligence agent" is something of a term of art that. left undefined, might not be construed to protect information that would reveal the identity of covert employees of intelligence organizations. Suggested clarifying report language: The term “intelligence agent" as used in séction 7(a) (1) (A) is intended to permit postponement of release of information that would reveal the identity of a domestic or foreign intelligence or counterintelligence asset, collaborator, foreign liaison contact, or covert employee of a United States intelligence organization, where the identity of any of these currently requires protection. 4. Board access to "anv record* of an Executive agency. In addition to adding language to section 10(1) (1) to clarify that requests for additional records must be made by the Review Board itself, report language should make clear that the Committee does not intend the Board‘s discretion in this regard to be unbounded. Suggested report language: . Section 10(1)(1) provides that the Review Board may request “any record" from an Executive agency. The Committee intends to give the Review Board wide latitude to determine what additional records may be held by agencies that are relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy. Rather than the Committee attempting to define what records should be requested, the Committee believes that this judgment is best left to the Board, which will develop expertise in assassination-related issues and documents as its work
13-00000° ~~. es e * oe DRAET proceeds. However, the Committee does not intend to vest unfettered discretion in the Review Board to request any and all records of agencies without regard to their relationship to the assassination. The Committee expects that the Board will request only ‘documents that may bear some reasonable relationship to the assassination, and that the Board will be guided by the principle that unreasonable risk of exposure of sensitive intelligence or law enforcement sources or methods is to be avoided.
13-00000 » 7 as on * SECRET HPSCI BRIEFING - JFK DECLASSIFICATION 10 April 1996 5. Nature of the records--Oswald 201, Sequestered -~ Other records: Minutes of DCI morning meetings; working files - Third Agency documents: FBI, SSCI, Presidential libraries Pages released (227,000) - Percentage of pages redacted; 70 % Process of declassification - Former senior officers in HRG review - Coordination with OGC, DO (DO team detailed to HRG) Standards for review in JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, 1992 - Records related to the assassination or investigation into the assassination - Law provides grounds for postponement of disclosure of records -- “Clear and convincing evidence“ must be pre- sented to the Board E.g., Identity of agent currently requiring protection - Source or method currently utilized - Foreign government relationship cur- rently requiring protection © Board has authority to release records unless it agrees there is “clear and convincing evidence” to support a postponement - Board then has to justify on the record each redaction with which it agrees ~ Once a determination is made, Board must publish it in Federal Register within 14 days
13-00000 g - Options available: substitute language e.g., “Northern European station” -~ Also, summary of a record - Board has access to every document in full 6. Issues raised by Board's decisions: - Problem: Board has difficulty in linking disclosure of information that is 30 years old with damage to current intelligence operations - Identification of stations e.g., - Names of former Agency employees who retired under cover ~ Board guidelines: Protect person if retired under cover and now residing overseas, but not if in US - (Liaison, joint operations in Mexico: / - Briefing of the Board by | Jeff Smith, Central Cover, DO desk officers, G6thérs - Problem of accumulative effect of releases--eroding cover, ability to conduct operations 7. Provision for appeal to the White House if we disagree with Board's determination - President has sole authority to require postponement of a record or information --President required to advise the Board within 30 days of the Board's determination ~~ This is published in the Federal Register 8. Current appeal (now resolved) - Issues: identification of Agency asset liaison relationship identification of station - Potential appeal: | 9. Additional requests of Board to review other records e.g., history of Mexico City station, Intelligence Community Staff records so
13-00000 ADMINISTRATIVE - INTERNAL USE ONLY CSI 1997-552 10 December 1997 NOTE FOR: Director, Center for the Study of Intelligence Deputy Director Office of Congressional Affairs FROM: John Pereira Chief, Historical Review Group SUBJECT: JFK/Possible Letter from Congressman Burton to EXDIR Jeremy Gunn, Executive Director of the JFK Board, told HRG yesterday that Congressman Dan Burton may well write a letter to the EXDIR expressing concern about whether CIA will be able to meet the deadline for declassification of assassination-related records. Burton chairs the Government Reform and Oversight Committee which has cognizance over the JFK Board. Gunn said that he briefed members of Burton’s staff last week and told them he was concerned that the Agency may not have enough resources dedicated to JFK to finish the review of documents by 1. September 1998. Gunn showed the staffers the recent exchange of letters between the Board and the EXDIR on the same issue. According to the staffers, Burton has a strong personal interest in the release of the assassination records. The staffers gave Gunn the impression that Burton’s strong interest will prompt him to write to the Agency. During our discussion with Gunn, we reviewed with him the Agency's clear commitment to declassifying all assassination records. We also explained that we have shifted four additional contractors to the JFK project, and will shift more if necessary, even at the cost of slowing down or stopping other declassification efforts. John Pereira we S- Allien. 5 /- fe ei Biebhine ADMINISTRATIVE - INTERNAL USE ONLY OH, o | eencabitTFK
13-00000 . (002 FAX 202 724 0457 ARRB ne 18/8T Rt 09:17 10 °420222601274 DEC 17°97 17:24 Ne.003 P.O? ban quem, promote . Prttlrtarranse bo GEDLAAAADA A. CHLSAANE, MEW VORUK a TOM LANTOS, GALIFORINA Soares Honcua teres . | ONE HRNDRED FT CONGRESS 5 rar ous eyo Saeccn. — Congress of the United States onto seer uee nono House of Representatives ee saarpe £- eOUDER, Inara , COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT Seebis tater Ohae se Aorta ROO &, SLAGOsewer, eer obo 2157 Raveurn House Orrice Buipina ret ee ets MARGAALS, GAMES CANFORD, GOLITH Cag waa, . . . o6d TURNER, VEnag JOO. unde, HY Henerarene Wasuinaton, DC 20516-6143 THORAAS 6 ALLEN, taken SRE PAPRAR, HE SnREY _ . . (AACR E. PORE, de, TEMNEESEE ROS PORTA OF > THY = ena aee-enee SERMARD GARDENS, VERMONT December 16, 1997 CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO Director of Central Intelligence . RELEASE OF CIA INFORMATION’ Central Intelligence Agency “THIS DOCUMENT Washington, D.C. 20505 Dear Director Tenet As Chairman of the Commitice on Government Reform and 4 Oversight, Lhave a great interest in ensuring that the Assassination Records Review Board, which is under the jurisdiction of the Committee, completes its work by its scheduled tormination date of September 30, 1998. Earlier this ycar I introduced ‘HLR, 1553, now Public Law 105-25, which extended the authorization of the Review Board for one additional year, until September 30, 1998. This one-year extension of authorization for the Reviow Board was included in President Clinton’s fiscal year 1998 budget, and received bipartisan support in Congress. consideration of H.R. 1553, 1 stated my firm intention for this to be the final extension of authorization or the Roview Board. Accordingly, I believe that it is of utmost importance that all federal agencies holding assassination records fully cooperate with the Roview Board, in a timely manncr, in order that documents may be processed and transferred to the National Archives, in compliance with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (Public Law 102-526). ” The Reviow Board has advised me that while it perceives that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) generally has boca cooperative and helpful, the Board novertholess believes that the CIA is not transferring records to tho Board at a pace consistent with the neod to complete the work on time. The Board similarly has advised that, unless it receives processed records in a more expeditious manner, it is prepared to usc its legal powers to order a transfer of records to the Board which would then vote to open the records without benefit of a pre-review by the CIA. The Board has informed me that it docs not wish to take this stcp, but that itis fully prepared to do 20 if necessary to completo its work by its September 30, 1998, termination T urge you to take all appropriate steps to ensure that the CIA promptly fulfills its obligations under the law by expeditiously reviewing and transferring the relevant records to the Review Bo Dan ey Li Chairman DB jts
13-00000 Ne CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OCA 97-1969 8 January 1998 ost af atin et bP. ¢ The Honorable Dan Burton Chairman . Committee on Government Reform and Oversight House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 . . } Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your letter of December 16, 1997 in which. you expressed interest in the status of Central Intelligence Agency‘s (CIA) processing of records related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. You referred to the Assassination Records Review Board’s concern that CIA may. not be processing records at a pace sufficient to complete the work on time. I want to assure you, as I did to the Review Board’s Executive Director in the enclosed November 21, 1997 letter, that the Agency is committed to taking all necessary steps to meet the statutory deadline of September 30, 1998 for reviewing all of the Agency’s assassination-related materials. As the Review Board has noted, we are cooperating fully with the Board and its staff in this effort. We share the Review Board’s goal of declassifying and releasing the relevant records to the fullest extent possible. As you are aware, it is important that there be a proper review of all the records so that still sensitive information that might warrant continued protection can be identified to the Board. For the past several years a team of experienced reviewers has been dedicated to the task of declassifying the assassination records. Recently we shifted several additional personnel to the team in order to accelerate the processing of documents and assure the prompt transfer to the Review Board and ultimately to the National Archives.
13-00000 The Honorable Dan Burton I understand the importance that the Congress and the President have placed on disclosing to the American people all available information about the assassination. To this end, we have released more than 200,000 pages of material -and are working diligently to complete our review of the remaining records. If you or your staff require any further information or would like a briefing on our declassification program, please have your staff contact: Mr. Jim Meehan, Office of Congressional Affairs, at (703) 482-8796. Sincerely, David W. Carey Enclosure
13-00000 The Honorable Dan Burton DCI/OCA/Liaison Grp/JPMeehan:dms/37976 (29 Dec 97 INTERIM) OCA 97-1969 (FN: wdata/action/liaison/burton.doc) Revised from INTERIM LTR (never sent) to FINAL LTR (6 Jan 97) Distribution: Original - The Honorable Dan Burton, HGR&OC ~ EXDIR/CIA (Follow-up to SCI-97-536) - DCT ~ DbdCT - ER (ACTION ITEM: ER 97-5851) - DCI/OGCc ~ DCI/cst - DDO DO/IMS - DA/OIM ~- DA/OIM/IRG - DA/MS - D/OCA - AO/OCA ; - OCA Records (ACTION ITEM: A/97-05697) ~ JPMeehan Chrono Pd fed fed ped fed fed fed ed ed ed i Ww
13-00000 ” CLA Ie RELEASE oar Fr a fige te 3 toe WP IF ex rn Whaer Mr. Chairman, I am here today at your request to provide my views on Senate Joint Resolution 282, "The Assassination Materials Disclosure Act of 1992," and to describe the nature of documents held by the CIA that relate to the assassination of John F, Kennedy. I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important matter. | Let me begin by stating that Iam in complete agreement with the purpose underlying the joint resolution--that efforts should be made to declassify and make available to the public as quickly as possible government documents relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We hope that opening up and giving journalists, historians and, most importantly, the public _ access to governmental files will help to resolve questions that still linger over 28 years after the assassination. Further, I believe that maximum disclosure will discredit the theory that CIA had anything to do with the murder of John F. Kennedy. Even before introduction of this joint resolution, I recognized the need for greater public access to CIA documents of historical importance. Two months ago, I announced the establishment of a new unit within CIA that will be responsible for declassifying as many historical documents as possible consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and
13-00000 methods, This new unit, the Historical Review Group, in the Agency's Center for the Study of Intelligence, will review for declassification documents 30 years old or older, and national intelligence estimates on the former Soviet Union that are 10 years old or older. In addition to the systematic review of 30-year-old documents, I have directed the History Staff in the Center for the Study of Intelligence to assemble CIA records focusing on particular events of historical importance, including the assassination of President Kennedy. The Historical Review Group will then examine the documents for the purpose of declassifying the records. | Because of high interest in the JFK papers, I am not waiting for legislation or other agencies to start declassifying documents belonging to CIA. The Historical Review Group, at my direction, already has begun its review of the documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy, and I am glad to report that the first group of these records, including all CIA documents on _ Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination, has"been declassified with quite minimal deletions and is being transferred to the National Archives for release to the public. This is, I acknowledge, a small fraction of what we have, but it is an earnest - of my commitment to begin review for declassification immediately of this material. And, indeed, as I speak, the reviewers are going through a substantial number of documents, and I anticipate that many of these will be released shortly.
