10 1] 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 4 The witness would still have to appear and claim his privilege and the committee or subcommittee at that time sitting would have to make a decision whether to communicate the order to the individual. | I think most of these witnesses, some of then, I will have to ask help for. Basically they are those people who are involved in the investigation somewhere and who could ) have, on any fair analysis of it, a possible claim of privi- lege. They are either the organized crime-type connected or people who from the nature of the kind of questioning : that we would ask them could legitimately claim the privi- lege. As in the past, this is contingency planning. We do not necessarily know that all of these péople will claim the privilege. Chairman Stokes. Are there any questions relative to this immunitity order? If there are no questions, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Preyer. I so move, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Stokes. It has been properly moved that the resolution for immunity be adopted. The Clerk will call the role. | Ms. Berning. Mr. Stokes? Mr. Stokes. Aye. Ms. Berning. Mr. Devine? DoclId: 32266679 Page 5 4 i 1 | t i 1 1
Mr. Devine. Aye. Ms. Berning. Mr. Preyer? 3 Mr. Preyer. Aye. 4 Ms. Berning.. Mr. McKinney? 5 | (No Response.) 6 Ms. Berning. Mr. Fauntroy? 7 (No Response.) 8 Ms. Berning. Mr. Thone? 9 (No Response.) 10 Ms. Berning. Mrs. Burke? 7 "| (Aye by proxy.) | Ms. Berning. Mr. Sawyer? @ 13 Mr. Sawyer. Aye. 14 Ms. Berning. Mr. Dodd? 15 | Mr. Dodd. Aye. 16 Ms. Berning. Mr. Fithian? 17 Mr. Fithian. Aye. 18 Ms. Berning. Mr. Edgar? 19 Mr. Edgar. Aye. 20 Ms. Berning. Mr. Ford? 21 Mr. Ford. Aye. 22 Ms. Berning. Nine ayes, Mr. Chairman. @ Chairman Stokes. Nine members of. the committee having 24 voted in the affirmative, the resolution for immunity is @ 25 adopted. Docld:32266679 Page 6
1 Mr. Blakey? | | 2 Mr. Blakey. Mr. Chairman, the next matter that I have | 3 to bring to the attention of the committee is one which you, | 5 ing nature. Nevertheless, I thought that it ought to be 6 brought to the attention of the full committee. 7 | In May of 1977 the CIA contacted Congressman (blank) 3 | and brought to his attention what was, in the agency’s: 9 terms, the moratorium document destruction. During the 10 course of the Church Committee investigation, the Church t 4 of course, are familiar with and is somewhat of a housekeep= } 1 { | { 11 || Committee asked the agencies, the FBI and the CIA, to cease 12 ' destroying in a routine fashion any and all documents. | @ 13 ! The CIA responded by refusing to destroy any further ! 14 | documents, put a moratorium on their own document destroying 15 process. The other investigation agencies agreed that they : 16 would not destroy any documents even remotely relating to | 17 | the investigations pending before the Church Committee. 18 | the Church Committee has since lifted that moratorium on 19 December 21, 1977.. | 20 The agency has contacted the committee and asked us 21 our opinion on the document destruction program. My recom- | 22 mendation to the Chairman was that the committee respond by keeping it in operation at least for the life of the’ committee, 24 which would be through December of 1978. In that vein, the Chairman wrote Admiral Turner on Docld:32266679 Pagg¢ 7 i
~ Docld: 32266679 10 ll 12 13 14 18 19 20 21 22 | with them and I did one morning last week at about 7:30. 7 April 13 pointing out that the document destruction program, if resumed at this time, could have the appearance of an impropriety, although it is doubtful, in fact, that it would be in fact an obstruction of the investigation. The CIA responded by asking me to come over and meet They really pointed out the scope of the impact that this moratorium has had on them for this length of time. They ( tell me that the documents are increasing at the rate of approximately 100 boxes a day and this comes out to a cubic foot a box, a hundred cubic feet a day; that if it were at all possible, they would like to have some relief from this. . They also pointed out that the normal process for docu- ment destruction requires them to submit to the Archives schedules for destruction after which, should they be @DProv- ed by the Archivist, they should go the normal course. | The agency is currently not complying with the law in that | regard in order that they would he in a position of not de- stroying records during the course of our investigation. I am bring this to your attention because it seems to me that we have a decent case to make that some of the material that they have ought to be destroyed at this time, that it has no remote relationship to our investigation. Nevertheless, there is always a possibility that you will read on the front page of the Washington Post something to | Page 3
