MEMO: CIA TESTIMONY AT JFK ARRB HEARING
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
To: PEREIRA. A/DIR CTR FOR STUDY OF INT
Document date: 8/12/96
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : CIA

RECORD NUMBER

: 104-10331-10114

RECORD SERIES

: JFK

AGENCY FILE NUMBER

PROJFILES - CORRESPONDENCE

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

Released under the John

Case#:NW 53217 Date:

06-22-2017

AGENCY ORIGINATOR

TITLE

DATE

PAGES

SUBJECTS

PEREIRA. A/DIR CTR FOR. STUDY OF INT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

MEMO: CIA TESTIMONY AT JFK ARRB HEARING

08/12/1996

9

JFK ASSASSINATION

ARRB REVIEW

DOCUMENT TYPE

PAPER

CLASSIFICATION

UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS

: 1A

CURRENT STATUS

RELEASED IN PART PUBLIC - RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE

OF LAST REVIEW

: 04/23/03

COMMENTS :

JFK-M-16 : F5: 2000.02.08.16:32:36:310044

[R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED

104-10331-10114

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FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

CIA SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

RELEASE IN FULL

/ 2000

CSI-0337/96

12

August 1996

MEMORANDUM FOR:

Executive Director

FROM:

SUBJECT:

John F. Pereira

Acting Director,

Center for the

Study of Intelligence

CIA Testimony at JFK Assassination

Board Hearing

1. This memorandum is for your information. On 6 August

1996, the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) held an

open

hearing for purposes of having public discussion about

declassification of CIA's files related to the assassination.

2.

The principal

issue discussed at the hearing was whether

the Board needs to review word-by-word each of

the more than

300,000 pages of CIA's "sequestered collection"

This collection

is comprised of those records that were made available to

House Select Committee on Assassinations during its investigation.

3. The Board's General Counsel, Jeremy Gunn, proposed that

the ARRB consider declaring

a sizeable portion of the collection

as not relevant or duplicative.

If the Board agrees, then the

irrelevant and duplicative materials would be examined only by

the ARRB'S staff, thereby speeding up the review process

substantially. (The Board's charter expires in October, 1997,

but presumably could be extended by Congress.)

4.

Two

members of the Historical Review Group--Barry Harrelson

and I--testified under oath on the Agency's considerable efforts to

n on the l

fulfill its commitment to release as many assassination documents to

the public as possible.

In a prepared statement, we described how

the sequestered collection was compiled originally, kept intact per

instructions from Congress, and then reviewed for release under

authority granted by then Speaker of the House Foley.

We emphasized

that every document in the collection is available in full to the

Board and its senior staff.

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

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FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

SUBJECT: CIA Testimony at JFK Assassination

Board Hearing

5. From CIA's perspective, the hearing went smoothly. The

Board accepted CIA's testimony without criticism. None of the

four public witnesses raised any serious concerns about CIA's

handling of the JFK documents.

One witness--author / lawyer

on CIA records, and that CIA was being

John 7 Penine

John

F. Pereira

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FOR OFFICIAL USE

ONLY

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FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

SUBJECT: CIA Testimony at JFK Assassination

Board Meeting

AD/DCI/CSI/JFPereira:bas/x30373 (12 Aug 96)

Distribution:

Original - Addressee

1 - Executive Registry

1 - D/CSI

1 - CSI File

1

- CSI Chrono

1

B. Harrelson, HRG

1

-HRG File

3

FOR OFFICIAL USE

ONLY

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TESTIMONY BEFORE JEK BOARD, 6 AUGUST 1996

INTRODUCTION

Introduce CIA participants

We are pleased to provide information to the

Assassination

Records Review Board that might assist the Board in fulfilling

its responsibilities under the President John F. Kennedy

Assassination Records Collection Act. CIA is committed to full

cooperation with

the

Board.

Before addressing the subject of the sequestered collection

directly, I would like to provide some background to help put

the sequestered collection into some sort of context.

In the spring of 1992, prior to the enactment of the JFK

Assassination Records Act, then Director of Central

Intelligence,

Bob Gates issued instructions to begin reviewing

for declassification all records related to the assassination.

The CIA History Staff

was charged with identifying the

relevant records. Once this was done, the Historical Review

Group took custody of these records and immediately began

reviewing them for declassification for release to the National

Archives.

Once the Kennedy Assassination Records Act was passed, our

goal became to release as many of the records as possible by the

22 August 1993 deadline established by the Act. Approximately

125,000 pages were transferred

date.

With subsequent releases, CIA has now declassified and

transferred some 227,000 pages of material to the National

Archives.

on discussions with the Board, we are

continuing to release additional information that had been

redacted earlier.