13-00000 As we carry out our program to declassify Kennedy assassination documents, our goal will be to release as many documents as possible. In fact, I recently approved new CIA declassification guidelines for our Historical Review Program which specifically direct a presumption in favor of declassification. I believe we can be very forward leaning in making these documents available to the public, and I have instructed the Historical Review Group to take this attitude to ne W poo heart. | | po dey TA To understand the magnitude of the effort involved in reviewing these documents for declassification, it is important to place them in some context. The CIA's collection of documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy consists of approximately 250,000-300,000 pages of material. This includes 64 boxes of copies and originals of information provided to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations and 17 boxes of material on Lee Harvey Oswald accumulated after President Kennedy's assassination. Unfortunately, and for reasons I do not know, what we are dealing with is a mass of material that is not indexed, is uncatalogued, and is highly disorganized--all of which makes the review process more difficult. The material contains everything from the most sensitive intelligence sources to the most mundane news clippings. |
13-00000 These records include documents that CIA had in its files before the assassination, a large number of records that CIA received later as routine disseminations from other agencies, as well as the reports, correspondence, and other papers that CIA prepared in the course of the assassination investigations. I should emphasize that these records were assembled into the present collection as a result of specific inquiries received from the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations, I have prepared a chart that illustrates this point. As you can see, prior to President Kennedy's assassination CIA held only a small file on Lee Harvey Oswald that consisted of 33 documents (approximately 110 pages), some of which originated with the FBI, State Department, the Navy, and newspaper clippings. Only 11 documents originated with the CIA. Ihave brought along a copy of Oswald's file as it existed before the assassination so that you can see first-hand how slender it was at the time. As I have already noted, we have declassified the CIA documents in this file with quite minimal ‘deletions, and we are providing them to the National Archives. The records in this file dealt with Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 and his activities after his return in 1961. By contrast, it was only after the assassination that CIA accumulated the rest of the material on Oswald--some 33,000 pages--most of which CIA received from other agencies after November 22, 1963. f>
13-00000 You have asked about documents in our possession generated by other agencies. In fact, much of the material held by CIA originated with other agencies or departments. For example, in the 17 boxes of Oswald records, approximately 40% of the documents originated with the FBI, and about 20% originated from the State Department or elsewhere. Our staff is still going through the material compiled at the request of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which ingludes 63 boxes of paper records and one box that contains 43 reels of microfilm. The microfilms in part overlap material in other parts of the collection. We estimate that within the 63 boxes of paper records, approximately 27% of the documents originated with a variety of other U.S. government agencies, private organizations, and foreign and American press. Although our holdings do include many documents from other agencies, we nonetheless have a substantial collection of CIA documents that will require a considerable effort to review and, as I said earlier, at my direction, this review for declassification is now underway. A preliminary survey of these files has provided us some indications of what they contain. Although the records cover a wide variety of topics, they principally focus on CIA activities concerning Cuba and Castro, Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union, and Oswald's subsequent activities in Mexico City and New Orleans. They also include a large number of name traces requested by the staff of the House
13-00000 Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as material relating to the Garrison investigation and Cuban.exile activities. The CIA cannot release a number of documents unilaterally because of the limits in the Privacy Act (which protects the names of American citizens against unauthorized disclosure), the sequestration of many documents by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and the fact that many of the documents belong to agencies other than the CIA. However, we have already taken the necessary steps to lift the sequestration, coordinate with other agencies and begin the process of declassification. If necessary, I will ask the House for a resolution permitting CIA to release the results of the declassification effort on the sequestered documents. While I expect a large amount of material can be declassified under our program, I assume that there still will be | information that cannot be released to the public for a variety of reasons, including privacy concerns or the exposure of intelligence sources and methods. Let me take a moment to give examples of this type of material. During the investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, I understand that security and personnel files were requested on a number of Agency employees. These files contain fitness reports (performance evaluations), medical evaluations and credit checks on individual CIA officers. Although irrelevant to the question of who killed President Kennedy, these and other personal
13-00000 documents ultimately ended up in the sequestered collection of documents. I do not believe that the benefit to the public of disclosure of this information outweighs the clear privacy interest of the individuals in keeping this information confidential. Similar privacy concerns exist with documents containing derogatory information on particular individuals where the information is based on gossip or rumor. Our files also contain names of individuals who provided us intelligence information on .. - a promise of confidentiality. We would not disclose their names in breach of such a promise. Where we cannot disclose such _ information to the public, the Agency will make redactions and _ summarize the information in order to ensure that the maximum amount of information is released while still protecting the ‘identity of an agent or the privacy of an individual. If legislation is not passed by Congress and signed by the President regarding the JFK papers, to enhance public confidence and provide reassurance that CIA has not held back any : information relevant to the assassination, I will appoint a panel of 4..4—- distinguished Americans from outside of government to examine a, whatever documents we have redacted or kept classified. They mz, would then issue an unclassified public report on their findings. poe The effort required to declassify the documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy will be daunting. However, it is an important program, and I am personally committed to making it work. Even in this time of diminishing
13-00000 resources within the Intelligence Community, I have directed the allocation of 15 full-time positions to expand the History Staff and to form the Historical Review Group that will review the JFK documents and other documents of historical interest. _ I believe these actions attest to the seriousness of our intent to get these papers declassified and released, and to open what remains classified to outside, non-governmental review. It is against this background that, in response to this Committee's request, I cite our,technical reservations about the mechanism established by the joint resolution to achieve this same result. I intend to address only Intelligence Community concerns; I will defer to the Department of Justice on any additional problems posed by the joint resolution. First, vesting in an outside body the determination as to whether CIA materials related to the assassination can be released to the public is inconsistent with my statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods. Second, I am concerned that the joint resolution contains no — provision requiring security clearances or secure document handling by the Assassination Materials Review Board or its staff. Third, I am concerned that the joint resolution does not provide the Agency with the opportunity to object to the release of CIA information contained in documents originated by
13-00000 Congress or the Warren Commission. Under the joint resolution, documents originated by these entities can be released directly by the Executive Director of the Assassination Materials Review Board without any review by the President or other Executive Branch agencies. Fourth, the joint resolution provision for a 30-day period for agencies or departments to appeal decisions by the Executive - Director to release information may not provide sufficient time for meaningful review of what could prove to be a large volume of material at one time. Fifth and finally, section 6 of the joint resolution, which outlines the grounds for postponement of public release of a document, makes no provision for postponing release of documents that may contain Executive privilege or deliberative process, attorney-client, or attorney work-product information. While such privileges could be waived in the public interest and are not likely to arise with respect to factual information directly related to the JFK assassination, they would be unavailable under the joint resolution in the rare case that they might be needed. ne These are, technical problems that I believe can be solved in ways that will, in fact, expedite the release of documents bearing on the assassination of President Kennedy.
13-00000 But, again, whatever the future course of the legislation, CIA is proceeding even now to review for declassification the relevant documents under its control. Further, we will cooperate with any mechanism established by the Congress and the President to declassify all of this material. 4 WA a — Jor eC Zo then eal Geren aang f fG™ 10
13-00000 pe. é FS oon Avyed fe ee ee ee Ct pep weep reerernenbend) me ped oe Ren ci Peg 4 May 1992 TABULATION OF PAGES IN THE coll ne-assassznarron FILE: Pages Date D ription. ih 6 Mar 64 Note-slip on DECLASSIFIED version held in NARA 30 Jan 76 CIA transmittal sheet, with NARA‘s query of 15 Jan 75 on deleting #s. 6 Mar 64 DD/P transm sheet, re NARA's holding. 6 Mar 64 Helms Memo to Rankin, describing file contents. 6 Mar 64 Copy of above, with Helms note to Rankin. 31 Oct 5 tate Cable from Moscow to SecState. " Redacted copy of same. 1 Nov 59 Press clipping 2 & 4 Nov Notes on Oswald & Papich (FBI) query 2 Nov 59 on Sv Despatch, £r Moscow to Dept 9 Nov 59 , tate Cable, Moscow to SecState “* Redacted copy of same 9 Nov 59 —State Cable, Tokyo to SecState “ Redacted copy of same 16 Nov 59 Press clipping 26 Nov 59” Press clipping 25 May 60 Cover Memo fr Dir Hoover, FBI, to Helms 12 May 60 Attachment to above 12 May 60 FBI report, fr Dallas 25 Oct 60““SState (Cumming) to Helm, listing US defectors - Redacted copy of same 3 Nov ‘60 ““~ DD/P Bissell to State (Cumming) Redacted copy of same - 18 Nov 60-——Cover Memo (internal) to DD/P, to accompany draft reply to Cumming undated - ~Handwritten descrip of letter cited above 21 Nov 60 ~~Cover letter, Bissell to Cumming, on US’ defectors * Declassified version of Oswald info from f£ " List of US defectors attached to Bissell letter 18 Nov 60 Memo fr Horton, acting C/CIS, to Bissell 21 Nov 60 Second copy of Bissell letter and list, above 9 Dec 60 2 copies of redacted request to set up Oswald 201. 1l Jul 61 Fon Sv Despatch, Moscow to Dept 26 May 61 copies of Fon Sv Despatch, Moscow to Dept 13 Apr 61-—“3DeptState Instruction on Oswald citizenship. and passport (signed Rusk) 26 Jan 6l-~—>State MemCon re Oswald " Redacted copy of same 13 Jul 61 Cover letter to Helms fr Hoover, plus several FBI reports, much of which is illegible 28 Sep 61 Short bio of Marina (redacted), for inclusion in Oswald 201 13 Oct 61—>-Fon Sv Despatch, Moscow to Dept, covering copies of four Oswald letters to Embassy Moscow 7 Dec 61 Form fr INS to DD/P, asking for any derog info on Oswald fica
13-00000 “SPencr_ 1 3 Mar 62 Note saying Navy message of this date is missing from CD 692 sent from Archives 5 26 Apr 62 Collection of Navy Memo to Hoover/FBI plus Navy, USMC, and press items 9 7 Sep 62 Hoover to Helms, plus report fr SAC/Dallas 2 " Redacted pages from above 7° 10 Sep 63 FBI field report on Oswald from Dallas 3 24 Sep 63 FBI field report on Oswald from New Orleans 3 10 Sep 63 FBI field report on Oswald from Dallas {apparently different from above) 2 8 Nov 63 Hoover to Helms, with page from New Orleans report 20 7 Nov 63 Hoover to Helms, with a lot of bio data on Oswald, plus Fair-Play-for-Cuba stuff 20 25 Oct 63 FBI to INS, New Orleans, with much of material above . 5 14 31 Jan 64 Report, not really contemprary with this file, aah entitled: “Information Developed by CIA on . , , the Activity of ...Oswald in Mexico City..," prere 28 Sep--3 Oct 63 Li 14 " Redacted copy of same
13-00000 4. _ Theoharis -- Appendix A (Hl) 6/13/66, late last night. CIA HAS NO OBJECTION To Aine DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR — OF T THIS DOCUMENT June 14, .1966 MR, TOLSON: Justice ¢ Fortas returned my call of midday, I told him that I wanted to see him about a matter which he might consider bordered on a violation of judicial ethics. hy aeains case, He was told that I had been able to discuss in confidence with him on several other occasions, i.e. « Wick ° Cesper a e Calichan © Conrad ce » Felt t Mohe Mr. Gale © ROS@R ceimmemnn @ SULVGT cme o Tavel » Trotter Tele. Room a Miss Holmes —£.. Miss Gandy 4. ees Ste TET Mr? Hoover had me handle with him, and that I therefore felt that he wouldn't mind if this matter was brought to his attention. =, (2) 3m The Black case was then brought up and he was told that boyfriend, and other items which although he had disqualified himself, he might not desire to discuss this matter, Justice Fortas replied that he would be glad to not only discuss . this matter but any other matter with me on a confidential basis at any time. He then asked me to have breakfast with him at 7:45 a.m. this morning. preliminarily engaged in small talk and eventually got down to the meat I gave him a compete rundown on the exchange of corres- ad with ’Katzenbach. He,was told specifically of the problem. pondence that the Director had Upon seeing the Justice in his home for breakfast, we _of Katzenbach's evasive tactics in attempting to defend Bobby’ Kerthedy. I then mentioned the Black case and teld him that while the Director planned to furnish the Attorney General specific, honest, hardhitting answers to the Supreme Court's questions, we nevertheless knew that Katzenbach would throw our answers out the window and present his own slanted version to the Supreme Court. Vice President Humphrey. Justice Fortas agreed. Justice Fortas stated that the entire matter boiled down to a. continuing fight for the Presidency. He stated that Kennedy was of course out to capture that segment of voters which in the past had belonged to He mentioned that Kennedy, to a certain extent, : had succeeded in capturing this left-wing group. He added that of course if facts, as possessed by the FBI concerning Kennedy's approval of wiretapping were made known to the general public that it would serve to completely. destroy Kennedy. CDD:amr . (2) - CONTINUED OVER
