13-00000 25 conducted by the committee’s staff. . So, these are the three categories: those ereated for the committee at their request; others that existed that we provided to them at their request; and others that the committee itself created. Now, within the sequestered collection, there are two major categories of records. This is lla simple breakdown. I hope this is helpful. One category consists of about 129,000 pages of hard copy. The second category consists of 72 reels of microfilm or the equivalent of 163,000 pages of hard copy. | Now, the question has come up of why the documents were sequestered. And this is explained ~ icin a Memotandum of Understanding, signed by the chairman of the Assassination Committee and the director of Central Intelligence. And I have a copy here to submit to the board. : The memorandum states that, "Upon termination of the Committee, all materials provided by CIA and examined by the Committee will MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 cm 26 be kept and preserved within a segregated and secure area within CIA for at least 30 years, unless the DCI and the House of Representatives agree to a shorter period of time." In April 1979, Robert Blakey, the chief counsel and staff director of the Assassinations Committee, visited CIA headquarters; and he completed the process of designating what materials were to- be. sequestered. All the documents made available to the Assassination Committee were included in this sequestered collection. The second question that often comes up is, where did we get authority to start reviewing these records prior to the Assassination Act? And this goes back to my point about Robert Gates wanting to’ get started as quickly as possible in. the review and declassification. ° ; So, the Agency wrote to the Speaker of the House, Thomas Foley, in 1992, requesting approval to begin declassifying and releasing the records. And in October of that year, Speaker Foley wrote a at letter to the director, granting CIA the authority MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 27 |[to do so. The Speaker's decision was clearly made in. anticipation of passage of the Assassination Records Collection Act. So, we have the records, and we started processing... Within. the two categories that I mentioned, the hard. copy material is one. And we . have a page describing that for the board, which |}t/12. leave with you. This includes copies of most of the CIA documents and the Oswald 201 file that I referred to earlier. a - Also included in the hard copy are other 201 files, personnel files, security files on persons who are. mentioned in documents relevant to the assassination or who figure in one of the conspiracy ,theories. . This part, the hard copy, also includes about 30,000 pages of documents, memos, and notes -- many of these, handwritten -- that were created ‘py the Assassination Committee itself. éo, those are in the hard copy. Now, the microfilm portion of the MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 | (202) 546-6666
13-00000 28 | sequestered collection, as I mentioned, contains 72 reels of microfilm. Incidentally, we found very quickly that working with microfilm wasn’t-all that easy, so we arranged to have all of the microfilm printed out in hard copy. So, we have both; and both of these are available to the board, both the microfilm itself and the printout. | The decision to microfilm was apparently based on two major considerations, as far as we can determine from our records. First, the integrity of-the sequestered records had to be maintained. Second, a number of the files that the Assassination Committee requested were active files, and had to be available to allow people to continue conducting their normal activities within kthe agency. — So, the solution was to replace certain records with microfilm versions. And these records were microfilmed during 1979 and 1980 with ‘the “approval of the Assassinations Committee. And we have memos for the records showing how that happened, so that you will have the history on MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. . §07 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (262) 546-6666
13-00000 29 that. Now, looking at the content. of the microfilm, a sizeable portion of this -- probably 50 percent -- duplicates the hard copy’ in the sequestered files. For example, there are 12 reels of material from the Oswald 201 file. | The bulk of the reels consists of files on individuals and organizations, including personnel files of ‘CIA employees. There are also a number of files on anti-Castro organizations. All but a small percentage are CIA-originated cables, or |idispatches, or memoranda and other documents. In looking at the microfilm, we believe there are questions’ of privacy that the board may want to consider in determining what information is to be reléased. Some of the records, for example, contain medical information on an individual. There are also questions of relevancy that we suggest the board consider. For example, many ‘Jot the documents cover sensitive activities that go | far beyond the time frame of the assassination or A” investigations into the assassination. MILLER REPORTING Co., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. -20002 (202) S46-6666