1 || the effect that the committee agrees with the CIA to destroy 2 || documents and there will be sometime later on the last page | 3 lof the Washington Post that we have explained to them that 4 || it is essentially trash that is being thrown away and not 5 || documents going to the heart of the investigation. 6 I really have brought it to your attention to get the 7 || advice of the committee on, I think, the political dimensions 8 | of the decision to suggest to the agency that they begin the 9 || routine document destruction. Obviously anything most re- 10 mote ly related to this investigation should be preserved to 11 || pecember 31. 12 Chairman Stokes. Are there any comments? Mr. Fithian. © 13 ie Mr. Fithian. What kind of documents are they accumulating | ! 14 at one hundred cubic feet a day? 15 Mr. Blakey. Among other things, there would be receipts 16 for exchange of documents between various buildings, just 7 simply receipts that the couriers have to pick up and take. | 18 They have not even destroyed those receipts. | 19 Mr. Fithian. You are only talking about documents | 20 | pertaining to this investigation? ; 21 Mr. Blakey. No. All documents of the CIA are currently 22 not now being destroyed. No documents are being destroyed. | e . 23 That is if a courier comes over here and delivers to us a 24 copy of the background investigation that they have looked ®@ 25 at we will give them a receipt and they will get a receipt DoclId: 322766679 Page 9
1 |from us. Those receipts go back to the agency. Those 2 jireceipts are not being destroyed. They have not been 3 jidestroying recipts now since the ban was originally placed ro, 4 jon them. This goes back to the middle of the Church Committee 5 | investigation. 6 It is a little more complicated than receipts. For 7 |\example, they pointed out to me that they have a number of 8 | files now dealing with Operation CHAOS. I am sure you will 9 |} all recall that the agency conducted investigations of 10 || domestic dissidents during the war. . It is not lawful for ll | them to retain those files. Private individuals have actually: 12 || written the CIA asking them that the file on them be destroyed because the agency has no right to retain it. | 13 14 Under the moratorium requesting the agency not to des- 15 | troy any files during the course of this investigation the 16 || CHAOS Investigation Files, which are nothing even remotely 17 || related as far as I can see to our inquiry, are currently 18 | being retained by the agency. 19 Mr. Fithian. What kind of instruction can we give them 21 Open ourselves up to the fact that they may indeed destroy 22 something that we need? | | | 20 || to allow certain categories to be destroyed and yet not | @ 23 _ Mr. Blakey. They have a schedule where they identify 24 each document or each class of documents. If the committee © 25 || authorizes me, I can review those schedules along with the Docld: 32266679 Page 10
10 11 12 e . 13 14 15 16 17 18 © 19 20 21 22 11 Mr. Dodd? Mr. Dodd. I think we could also probably save the CIA from itself in this case. They are the ones who would be suffering the brunt of criticism, I think, if it became public knowledge that they have requested permission to destroy documentation during the proceedings in which we are looking at the various documents, papers and so forth, be they so insignificant as a routing slip. Mr. Blakey. Let me say, and it ought to ba put in the record, we requested the DOD files on Oswald that were maintained in, I think, San Antonio. When we went to ask for them, as opposed to the national files, we were told that these were the files that were destroyed routinely by the agency after the Irvin Committee explained about too many records being retained by DOD. | Those are the files that our witness, I guess on Thursday, Jones, indicated were substantially different from the picture painted to us of Oswald's performance. There is no way that we can establish what those files actually contained. So, this committeé has suffered from the loss of files in DOD. It has suffered from the loss of files in Memphis and it has suffered from the loss of files elsewhere. Chairman Stokes. The Church Committee protected them- selves, did.'they not, by requesting a moratorium? Docld: 32266679 Pagt 12 1 1