13-00000 Memorandum to Mr. Tolson Justice Fortas spoke of the Black case. He stated that after Solicitor General Thurgood MarShall had ineptly and inadequately presented .the matter of electronic devices to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court had held a confidential meeting among themselves. Although Justice Fortas and Justice White disqualified themselves, they still attended the meeting. At the meeting it was decided among the Justices that rather than remand the Black case to a lower court, the Supreme Court would set itself up as a tribunal to gather further information concerning the usage of electronic devices and afterwards make a decision. The Justices, with the exception of Byron White, felt that if the case was immediately remanded to a lower court Attorney General Katzenbach would, in order to win the case, pick his own Judge and thereby attain victory. Justice Fortas stated that some of the Justices in the Supreme Court were somewhat belligerent in their attitude towards Kennedy and Katzenbach. He stated these men would not be “pushed around" regardless of the politics involved. Justice Fortas stated that the problem at hand was to determine how the FBI's irrefutable evidence exposing Kennedy and the Department in ‘\their clear-cut authorization for usage of microphones could be gotten to the Supreme Court and to the people. I showed him at this point several memo- jranda taken from the file, including the New York telephone memorandum which Kennedy had signed. He stated that there was no doubt in his mind but what the FBI acted in a complete, above-board and honest manner at the _| Specific urging of Kennedy and the Department. He then stated that he fully ‘recognized that Katzenbach would only slant any reply the FBI. I gave him in answer to the > questions posed by the Supreme Court. After some deliberation, Justice Fortas stated that he thought {the best thing to’do would be for him to slip in the back door and see the President. He stated he would tell the President all of the above facts. As an aside, Justice Fortas asked me if the President had been aware of the exchange of correspondence pertaining to the Director and the Attorney |General. I replied that the Director in all fairness and in order to protect the FBI, had definitely advised Watson and the President. The Justice replied that this was good, however, he felt that the President would want to know his opinion as a result of seeing it from the Supreme Court. He then stated that his plan of action would serve to protect the President and the FBI and could spell "back seat" for Katzenbach and Kennedy. He mentioned that he would recommend to the President that the President should immediately call Katzenbach in his office and tell him that CONTINUED..... OVER
13-00000 Memorandum to Mr. Tolson he was very greatly concerned about this entire matter and that, in order for honesty and justice to prevail, an arbitrator should be set up who would listen to all of the evidence and then furnish a complete report to the Supreme Court. Justice Fortas added that naturally the arbitrator would be someone whom the President could trust to furnish the absolute true facts. He stated the next problem would be to find this particular man. He said he had in mind somebody like“Ken Royall, former Secretary of the Army. He asked me what I thought of him. I told him I naturally had heard Mr. Royal's name, however, Mr. Hoover would have far better judgment on this matter than I would. He next stated that perhaps someone like Ross‘ Malone) ‘former President of the American Bar Association, would be good in this regard. I told him that we had enjoyed very favorable relations with Mr. Malone. Justice Fortas then mentioned that there was an immediate past President of the American Bar Association, from the State of Virginia. I told him he probably was thinking of Lewis Powell. He stated this was correct. He asked me what I thought of Powell. I told him that Mr. Powell had generally concurred with Mr. Hoover's beliefs concerning crime, however, on occasions he had been somewhat naive and a little weak. Justice Fortas stated that he thought Royal or Malone would be the best man. Justice Fortas told me that he would take the above action immediately. He stated he was going to Jacksonville, Florida, today; however, he would try to talk te the President prior to his departure---if not, he would discuss this matter with the President Thursday morning, 6/16/66. I told him that time was growing short inasmuch as the Supreme Court wanted an answer almost immediately. He stated this was true and that, as a matter of fact, once the arbitrator was appointed all of his facts would have to be gathered and furnished to the Supreme Court within two weeks. He stated lhe thought this could be done. , Justice Fortas told me that he wanted to mention another i?subject. He stated that he had already taken steps to disqualify himself in || the Hoffa case. He mentioned that the Black, Baker and Hoffa cases would be continuing cases which would go on for many years. He asked me if I ‘knew of any irregularities on the part of Bobby Kennedy in connection with the Hoffa case. I replied in the affirmative, stating that Kennedy on one | occasion had specifically asked an FBI representative to place a microphone on an attorney by the name of Haggerty. I stated this action had been taken despite the fact that the FBI had not wanted to do this. Justice Fortas replied that he had felt that such might be the case and that under the circumstances CONTINUED..... OVER
13-00000 . Memorandum to Mr. Tolson make certain that Kennedy was exposed. He stated that he felt that the Supreme Court would definitely confirm the decision of the lower court in the Hoffa case. He mentioned that this opinion had been expressed to him n by the E would sit with the rest of the Supreme Court on the Hoffa case and would | other Justices. Justice Fortas next, inquired if I had known a former Bureau |{emptoyee by the name of Courtney ‘Evdhs. I told him that I did know Evans. He asked if I knew of Evans' association with Kennedy. I told him that we were well aware of this relationship. I then briefed Justice Fortas completely concerning Evans. I told him of the statements made by Edward Bennett | Williams with respect to the fact that Kennedy planned to use Evans as his i | “ace in the hole." I told Justice Fortas that Mr. Hoover had instructed me ie to call Evans in and to show him approximately eight memoranda which had previously been prepared by Evans. Justice Fortas was advised that Evans j had been told that he had not only prepared but approved such memoranda and i that we demanded to know if the facts as he had given them at the time of | preparation were as true now as they were then. I told Justice Fortas that | Evans had affirmed the truthfulness of these facts and had sadly indicated, | racts are facts and can't be changed." I also told Justice Fortas that we had specifically asked Evans if Bobby Kennedy had been furnished information |from microphone coverage in the Black case. The Justice was advised that Evans had admitted that he had frequently briefed Kennedy in this regard. The Justice was told that we next inquired of Evans whether or not Kennedy knew that such information came from microphone coverage and that Evans fhad replied that there was one specific occasion in which Kennedy specifically . could have inferred that the information could only have come from microphone {\coverage. | Justice Fortas asked if the President knew of Evans' background. | I told him that apparently the President did not know this. It was further mentioned that Evans was currently employed by Katzenbach, obviously at the urging of Kennedy. Justice Fortas replied that this was-the worst news he had received since Bobby Kennedy's urging that the Viet Cong be allowed to sit down at the conference table. He stated that the President should definitely be told of this fact. He then mentioned that several members of the Supreme Court are well aware of the background of Evans as well as the background of such characters as Sheridan, Bellino, and other henchmen of Kennedy's. .CONTINUED..... OVER
13-00000 Memorandum to Mr. Tolson . At this point, I told Justice Fortas of the memoranda in which the Director in 1963, at the specific request of the President, had furnished the President concerning Bellino, et al., and that the President had the following day dismissed these individuals from employment at the White 4 House. I mentioned that Kenny O'Donnell had immediately advised Bobby Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy had had Ed Guthman issue a direct threat to us in connection with this matter. Justice Fortas stated this was typical of Kennedy. Justice Fortas next made reference to the decision handed dawn by the Supreme Court yesterday in connection with confessions. He stated that he sincerely hoped that the Director and the personnel of the FBI J would pay close attention to the conclusion of the statement by Chief Justice Warren wherein the Chief Justice clearly implied that the FBI was a model agency for all law enforcement to follow. Justice Fortas told me that he wanted the Director to know that following Thurgood Marshall's inept and stupid presentation to the Supreme Court regarding the general matter of confessions, he, Justice Fortas, had been instrumental in instructing Thurgood Marshall to specifically return to the Department and ascertain exactly how the FBI handled the matters of questioning of subjects, arraign- ment of subjects, confessions, etc. He stated that Marshall therefore, as a result of such action, had found it necessary to submit such procedures to the Supreme Court. He stated on this basis, Chief Justice Warren had no alternative but to pat the FBI on the back. we Justice Fortas inquired as to the Director's opinion concerning Ramsey Clark. I told him that the Director of course had enjoyed a very favorable friendly relationship with Justice Tom Clark for many years and that the Director had also enjoyed a fairly favorable relationship with Ramsey Clark, however, not anywhere near as close as the friendship with his father. I told ‘the Justice that the Director had received information pointing out that despite the fact Ramsey Clark was known as a “Johnson man, " he nevertheless could see no wrong in Bobby Kennedy. Justice Fortas stated that he felt Ramsey was a good man but young, naive and one that constantly looked down into the deep waters and could see no wrong in anyone. He stated that Ramsey Clark was a "dreamer." Justice Fortas then inquired as to whether or not there are any loyal Johnson supporters in the Department. I stated that the. Director had mentioned on a number of occasions that perhaps the only one who could be declared a loyal supporter of the President's was Ed Weis}, Jr. The Justice expressed no surprise. He stated he thought this to be the case. CONTINUED..... OVER a Var
13-00000 Memorandum to Mr. Tolson At the conclusion of our discussion, the Justice reiterated once again the action he planned to take with the establishment of an “arbitrator. He stated that I should keep in touch with him on a confidential basis regarding this matter. He also stated that I should not hesitate in the future to get in . touch with him concerning any problems in which the FBI's interest should be protected. He reminded me that the President had great faith in the Director and the FBI and that in many instances we undoubtedly found ourselves in a position where we could not protect ourselves.. He also stated that while the President had issued specific statements concerning wiretapping and usage of electronic devices, he nevertheless realized that the FBI had to have the advantage of such devices in order to adequately handle its responsibilities both in the security and criminal fields. He stated the President's only concern had been his opinion that there were too many electronic devices in the political field. He stated we of course were not guilty of such practices. He stated he recognized this and he also recognized that the entire hysteria concerning the usage of microphones and electronic devices had been brought about as a result of Bobby Kennedy's brash practices. He'stated he deeply resented the fact that Bobby Kennedy had thrown his former partner, Sheldon Cohen (Director, Internal Revenue) to the wolves in connection with these matters. 7 — a 6 ACTION: (1) Pursuant to the Director's instructions I will advise Marvin ¢ Watson today of the background and current employment of Courtney Evans. (2) If the Director agrees, I will advise Justice Fortas that the Director is of the opinion that Ross Malone would probably be the best. _man to serve as an "arbitrator." MH, 7 | 0 RESPECTFULLY, IF CHroover)
13-00000 ; 2 4 sno ANDIOR 4 cia Hae OR TION F ENT pECLASS Oe tis DOCS 4-760 (Rev. 12-14-88) RELE . 2OOOXKK LC ) . XXXKKK . - J0GOORK FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION FOIPA DELETED PAGE INFORMATION SHEET 28 Page(s) withheld entirely at this location in the file. One or more of the following statements, where indicated, explain this deletion. C] Deletions were made pursuant to the exemptions indicated below with no segregable material available for release to you. ion 552 ion 552a Cr (01) OO wyx7ya) 0 ays) OC wx2) O (X78) O we) D (oy3) 2 exe Ow O emo . Owe) O wx) D 3) 0 exer 0 0a) O (x4) O (bys) DC Ks) | 5 (Xs) a) Owe) 0 0x6 re ad (] Information pertained only to a third party with no reference to you or the subject of your request. i) Information pertained only to a third party. Your name is listed in the title only. OyDocuments originated with another Government agency(ies). These documents were referred to that agency(ies) for review and direct response to you. “ Pages contain information furnished by another Government “agency(ies). You will be advised by the FBI as to the releasability of this information following our consultation with the other agency(ies). R Page(s) withheld for the following reason(s): (] For your information: iy The following number is to be used for reference regarding these pages: 6s-b/45~ 25 2b | . p 0:00.00. 00.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.4 . X DELETED PAGE(S) X XXXKKX X NO DUPLICATION FEE X XXXXKX X FOR THIS PAGE x XXXXKKKKXKKKKKXKKKAKKK FBI/DOJ
13-00000 Q WAH \ 13930 < — Theoharis -- Appendix C ‘ ss Hareb 16, 1953 P-RSOWAL AND CCYPIDENTIAL MEMORARSICM PCR TE ATTORNEY Sey RAL ECLASSTFI=D B a i all one eT Vent ae he “z QT In connestion with a possible ‘anauthorized leak of offieial Government information, it ig believed Gestrable to Institute a technical surveillance of denry WilliamGrunewald, a proainent figure in washington, I therefore recommend that you grant authority to place a technical surveillance on the residence of Srunewald, Apartsment 6258, The Westchester, 000. cathedral Aveme, Ne we, #ashington, J. C., telephone: 400 7-5700, or any other residence or office space which he might oceupy in the future. Respectfully, | { John edgar Zoover | Cirector 2 a 2 RECORDED = 9) AES anv me = . on 15 amis is 1353 wT 2 # au The Attorney General. on"Pebruary 13, 1953, request a cna? we cover the activities of Grunewald and suse that as on technical surveillance be instituted ‘on his residence,.= This memorandum is being submitted in accordance with the Attorney General's supecse fone! ong. (ean /epl, tN
13-00000 oo eo Yan Office Memorandum ° UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO 3s Mr. Tolson VA | parm; April 28, 1983 7 oy mon L. B. Nichols ats, Eerorutton ecerra ney A he sf soByect: 4 Roos — - v4 TESTIMONY OF HENRY GRUNEWALD Tor — } KEAN COMMITTEE a Fete, Em Seiledean 1 saw John E. Tobin, the General Counsel of the Kean Committee, on Monday evening, April 27th. Tobin pointed out that on the first da Grunewald teatified in Executive session etated caused him the most concern because there was such a reference in the report of Special Agen’ dated at New York on July 20, 67. 1951, in the investigation on 4, Tobin stated.that Grunewald had the habit of passing out ties at Christmas and that as late as 1951 Grunewald had sent ties to: the Director, Clyde Tolson and Guy Hotel. I told Tobin if he was inferring that because Grunewald sent ties to these three individuals they might have urnished him the information, that he ought to be pretty cautious because (// knew pretty well what the feeling was. I told him in the first place v. the Director had not seen Grunewald to my certain knowledge for a long period of time; the Director was not intimate with Grunewald; the Director has not appreciated the manner in which Ganewald has thrown the Director's cc: Mr, Ladd RECORNEN - oY Lm 6 Ils. /4-7 . Mr. Rogen INNCYET . 5R Cr ae 2.
13-00000 ee eee edt eal rs ~ natty SR ges ED ete eee Me se ema tee ¥ | ip. “mame around arid I had my serious doubts whether the Director had ever "pets ween the tles and I was certain the Director never reviewed the file on ‘ With reference to Mr. Tolson, I told Tobin that Mr. Tolson was one of the most conscientious individuals in Washington and that certainly Mr. Tolson would not engage in any such activity. Thirdly, pO all he had to do was look at the rewrd so far aw Hottel was concerned; tag. ,thata few years ago, Hottel was primarily responsible for leading to “ |Grunewald's downfall when he was hiding out from the Senate District Committee. ao Tobin was making quite a point about how Grunewald « ". gould have gotten the information. I told Tobin categorically I had . reviewed the files on the five individuals he had mentioned and that I was absolutely certain Grunewald did not get any information from. the: Bureau. I further told him that with reference to the information on Grunewald was a fairly good i igator and it would have been ant a ae Te P record; that one of the first things an investigator would do in the investi- . z gation of d lawyer would be to check on his admission to the Bar and ua with thd Grievgnce Committee; that anybody could have. gotten this. “3 ether he had any information to the effect that oa ‘assisted Grunewald in the investigation. He stated ssisted him. I told hist undoubtedly Fo elisa ; Ears: in the Department for many ‘St | years himself and no doubt had friends the Department. I asked whether ‘ phe had any information indicatin as close to McInerney.