The remaining records are in various stages of review.

Some require review by other agencies.

Some is congressional

material. Final decisions on other records are awaiting

discussion with the Review Board.

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THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS

In identifying relevant records, we have followed the

definitions in the 1992 Act and the related rules which were

published in the Federal Register.

The Kennedy assassination records in CIA consist of two

major groups of files.

One group consists of the documents in

the Lee Harvey Oswald

file--sometimes referred to as the "Oswald

201 file". These consist mainly of documents collected after the

assassination and during the Warren Commission investigation.

There are about 26,000 pages of material in the Oswald

file. All but a handful have been declassified and sent to the

National Archives.

The second group is comprised of the "sequestered

collection".

These are the records that were made available to

the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and which the

Committee asked CIA to hold in safekeeping upon the completion

of the Committee's investigation.

Certain additional records, including 400 excerpts from

minutes of the Director's morning meetings,

and some working

files, have been added to the overall collection since 1992..

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SEQUESTERED COLLECTION

First of all,

every document in the sequestered

collection is available to the Board for review.

documents are available in full, without redactions.

The record shows that the sequestered collection

consists of documents compiled in connection with the

investigation of the House Select Committee on

Assassinations (HSCA) .

A portion of the documents were created specifically in

response to requests from the HSCA. Other records were

already in existence prior to the creation of the Committee.

Still other documents were created by the Committee itself.

For example, notes of interviews conducted by the

Committee's

staff.

Within the sequestered collection there are two major

categories of records. One category consists of

approximately 129,000

pages of hard copy. The second

category consists

of 72 reels of microfilm, or the

equivalent of 163, 000 pages of hard copy.

The reason why the documents were sequestered is

explained in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the

Chairman Louis

Stokes of the HSCA and DCI Stansfield Turner

in August 1977. The Memorandum provides as follows:

"Upon termination of the Committee, all materials

provided by CIA

and examined by the Committee will be kept

and preserved within a segregated and secure area within CIA

for at least 30 years unless the DCI and the House of

Representatives agree to a shorter period of time."

In April 1979, Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Staff

Director of the HSCA visited CIA Headquarters to complete

the process of designating what materials were to be

sequestered.

All the documents made available to the

Committee were included in the sequestered collection.

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REVIEW AND DECLASSIFICATION OF THE SEQUESTERED FILES

In 1992, CIA wrote to Speaker of the House Thomas Foley

requesting approval to begin declassifying and releasing the

records. In October of that year, Mr. Foley wrote a letter

to the DCI granting CIA the authority to do so. The

Speaker's decision was made in anticipation of passage of

the Assassination Records Collection Act.

THE HARDCOPY MATERIAL

The hardcopy part of the sequestered collection

includes copies of most of the CIA

documents in the Oswald

201 file.

Also included are 201 files, personnel files, and

security files on persons who are mentioned in documents

relevant to the assassination, or who figure in one of the

conspiracy theories.

The collection also includes about 30,000 pages of

documents, memos, and notes (many handwritten) that were

created by the Committee staff during their investigation.

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THE MICROFILM PORTION OF THE SEQUESTERED COLLECTION

As I noted

earlier, there are approximately 72 reels of

microfilm in the sequestered collection.

(Incidentally, we

arranged

to have all of the microfilm records printed

in hard copy.)

The decision to microfilm a portion of the sequestered

collection was apparently based on two major considerations:

First, the integrity of the sequestered records

had to be maintained.

Second, a number of the files requested by the

HSCA were active

and had to be available

• to allow people to

continue conducting their normal activities.

solution was

to replace certain records with

microfilm versions.

These records were microfilmed during

1979-80 with the approval of the Assassinations Committee.

THE CONTENT OF THE MICROFILM

A sizeable portion of the microfilm--approximately 50

percent--duplicates the hard copy files.

For example, there

are 12 reels of material from the Oswald 201 file.

The bulk of the reels consists of files on

individuals and organizations, including personnel files of

CIA employees.

There are also a number of files on anti-

Castro organizations.

All but a small percentage of the

materials are CIA-originated cables, dispatches, memoranda,

reports, and correspondence.

There are questions of privacy that we believe the

Board may want to consider in determining what information

is to

be

released to the public. Some of the records

contain,

for example, medical information on an individual.

There are also questions of relevancy that we suggest

the Board consider

For example, many of the documents

cover sensitive activities that go far beyond the timeframe

of the assassination or investigations into the

assassination.

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..."

SUMMARY

-We hope that the Board has found this discussion of

the sequestered documents useful.

--We look forward to continuing cooperation with the

as we all work towards releasing as much information

as possible

to the American public.

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