457-10044-10189). RECORD NUMBER 7 RECORD SERIES : AGENCY FILE NUMBER : ORIGINATOR : FROM: TO: TITLE : DATE: PAGES: SUBJECTS : DOCUMENT TYPE: CLASSIFICATION : * RESTRICTIONS : CURRENT STATUS : DATE OF LAST REVIEW: OPENING CRITERIA : COMMENTS : v9.4 JFK Assassination System . Date: WT2015 Identification | ‘orm , _ Agency informition SSCIA “157-10014-10189 MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF THE: CHURCH COMMITTEE 07-M-94 Document Info: mation SSCIA 09/17/1975 9 CIA WATCH LIST NSA SUMMARY ‘ Unclassified Ic Redact 06/26/2000 NW 47129 Docld: 32423577 Page i
INTERVIEW AND MEET.NG SUMMARY. Page of F Summary of an interview with Lou Tordella.. WiT--9- DCs AD~4-u a ‘ Interview took place in Carroll Arms, Foom 610° Corda) on September 17, 1975 at 2:30 pm. Present FILE: ‘were Tordella, Ray Tadaki, who like Tordella is from NSA, Britt Snider and Eric Rickard , . from the Senate Select Committee. JNVENFORIED® _ (NOTE: This summary of the discussion. with Tordella does not cover his comments concerning Project LPMEDLEY. For information on that matter, see the summary by Britt Snider.) | | BACKGROUND | ~ Tordella came to the Naval Security Group in 1942. ‘He remained there and then began with.NSA at the time of its creation in 1952.) Tordella became Deputy Director of the Agency on August 1,°1958, and retired from that position on “April 23, 1974. Since that time he has been a consultant. He claims that he now works a 30-hour week instead of 60- ‘hour week. WATCH LIST Tordella had little memory of. ‘the watch list and pre- -1967. He does not- recall when the first watch list containing - "U.S. citizens was ‘established; he believed that it may have been in résponse to negotiations with the Secret Service following the assassination of Presiden: Kennedy. Tordella stated that, at that time, the Secret Service did ask NSA to establish a watch list of "names" bur: that no specific discussion took place as to whether or not these included names of U.S. citizens. Tordella said he simply never saw any meaningful distinction between placing U.S. names and other names on the watch list. In fact, Tordella claims. HW 47129 Docld:32423577 Page 2
Bo INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page __ of G that he never saw an actual list of an: of the names until FILE: sometime in the early 1970's, probably 1972. Tordella did | not know whether the early watch list activity included telephone monitoring, or only monitoring for printer traffic. Tordella said that he believed thai: in this early | period, names were submitted to the watch list by the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service. He did not think that any other agency had submitted names. He said it was possible that the Office of Security might have submitted names, but that he had no specific recollecticn of this. .He stated: - "I would not have considered that a bac. idea." 1967-1969 | Tordella was shown the Yarborough cable which bore his initials.’ He had no independent recollection of the communi - cation, however. He stated that he di¢ not know whether this “cable was the first time that NSA was tasked to place Tiames | of U.S. citizens and groups associated with Black and anti- war movements on the watch list. Similarly, he did not know what, if anything, was included on the watch list. for the first time in response to the Yarborough cable. Tordella knew of no meetings that took place inside NSA, or with other agencies, as a result of the telegram. In addition, he did not know whether the ACSI had ever received any product from NSA. In general, Tordella knew of no new Measures taken by -NSA because of the Yarborough communication. | Tordella was shown the roughly~ typed 4-page ‘document containing a list of names that was supolied to. the Committee by NSA. He said that he had never seen it before, but that NW 47129 Docld:32423577 Bage 3
INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page > of GF it looked Like. an- internal NSA working paper. He stated FILE: ‘that it was possible, although he did not remember whether this was the case, that this document had resulted from . discussions between NSA and ACSI. Tordella’ was shown the reply from Gen. Carter in response to the Yarborough telegram, which was sent out to all the members of USIB. Although Tordella had no independent re- collection of this document, he surmised that the wide distribution it was given did not implv that Yarborough’ s telegram had also been sent to all the members of USIB. Rather, he felt that Carter had sent out his wider response in order to bring to the attention of the other members of USIB this new and constructive project that Yarborough was ' proposing.’ That. is, the wide disseminz.tion of the reply was meant as a "pat on the back" for Yerborough. “AFTER 1 JULY 1969 (MINARET) | Tordella did not know who authored the MINARET charter. He said that he. did not believe that he had seen it til after - it was issued, and in fact not until atout 1973. Tordella — stated that this charter was simply a way of making sure that materials from an ongoing project were being properly con- trolled, and receiving appropriately restricted distribution. Tordella had no recollection of whc’ was consulted within the National Security Agency in the. ‘Preparation of the MINARET charter, and did not know who suggestec that it be prepared. He doubted that anyone outside NSA had been’ consulted. He 1 HW 47129 DociId:32423577 Page 4
INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page __ “of va _ said that the primary motivation for the docyment was probabl FILE: to avoid problems that would arise if any of the. communica- tions intercepted by NSA were forced to be produced in open court. | | - ‘Tordella was then asked when the first time was that BNDD had first become involved in the watch list activity with NSA. Tordella stated that he though it had been origi- nated by William Sullivan of BNDD around 1973, and that this was NSA‘’s contact with BNDD. Tordella was then shown the memorandum that John Ingersoll sent to NSA concerning watch list activity in 1970. Tordella-said ihat he stood corrected. and that contacts with BNDD probably. began in 1969. Tordella stated that in his opinion the monitoring on behalf of BNDD was never connected with law enforcement. _. However, he said that’ NSA at the time had no objection to " BNDD's using the materials produced by NSA for leads in law enforcement investigations. _Tordella noted that in this period, whenever the Justice Departmen: canvassed various federal agencies in response to discovery motions on wire- ~ tapping in criminal cases, the Justice Department request was worded in terms of "wire tapping,’ rather than electro- nic surveillance. Therefore, NSA always denied that it had engaged in any of the practices as to which the Justice Department was inquiring. Later, the Justice Dept. ‘modi- fied the wording of its requests to included all electronic | surveillance. After this time, NSA bejzan to answer the ' relevant inquiries in the affirmative. NW 471239) Docld:32423577. Page 5
~ INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUVMARY Page Zoot G Tordella stated that he did not know how many total FILE: entries of U.S. citizens were on the vatch list from its start to its termination. He algo did not know what the greatest number of U.S. citizens on the watch list at any one time was. In fact, Tordella can only rémember two specific names from the watch list: Jane Fonda and Mohammed Ali. Tordella had no information on the amount of product that was generated on an average month or what criteria were used to decide which messages were worth processing. While he stated that he may have béen-shown the product at various points, he had no recollection of this he stated that: "It just wasn't interesting enough to bring. to my attention." He did state however that. the human judgment of the analyst probably determined what product was d:.sseminated. Analysts - ' simply developed a "feel" for what a particular customer wanted. Tordella however knew of no key individuals’ or groups. as to which all interceptions were-always, disseminated. He stated that an exception to his Lact: of recollection might be that all messages to or from Hanoi were disseminated} Tordella was asked about how the footnotes on the MINARET product were compiled. While ‘‘ordella knew nothing of the role of NSA 's biographic files in this matter, he stated that SIGINT analysts had discretion to call the FBI _ CIA, or other agencies on their own for the purpose of ob- taining. identification information on persons mentioned in SIGINT. RW 47129 Docld:32423577 Page 6
fon) INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page of F_ FILE: Tordella stated that the distribut:.on of the MINIRET product to the agencies would not be limited to the pro- duct concerning names submitted by the receiving agency. Here again, the judgment of the analys: was key. The analyst would have in mind the substantive requirement that had come in from the consumer ‘agency (such as foreign connec- tions to domestic demonstrations). Anything that the analyst saw relevant to the substantive requirement would be sent to the consumer agency. . . | Tordella stated that by the time of the institution of Project MINIRET, the product was distributed only by courier. In the early days of the. watch list, i: is possible that the . product was electrically distributed. Tordella could not remember the precise time when the. “watch list activity was ceased. He though this took place about the time of Attorney General Richardson's letter. Subsequent to receiving that letter, Tordella said that he had first refused to accept the nam: of the five people who are presently on the watch list as Secret Service pro- tectees. However, after receiving the oral approval of the Attorney General for these names, Tord2lla approved their submission to the computer dictionary. Tordella said he did not remember whether the idea of terminating the watch list came from inside NSA or from the Dept. of Justice. He said he did not «now when the Dept. of Justice first became aware of the witch list activity. He said he thought the first time that Justice obtained this ‘HW 47129 Docld:32423577 Page 7°