13-00000 , che matter boiled down to the fact he was primarily concerned about I told him the investigative reports on ent to the Attorney General and Vanech on November 9, 1951; Congressman King on August 9, 1951; photostatic copies were given to G-2 on December 26, 1951, and that the Attorney General requested a summary of our files on February 26th; that a summary memo was furnish AG under date of February 29th o: and He then inquired as to why G-2 would wa e ormation. [: told him I could not answer this, but would endeavor to ascertain the anewer. . I asked him if he had any indication as to when Grunewald made his investigation. He stated it was shortly after the time when the committee first started checking on Grunewald, which would be in November or ‘December, 1951. . , ; I further told Tobin a reputable news source had inquired regarding andy stating he had heard there were a ‘couple of Communists: on the staff and that the evidence was: supposed to be on the Director's desk. I told him obviously that was not the case and it would“appear that the newspaper source was merely calling us to let us know what was being circulated around town, but obviously we ' furnishdd-’no information; that there was some indication from the source that had been helping Grunewald and might be in contact icInerney. ; ; - with @ ? ‘I told him he was at liberty to. do so. I told him I would check for the reason why G-2 wanted the information and let him know, which is being done. . ky
13-00000 a in my conversation with robin, "he adutsed that there was information over in the Senate similar to that furnished by Grunewald. I asked hin where in the Senate d tt came out of Senator . MeCarran's Office. Inasmuch a told that a member © J. | the kf tttee had told the Senator about ae a think tt might be well the next tine I see to entially tnquire aa to whether she recalled what member of the Comutttee furnished them this tnformatton. of course, see no potnt tn talking SESE Sees any further’ about this matters a (a <¢ - g «
13-00000 ce Mr. Ladd ——_. fir. Rosen . lir. Malley. . , b ire Pennington gtk “The attorney General nt % > Ves A. May 13,1953 mo OF, (wb 1 OS- | npitc® § PSRSONAL AND COMP AL " Director, FBI Cone 6 Spas ar 7g TERSOMAL AND COMPTERAL HENRY urea onuMsantD | INFORMA PION CORCERELHG DECLASSIFIED BY | The following information concerning Henry William */\}) Grunewald was obtained by a confidential source of known 6 reliability on May ll, 19536 14 1053 Pad ad. CORA
13-00000 a as a. ee oeoeeremetionemmmnet trent nae - nn Oe a oe 1 The attorney General @ Complete details ecnsernine the infermution developed ia connection. with tne request or Deputy Attcrae y General _Ragers wlll, of course, be furaished to him upon: ihe ‘compietion wt tae investigation of these matters. . HOTS: Tnis is a condensed version of informuticn received from she Washington Field Office which has been set forth in as readable form as possible for the information of the Attorney General. It is to be noted an attemot has seen made to furnish tue attorney Gensral with only pertinent information which appears would de of interest. to ain. a“
(5) ‘Burcen file 67-322 aleo reflects that, in april 1929 929, the Bureau eonducted an investigation entitled, “willias Hy. Vander Poel, Heary W. Grunewald, Applieastion for Commission in officer's Reserve Corps." Tt le not noted thet Vander Poel had served as an Agent of the Bureau of Investigation during World Wear I. At the time of the investigation, both were seckiag to ebtain a som- aission in the United States army. {he Purcau'se iavestigation refiested that | Grunewald was not trastworthy, pessessed a bad reputation and had been indisted - for wiolation of the Mational Prohibitien ict, althowh he was act of this offense. This Information was furnished to the Military Intelligmes Service hy memorands te the pepartacnt dated May 6, 1929, and Septenber 10, 2929. Cn ee me I 2 ce CCaagy i i »” A WID Froderish Grusewmld, also kno a wed  dpertaents, Wasiington, &. 6. esate mad Gerke S057 aot a tee (6) Bureau file 65-6165 reflects that at. the request of Mr. Stephen T. varly, Seerstary to the President, the Bureau conducted an investigation in: dune and July, 1940, entitled, “Harry A. woke? Henry William Grunewald, also know as Henry Gruenwald, Frederieh Wilhelm Grunewald, aad Heari Grunswald; Misconduct in Offiee, Esplonage.* Mr. Earlyts was baged en allegatieas received the effect that G Cor) D Senator Gerald P. 2 re Grunewald, on two ecca. retary a @ the wun of $4000 for Senator Hye. It was alleged that Grunewald had intimated this money cane from Secretary of War, Harry H. weodring and that the money was paid in connection with Bar Departaent megotiations. ‘On duane 25, 1940, the Burean received a memorandum from the Military Iatelligence Serviese reflecting that Mr. Saith £. Brockhart Be erand that Servive that he hed lenroed throws alleged enployss of the Prensh-Englicsh Intellicaes Service is 1917-1918 that the vor of Bagi esplomage in Waehingten, DB. eee me Wilbela Mm os leary Wilisa ns” that, ' wooiding in the Westchester apartaceats and during 1037 and a ioe Grunewald shared cffices with Hedonald and former seater arthur Be Rebinscoa, ia the Munsey Building, Bashingtoa, D. ¢. (1) os (1) 65-6165-3 89.2965 287
13-00000 Memorandum to Mr. Tolson At the conclusion of our discussion, the Justice reiterated ’ once again the action he planned to take with the establishment of an "arbitrator." ne Stated that I should keep in touch with him on a confidential basis regarding tter. He also stated that I should not hesitate in the future to get in . euch ith him concerning any problems in which the FBI's interes protected.- He reminded me that the President had great faith and the FBI and that in many instances we undoubtedly found position where. we could not protect ourselves. He also s ‘ President had i$sued specific statements concerning etapping and usage of electronic devices, he nevertheless realized that BI had to have the » advantage of such devices in order to adequately die its responsibilities both in the security and criminal fields. He st4ted the President's only concern had been his opinion that.there were too electronic devices in the political | field. He stated we of course were Shon of such practices. He stated he recognized this and he also recognized that the entire hysteria concerning the usage of microphones and electronic devices had been brought about as a result of Bobby Kennedy's brash practices. He: stated he deeply resented the fact that Bobby Kennedy had thrown ‘former partner, Sheldon Cohen (Director, , y Internal Revenue) to the wolves’in cognection with these matters. e rc 6 “A ACTION: (1) Pursuant to the Direvtor's ‘instructions I will advise Marvin ¢° Watson today of the backgreund and current employment of Courtne Evans. (2)- tt the Director agrees, I will vise Justice Fortas that the Director is-of the opinion that Ross Malone would probably be the best man to serve‘as an “arbitrator."" f n/ -RESPECTFU Y, \
13-00000 § \ Gis. Bs do | i VW Hl i + 42. Femme | Maori Be. “Gite, Gawiee f ih | MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTUR a | eee Peep With further veference 4 to Henry -waaie Chron, ‘@etes Geamen an whon we are presently interested, T am attaching a menorandic fate Gendy for ir. Carson f: sor your arrrove}| there ds attached hereto & letter for the ittorner General's sicneture, to the Secraterv of the - *: 8 Rigs cy ae) all “ oe eR be
13-00000 ny : . op Pe Behe *, . = 9% Suk ‘ eres a — Ti. 4uvestigation in this matter, which was closed July $72900, reves ied gees: that the original allegations were apparently based on surmise and suspicion of ais =. end not on any definite knowledge of: the complainsats, “FYaither the conditions ore "alleged nor any irregularity on the part of Grunewald ‘or former Secretary of Say. Et were discovered, There was mo evidence developed that Grunesald ae engaged in any activity for the German government. fhe result of the in- vestigation in sano ranches fora were furnished to ur. werly oo July % 194,06 Qi ; - (7) parean £418 656265 also xeflects that in may, 2942, the Military _ intelligence pervise advised the Bureau that information had been received by ene of its informate that Grunewald was the pay-off man for German agents in the United states and was also contact man for warious American peace and sub- wersive organizations. Subeequently, the Bureau ascertained that the informant of the Military Intelligence Service was and 4% was 4 Oo felt that the he widatery Intelligense @ Was merely resurrecting old in- Se: b formation in view af the fact that the Bureau had previously investigated the PA i eX sane allegations mads However, on Kay met Bye: a technical eure | att KAMA” veillance of Gronsualdwms @ rised and from dune 4, 1941 through August 1, ae 2941, such survelllanses yas maintained on his epartment "tn the testohest er “RAS 4partaents. “jo definite) information was developed, indicating that Grunesald wel had violated any specific Pedsral statute. (2) eee ee (8) Bureau fide 65-6165 reflects ‘that on Septesb er 15,1942, the Omaha ° office of, the Bureau received a compleint fron the Vilitery Intelligence service thet Henry William Grunewald had, on the previous evening, given £110.00 in currency to tu Privates attached ath Service Commnd, while were drinking at a bar in the Fontenelle Hotel in Omaha. The two Privates were then engaged in studying | dntelligense work, and. becoming suspicious of Grunewald's apparent generosity ~ ‘wit: his mo d the matter to the Omaha Office. They indicated that approximately her purse in order bic Wo ,000 in her purse. o to furnish currency to Grunenald to pase out to the growd. Grunewald waz interviewsd by two Agente of the Omaha Offise on September 15, 1942, regarding the antter and he identified himself as being — connested with the Alien Property Custedian's offiee in Washington, De Ges by : . exhibiting travel authority $5G, eigned by James E. Varkham, of the Alien Ming a; Property Custodians Offices in Tashington, D. GC» Grunewald claimed to receive Biers por year es salary from the alien Property Gustodiants Office. He admitted ae sp pasaing out money proaiscuously in the bar and stated that-he gid aot uish the - Site matter reported to his superlers in Washington although he was willing to — "kg | ae Pee ‘furaieh information about the incident conti dentsally ‘Bee ‘Bureau. He stated . (1) 65-6165-8 “3 ae - 3 ~{2) 65-5165-22} 65-6165 sub 1, serial 1 ‘to 5 3122" wee OF etme. FT ait, Mm os t rs
13-00000 Subject HENRY WILLIAM GRONEWALD : This serial, the original peporandum from the FBI to the Attorney General dated_.3/1 *_» which was returned to the Bureau signed by the Attorney General authorizing FBI to conduct electronic surveill ance, has v, ° . been permanently removed for retention in the 7 er memorandum or details and where maintained. Ise a Removed By___343 Date 1/21/74 Complete File and Serial Number 65-6165-124 emegh>e op eure Ff one " Be Gye a cA Dag tg Eeteey Pes | c toads eh at wa edcbs eb t4bhs Veet ieee prem pees cerns ic decta eee dg ot i ttle Galt ged wteveed SIGE ESSITY f2-27-89 Spsagr ory %
ae et ae seem ame oe eS i ee ae . - ; SEnelosed 48 a eopy of a letter dated April 7, 1953, . --@hief Gounsel sf the House Gubcomittes on Adainistration of the - 6 "+Mevenue Laws, requesting permission to faspect the Imeigretion and _ . a4 tarelisation Servies files and the persomnel files relating to Henry ¥. wee A peaeel worean of Suvectigations tte Of Sten Property ant the ° she Tantgration anf Saturalination Barviee files aa! the Alien ‘Property files beve beet obtained and will be sade nvailatloy anes any ‘Wal reports, in accordance with poligy. . . * : iad Sis. Y emem a am? gf ofp eames aaw ape em - aoe «2 te o tle “Advice would be appreciated ubsther the Burean hes @ pe to making it available, minus any investigative reports, for examination 0 -{tby a Babcomittes representative. If the Bureau has’ such a file and no ° ° objection to its examination, please advise whether the Bureau would pre- . ex to make it available for exanination in one of the Bureau's offices or this office.. > : “SO0PHEg " ; wee: oe "ge . * : . tg . e
13-00000 OFFICIAL USE ONLY 14 May 1992 Note For: David Pearline, OCA Subject: Suggested Qs & As for Hearing on JFK Assassination Documents (Dave Gries suggests additional Qs and As along the following lines) Q. Many of the Oswald documents transferred to the National Archives earlier this week were said to have been in the Archives previously . Is this correct ? Ans. Yes, but most of the documents were originated by other agencies, and we were not aware of what those agencies had previously released. Q. There appears to be little information of interest in the Oswald file that was released. Is this true ? Ans. Yes this is essentially accurate. But the objective in transferring the file was to demonstrate our good faith commitment to release as many documents related to the assassination as possible, and as expeditiously as possible John Pereira x (76160; ed OFFICIAL USE ONLY
13-00000 ' rtt-rw TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS-M a0639 11:22 05-15 BC-TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS~-MULTITAKES THE REUTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT ae ee HOUSE. GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS LEGISLATION AND NATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING . Topic: H.J. Res. 454, Assassination.Materials Disclosure Act of 1992 Witness: CIA Director Robert Gates Location: Rayburn Building, Room 2154 Time: 10 a.m. - — May 15, 1992 KKK . The editor of the report is Steve Ginsburg. Tim Ahmann, Eric Beech, Peter Ramjug and Paul Schomer also are available to help you. If you have questions, please call 202-898-8345. For service problems inside the District of Columbia, call 202-898- 8355; outside D.C., call 1-800- 537- 9755. KEKE KKEKEE This transcript is provided by News Transcripts, Inc. If questions of content arise, call 682-9050 KEKKK ROBERT GATES (director, CIA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm here to provide my views on House Resolution -454,--- -- the assassination materials disclosure act of 1992. I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee, just. as I did before your colleagues in the Senate last Tuesday. I can summarize my statement, I think. It is largely the same as the one I did earlier. Let me just say, as I have said, that I'm in complete agreement with the effort to underline the joint resolution, that is, the effort to declassify and make available to the public as quickly as possible government documents relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. Further, I believe that ’maximum disclosure will discredit the theory that CIA had anything to do with his murder. I have undertaken a number of efforts at CIA to accelerate the declassification of historical materials, creating a new organization to do that. It will be classified, or review for declassification, all documents over 30 years old, ‘and Soviet estimates up to 10 years ago. I've asked them to take as their first priority the review for declassification a review of the documents relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. And we have proceeded with that, without waiting for legislation. And I've indicated earlier this week, we've declassified the first set of these records, the pre- assassination Oswald file. And these have now been transferred to the National Archives for release.
