Date : 08/07/95 Page : 1 JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION FORM AGENCY RECORD NUMBER RECORDS SERIES AGENCY FILE NUMBER’ AGENCY INFORMATION SSCIA 7 157-10014-10128 ; — MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF THE CHURCH COMMITTTEE O7-M-34 I: | ORIGINATOR FROM TO TITLE DATE PAGES SUBJECTS DOCUMENT TYPE CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTIONS CURRENT STATUS DATE OF LAST REVIEW OPENING CRITERIA COMMENTS DOCUMENT |INFORMATION SSCIA 03/15/76 76 SSCSGO, METHODOLOGY COMMITTEE BUSINESS TRANSCRIPT TOP SECRET ; REFERRED ! POSTPONED IN FULL! 01/05/99 CCBOX 324 Docld: 32423516 Page 2? [R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED
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HARRIS-qsh_ | a TOP SECRET 7 | 1 1. oe . Intelligence Investigation -~ 3 . Foreign & Military Subcommittee Meeting 5 a ' Monday, March 15, 1976 7 : a | a United States Senate, 8 Co Select Committee to Study Governmental > 9 | —— a | Operations with Respect to 10 | - | Intelligence Activities, ll ! : oo Washington, D. C. 12 The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:20 o'clock. ™~ 13 a.m., in Room S-407, the Capitol, Senator Walter D. Huddleston 14 | (Chairman of the Subcommittee) , presiding. | 1s . Present: Senators. luddleston (presiding) and Hart of 16 Colorado. 7 17 a Also present: Wat hiam Miller, Staff Director: Joseph 18 diGenova, Al Quanbeck, Rick Inderfurth, Charles Kirhbow, Elizabe h “19 -Culbreth, William Bader, David. Aaron, Lynn Davis, Elliot Maxwel , 20 || and Bob Kellev, Professional Staff Members. | (> B84. | | 20 TAP Oe cre pe Docld: 32423516 Page 4
ash 2 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18. 19 20 -21 Re 25 TOP SECRET ae PROCREDINGS senator Huddleston. I think we can come to order, and I would expect that we could go through here pretty rapidly — todav. | | There are only a couple of suggestions that I have. Ms. Culbreth. Where are we starting? Mr. Miller. Page 1. | Senator Huddleston. There is some suggestion that we should have some sort of a disclaimer-type thing some place. and I was wondering whether or not we couldn't. add. another paraqraph after the second paragraph. on page 1, something to the effect that it should be noted that while the Committee has diligentlv. pursued its inquiry during the past year, there are areas of concern which :time and personnel constraints did not permit thorouth study and. evaluation.» Also ‘the Conmittee was hampered in a number of instances by a lack of accessibility to some documents and records , : either because it did not exist or: because of unwillingness - to make them available by the Executive Branch, . Some findings and ‘recommendations of the Committee are hased in part on information which must remain secret in accorance with the Committee's policy of protecting the valid security secrets. Are those three statements worth injecting there? Mr. Miller. They're all correct. TAP CFeneT Docld: 32423516 Page 5
ash 3 10 ll 12 13 14 15 16 “17. 18 19 20 21 22 23) 25 ! maybe play with that a little bit. to define what it is we are looking for. TCP SECRET a Ms. Culbreth. Could you add a section that goes to. our final recommendations that some things exist. but we dan' t know ouite where to find them? We don' t know exactly how to describe them so that we can. be sure to get them. We can Mr, diGenova. I thought that you meant that wa didn't find access to them. Mr. Miller. No. It's not being able to ask the right questions and the Agency's either being unwilling or unable: Ms. Culbreth. There's something that they know they” have somewhere hut they don't know quite where it is because of their filing procedure or something. | - Senator Huddleston. We could give two reasons for lack of accessibility, that they did exist and we couldn't get them and we could add a third, the. Committee ' s inability to define. Mr. diGenova. I. have a problem with that, Senator, oo nersonallv. T have never had an experience like that in terms of them not understanding. I'm not saying it didn't happen but I tend to believe that if it happened it was basically for one of those two reasons, that they didn't want to make it available or it was.a tug . of war. Can anvone remember an instance where we couldn't define what we wanted and they didn't understand and we never got it Docld: 32423516 Page 6
ash 4 10° ll 12 wee 13 ua 15 16° ly (18 1g 20 21 22 23 vs B4 20 Docld: 32423516 Page 7 TOP SECRET 4 hecause of that? Senator Huddleston. I think what Elizabeth is getting at is that there may be. things that we did not touch that we don't know about. Ms. Culbreth. Well, that kind | of thing -- you see one of these final general recommendations we are making goes to requiring the Executive to register these (Classified things SO. that. we can ‘go look at it and know what it is that falls in that category. 7 Mr. diGenova. 89 what we're really talking about. is aR something that neither of the parties may have known about either hecause of bad recordkeeping ~~ oh, okav, sure. Mr. Kirbow. Senator, I have only one other position I would like to make on this. - I was trying to search my mind while you were talking about this. Have we vet failed to obtain anything either by request or by subpoena other than the Nixon papers which are not available because of an order of court?. . _ Senator Huddleston. I will leave that to the: Committee staff. Mr. Miller. Yes, certain categories were absolutely denied us, absolutely denied us. Liaison arrangements, for i example. f. Co ag Mr. Davis. NSC papers. Mr, Kirhbow. » Liaison papers is a thing that you remember
