Date : 07/14/98 Page : 1 JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION FORM AGENCY INFORMATION Peleased under the John Kennedy AGENCY : NSC hesassination Records RECORD NUMBER : 145-10001-10259 ollection Act of 1992 RECORDS SERIES : ; (44 U5c¢ 2107 Note). AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 43 ase#:NW 54214 Date: Ho eee ee ee ee te ee eee O04 = 201? DOCUMENT INFORMATION ORIGINATOR : NSC FROM : STEVEN L. SKANCKE TO : MRS. JEANNE W. DAVIS TITLE : SSC REQUEST FOR LBJ MATERIAL ON CUBA AND JFK ASSASSINATION DATE : 05/24/76 PAGES : 6 SUBJECTS .: WITH NOTES IN MARGIN DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION : RESTRICTIONS : 1C, 4 CURRENT STATUS : RELEASED WITH DELETIONS DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/18/98 OPENING CRITERIA : COMMENTS : Duplicate of 145-10001-10258, with notes in margin. ‘AW 54214 Docld:32977082 Page 1
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL Log #7602957 May 24, 1976 MEMORANDUM FOR MRS. JEANNE W. DAVIS C= Cee FROM: Steven L. Skancke Chins . mm SUBJECT: SSC. Request for LBJ Material on Cuba ar JFK Assassination As you know, research staff members from the Senate Select Committee visited the LBJ Library in Austin three weeks ago and reviewed material relating to alleged attempts to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and information related to the - Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President Kennedy. As a result of the review of those files, the Senate Select Committee Staff has asked that certain documents be returned and made available to them in Washington. In ac- cordance with the arrangements made between the NSC Staff and Archives, these materials have been forwarded for our f review rior to release to the SSU-STalf, Accordingly, last Thursday we FeCeIved & package of 63 documents from Archives for review. John Matheny and I have reviewed each of these documents and believe that although it is probably not possible to with- old the documents in their entirety, that in many cases the Committee may be réstricted to only having access to the documents on Archives or NSC premises. Staff members from the Committee have already reviewed the documents but were not allowed to take substantive notes during their review. The documents have been divided into eight separate categories of information,and a brief discussion and recommendation for handling documents within each of these categories now follows: | _SECRESICDS)_ re a eee HW 542714 DBocld: 32977082 Page ?
SEC -2e The documents themselves are tabbcd as an attachment to this memorandum and the letter on the Tab corresponds to the letter associated with the paragraph headings below. A. NSC/WH Papers. Documents 1, la thru lm, 5, 6, 7, 8, 17 and 19 were prepared for,or as a result of, White House or NSC meetings. Document #liis a ‘a briefing paper for the President for his participa- tion in a meeting and’ Document #5 isa record of the meeting of December 27, 1963 in which the President actually participated. John and I believe these documents constitute privileged information the Committee Staff to read this jal or to have repeated access to it, however. Such access arrange- AK | and, as a result, as a matter of principle should not be physically turned over to the Committe , Staff, substantively, we have no objection to allowing HW 54714 ments could be worked out through the National Archives or could be handled directly by the NSC Staff. B. CIA Papers. Documents 2, 3, 3a, 3b, 4, 4a, 4b, li, 18, 18a, 20, 20a, 22, 23, 23a and 25 were pre- pared by the Central Intelligence Agency and either forwarded directly to the White House or were generally circulated by that agency. John and I have no objection to making these documents available to the SSC Staff but believe that the matter should be tA resolved by the CIA. We understand that Document #3, for example, has already been made available by the CIA and would thus believe that CIA would have no objection to also releasing #4a which appears to be an earlier draft of #3. My own reaction is that the release of information contained in many of these documents could be expected to damage either our relations with a particular country, Mexico for example, in the case of Document: 20a, or compromise specific sources and methods of intelligence. I realize, however, that we must defer to CIA on pro- tection of sources and methods. \" S) a EET Te PR SR DoclId: 32977082 Page 3 em rere ee - ise