13-00000 > It's a small fraction of what we have, but I want to do it right away as an earnest of our intention to move on, to declassify these documents and to get them before the public as quickly as possible. I've also made publicly available this week the agency's new guidelines for historical review and declassification. _ —in-connection-with these guidelines IT have recently commissioned a task force to review agency procedures under the ; Freedom of Information Act. I've instructed this task force to ensure that our internal FOIA procedures are consistent with the approach that I've described for historical declassification....... - Although the task force will have to explore the difference between current documents and those that are often © requested under FOIA, and 30-year-old documents placed under historical review programs, my intention is to bring to the FOIA process a much more positive attitude toward declassification and the release of government or CIA records. ~~ The chart that I've brought along with me describes the nature of CIA's collection of documents, about 250,000 to 300,000 pages of material. And I.don't need I think to go into any further detail on that. As I indicated, only about 11 of the pre-assassination documents belong to CIA, and we have released those, and as I did earlier in the week, brought along that file simply to show how thin it was before that time. It was only after the assassination that CIA accumulated most of the documents that it had; 33,000 pages on Oswald alone. There has been some comment on the pre-assassination Oswald file, and how little it contained. I want to reemphasize that this pre-assassination material is but the first ----- installment-of all the material we will review; merely an earnest of our intentions. All of the assassination-related documents we have will be reviewed for declassification, and we will transfer the declassified documents to the archives as they are completed without waiting for work on the entirety to be completed. Mr. Chairman, you have asked about assassination materials that may be held by other intelligence community agencies. The FBI will describe its holdings separately, which I assume include both intelligence and law enforcement records. The National Security Agency and the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research report after a preliminary search that they have identified a relatively small amount of material responsive to previous inquiries by the Warren Commission, the Church committee, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The Defense Intelligence Agency, which did not come into existence until 1961, has identified no assassination material to date, and it anticipates that any holdings it might have would be minimal, because its mission at the time of the asSasSination focused on foreign military order of battle. I've indicated in my statement for the record that CIA cannot release a number of documents unilaterally, because of limits in the privacy act, which protects the names of Americans against unauthorized disclosure; the sequestration of many documents by the House Select Committee on Assassinations; and a
13-00000 the*fact that many of the documents belong to agencies other than CIA. However, we've already taken steps to lift the sequestration, to coordinate with other agencies, and to begin the process of declassification. As I indicated earlier-in the week, if necessary, and —. in the absence of legislation, I will ask the House of _..—Representatives-for—a -resolution-permitting CIA to reléasé the results. of the declassification effort on the sequestered documents. And I hope that we can work together, Mr. Chairman, to remove any obstacles that might arise in releasing the sequestered documents. I also have indicated in my statement for the record that I assume there will be some materials that cannot be released, for a variety of reasons, including privacy concerns, or the exposure of intelligence sources and methods. And let me again-take a moment to give an example of this type of material. — During the investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, I understand that.a number of security and personnel files of CIA employees were requested. These files contained fitness reports, or performance evaluations, medical evaluations, and credit checks on individual CIA officers. Although irrelevant to the question of who killed President Kennedy, these and other personal documents ultimately ended up—in the sequestered collection of documents. I do not believe that the benefit to the public of the disclosure of this information outweighs the clear. privacy interest of the individuals in keeping it confidential. — Similar privacy concerns exist with documents containing derogatory information on particular individuals, where the information is based on gossip or rumor. eee eee Our files also contain the names of individuals who provided us intelligence information on a promise of confidentiality, and we would not release their names in breach of such a promise. . Where we cannot disclosure such information to the public, the agency will make redactions and summarize the information in order to ensure that the maximum amount of information is released while still protecting the identity of an agent, or the privacy of an individual. As I told your Senate colleagues earlier in the week, if legislation is not passed by the Congress and signed by the president regarding these papers, to enhance public confidence and to. provide reassurance that CIA has not held back information relative to the assassination, I would appoint a panel of distinguished Americans from outside of government, perhaps including former jurists, to examine whatever documents | we have redacted or kept classified. And they would then issue an unclassified report on their findings. I believe that these actions attest to the seriousness of our intent to get these documents declassified and released, and to open what remains classified to outside nongovernmental review. It is against this background that I cite our few technical reservations about the mechanism established by the joint resolution to achieve this result. 4
13-00000 ; First, vesting in a body outside--in an outside body the determination whether CIA materials related to the assassination can be released to the public is inconsistent with my own statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods. Second, I am concerned that the joint resolution contains no provision requiring security clearances or secure ; -——decument—handting -by—the- assassination materials review board or its staff. Third, I'm concerned that the joint resolution does not provide the agency with the opportunity to object to the release of CIA information contained_in_documents. originated by. the Congress or the Warren Commission. Under the joint resolution documents originated by these entities can be released directly by the executive director of the assassination materials review board, without any review by the president or the-executive branch. Fourth, the joint resolution provision for a 30-day period for agencies and departments to appeal decisions of the executive director to release information may not provide sufficient time for meaningful review of what could prove to be a large volume of material at one time. Fifth and finally, Section 6 of the Joint Resolution, which outlines the grounds for postponement of a public release of the documents, makes no provision for postponing release of documents that may contain executive privilege, or deliberative process, attorney-client or attorney-work product information. While such privileges could be waived in the public interest, and in fact are not likely to arise with respect to factual information directly relating to the assassination, they would be unavailable in the joint resolution in the rare case they might be needed. These are té¢Ghnical problems, and I believe they can be. solved in ways that can expedite the release of documents bearing on the assassination of President Kennedy. But again, whatever the future course of this legislation, CIA is proceeding even now to review for declassification the relevant documents under its control. And further, we will. cooperate fully with any mechanism established by the Congress and the president to declassify this material. That concludes my summary of my statement, Mr. Chairman. KEKKK oe KKKEK The Reuter Transcript Report Assassinations/hearing May 15, 1992 MORE LLLEnglish
13-00000 rtét~rw: TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS-1 a0829 13:50 05-15 BC-TEXT~ASSASSINATIONS-1STADD . THE REUTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT ae HOUSE GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS LEGISLATION AND NATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING Topic: H.J. Res. 454, Assassination Materials Disclosure Act of 1992 -Witness: CIA Director Robert Gates May 15, 1992 (First-Add) _ KKKKK x X X Mr. Chairman. REP. JOHN CONYERS JR. (D-MI): Thank you very much, Mr. Gates. We appreciate your statement. And I only have a couple of observations. Putting them altogether, I'm interested in how much material has been destroyed by CIA that we may never know about? Why-the Lee Oswald file was opened at the CIA-it-months after his defection. Was Oswald in fact a Soviet spy? And was that ~ picture in his file that was thought to be him, was that an error? Or was there something involved in that that you can shed some light on? GATES: Well, at the risk of appearing appallingly - ignorant, Mr. Chairman, I don't know the answers to any of those questions. But I will take them for the record and respond quickly to the committee. REP. ‘CONYERS: Well, thank you so much. 7a) a We're here against the background of history and the fact that this is the murder of the century. A president of the United States, sitting president. And I thought it was exemplary of the CIA--I never thought I'd be saying this this morning, either--to find out that you had permitted your representatives to discuss the subject, matter with various think tanks around the city, one of which was included was the Institute for Policy Studies, whose cofounder is Marcus Raskin. And I was told that there was a very candid exchange about this subject matter which was the purpose of the meeting. Some dozen or more of your representatives were meeting with ‘them. And I think that that is a very healthy sign of the times. I never thought it would happen, so I never thought I'd say what I am saying today.. But one of the parts of that discussion was that Oliver Stone, the producer of the movie, has been parading around the country saying that you will not meet with him. And as a conciliatory member of this Congress, could I facilitate such an arrangement so that it would help relieve the confusions and the disturbances of a lot of people, since he 5
13-00000 has, as a result of this movie, become apparently an expert on this subject? GATES: Mr. Chairman, I would characterize him as a self-styled expert on this subject. I am no expert at all. I think I have moved very far in the direction of releasing these documents, as you indicated at the outset of the hearing. I ——-thinkthat—the-agency—has—in-many ways seta standard in térms — of its willingness to release these documents, and our determination to do so whether or not there is legislation. Frankly, I find that the allegations contained in: the--that I have been told about in the movie; I have not seen it--are offensive to the agency, and to the American government, and to a number of people who were in office at that time from _the President of the United States on down, President Johnson on down. - It-is not entirely clear to me what particular purpose would be served by a meeting between myself and Mr. Stone. REP. CONYERS: ~Can you ‘tell me about the sympathy and understanding that you may have for the American people's confusion and differences of view about whether Lee Harvey Oswald was alone the sole assassin of the president? GATES: Well, my view, and it's a very personal view, Mr. Chairman, is that--and I have never made a study of the assassination; I have not read the many books that have been — written about it--but my personal view is that the enormity of the event and the sense of tragedy that the American people - felt, and still feel, over that event, is so great that the idea of a single individual, a single irrational individual, committing an act of such enormous historical consequence is _-...-...--------sc enormously--difficult to--for them fo accept at face value. And in many respects, it is similar to the continuing controversy over the assassination of President Lincoln, as more than 100 years later we still read books about conspiracies and so on in that respect. And by the same token, and with all due respect to his memory, there doesn't seem to any similar kind of controversy about the assassination of President McKinley. And so I think it is the inability of a lot of people to accept such an irrational act with such enormous consequences that has contributed to this. And I think that the--one of the concerns that grows out of this film is not that people accept it at face value but rather than particularly young people who may not read much history and may not read the reviews and may not read what historians have to say that is critical about the movie, but come out of it with the sense that there is some fire in all that smoke; that he may not have it right, but there must have been some sort of conspiracy. And I've had, as I indicated to you the other day, I had a conversation about this with a distinguished United States Senator who had sent some of his smartest young staff out to see the fhoney , and they came back and the reaction was not that they accepted what the movie said, but their concern that their government had in some way been involved. And frankly it was that more than anything else that prompted me to decide that it was imperative to get these documents out and try to dispel the C
13-00000 suspicions that had been created. REP. CONYERS: Thank you very much. Mr. Schiff. REP. STEVEN SCHIFF (R-NM): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, Director Gates; I want to thank you for appearing personally here. I know that you have a heavy - . schedule,-and I'm sure: all-the- members~of- the committeé ‘dou _ appreciate that. - I have just a few questions, but I do have a couple of observations on your statement. The first is, I do not know personally whether Mr. Oliver Stone who testified before us at the last hearing is a real expert on the assassination of President Kennedy, or as you suggested a self-styled expert. I do know this, though. I do know that it's because of his movie that members of the Congress of the United States - are discussing this matter publicly with the director of the CIA. And I'm quite-positive that his movie has caused all of that. to happen today, pnd I personally give him the credit for that. Second of all, I note your observation that there is not a lingering conspiracy theory involving the assassination of President McKinley. To your knowledge, anywhere in the government, your. agency or elsewhere, are there any documents or information which for any. reason are not being released with respect to the assassination of President McKinley? GATES: Well, I can't speak to that from direct . knowledge, Mr. Schiff. But I will say that since it predated CIA's formation by 47 years, I imagine not. REP. SCHIFF: Well, you see, I think that's_the .. ---- ---- 7" central point here, is that there is--I'm not sure we'll ever resolve all the questions about the assassination of President Kennedy. You are correct that we have not resolved all the questions about the assassination of President Lincoln. On | national TV I saw a program recently suggesting that John Wilkes Booth did not actually die as suggested, and gave, reasons for that. ; But the difference between the assassination of President Kennedy and these prior terrible assassinations in our country's history is, this is the one situation where the government, for whatever reason, and-for whatever circumstances, still holds information which it considers to be confidential. And that's the root of this controversy now, and that's the root of this hearing, I think. - And I made a note of items that you as director of the CIA would consider to be still--to still warrant confidentiality today. ‘And I made notes of three. If there were more, I apologize that I missed them. I'm not talking about the procedures, which you made observations about, and which I think you'll find the committee willing to discuss with the executive branch. But three classifications of records. The first is personnel records involving, I gather, government agents, perhaps CIA agents, fitness reports and credit reports, first of all. Second of all, the privacy issue because government. fe
