. JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM - IDENTIFICATION FORM AGENCY INFORMATION AGENCY : CIA RECORD NUMBER : 104-10330-10083 RECORD SERIES : JFK . AGENCY FILE: NUMBER : PROJFILES-CORRESPONDENCE DOCUMENT INFORMATION AGENCY ORIGINATOR : CIA FROM : MICHAEL J. O'NEIL TO : DAVID G. MARWELL TITLE : MF: CIA EMPLOYEES DATE : 04/15/1997 PAGES : 13 SUBJECTS : JFK ASSASSINATION ‘ DELIBERATIONS DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER “CLASSIFICATION : SECRET RESTRICTIONS : 1A 1B CURRENT STATUS : RELEASED IN PART PUBLIC - RELEASED WITH DELETIONS DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 03/12/03 . COMMENTS : JFK-M-15 : F4 : 2000.02.07.08:31:30:670035 [R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED 104-10330-10083 HW 55157 DBocld:32404069 Page 1
a ot "BPR 1S "97 @4:SSPM USGOVERNMENT p.2 . 271 —SEERET— es Central intelligence Agency 15 April 1997 MEMORANDUM..FOR: David G. Marwell . Executive Director Et Assassination Records Review Board SUBJECT: CIA Employees (We request that this memorandum be returned to CIA | once the Review Board has completed its deliberations on the issues discussed below.) 1. (U) IZegue. The purpose of this memo is to relate CIA's concerns to the Review Board regarding the release of the true names of CIA employees that appear in the JFK Collection and to present a propogal on how this problem might be addressed. I. ctyal ec fo) 2. (U) To date, approximately 600 true names of CIA employees have been identified in the JFK Collection. Some tie _ of these employees are important to the JFK story, and CIA - will continue to work with the Review Board to release as many of these names as possible. Many names, however, appear only a few times in the entire JFK Collection and appear to add nothing to the historical record. 3. (U) Under guidelines adopted by the Review Board on or about 20 March 1996, any names of CIA employees are presumptively released unless CIA provides specific evidence to the Review Board that harm to the national security or to the employee would likely result from such release. Since these guidelines were adopted, it has become increasingly clear that the number of names at issue, and, in most cases, their tenuous connection to the JFK story, make this approach unworkable with regard to both CIA's obligation to CL BY: 2224130 Cl REASON: 1.5(c) DECL ON: XL DRV FROM: HUM 4-82 HW 55157 DBoctld:32404069 Page 2?
“APR 15 ’97 @4:S55PM USGOVERNMENT P.3714 -SHCRESL. Subject: CIA Employees protect national security information and the Review Board's duty to inform the public about the JFK assassination in a timely and accurate fashion. The task of locating and informing hundreds of former employees scattered all over the country and the world has been a formidable one. Some employees have contacted us to report their concerns about a “suspicious” letter purporting to be from CIA which they had received. It would not be surprising, therefore, if many former employees ignored the letter for similar reasons, even though they might have legitimate needs to protect their identities. amie 4. (U) Contacting every named employee and collecting information on each of them to present to the Review Board will clearly take more time and effort than any of us had anticipated. This will have obvious ramifications for how and when the Review Board releases information to the public. More importantly, the decision to publicly acknowledge employees who may have been living for over 30 years under cover is a critical one that should be made not by default, but rather by careful planning and - consideration. 5. (U) Relevant to this discussion is the fact that the Review Board and CIA have recently agreed upon a policy for releasing true names of sources of intelligence information. It was agreed at that time that there would be a presumption of protecting source names; but in cases where a source was particularly important to the JFK story and there was no overriding national security interest, the name would-be released. Although the CIA recognizes that there are gome senaitivities involved with sources that do not apply to covert employees, there are also many legal and operational similarities, which are described herein; that: justify similar treatment by the Review Board. As is further detailed in Section IV, CIA, therefore, proposes that the Review Board adopt a general policy of protecting employee names that appear in the Collection,. with. a exceptions for those individuals whom the Board believes are important to the JFK story. Le ration 6. (U) As both covert CIA employees and clandestine reporting assets are types of “human sources" of intelligence, many of the same laws apply. Although Section Ji(a) of the JFK Act provides that, when the Act requires releage of information, it takes precedence over all other laws that would otherwise prohibit release, there are strong governmental national security interests in protecting the true names of CIA employees. CIA believes that it is 2 SECRET— HW 55157 DBoctid: 32404069 Page 3
ee HW 55157 t "APR 15 ’97 @4:S56PM USGOVERNMENT P4714 SECRET Subject: CIA Employees important for the Review Board to reconsider the laws which protect classified information, because they clearly reflect a larger US Government policy to protect covert CIA employees from disclosure. 7,  (U) By Executive order and statute, the President and Congress have made the Director of Central Intelligence responsible for protecting sources of intelligence. In his Directive of 22 January 1946 that established the Central Intelligence Group, President Truman made the DCI responsible for protecting sources.~ With the establishment of CIA, Congress also gave the pCI this responsibility. The... National Security Act of 1947, Section 103(d) (3), codified at 50 USC §403(3) (c) (5), requires the DCI to protect intelligence sources from unauthorized disclosure. In addition, §403(3) (d) (2) requires the DCI to ensure that risks to the United States and those involved in the collection of intelligence through human sources are minimized. 8. (U) Protecting the identity of individuals working for CIA, not only covertly but overtly as well, has been of particular concern to US lawmakers since the establishment of the Agency. For example, with Section 6 of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, 50 USC §403g, Congress specifically exempted the CIA from the provisions of any law requixing the publication or disclosure of the organization, functions, names, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency. 9. (U) In 1980, Congress passed the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) which sets out pretrial, trial, and appellate procedures for criminal cases involving “or potentially involving:classified information. ...,.Working with the Department of Justice and the courts, CIA has successfully protected the names of CIA employees from public release even in criminal trials where there are heightened (i.e., constitutional) considerations favoring ‘disclosure to the defendant of all government information relevant to the defense. CIPA allows for in camera ex parte hearings in which the judge can rule on questions of admissibility and relevancy of classified information, including the identity of CIA employees who may have information pertaining to the defense, before it is introduced either to the defendant, defense counsel, or in open court. In some cases involving CIA, the judge has ordered that CIA information be turned over to the defense, but only in some unclassified form such as in’a summary. In other cases, judges have reviewed the classified information and ruled that the harm to national security outweighs the 3 SECRET DoclId:327404069 Page 4