10 11 12 13 i414 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 12 Mr. Blakey. Yes, sir. Chairman Stokes. Is there any further comment? Mr. Edgar? | Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with the comments’ j that you make. I think that they can find a storage room for seven months and pile up paper. Perhaps we can suggest to them that they have some kind of resource recovery pro- cess where they use the burning of the files for some energy producing source at the end of it or recycle the paper. I would hope that we would be in agreement that they ought to keep them for seven months, whether they have value to us or not. I think the appearance of impropriety would damage our investigation and also, perhaps, damage the CIA. Mr. Blakey. I promised to bring it before the committee. I think that I have done what I have promised ‘them to do. I have no hesitancy going back to them and _ Suggesting that you thought it best that they keep them. Mr. Sawyer. It might also provide incentive to hold down Federal paper work a little. If they cannot keep treading water, let them drown in it for a while. Chairman Stokes. That is a good point. Mr. Edgar. I so move. Chairman Stokes. I think, then, that the concensus of the committee has been expressed, you have brought: it to Docld:32266679 Page 13
10 11 | 12 @ 13 14 15 16 17 18 © 19 20 21 22 13 our attention and the committee has taken no further action. The next item. Mr. Blakey. In a somewhat lighter vein, I have some good news for one of you and some bad news for all of you. I should inform you today that you have all be viewed indi- vidually and collectively by Edward Fields and J. B. Stoner. I graciously accepted service of process for you, only after carefully noting that everybodies' name appeared in the suit except for Mr. Stokes. | Chairman Stokes. Judgment proof. Mr. Blakey. Some of you have bad news and.one of you has good news. Mr. Dodd. For years I have filled out applications and resumes asking the question, "Have you ever been sued" and I have always said no. Mr. Blakey. Frankly, this is in a light vein because both actions, one action by Mr. Stoner, one action by Mr. Fields, ask for declaratory judgment in quashing subpoenas executed on them and to which they fulfilled their obliga- tions last week. Even if we had to respond on the merits in these instances a good argument could be made that everything is moot now anyway. In fact, what we do need from you at this time is permission to go into court in your behalf and move ' to.dismiss these actions under it. DoclId: 322766679 Pagt 14
RG: 233 . TAB ff: ENTRY: . . if | COPIES/ PPS. /CLASS. BOX: ACCESS RESTRICTED The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file: File Designation Date From -To 7 In the review of this file this item was-removed because access to it is Pe restricted. Restrictions on records in the National Archives are stated in general and specific record group restriction statements which are available for examination. The item identified above has been withdrawn because it contains: [] Security-Classified Information , vo e a Co. 08/22/93 Authority Date Withdrawn by NSCA John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-526) NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION NA -FORM 14000 (1.86) Docld 13276. [x]. Otherwise Restricted Information FTION TVAVUCHLIM
_“ DoclId: 322766679 19 seeming to gain much for the time we have put in, You ought to be aware that the Staff is following the 3 || current policy of taking by deposition or by statement almost | 4 |} all of the evidence that we can, that the only matters that | 5 || are being directly brought into these Executive Hearings 6 | are those that are contntious, where the witness may be 7 || potentially cited for contempt, maybe lying to the committee, 8 | or maybe resisting any effort to talk with us unless a 9 || subpoena is involved. | 10 That means, necessarily, that you are carrying the brunt | | 11 | of the least productive phases of what we are doing, | 12 In fact, ona number of levels in both the Kennedy | 13 || and King Cases some progress is being made. I'ithink it would | 14 be appropriate if we could have a general briefing meeting | 15 | sometime in the not too distant future, probably late in | 16 the afternoon, where we could sit down and | 17 || go over exactly where we are in all cases. | 18 Just to give you a for instance, on the Kennedy side 19 || we have been exploring the finances of the Ruby family. 20 We found that Eva Grant, Jack's sister, had no sudden imereand 21 of wealth in the period folling the assassination. Indeed, 22 she is on welfare now, or social security, in Los Angeles. Her brother, Earl Ruby, apparently did have a sudden 24 increase in wealth in 1964. He has gone from a marginal businessman into .a substantial businessman growing out of at) | Page 16