13-00000 files often accrue totally unsubstantiated information which can be fairly characterized as gossip, but which do get into the files when a total investigation is done; and third, where we've made a specific promise of confidentiality to a particular informant. Before I ask you about ‘those three, can I just ask, are there any other areas of documents that you as director | OF ete -- the CIA believe should not “be reléased in terms of a generic category like these? GATES: No, I would only include in the protection of sources also the protection of intelligence methods. But I think you've captured it. REP. SCHIFF: Let me just go back on each of these briefly. a On protection of personnel records, why would those have gotten--I understand what you're talking about. I think we all do matters where there is internal monitoring of your own - agents, which I understand is a necessity at times, why would . those records have gotten into the assassination records on President Kennedy? Why are they mixed in there, do you know? GATES: I don't really know, Mr. Schiff. I think, as I understand it, from the materials that were prepared for me, a great deal of documents were swept up in the material that is kept, and as my statement indicates, I don't think I read this part of it: These files contain everything from the most: mundane newspaper articles, which are obviously not classified, or shouldn't be, to the most sensitive intelligence sources. And so I think it's just a hodgepodge. As I also™ indicated, part of the problem that we have in going through ----------~- these documents - ~is that they are not indexed; they are not catalogued; and they really have no organization to them. So when I started asking some months ago what was in the documents, what did we have, it actually took quite some time even to perform a survey to get some kind of idea of. what kinds of records were in there. But I assume that these ‘kinds of- ‘things were just swept up with a lot of other material. KKKEK RKEKEK The Reuter Transcript Report Assassinations/hearing (first add) May 15, 1992 MORE LLLEnglish ay)
13-00000 rtt~rw TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS-2 a0g3l 13:52 05-15 BC-TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS—- 2NDADD THE REUTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT HOUSE GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS LEGISLATION AND NATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING Topic: H.J. Res. 454, Assassination Materials Disclosure Act of 1992 Witness: CIA Director Robert Gates May 15, 1992 (Second Add) RKKEK -—__—> x x x other material. . — REP. SCHIFF: Well, let me go on to one of the other categories, and that is, where the government has given a promise of confidentiality, the government ought to keep that. Can't the information be released without revealing the informant? Because I think it's the information that is desired here, not necessarily the-identity of who provided it. GATES: My own view, Mr. Schiff, is that that should be the case in almost every instance. REP. SCHIFF: Finally with respect to intelligence methods, I understand that there's a national security point... --..- there. But we are also talking about 30 years ago, approximately. Are our intelligence-gathering methods so unchanged in 30 years that you believe that revealing how agencies gather and collect and evaluation information would present a national security risk today if revealed? ; GATES: Well, first of all, if an intelligence method is no longer in use, then I think it no. longer--and there's little prospect of it ever being used again, I see no reason to protect it. ve I think here again, though, that the focus should be on the information provided by these sources and methods, rather than the identification of the sources and methods themselves. The only reason I would seek to protect them is in those instances in which those techniques are still being used, or we think there is a good chance they will be used again. With respect to sources, I think that we have a much longer standing commitment to protect them. But again, I'm prepared, either under the legislation, through the board that would be established, or in the absence of legislation, through an outside panel, to let people who are not in the intelligence © business review any of that material that we had held back to see that we had justifiable reasons for doing so. REP. SCHIFF: So your overall position, Director 9
13-00000 Gates, is that everything that can be released should be released? GATES: Absolutely, Mr. Schiff. REP. SCHIFF: Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. . Chairman. ee _ oe ee eee ce REP. CONYERS: Thank you, Mr. Schiff. 7 The chair recognizes Mr. Thornton. REP. RAY THORNTON (D-AR): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Director Gates, for a very forthcoming and positive testimony before this committee. _I think that it is important to emphasize that we share an-interest in - disclosing all of the information related to the substance of this without jeopardizing the capacity of your agency to conduct its business. And in fact, Section 6 of the proposed resolution says that disclosure to the general public of assassination material or particular information in assassination material may be postponed if its release would--and there's a whole list-~-but among that list is, if an intelligence source or method which is. currently utilized or reasonably expected to be utilized by the a United States government is involved. And Director Gates, I believe that you're telling us, and I want to ask you directly, that if the standards that are _ contained in this resolution were adopted, and the CIA's records as you have suggested they should be, were released, with those safeguards, do you believe that any sensitive sources or methods would be revealed or compromise by the information which is oe released? =-- -— GATES: I think that the provisions that provide for. the protection of sources and methods and that allow us ultimately the president to have the final say. would provide adequate safeguards. REP. THORNTON: The protections in the bill for intelligence-related information then are sufficient? GATES: Yes, sir. I've’indicated in my testimony we would ask the Congress to consider I think two additional categories of information. I mentioned executive privilege, or deliberative process. Attorney-client kinds of information. Again, we think that there would be very little information that would be withheld under those circumstances, but without mentioning it, that recourse would be denied. The second is, I think it would be useful to pick up. on the same protection that the Congress has granted in separate legislation in terms of not revealing the names of covert employees of U.S. intelligence agencies. REP. THORNTON: I appreciate ‘those suggestions. But in summary the release of the CIA records in accordance with the general outline contained. in this resolution would not damage any current CIA operations; is that correct? | 0
13-00000 GATES: .No, sir, not in keeping with those safeguards. REP. THORNTON: I know, Director Gates, that you've recently released, as you told us, some materials regarding Oswald. Can you make a commitment here to promptly release all of the files about the CIA's operations against Fidel-Castro in _—- the. late_.'50s. and—early. +.60s?--.—---—- a —_——— GATES: We certainly--the files concerning Operation Mongoose, AMLash (phonetic), and so on, are included in the documents that will be reviewed in the-- REP. THORNTON: That was my specific followup question as to whether those files would be included in the material. GATES: Yes, Sir. REP. THORNTON: I want to thank you again for your -testimony.—Like you I ‘have not seen the movie, and that is not the basis of my concern. The basis of my concern is to make sure that all of the information that is in government possession relating to this assassination be released. Because in addition to the movie, I believe there are some inferences drawn by the House committee on investigations, and by the Garrison jury, that while no showing of a government conspiracy; that there were allusions to the possibility of an external ‘conspiracy, and whatever may have existed needs to be dispelled by having the light of full disclosure shown upon the events of that time. Would you agree with that, sir? GATES: I agree.with that totally, Mr. Thornton.” REP. THORNTON: Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.. REP..CONYERS: Thank you very much,. Mr. Thornton. the chair recognizes Ms. Mink. REP. PATSY T. MINK (D-HI): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I too want to commend the forthright position that you've taken as the head of the CIA in initiating steps to release. important documents that will contribute to the better understanding of the public at large as to what exactly happened. I also agree with my colleagues that while the conclusions and inferences that were part of Oliver Stone's movie are under question, and perhaps totally negated by your agency, they are nevertheless, the basis for the renewed attention and concern. as to exactly what happened on that day. - And therefore, it seems to me appropriate that the chair of this committee asked you to direct your attention to the content of that movie, because what we need now is an informed basis upon which to look at it. I happen to have seen it, unlike some of my colleagues. And there are a number of very troublesome questions that the movie raises, and I am in no position to T/
13-00000 evaluate it, as most of the people in the country. And therefore, the disclosure of these documents are extremely important. Looking at your testimony, Mr. Gates, I notice. that you indicate that some of the documents: which are relevant to this inquiry cannot be released by the CIA because they are in fact documents which belong to other agencies. ee wWoud-d—you--comment- on-that—and-ciarify— that particular statement in your testimony? GATES: Yes, ma'am. In the course of the post assassination investigations, a great deal of information was shared among the agencies. For example, in the 17 boxes of Oswald records that we have, approximately 40 percent of those documents originated with the FBI, and were simply made available for information to CIA. About 20 percent originated with the State Department or other agencies, immigration and naturalization and so on. Under the third~agency rule, it is our_obligation to leave it to those agencies to declassify their own documents. We cannot do that, and by the same token, they exercise the same practice with us. REP. MINK: Now, would the legislation that we are considering now make it possible for your agency, as the custedian of records that you have been given by other agencies, be included in your own disclosure? Can we make that possible? GATES: I don't think the legislation would do that, Mrs. Mink. I-.think that it would simply require those other agencies to undertake the same steps that we are in terms of reviewing for declassification the documents that they . originated.--..--- we don't hold. the record copies of those documents. We simply have copies of them. AP. MiNk- Now, in the materials that you ‘have volunteered for disclosure, with reference to Oswald, how much of the materials in your possession, therefore, had to be excluded because they were documents that your agency had been provided by other ‘governmental agencies? GATES: Let me answer, and then check with my colleagues to make sure I got it right, in this very thin file, of the 34 documents, I think only 11 were originated by CIA. My impression is that the others had all--belong to other agencies had all already been declassified. That's correct. REP. MINK: So that we have the total file with reference to Oswald now in the public domain? GATES: The total file that CIA had in its possession. REP. MINK: But you just said that all the other agencies have also already declassified, meaning that they are part of the public domain, and cannot be obtained, if not necessarily voluntarily released by those agencies, are now available public documents? ee
13-00000  seantenasntitiattes URAL. sits evtesvmett bd eal GATES: I don’ t know whether that! s the case or not. only the documents that we had from them have been released as part of the file we released. They may have other documents pre-November 22nd, 1963 that we didn't have. REP. MINK: In other words, in reference to Oswald everything that you had in your possession, regardless of whether it belonged to other agencies; bécauSe you found them to be declassified, have all been released? GATES: That's my understanding, yes, ma'am. REP. MINK: Now, there is a:Washington Post article of May 14th which suggests that the materials that have been disclosed with reference to Lee Harvey Oswald contain nothing new. Is that your understanding also of the documents that you released to the archives? GATES: As I indicated earlier,.I. am certainly no student of this material. I do not know the answer to that question. KKKKK RKKKK The Reuter Transcript Report Assassinations/hearing (second add) May 15, 1992 MORE LLLEnglish
13-00000 rtt-rw’ TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS- 3 a0835 13:54 05-15 BC-TEXT-ASSASSINATIONS- 3RDADD THE REUTER TRANSCRIPT REPORT ~~ HOUSE GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS LEGISLATION AND NATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING Topic: H.J. Res. 454, Assassination Materials Disclosure Act of 1992 Witness: CIA Director Robert Gates May 15, 1992 (Third Add) KRKKK x x xX that question. REP. MINK: Does anyone in the room here from your agency have an answer to that question? GATES: Some of the documents had not previously been released, so would have represented new information. -REP. MINK: Might we know today what exactly were new items that had not been released previously? GATES: This is David Grease (phonetic). He is the director of our center for the study of intelligence. DAVID GREASE (director, center for the study of intelligence): Mrs. Mink, some of these documents had been previously released. About half of those that are--originated at the CIA. Among the documents of other agencies that were in our files, it's my understanding, but this would have to be verified, that almost all of them, if not all of them, had- been previously released. REP. MINK: So what consisted of new information that 5 Q the public had not already had in its published files somewhere? . iY ad GREASE: Yes, I understand. We would have to respond to you separately from that. I cannot from memory tell you A. precisely which documents were new. I do know that the new ones are not of much consequence. They do not contain any information that is particularly enlightening. But we can tell you after the hearing what those are. REP. MINK: Can you explain a second, if the CIA had been alerted by the State Department by a cable dated October 31st, 1959, with respect to Oswald's defection, why the CIA did not open a file until 14 months alter? GATES: I don't think we have the faintest idea, Mrs. |4
13-00000 * “Mink. REP. MINK: There was no policy in effect in 1959 with reference to persons who publicly announced defection to the Soviet Union? GATES: I just don't know. — REP. MINK: Has there been any inquiry made within the agency to determine that 14-month lapse? GATES: I don't believe so. GREASE: We did attempt to contact people who might have been involved at the time, and that largely failed, and in addition, we gained no information. We don't know. REP. MINK: Now, I don't know the basis of this conclusion in the news article, but it indicates that the materials that were turned over to the National Archives, did not indicate that they were originals, unexpurgated originals, as the article says, that the materials turned over had been altered, revised, in some way by the CIA before they were released to the archives. Is that a true statement? GREASE: It is not correct to say that they were altered or revised. Our effort was to furnish the file that we had. That file contained copies of original documents. Therefore we thought it appropriate to furnish precisely what we had. What might be characterized as alterations by some by us are redactions of the kind of material that Director Gates has described to you, meaning some numbers, some names, but I can assure you, nothing of any consequence. These are Privacy. Act considerations and things of that nature. REP. MINK: Mr. Gates, one final. question: In your testimony you indicated that you did not support vesting in an outside body the determination of whether CIA materials related to the assassination can be released to the public, and to agree to that would be inconsistent with your statutory responsibility. — I take it, then, that you oppose the provisions in this bill which call for such vesting in an outside body? GREASE: Frankly, my own view is that the provisions that provide that the president can have the final say, normally I would not shift to the president my burden for protecting sources and methods. But it seems to me that, given the unique circumstances of this case, it seems to me that that is one part of the bill that we could find a way to work around. REP. MINK: Then is it not somewhat inconsistent in your testimony in saying that if this bill didn't pass and didn't become law, you would appoint a panel of distinguished Americans from outside the government to do the exact same function for your agency? [5