; 7. INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page of vi FILE: . awareness was just before the issuance of Richardson's letter. Tordella could not recall-any of the legal issues or cases which were discussed in the ecurse of terminating the watch list. | “Tordella then recounted that he hac had a meeting with Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger within about one month of the time that Schlesinger assumed that post. Tordella thought that this meeting had taken place shortly | before the watch list activity had terminated in 1973... ‘Schlesinger's response was simply to say "I'm glad you told me everything you are doing. Is that «11?" Tordella replied “Yes .° No orders or instructions to NSA concerning the ' watch list activity were issued as a result of the meeting. Gen. Sam Phillips, then Director of NSA,. was also at the meeting. No one else was present. Tordella stated that after the meeting, he wrote a memo in v.onghand, which was never typed. He stated that he had sujplied this to NSA: and Ray Tadaki said that he had seen the memo. ‘Tadaki said ‘that he though that David Lowman had a copy of the memo . Tordella then told Tadaki that if Lowman had made any copies of the memo , Tordella would slit Lowman" s throat. _ Tordella stated that no subsequent action of any kind was taken by NSA as a result of the Schlesinger meeting. Tordella also stated that he thought that the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board knew of the watch list - at some point, through routine briefings provided to it by NSA. Tordella could not remember any : specific times when -- “HW 47129 Docld:32423577 Page 8 ~
INTERVIEW AND MEEIING SUMMARY _ Page if £7 this knowledge had been imparted to PFAB, but he did not PILE: ‘remember anyone on that board having d:.sapproved the matter. . ‘VOICE MONITORING As stated earlier, Tordella did.no:: remember when NSA had first initiated voice monitoring a: the réquest of BNDD. He did however remember the CIA takeover of this monitoring. He said that CIA had initially undertaken this responsibility from a station in Florida. However , Tordella did not know. who at NSA had requested CIA to take over this responsibility or whether NSA had provided CIA with a list of names for moni toring. Tordella said that when CIA discontinued its acti- vity in this area, he was told the reason, and in fact saw ‘the Houston memorandum on the lawfulness of this activity. Tordella said he felt that Houston was simply using legal matters as an excuse to disentangle the CIA from an expen- sive operation. He said that CIA offe::ed to put its per- sonnel who had been involved in the project on NSA's bud- get, but that NSA refused this offer. Tordella said that he simply did not read Houston's memo is stating that moni- toring for law enforcement purposes wa:s unlawful, but rather to state that CIA monitoring from within the United States : was unlawful. | Tordella said that he personally issued a verbal order to stop the drug watch list activity ater consulting with the Director of NSA. He said his reason for this was that he feared "uninformed public criticism’. NW 47129 Docld:32423577 Page 9
INTERVIEW AND MEETING SUMMARY Page 7 os 7 Tordella did not know why NSA had continued to monitor FILE: U.S.-South American. telephone calls after the termination. of the watch list. He did state, however, that this activity was "utterly a waste of time" from the point of view of pro- ductivity. Tordella stated, if fact, that he did not know ‘for sure that the monitoring had continued. He stated that if it had continued, it may have had other independent value. Tordella was questioned about the destruction of document relating to the drug watch list. ‘He stated that these materials were destroyed because no .one saw any future use for. them,- and that "It was a nice tidy little package.” Tor- della did not know why DEA had sent its ‘materials back to | NSA for destruction but guessed that it was probably be- cause DEA had no secure facilities for destruction. He stated that this was not an unusual action. Tordella stated that the lack of serialization on the watch list product was designed as furt her protection in case some of these materials had to be produced in open court. HW 47129 Docld:32423577 Page 10