THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS TO IDENTIFY AND PULL TOGETHER BASIC DOCUMENTS AND OTHER MATERIAL BEARING ONT HE CONGRESSIONAL OR HSCA EQUITIES EXEMPTION.
Originator: CIA
From: WITHHELD
Document date: 11/27/1990
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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2022 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

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27 November 1990

F81-0351, Working Paper

HSCA Equities

The purpose of this paper is to identify and pull together

basic documents and other material bearing on the Congressional or

HSCA Equities exemption.

Hopefully this may be useful to the JFK

Task Force in its interpretetion and application of this

exemption.

With the processing phase of the Allen litigation

drawing to a close, it may also help in consistency of treatment

and, perhaps, prevent of lessen future flaps during the inevitable

Appeals stage.

As our processing of the OLC material has progressed, we have

become increasingly concerned about our treatment of materials

where the HSCA Equities exemption is applicable.

Perhaps at the

core of our problem is the dilemma

posed by the contradiction

between the Court ordered Stipulation 3h and instructions from the

House of Representatives.

Stipulation 3h enjoins the Agency to search for: "Any records

relating to any assignment by the CIA to an employee of the CIA to

review, evaluate or assess any final or interim report by the

HSCA. "

However, HSCA Chairman Stokes, in his letter to the DCI of 26

March 1979 states:

"A great deal

of material has been generated

by your Agency in response to specific requests or concerns of the

Select Committee.

In addition, your Agency is in physical custody

of a variety of materials originating from the Select Committee.

It can be anticipated that your Agency will receive requests under

the Freedom of Information Act for access to these materials. The

purpose of this letter is to request specifically that this

Congressional material and related information in a form connected

with the Committee not be disclosed outside your Agency without

the written concurrence of the House of Representatives.*

Attached to this paper

are other documents concerned with

various aspects of Congressional Equities.

The following

pertinent quotes are taken from some of these documents:

1. Rules of the HSCA adopted 7 March 1977 as amended, Rule

10.8:

"The Chief Counsel and deputy chief counsels shall have

authority to designate materials and documents as sensitive. The

contents of all such materials and documents, in addition to any

materials or documents already classified or marked confidential

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by any agency or department of the United States Government, shall

not be released or divulged in any

way,

form, shape or manner

without the approval of the Select Committee or one of its

subcommittees."

2 .

In his letter to Chairman Stokes, dated 23 April 1979, the

DCI wIites:

"I have your letter of 26 March 1979 requesting

that

the congressional material and related information from your

Committees investigations not be publicly disclosed without the

written concurrence

of the House of Representatives, and I will be

guided accordingly."

Comment: Since the DCI's letter, which is quoted in its

entirety, falls squarely within our interpretation of HSCA

Equities, we presumably have to obtain the written concurrence of

the House before releasing it.

3.

The Agency HSCA Coordinator, Scott Breckenridge, in a

5 April 1979 memorandum to the DCI, Subject: HSCA Correspondence,

states:

the basis for doing so is an apparent misunderstanding on

the part of Blakey (Chief Counsel, HSCA) that our written comments

from the HSCA drafts are subject to FOIA proceedings.

Our

agreement with Blakey was that the Agency will retain no copies of

the various draft reports or of our written comments. Most of

this material has been retrieved by the OLC Registry, and the rest

will be retrieved following such comment that we may make on the

final HSCA report. The point is that these were, by,

. agreement

with the committee, not to become records; specfically that they

would be destroyed."

4.

In a memorandum for the record, dated 6 April 1979,

Subject:

Meeting Regarding Disposition of CIA Material related to

the HSCA Investigation, Jon E. Wolfe, DDA Records Management

Officer, states in para. 3:

"It was noted that Representative

Stokes had, by a recent letter the DCI, Requested that none of the

collection be made subject to the FOIA.

While the group

unanimously agreed that the CIA could not legally exempt any of

the CIA records from the FOIA, it was pointed out that our

probable retirement procedures would preclude any retrieval

individual documents within the collection.

That is, individual

documents within the collection would not be locatable without an

ardous document by document search - a process not required under

the FOIA."

5.

In a 27 April memorandum for the record regarding HSCA

Chief

Counsel

Blakey's visit to CIA Headquarters, R. Holmes writes

in para. 3:

"Category 2:

Material generated by the HSCA from

Agency classified holdings made available to the HSCA in response.

to the latter's

Note: Mr. Blakey stated that he

considered this material to be the property of the HSCA, and,

therefore not releasable to the public or other unauthorized

personnel under the provisions of the FOIA."

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6.

In a memorandum to the DCI, dated 8 November 1978,

Subject: HSCA Proposal for Review

of Preliminary Reports, the

Principal Coordinator, HSCA writes:

"para. 2, Background:

The Chief Counsel of the HSCA has

proposed a procedure, outside the formal Memorandum of

Understanding, for preliminary review of the draft

reports prepared by the staff.

We will be provided the

reports and will convey our comments in a series of

meetings.

To avoid a record of the exchanges we must

agree to

keep no copies of the draft (we will be allowed

to reproduce copies) and to prepare no formal papers; all

Agency reaction will be kept in informal working notes

that will be destroyed.

We must commit ourselves to this

and establich procedures that will insure compliance.

para. 4, Recommendation: It is recommended that we accept

MI. Blakey's conditions and that the undersigned be autho-

rized to so state to him.".

Comment:

Some very basic questions arise here. Is this agreement

with HSCA binding at this date,

particularly in view of its

conflict with the Courts Stipulation 3h?

Right now we are

processing some draft reports, errata sheets, pencilled notes,

etc., which, according to the agreement,

should have been

destroyed long ago? How do we handle this?

Also, details of the review process are discussed extensively

in internal CIA memoranda and in CIA letters to the HSCA.

strict interpretation of HSCA Equities, should such material not

also be exempt? We believe that it should be.

7. It is realized that some of the statements and comments

However

8. Since it bears directly on Congressional Equities and

serves as an important precedent, included in the attachments is

also correspondence relative to the Agency's implementation of

Stipulation 3j. This Stipulation reads in part:

"The CIA shall

write to Congressman Louis Stokes and/ or the Clerk of the u.s.

House of Representatives requesting that the CIA be allowed to

process for possible disclosure the draft HSCA study on Lee Harvey

Oswald's activities in Mexico City. If the Congress withholds

consent, the CIA's obligations under this subparagraph shall be

deemed satisfied."

Materials

attached include:

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U.S., District Court for the District of Columbia's.

Stipulation, dated 10 June 1988;

the Clerk of the House of Representatives, dated 25 August 1978;

The Clerk of the House's response to above letter, dated

9 September 1988, which withholds consent to process the

Stipulation 3j material;

Letter from the CIA General Counsel's Office to James H.

Lesar, the litigant's lawyer, dated 28 September 1988, advising of

the above.

8.

All the documents and material referred to above are to be

found in the Basic HSCA Equities folder.

Bengt C. Herder.)

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