13-00000 co GATES: No, matam, what I would appoint that panel to do is examine all the redactions that we had made, and to , examine all of the documents that we decided could not be declassified, and then provide a report to the American people on whether or not any of those redactions or those withheld documents had a bearing on the assassination. They would not make the decision to declassify. REP. MINK: Now, would the establishment of such a 5 Q). panel of outside experts in effect also under your definition violate the Privacy Act? GATES: I don't know the answer to that. I would have { A. to have--I would have to have our attorneys look at it. REP. MINK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. REP. CONYERS: Thank you very much, Mrs. Mink. You've touched on some very important areas. - There are just two related considerations that I'd | like to bring to your attention, Director Gates. One is in the Freedom of Information Act, where electronic data is a discretionary matter with the agency, and we would like you to review the problem with the release of CIA electronic data of previously released requests. It's a technical point, but I bring it to your attention for your future consideration. And finally, with regard to the Castro records, and LEG- AMLash and Gilverto Lopez (phonetic), it is my hope that you will elevate those as high.up on your agenda for reconsideration Nor for release as soon as appropriate. There are a number of members in the Congress that have asked me to bring this matter to your attention as well. --. . Y GATES: I think we can do that, Mr. Chairman. [ REP.- CONYERS: Thank you very much. And on behalf of the committee, we deeply appreciate your appearance before us today. GATES: Thank you, sir. END GATES TESTIMONY te KKKKK KRKEEK The Reuter Transcript Report Assassinations/hearing (third and final add) May 15, 1992 REUTER LLLEnglish
13-00000 ot susys PRL L400 FAA £U4 (4% Utus ARS es wy vy oe Assassination Records Review Board 600 E Street NW « 2nd Floor « Washington, DC 20530 (202) 724-0088 » Fax: (202) 724-0457 January 30, 1998 CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO DECLASSIFICATICN AND/OR RELEASE OF Cla INFORMATION iN THIS DOCUMENT The Honorable Dan Burton Chairman - Committee on Government Reform and Oversight 2185 Rayburn House Office Building House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman: This letter is the Assassination Records Review Board’s sixth monthly progress report, as required by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight report on H.R. 1553 (now P.L. 105-25), that extended the authorization of the Review Board until September 30, 1998. At the January 22 closed meeting, the Board processed for public release approximately 3,600 FBI records, 1,000 CIA records, and 350 records from other agencies. The nearly '§,000 records processed by the Board is its highest total for a single meeting.. In addition, the Review Board recently released approximately 600 pages of military records regarding U.S. policy. toward Cuba from 1962-63.- Additional military records related to U.S. policy toward Cuba in the early 1960's will be ready for public release in the coming months. The 710 records that the CIA made available for Review Board action at the January meeting is the highest monthly number of records released to date. In addition, a total of 289 HSCA documents with CIA equities were opened in full pursuant to discussions with the CIA. Although the Review Board believes that the pace must continue to increase, the momentum is unquestionably in the right direction. The CLA also has advised us that it has added additional reviewers and indexers, which we believe should help it process more records during the upcoming months. We now are conducting weekly meetings with CIA for the purpose of evaluating the pace of the | review process. The CIA also has increased its progress in responding to our requests for additional information and records. The requests that we had identified as priorities have now been answered either in whole or in part and the CIA has shown an increased Boano Memaens: John A. Tunheim, Chair ¢ Henry F. Graff + Kermit lL. Hall « William L. Joyce « Anna K. Neison Executive Girecrona: 7. Jeremy Gunn + Deeuty Oinector: Thomas EF. Samoluk
13-00000 \, Ulgf SUS YO PRA Le 3% FAA £U4 tan varus chan ARES Me EE et vt wa The Honorable Dan Burton: January 30, 1998 Page 2 willingness to sespond t to follow-up requests more quickly. While there are a significant number of requests outstanding, the increased responsiveness of the CIA bodes well forthe completion of these requests ina i timely manner. "Since ou our December report, the Board’s FBI team has reviewed an additional 20,000 pages of records from the FBI’s HSCA files. Included in these files are the names of individuals who have a prominent role in the history surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy. Although this page count is higher than last month, we have advised the FBI that the volume must return to earlier levels to ensure that the review is completed i ina timely manner. AsI reported i in my January 16, 1998 letter to you, all of the agencies and offices to _ which you addressed letters in December have now contacted us and pledged to complete their work in a timely-manner. In particular, recent meetings and communications with the Internal Revenue Service have been fruitful and provide reason to believe that the IRS will fulfill its obligations under the law. I would also like to take this opportunity to provide you with an update on the Board’s federal compliance program. The State Department has submitted a draft final compliance statement and we expect that its obligations under the JFK Act will be completed and appropriately documented by early March. The Joints Chiefs of Staff has submitted its final compliance statement, and the Board has agreed that its _ compliance statement is complete. The Social Security Administration also has submitted its final compliance statement and has now received notification that its obligations under the law are fulfilled. We continue to work with the other federal agencies that have obligations under the JFK Act and the compliance program is proving to be an effective mechanism to document their progress. Again, thank you for your continuing interest in the work of the Review Board and the support that you have provided in working with various federal agencies. Please do not hesitate to have a member of your staff contact me if you have any comments or questions. I can be reached at 724-0088, ext 226.
13-00000 4 5 ARRB {Zj 002 Nol Gal 3O LU 24:93 PAA Z2UZ (24 04357 T. Jeremy Gunn Executive Director and General Counsel Assassination Records Review Board Prepared Statement for Senate Govemmental Affairs Committee . Hearing on S. 712 March 25, 1998 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee -— | appreciate the opportunity to testify on S. 712 from the perspective of a person who has labored in the declassification trenches for the past three and one-half years. Although | serve as the Executive Director of the Assassination Records Review Board, | wish to emphasize that | am testifying here today not as a spokesman for the Review Board, but as an individual who has been involved in day-to-day interactions with numerous Federal agencies on issues related to declassification. The Review Board members, who were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, are Judge John R. Tunheim, Professor Henry F. Graff, Dean Kermit L. Hall, Dr. William L. Joyce, and Professor Anna Kasten Nelson. The Board members have provided the American people unparalleled access to information that has been held secret for more than a third of a century. The Review Board’s officlal positions on matters related to declassification will be set forth in its Final Report to Congress and the President later this year. | applaud the efforts of Senator Moynihan, Senator Helms, and this Committee to... coe reduce government sectecy. Orie of the tragic consequences of government secrecy has been the widely held bellef that the govemment has known much more about the assassination than it has been willing to reveal to the public. Many of the assassination © records that we have seen could have been opened to the public years ago without any harm to the national security. The efforts of this Committee could go a long way to help alleviate the suspicion of government -- some of it being justifiable suspicion — that has festered since the assassination of President Kennedy. - Because my experience comes principally from the field of declassification, | will focus my remarks on that area rather than discuss the very important issue of initial classification. i. Background Although the word “unique” is over-used, it can fairly be applied to the work and accomplishments of the Review Board. The Board was created by Congress in an effort to release the govemment's still-secret files related to the assassination of President Kennedy. in accordance with the declassification standards articulated in’ Section 6 of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, 44 U.S.C. § 2107, Pub.L. 102-526 (as amended) (“JFK Act’), the Review Board
13-00 a 000 wuts aa Oe 003 Aw hs BBO BER ede CG UE ou @ -2- has opened up previously classified records from numerous agencies and departments, including the CIA, NSA, FBI, the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, and Justice, as well as the Military Services, Secret Service, Senate and House Committees, and the National Security Council. Under the JFK Act, agencies are required either to open assassination records in. full, or to present to the Review Board proposed redactions and evidence in support of their proposed redactions. After receiving the agencies’ evidence, the Review Board deliberates and makes “formal determinations” as to whether the records should be opened. The Board's determinations have been overwhelmingly in favor of opening records. If an agency disagrees with the formal determination of the Review Board, its sole recourse is to appeal the Board's decisions to the President. Thus far, only one agency, the FBI, has appealed Board decisions. (The appeals ultimately Involved approximately 90 records and four different issues.) After extensive briefings had been submitted to the President -- with each side arguing why the records should or should - not be released -— the FBI ultimately withdrew its appeals and negotiated with the Review Board for resolution of the issues. Without exception, every formal determination ultimately made by the Review Board has prevailed and records have been released in accordance with Board decisions. It has now been almost two years since an agency has appealed a decision to the President. Thus, the Board’s work has been a success. Although | do not consider the JFK Act to be the precise model for future govemment-wide declassification efforts, it nevertheless has provided valuable _ lessons that may-be of use to you as you consider S: 712." ll. The “Four Noble Truths” of Declassification — in my opinion, any legisiation that would attempt to have a significant impact on the culture of secrecy must do more than articulate worthy goals and establish bureaucratic entities to reiterate those goals. Effective legislation must address the significant institutional Impediments to declassification. Any conscientious effort to change the secrecy system should take into account what | will call the “Four Noble _ Truths” of declassification? first, an independent entity, not the classifying agency, should be the final decision maker on declassification; | second, the independent declassifi cation entity should be informed, committed, and skeptical; third, in order for declassification to be successful, there must be intemal institutional incentives to declassify information; and fourth, the key to successful declassification is nof the articulation of the
13-00000 “Bo10 awe ate ee OM £UG (2% UAT ARRB a nd List of Exhibits Statement of T. Jeremy Gunn Exhibit A. Cable to the Mexico City Station from CIA Headquarters, November 27, 1963. This document was released in full after a Board vote in 1995. The second line of typed text includes the crypts (or cryptonyms) “RYBAT” and “GPFLOOR.” These crypts appear in the “slug line” and they are routing and sensitivity Indicators. “GPFLOOR" Is the crypt that refers to Lee Harvey Oswald. This same crypt appears In the first line of the second paragraph of text. CIA originally advised that GPFLOOR could not be released in the slug line although it could be released in the text of the cable. Exhibit B. Letter to the Legal Attaché In Paris from the Director of the FBI, October 12, 1960. Subject: Lee Harvey Oswald - Intemal Security. This document was one of several records exempted by the FBI because it contained foreign government Information. The stamps on the page suggest that the document was reviewed in 1977 and stamped exempt from declassification. This document was re-reviewed in 1992 and severely redacted. The Review Board, with the assistance of the Department of State, approached the Swiss Govemment and requested that it consent to the release of the information. In December-1995,the document was released in full after a Board vote and with the concurrence of the Swiss Government. Exhibit C. Memorandum to the Secretary of Defense from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yanuary 31, 1964. Subject: A Contingency Plan for a Coup in Cuba. The Review Board located several Top Secret documents related to military ~ contingency planning for a coup in Cuba. This exhibit contains one page from a 58- page document formerly classified Top Secret--Sensitive. The document was excluded from automatic declassification and was unavailable to the public in any form. It was systematically reviewed in October 1989 and the classification was continued. This document and many similar documents were opened in full at a declassification session in July 1997 after review by representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Exhibit D. (a) Vietnam danuaryAuguet t 1963, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 3. pp. 265-270. (b) Memorandum for the Record of the Eighth Secretary of Defense Conference on ' Vietnam, May 6, 1963, Honolulu, Hawaii .
ig Serene PT pea anete FAA £UL 124 0457 ARRB oir wwe aw Be In May 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara met wath military advisers in the eighth of a series of conferences on Vietnam in Honolulu, Hawaii. Part (a) of this exhibit Includes all of the material that had been publicly released on the conference prior to Review Board action (a 6-page surnmasy published in Foreign Relations of the United States) and part (b) includes the title pages of the fai 213-page Record fof the] Eighth Secretary of Defense Conference from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Official File that has now been opened in full. Prior to Review Board action, fhe memorandum had been excluded from automatic regrading and deciassification ane could presumably have remained classified forever. A stamp on page 1 discloses ffhat fhe document was systematically reviewed by JCS In May 1989, and the classiication of Top Secret was continued. The document was opened in full at an ARRB deciassification session in July 1997. Exhibit E. Monthly Operational Report 1-30 September frorn the Chief of Station, Mexico City to Chief KURIOT, October 18, 1963. The CIA typically is reluctant to release information regarding technical surveillance. - This document Is a CIA monthly operational report for Idexico Cally for September 1963, | a period that includes Lee Harvey Oswald's antval in the Mexican capital. The attached form discloses that this document was reviewed in 1993 and postponed in its entirety. | it was opened in full in 1995 after. a Board vote. - nates ane Exhibit F. NSA SIGINT product report, November 26, 1963. The Review Board has had some success in releasing NSA records. This document. . discloses NSA’s intercepts of communications related to Cusban military alerts after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. ® was oniginallly ursavailable to the public in any form and was exempt from automatic declassificatior.. This document was released with sanitizations s By Board vote. Exhibit G. Memorandum to McGeorge Bundy from Gordon Chase, Jume 15, 1964. Subject: Assassination of Castro. This document from the files of the National Security Council was originally classified “Secret” and was exempted from declassification in 1976. The NSC agreed to release it in full after discussions with the Review Board in 1998.