13-00000 30 cm That‘s rather brief; but I hope this is useful to the board in trying to understand the sequestered documents, sometimes called segregated documents. We use those terms interchangeably. And we certainly look forward to continuing | cooperating with the board, with the goal of releasing as much information as possible to the American public. CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Very well. Mr. Harrelson, do have anything to add? 'MR. HARRELSON: No. ete, CHAIRMAN TUNEHEIM: Questions on the part of the board?. Dr. Joyce. . DR. JOYCE: “Mr. Pereira, you mentioned that 50 percent of the microfilm appears to duplicate “what already exists in hard copy. You mentioned the 201 file as an example of that. Maybe I missed it, but could you | characterize perhaps the portion that appears not ito be duplicated in hard copy? Do you have any | information about that? MR. PEREIRA: The types of material that _ MILLER REPORTING Co., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 cm 31 isn’t duplicative? DR. JOYCE: Yes. MR. HARRELSON: This is where you get into the 201 files which make up the bulk of the microfilm, and it covers the areas of individuals who were not -- or areas of their careers that were not involved in the assassination periods. So, there would not be documents from there in the hard copy. | Most of the hard copy, apparently, was created as the HSC staffers asked. for particular information. They would look at a file, and ask for copies of it. The ultimate was one cable, where we found 43 copies. So, most of it -- I would say, every document is duplicated at least once, and-used at multiple times throughout the collection. | DR. JOYCE: And it would appear, then, that most of the information within the 201 file -- MR. HARRELSON: The other area of unique |information is the Cuban exile activities. Much rad more in the microfilm than in the hard copy MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 32 cm collection. And most of that was released in August ‘94. | | CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Other questions? MS. NELSON: How much have you been able to look at this sequestered file? It’s enormous. It boggles the mind, going through 72 reels of microfilm. No wonder you printed hard copy. But I would imagine you've only done. some sampling. MR. HARRELSON: With the exception of the 201 file -- the duplicate microfilm 201 file and the -- Well, that’s the only exception.-- We have | looked at every page of material. -MS. NELSON: pe you have a sense of what's not, in your view, an assassination record?. Are there certain percentages or certain numbers of a“ chose? ‘* ‘ww. MR. PEREIRA: I think we need to defer to the board on that. We‘re, suggesting certain -- MS. NELSON: Yes. That’s what -- MR. PEREIRA: -- questions that the board may address, but we are deferring completely to you a in interpreting the law. And, so, we’re assuming MILLER REPORTING Co., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 cm 33. that every piece of paper we have that was sequestered is potentially relevant. _ MS. NELSON: Under the ‘statute, we'll have to see what that is. MR. PEREIRA: Yes, following the statute. CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Any further questions? DR. HALL: John, do you know what of these materials the HSCA used and didn’t use? “ MR. PEREIRA: There’s a -- I'll let Barry ‘comment on this, as well. There’s a little bit of uncertainty. To go back, every record that we made available to the committee is in the sequestered collection. | | Some of. the indications are that there was a very thorough review,. obviously, by the committee pf a lot of records. My impression is that, for othe records, the committee staff requested certain files. We provided an entire file -- let's say, on an individual. 7 “But the committee staff may have said, “Well, this really isn’t all that relevant to our , work, but thank you. We now know who that person MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 cm 34 is, because Someone suggested this person may have been involved, and we needed to check that name." And in. checking the name, we get the ‘impression very quickly they determined they didn't have to read every single paper in the file. It’s that sort of breakdown, I think. MR. HARRELSON: There are indications, as you go through the microfilm, that some of the files were. not reviewed. There is-a sheet for these files signed by the staffers, and the. | notations there. We have never -- Since we were viewing the file as a whole, we never went through fiand calculated which one of these it indicated they had reviewed or not. | DR. HALL: And was it the case, or were . there instances that you‘re aware of, where they |usca staff and/or related individuals marked on ‘these documents or dealt with them in a way other than merely reading them? | | MR. HARRELSON: The 30,000 pages, frequently are handwritten notes taken from the documents. Since the hard copy -- or in copies MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 « @ « ® * cm 35 made available today, you sometimes find notations, their names written on them -- different things. MR. PEREIRA: But they seem to have made very thorough notes on documents that they found : were valuable. : DR. HALL: Did the CIA, in providing these materials, put any restrictions on them with regard to copying that could be done? | MR.. PEREIRA: By the committee itself, you mean? | | DR. HALL: Yes. | MR. PEREIRA: I. don't know what the. record shows. | MR. HARRELSON: They were held in one central location -- all notes -- for review. The -staffers;:.as I understand it, would come and review these files, makes their notes. And the notes would then be reviewed by -- at least, by a staff person. And their notes could be taken, but the jjfiles were held in one location securely. MR. PEREIRA: There was an arrangement l|whereby, if they wanted to use a record elsewhere MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. _ 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-6666
13-00000 36 for some reason or other, there was a means for making that available to them; possibly, by redacting something extremely sensitive, Like the name of an agent. But they could -- DR. HALL: I see. MR. PEREIRA: But they could make the arrangement to have them use the document. DR. HALL: Congress has less than a distinguished history in handling some documents of a classified nature, and there is this kind of | problem. As document hunters, there’s sort of an interesting problem -- the extent of which, we get. unauthorized copying made; and then those documents are out there somewhere else. But that’s a side show to this. So, thank om ue xou very much. ae get “™ . CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Anything further? (No response.] CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you very much, gentlemen... We appreciate your help today. MR. PEREIRA: A pleasure. CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Next, I’d like to ask MILLER REPORTING CO., INC. 507 C STREET, N.E. WASHINGTON, D.c. 20002 (202) 546-6666