HW 54714 DoclId: 32977082 Cc. FBI Papers. Documents 10, 12, l2a, 14, 14a, 13, 13a,_ 15, 15a, 15b, 16, 16a, 16b, were prepared’Sr are the responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Again, although we have no major substantive problem with the release of this information on a classified basis, we believe that the FBI should be asked to review it to ascertain that the sources of intelligence deséribed in these not be undau compromiséd by releasing it to the $ e Sele Committ taff. With regard to documents in the #IZ series, I don't believe that the two covering notes concerning distribution of the document to Governor Connally relate to the Committee inquiry and, thus, would recommend that they simply be removed. In Document 12a itself the matter for resolution by the FBI is whether disclosure of the information would identify sources of intelligence. 7 Documents in the 13 and 15 series relate to intelligence reports on the training of Negroes in Cuba for subversive operations against the United States. Although we don't believe this is relevant to the Committee investigation, we believe the matter of disclosure should be considered by the FBI. In this case, however, recent events would seem to indicate that Cuban training of Negroes in sub- versive operation tactics may not have necessarily been geared toward the United States solely, especially in view of recent developments in Africa. The docu- ments in the #16 series, although they would appear to be relevant to the investigation, relate to sensitive intelligence source materials. This document, however, must also be cleared by the CIA since the last page of the document relates to the CIA Station Chief in a European country. D. State Department Memorandum. Document 9is a December 1963 memorandum from Executive Secretary Read to McGeorge Bundy concerning papers prepared for a December Presidential meeting on Cuba. The memorandum indicates that . the papers were prepared for the "President's, _SECREEI00§) Page 4
HW 54214 -Doecld: 32977082 ~4- and then it was crossed out to state "Secretary's", use ata6p.’m December 2 meeting. There is no further substantive discussion in that document. I would defer, however, to the Department of State as to whether or not that document could be released. E. Bill Attwood Activities. Documents 26,27, 27a, 28, 28a,29 and 29a relate to a special channel being cultivated between Premier Castro and President Kennedy. Although it may not be necessary to protect the information contained in these documents, without knowing whether there has been another public disclosure of the existence of this channel, I would recommend that we not do so. In the event that this, or another similar channel, were ever to be used again in contacting or negotiating with the Cuban Government, it would be important not to disclose the existence or the substance of this one. I would believe that the Department of State would be the most appropriate agency to review these documents and to inform us about the sensi- tivity of theexistence of the Attwood channel. _ F. Mafia Assassination Involvement, Documents 24 and 24a concern plans of Cuban exile groups to assassinate selected Cuban Government leaders The covering memorandum from Gordon Chase to Mr. Bundy<discloses the substance of the underlived CIA memorandum and I would propose to make it available only en an access basis. With regard to the CIA report itself, I believe that we should defer to the CIA on the matter of release or access. and their tie-in with elernents of "Cosa Nostra." bod a G. Cubelas Trial. Documents 21, 2la and_2lb contain Government. The(Brit monitored the trial of the alleged involvement of Majors Cubelas and Guin in assassination attempts against Castro. (You may recall that the Washington Post article by Mr. George Crile 3 weeks ago related to AM-Lash and Major Cubclas. ) S) Page 5 C
conservative view, in that in some cases I would recommendo“'Y access as opposed to release, I believe the nature of some of the documents is such that copies should not be delivered tothe Committee. At least, that should be our initial position. Because the Committee will more than likely buck at anything less than full and complete disclosure, you will, more than likely, want to consult either with Bill Hyland or General Scowcroft. 4 You should be aware that the Committec is very anxious to have these documents made available and have _ been calling me at least twice every day. Ihave informed Mr. Epstein and Mr. Wallach, who are members of the Committee Staff, that we are revesting these documents as quickly as is possible, and because of the complexity and involvement of many different agencies that it is taking a considerable period of time. L indicated that although the NSC Staff review is nearly finished, it will be necessary to seek formally the views of other agencies. Although I gave no definite time when we expected to complete our review, I indicated that I thought by the end of this week there would be an answer ready for them. When Mr. Epstein called me at 1:30 this afternoon he indicated that unless we produced the documents that he would be forced to have them MAW subpoenaed. lindicated, in response, that we had been working diligently and devoting most of our time to this matter. I stated that most of my own time on Friday and all of my time today, Monday, had been devoted to this project and, that in my opinion, a subpoena could not quicken a review.process that was already moving at full speed. Mr. Epstein indicated that although they were unhappy with this delay that, for now, they would wait on our review. HW 54214 Docld:32977082 Page 7