13- 00000 — wwe ae co. ~ ae igioo4 2k mde 6 oR RO -3- categories of Information exempt from release (although the clear articulation of such categories is important), but the allocation of the burden of proof to the party that seeks to exempt information from release. Because these four points are Inextricably interconnected, | will discuss them in reference to our work and to a series of documents that are attached as exhibits to this testimony. During the past four years, | have spent hundreds of hours talking with officials . from more than a dozen agencies and reviewing memoranda that argue against the release of certain types of classified information. it has been my general impression that the officials making such arguments are intelligent, conscientious, competent, and hardworking. (I also have had the general impression that they have sought to be cooperative with the Review Board and that they have made good-faith efforts to - comply with the JFK Act.) One nevertheless cannot help but observe a deep-seated, institutional reluctance to release information — particularly on the part of those institutions that were created for the purposes of collecting secret information and preserving secrets. In order to facilitate declassification, S. 712 requires agencies to articulate their reasons for initial classifications and for exemptions from declassification. For example, Section 4(c)(2)(A) would require the agency to “provide in writing a detailed justification = for [an initial classification] decision“. Similarly,-with regard-to the 30-year review, = agencies would “certi[fy] to the President at the end of such 30-year period that continued protection of the information from unauthorized disclosure is essential to the national security of the United States ... .” (Sect. 4(d)(2)). The talented officials who are hired by the agencies will be able to provide such explanations and such justifications. The issue from my perspective is not whether agencles are able to . articulate such justifications, but to what extent their justifications can withstand scrutiny. Let me provide some examples where initial justifications for withholding information did not withstand scrutiny. ilustration 1. See Exhibit A. The first illustration is a CIA cable dated November 27, 1963, that has now been released in full. As you can see,.the second line of typed text Includes the crypts (or cryptonyms) “RYBAT” and “GPFLOOR.” These crypts appear in what is called the “slug line” and they are routing and sensitivity indicators. “GPFLOOR' Is the crypt that refers to Lee Harvey Oswald. This same crypt appears in the first line of the second paragraph of text. The CIA originally advised that GPFLOOR could not be released in the slug line although it could be released in the text of the cable. | had several discussions with agency officlals as they tried to explain why GPFLOOR could be released in one place but not in the other. | could not understand thelr explanations. At that time | was new to the work and I did not know whether | was simply not bright enough or experienced enough to understand the explanation being - offered. | again raised the question in a later meeting with several agency officials that
13-00000 goos eran ns ee oe -4- covered other topics. Finally, an official said: “I don’t see why It can't be released. This is an issue for COMMO [COMMO i is the Communications Office.) Someone ask COMMO whether it cares." COMMO was subsequently asked — and it had no objection’ to the release. | now infer that protecting crypts in slug lines was an Ingrained agency habit rather than a considered judgment. The disclosure came only after incessant questioning by a skeptical interlocutor. - Iifustration 2. During the course of our review of records from the Secret Service, the Board identified for the Secret Service a record it intended to open in full and the agency objected. The Board then advised that a copy of the record had actually been published in full in 1964 as an exhibit to the Warren Commission Report. The agency continued to object, arguing that even a subsequent release of an open document would again disclose matters that should be kept secret. The Board subsequently voted to open the record. ifustration 3. In several FBI documents that were ‘subject to appeal to the President, the FBI argued that certain types of its electronic surveillance had not previously been disclosed. In our opposing memoranda, we showed that Director J. Edgar Hoover, in open testimony to Congress, had effectively disclosed the existence of the electronic surveillance. Those records are now open. . illustration 4. See Exhibit B. The Review Board was presented with a heavily . weperctero redacted but provocative. document-pertalning to an FBI “intemal Security’ inquiry into Lee Harvey Oswald in October 1960. The FBI declined to release the Information, arguing that it contained the equities of a forelgn govemment and that the government had refused to release the information. The Review Board, with the assistance of the Department of State, thereupon approached the Swiss Govemment and requested that it consent to the release of information about the assistance that the Swiss Federal Police provided to the FBI to track down Oswald. The Swiss government agreed and the record is now open in full. Illustration 5. See Exhibit C. The Review Board located several Top Secret documents related to military contingency planning for a coup in Cuba. Exhibit C contains one page from a 58-page document from this group that had been “excluded from automatic downgrading and declassification.” The Review Board staff arranged for a group of declassiflers from several military and other national-security entities to meet at the Review Board offices In a joint-declassification session. The 58 pages of this document, and many other records from this group, have gone from being completely closed to completely open. illustration 6. See Exhibit D. In May 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara met with military advisers in the eighth of a series of conferences on Vietnam. Exhibit D includes all of the material that had been publicly released on the conference prior to Review Board action (a 6-page summary published in Foreign
13-00000 Goose =e we 6K URE -5- Relations of the United States, 1961-63 Vol. 3) and the title page of a 213-page Record [of the] Eighth Secretary of Defense Conference from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Official File that has now been opened in full. Prior to Review Board action, the memorandum had been excluded from automatic downgrading and declassification and could presumably have remained classified forever. A stamp on page 1 discloses that the document was systemdtically reviewed by JCS in May 1989 and the classification of Top Secret was continued. The document was opened in full at a declassiflcation session in July 1997. Ilustration 7. See Exhibit E. Like the FBI, the CIA typically is reluctant to release information regarding technical surveillance. Exhibit E is a monthly operational report from Mexico City from September 1-30, 1963, a period that Includes Oswald’s arrival in the Mexican capital. In 1993, the document was postponed in its entirety. The Review Board voted to open the record in its entirety. illustration 8. See Exhibit F. The Review Board has also had some success in releasing NSA records. Exhibit F is dated November 26, 1963, and discloses NSA’s intercepts of communications related to Cuban military alerts after the assassination. It was originally unavailable to the public in any form and was exempt from declassification. After Board action, the important Information has been released. litustration 9. See Exhibit G. Exhibit G is a National Security Council document....--------- that pertains to an alleged plot to assassinate Castro. Although it was originally classified “Secret” and was deemed to be exempt from declassification, the NSC agreed to release it in full after discussions with the Board. , { trust that these examples show that agencies are initially inclined to protect - information that can and should be released. But the examples also show that, with a little prodding by an independent entity, agencies can and will participate in a cooperative spirit to declassify secrets. Under the current regime, outside of the JFK Act, agencies have little intemal or extemal Incentive to take an energetic approach to ~ deciassifying records. Agencies do not send the message to agency personnel that a fast track to career advancement lies with the release of more information than is absolutely necessary. Agencies have the natural disinclination to release information that has been painstakingly acquired. Ultimately, secrecy becomes a habit and deciassification is mired in lack of attention and inertia. There is, however, an important and encouraging message that comes out of the Board's experience: once agencies come to the understanding that they must declassify records and that there is a presumption that records should be opened, the agencies will cooperate in good faith with the requirements established by Congress.
; id vore4s9G kU 24:58 FAX 202 724 0457 ARRB 007 ill, The Mechanics of Declassification Declassification involves more than appropriate standards for the release of information. It also calls for the establishment of effective mechanisms to move records __ through the bureaucracy. Once again, the experience of the Review Board provides valuable lessons that should be of use to this Committee in considering legislation. | would like to draw attention to four important points involving the mechanics of deciassification. First, the “referral process” is one of the most significant,- government-wide bottlenecks to the declassification of records. Before an agency can release information in its records that was obtained from another agency, it must refer the record to the agency from which E derived that information. Although this procedure is a sensible arrangement that promotes the valuable goal of sharing information among agencies, it becomes a costly and time-consuming obstacle to declassification. Very frequently, records become trapped in the morass of the referral process. The Review Board developed essentially threes procedures to help expedite the referral process: (a) establishing joint-deciassification sessions where several agencies convened at the Review Board offices (or sometimes at another site) and declassified records; (b) hand-carrying records from one agency to another and having them declassified on-site; and (c) giving agencies notice that unless. records-were reviewed by a certain date, the Board wouid simply vote to open the records without receiving the benefit of their input. In my opinion, any legislation designed to improve the decilassification process must take info account thls referral bottleneck by giving to the independent, supervising agency, the authority to set enforceable timetables. The ability to bring agencies together, such as in the joint-declassification sessions, has important beneficial effects that extend beyond expediting the referral process. In our experience, agencies tended to lose some of their institutional inhibitions as they sat at a table with each other and discussed records openly. ‘Surprisingly, agencies typically assumed that another agency would not release information when the other agency was in fact willing to do so. Frequently, it is the suspicion that one agency does not want to release information that Inhibits other agencies from releasing Information. Like the COMMO example from Illustration 1 above, the perception of unwillingness to open records is sometimes greater than the need to keep records closed. Second, the Review Board profitted from the power, authorized by Congress, to “direct a Government office to make available to the Review Board . . . additional information, records, or testimony from individuals, which the Review Board has reason to belleve is required to fulfill its functions and responsibilities ... .” JFK Act, § 7()(1)(C) (i). This power enabled the Review Board to obtain information about the basis for classifications, the existence of records relevant to completing its mandate,
13-00000 dome wees . ANKE {008 a ek -7- and the circumstances surrounding the creation of records. It is important that an agency with supervisory responsibility over declassification have the authority to obtain the information It needs to accomplish its work. Third, as with the referral process, a frequent bottleneck in the declassification. process is the final transfer of records from the decilassifying agency to the National Archives. An independent entity responsible for supervising this process should have the authority and responsibility of guaranteeing that once the declassification process is complete, the final step of making records available to the public is taken. ’ Fourth, although the start-up process is very time-consuming, it is a necessary prelude to more efficient and productive work. The start-up time for the Review Board, as | understand is also the case for Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), required education not only of the Board and staff, but also of the agencies. it is important that any future planning of an endeavor of this nature take Into account the initial costs and, importantly, take advantages of the lessons leamed by the Review Board. The initial cost can be recuperated in the long run. When an independent agency, such as the Review Board, has the authority to set the agenda (by establishing timetables), sponsor joint declassification sessions, require the production of evidence, and ensure the prompt transfer of declassified records from the agencies to the National Archives, deciassification can be a success. | strongly urge this Committee to take advantage of thé momentum created by the JFK Act and by ISCAP, and create an authority that will be able to bring Independence, consistency, and energy to the process of making the government more open and accountable to the people who have paid for it. . WV, Recommendations for Making S. 712 More Effective With regard to S. 712, | wish to summarize the following recommendations that - have been offered either explicitly or implicitly in the testimony above: — First, the entity responsible for overseeing the declassification process (which, in the current version of the S. 712, is the National Declassification Center), must be genuinely independent of the agencies whose records it oversees. The Center should be staffed by persons who are both sensitive to the genuine secrets of the agencies, but who also are skeptical and demanding of proof. Second, the independent entity should have the power to set reasonable timetables by which an agency must complete the declassification review (or referral review). The independent entity should be empowered to release information on its own authority if agencies do not comply with reasonable timetables. The independent agency should additionally be empowered to obtain information from the agencies that
13-00000 @oog aan aowas som te Hae is essential for completing its work. Third, the legislation should incorporate a statutory provision that, at a certain point in time, records will presumptively be opened unless the agencies are able to articulate specific and persuasive reasons for continued redactions. Although it would be sensible to provide agencies with the benefit of the doubt regarding declassification for an initial period (e.g., between 10 and 25 years), once this period has passed the presumption should shift decisively in favor of releasing the information. Fourth, agencies should be required to do more than provide mere: “detalled justifications” (see, e.g., S. 712 § 4(c)(2)(A)) for classifying and refusing to declassify records. The written explanations must be more than “justifications,” they must be able to convince a skeptical reader who has sufficient information to evaluate the merits of the writing. Fifth, it would be highly advisable to provide the declassification entity (the National Declassification Center), with the authority to make binding requests to _ agencies to search out records that may have been misplaced or misfiled. Finally, there is one additional recommendation that ! would make that presumably goes beyond the scope of today’s hearing and so [ will raise It only in passing. | believe it would be advisable for future Executive Orders to break down the “sources and methods” exemption, inasmuch as itis used too casually and It covers a multitude of very distinct issues. To the extent that the Committee Is interested, | would be willing to submit additional comments at a later point to develop this issue. a # a & . | would like once again to thank the Committee for taking seriously the right of the American people to better understand how their govemment functions. | would be pleased to answer your questions. .
13-00000 STATEMENT OF STEVEN GARFINKEL DIRECTOR, INFORMATION SECURITY OVERSIGHT OFFICE* NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE TION TO CIA HAS NO OBJEC March 25, 1998 oA eee IEICATION ANDIOR ™ ECONO FORMATION ELEASE OF CIA N THIS OOOUMENT Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: : | am very pleased to. appear before you today to report on our progress in implementing the recently established system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information. On April 17, 1995, the President issued Executive Order 12958, entitled “Classified National Security Information." This Order took effect on October 14, 1995, only two and one-half years ago. While still in its early stages of | implementation, the Order clearly attempts to strike an appropriate balance. “The Information Security Oversight Office, or SOO, is responsible for overseeing Government-wide implementation of the security programs under Executive Order 12958, “Classified National Security Information," and Executive Order 12829, "National Industrial Security Program.” [SOO is also responsible for reporting annually to the President on the status of those programs. Created in 1978, ISOO became a component of the National Archives and Records Administration in November 1995. In addition to reporting to the Archivist of the United States, the Director of ISOO receives policy guidance from the National Security Council. Among its functions, ISOO: (1) develops implementing directives and instructions; (2) maintains liaison with all agencies that create or handle classified information; (3) inspects agency programs and reviews their classified records; (4) receives and responds to public complaints, appeals and suggestions; {S) collects and reporis to the President and Congress relevant statistical data about the security classification program, including data about its costs; (6) serves as a spokesperson for information about the security classification program; (7) provides program and administrative support for the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel and the Information Security Policy Advisory Council; and (8) recommends policy changes to the President through the National Security Council.
13-00000 On the one hand, it seeks to reduce the permitted level of secrecy within our Government, and to make available to the American people hundreds of millions of pages of historically valuable documents that no longer require protection in the interest of national security. On the other hand, the Order enables us to safeguard the _ information that we must in order to protect our nation and our citizens. . Already, this new system has achieved some rather remarkable results: e inthe last two years, the agencies of the executive branch have declassified more £ than 400 million pages of permanently valuable government records. ¢ Of the more than 650 million pages that the executive branch has declassified since 1980, more than 70% of that total took place in the past three years. e Agencies that never previously contemplated large-scale declassification, like the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office, now have in place productive declassification units. * The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, a new six member panel representing the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Attorney General, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Archivist of the United States and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, has declassified in their entirety more =: -