ash 5 tw Gl 10° a. 12 13 14 “165 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 £5 | \ - Ba 85 1 TOP SECRET ss early on last year they came and gave the Chairman and Vice Chairman an extensive briefing on certain things and no -longex did we deal in those areas. | | Mr. Miller. No, but you see, and that's one area but ‘there are others. For example, in the present inquiry on. academics and so on we were stopped beyond a certain point. There was no entry. . Mr. Davis. There are. also some NSC studies that we never got. Mr. diGenova. Yes, and the general study of command control, that task force which generally do not access to ! NSC minutes. : re The onlv time we ever got access to NSC minutes was on the assassination report. That's the only place we had full access and even then they were. edited minutes of things. arquably unrelated to cuba. Mr. Kirbow. I think I must say that we did not subpoena | those documents. / a In other words, at some point it was difficult perhaps to get some of them but I just don't recall a single instance where vou asked the Vice Chairman to sign on a subpoena or © to warn them that he was. ‘going to issue it, that they didn't 1 thereafter deliver. ay I don't disaaree ‘that we may not have done in the depth that we should have in those but I just didn't think it was a FR FAP ee Docld: 32423516 Page 8
(o>) me TOP SECRET 1 matter of a record for:the Committee of refusal excent on the =~ | | | 2 || Nixon papers, but if I am wrong ~~ 3 Senator luddleston. They wouldn't give us the names of 4 ‘the journalists. 5 . I think we're not ‘saying here that it was unjutifiea 6 unwillingness or even an arbitrary one. We" re just saying here "7. that there were some. things that they didn't want the Committee | 8 to have. That ' s just what. I'm trying to get. at in case somethi gq g || exnlodes two weeks from now that we have not touched at all. 10 co That kind of gives us an out that we did the best we ll could on the basis of what we got, we made our. findings and 12 || recommendations. | | | 13 - But there are some areas which we ‘can't be sure that we 14 | knew everything. a | 45 - . Mre Kirbow. Senator, in talking about this type of 16 insert paragraph, and I'm fi not sure where Mr. Miller would think 17: it would belong, but I think that we should at this voint “ae consider the recommendation that I guess you made or adopted 19 , that on certain of these citations where we are not going to 20 || put them into your certain comments, that we should make notice} 21 now tothe reader that there is a classified groun of ‘30 recommendations or a classified group of papers which are not 23 in this document which support some of the findings and cite 24 them back to a classified file in the Conmittee's files. 25. I'm not sure where it would.ao. TAP CrenrtT Docld:32425516 Page 9
10 ant Le. 14 15 16 17 18 ‘19 ~ 20 a 22 25 20 13 considers the paper. 24 T@*P SECRET - ’ Senator Huddleston. Well, it would be logical to follow that where I say some findings and recommendations are based in part on information that must remain secret following the Committee's. policy to protect valid security secrets. “Also what I'm referring to here is that there may be recommendations in here that are not truly backed up by the information we can qive ‘them. That's what that sentence is sunnosed to mean, and tHe next’ sentence ought to be that. there are also some recommendations that are not made public. essentially for the same reason. We could add that sentence to this and I think that would do it. Mr. Aaron. There is one footnote in here that explains or that goes to the liaison point, for example, that explains. that we have a more detailed recommendation. but the footnote really is to come out of the final version. _ the Footnote is really only for the Committee as it OP, Mr, Kirbow. I like that additional paragraph there and the word about some classified recommendations being made both to.the Senate and to the Executive Branch. _ Mx. Miller. Mr. Chairman, in looking this over I think perhaps another paragraph would be in order really pointing out that what these recommendations are, in effect, are an agenda for action for the oversight committee in the next vear or so and also for the Executive Branch, and that in these TAR eFAanrr | Docld: 32423516 Page 10
TOP SECRET ash & g \ 1 || recommendations have. been cast in such a form as to provide at 2 an aqenda or an outline for the future, that that really has 3 been the thrust of this section of the paper. 4 Mr, Kirhow. I especially like that form, Mr. Chairman, 5 hecause many committees are expected to: introduce or to submit 6 _ legislative proposals and that is not the intention, apparently, 9 of this Committee or subcommittee and I would like some referen e 8 made to that. | 9 _ Senator Huddleston. I think that patagraph would ‘go 10 || either as a continuation of the. third paragraph, which ends . 11 || ur on page 2, or an additional paragraph following it. 12H Mr. Aaron.. Mr. Chairman, I. would like to suggest that . 13 ‘in addition to that point, which I think is a very important 14 one. in order to explain what it is the Committee has tried "15 |] to accomplish in this area, that we: also make the point that 16 the simple or not so simple laying out of the facts as we - were able to discover them and ‘run the gambit and process of . 18 declassification, the simple facts laid out are a major contri- 19 bution to public and Congressional understanding of this 99 || enormously complex and difficult operation. 21 I think that as a Committee it ought to be proud, not 90 ‘only of the reconmendations it, makes for changes but. the extent 23 to which it was able to come to grips with the reality of 7 _ 24 what the intelligence ‘communities and activities are. 25 The first task of a Congressional investigative committe Docld: 32423516 Page i1