frowtotaosoai]: RETURN TO CIA en Background Use Only . SD. &, eta. . - ¢ . Bo Not Reproduce . Cop if bs Mads waldibar Y 9 November 1976 . f Oo INFORMAL MEMORANDUM FOR: S. D. Breckinridge 77-0007 7 John L. Leader SUBJECT: Procedures for Handling Downing Committee Requests 3B 2 Mr. Leader and I met with[ and Ray Reardon, 0S, today to discuss xperience on the Review Staff in preparation for making recommendations concerning how Downing Committee requests should be handled. eee Rade the following suggestions: 25] -- All requests from the Downing Committee should be in writing. ~- We should check on the tasking sheets formerly used by the Review Staff. These sheets showed who had the action, who received info copies of the requests, and what the proposed deadline for re- sponse was. They also were forwarded with a copy of the request as it was received from the Congressional Committee. Each such request was assigned a registry number. IMPORTANT: Be sure the registry number assigned to an incoming request is also used for each re- sponse keyed to that request; i.e., as a reference number on each response. -- Sanitization guidelines should be consistent for all Agency components and should be developed as soon as possible. : nce Stembridge, 0S, has had one discussion already with QHAnne ("6 Sorss concerning security procedures. N. -- File Reviews: All files reviewed by the Downing Committee should be kept in one room and should be reviewed in that room. The Directorate forwarding such files should be required to send someone to sit with the Downing Committee staffers when the files are reviewed 1/8902 3 |r
14-00000 by them. The "file sitters" will be those people most able to answer the questions concerning the material involved, and to review and sanitize notes which the Downing Committee staffers may take. When notes are sanitized, we should supply paraphrases of the excised ma- terial. All files and documents to be reviewed should be logged into the review room. Downing Committee staffers should be required to initial for each file or document they read. -- Mr. Sprague and a few of his senior staffers should receive | an early introduction into our indexing and file systems, both those of security and those of the DDO. This should enable them to better understand what the system can and cannot produce for them, and the time and effort needed to respond to their queries. -- Interviews with Current Employees: Such interviews con- ducted by the Downing Committee staffers should take place in one location in the Headquarters Building, rather than having the staffers fan out to different offices. While we cosy e the delicacy of this subject, it would be most helpful if,Staffers were required to write MOR's concerning the subject matter covered in subject interviews. It would also be helpful if arrangements could be made before hand with the Downing Committee to delimit the sub- ject matter to be covered in any particular interview. ~~ Indexing and Control: The Review Staff registry controls documents received from Congressional sources and forwarded to them by recording the subject matter, date of request, and request number. The registry also attempts to keep track of interviews conducted and materials reviewed by Congressional staffers. It would probably be | . wise to establish a separate, more sophisticated indexing procedure sn «ch Aw to fer the above described function. All documents forwarded to the Downing Committee could be indexed by having experienced employees underline the necessary inputs and then forwarding the marked docu- ments to computer people for inputting. This was done during the external investigations when all such documents were forwarded to a unit headed by Linda Young, Bob Young's wife. Having this informa- tion computerized is an expensive process. It may be more reason- able to index the documents forwarded to the Downing Committee by using a system similar to the one used by OIG during the external investigations. However, we should keep in mind that, if we index
14-00000 + ee bee td» > only our responses to the Downing Committee, we may not have the informa- tion on which those responses were based in a readily recoverable form. O7 --[[___Dasked that any system we devise should include forward- ing a copy of the final response which goes to the Downing Committee on any particular question to the component most involved in the preparation of the response. -- The Review Staff registry needs a better Xerox machine than it now has. OIG Distribution: Original - S.D. Breckinridge 27 | - Mr. Leader 1 - IS Subject (SSC-Warren Commission/Schweiker File) ] - A.E.Brody Chrono OIG/A.E.Brody:aal