404-10142-10145 . ae oo a 43 } December 1976 Bae rdins MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence ( LL i”? ec han hie FROM: John H. Waller [| ae. AN “eae ey Inspector General sore nn mcm i 7 2 . . 27° O40 f-? SUBJECT: Oswatd Documents -- Action Taken er ert rere 1. Attached herewith is an edited version of the memorandum on Kesster's article in the Washincton Post forwarded to you on 27 November 1976. 2. In an effort to obtain-all the information that is avail- able on this matter, the Office of Security, at the behest of the Inspector General, has initiated a formal security investigation jnto the reported leaks. This is to be confined to an analysis of Agency files and records and to present and former Agoncy employees, including the translator formerly assigned to the Kexico City Sta- tion, the typist at the Station at that time and Mr. David Phillips. They state that it is virtually impossible to estimate the length of time ii will take to conduct these investigations. 3. The Office of the General Counsel has been engaged since April 1976 in perusing the Oswald 201 files, page by page, for FOIA purposes. It is estimated that 75 percent of that material containing Agency information will be sanitized, if needed, and declassified by mid-December 1976. The information relating to telephone taps in Mexico City, however,-has been deleted. The u Oswaid 201 fites consist of 11 1/2 safe drawers of material. Other files with possible relevance to the assassination of Presi- dant Kennedy include the following: 12 safe drawers of Cuban Opera- tions material that is being reviewed in connection with the Schweiker veport; 2 1/2 safe drawers of material in the Office of Security; varying amounts of related material in the Mexico City Station files; soft files; Rocca files; C1/SIG files; OSC files and Boi files. . Ee TAR DET CL BY 085636 (201s
(pd | |  (b3 4. The Inspector General has also recommended that the Mexico Branch of LA Division send a cable to the( Hox co Station) inquiring as to what records may still be there relating to the period of Oswald's visit to Mexico and afterwards. As of this date, we have not located the original transcripts of the telephone intercepts of Oswald's 1963 telephone corversations in Mexico City. We are hoping — that the present intensive search will unearth them. '5: The kinds of information currently being deleted by the Of~- fice of General Counsel from Oswald documents under Freedom of Infor- mation are as follows: a. Information confirming the existence of an Agency station in-a named city (country) abroad. b. Cryptonyms and pseudonyms. c. Identities of Agency staff employees. d. Identities of agents (foreign intelligence sources). -@. Revelations concerning the Agency's use of identi- i fiable operational tactics, techniques or equipment. f. Confirmation of the existence of liaison agreements or working relationships with identified or identifiable foreign intelligence and security services. g. Revelation of information received from foreign liaison services; obtained under agreements that committed the Agency to protect the facts of the liaison arrangements and any information received under-it, to protection against unauthorized disclosure. h. In a number of instances the kind of information | cited above, if stibject to public disclosure, would still (thirteen years later) have a damaging effect on U.S. foreign affairs, national security interests and/or intelligence operations and classification is still justifiable under Executive Order 11652. MN
14-00000 j. Identities of Agency components and internal Agency filing instructions. j. Information concerning activities or behavior patterns of people not even incidentally involved jin the assassination whose personal privacy would be un- justifiably invaded should the information be released. k. Identities of U.S. law enforcement officials. G. I cannot guarantee that the OGC sterilizations, following guidelines described in the attached memorandum, are generally as minimal as you may want. As you can see, this process has been coing on since last April, thus it would be a major undertaking to begin all over again. I wili Took further into this, but if you ultimately conclude that there should be a different standard for FOIA releases on this subject than on others, we may have a very large job ahead of us. DDO, OGC and the FOIA office should be _ heard from. ; 7. With regard to the Sprague investigation, our intention would be to let Sprague or his investigators have generally un- , fettered access to our relevant files here in this building. Those eee, documents he wishes to take out would be given a minimal steriliza- tion. Those documents which he wishes to have taken out and declas- sified would be sterilized for that purpose. I anticipate that the problems will occur as we disagree over what may be declassified. His instincts will be to want to put as much as possible in the public domain. But, we will have to face those bridges when we ‘come to them. Much will depend upon the kind of agreement OLC will be able to negotiate in advance on security matters. vane John tl. Waller Attachment - a/s cc: OGC w/fatt QLC w/att Assistant to DDCI w/att