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12025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECOROS ACT OF 1999

5 March 1997

Memorandum For:

From:

Subject:

Fred Wickham, DO Focal Point for JFK

Linda Cipriani, OGC Focal Point for JFK

Barry Harrelson

JFK Project Officer

(U) CIA Employees Names in JFK Records

(AIOU) In meetings on March 4, 1997, I raised with

David Marwell and Jeremy Gunn my concerns with the large

number of employee names scheduled for review in May 1997

and the potential harm to the Agency if most of these names

are released. I found both receptive to our concerns and

willing to re-open the issue of the release of CIA employees

true names with the Board.

Marwell cautioned, however, that

they could not predict the Board's response and that we

should move expeditiously to provide our "evidence" to the

Board.

(V) If you agree with my assessment of the situation (see

below), I recommend

we move quickly to engage upper

management and prepare the necessary material. Please

provide your response as soon as possible.

Background

(AIOU) In March 1996, the ARRB agreed to protect the

names of all Agency staff

employees that appear in JFK

documents until May 1997. The agreement reflected the

Board's recognition of the need to facilitate the document

review, and that it would take time for the Agency to

collect evidence to defend individual names.

(AIOU) Jeremy Gunn's memo summarizing the Board's

approach to the release of CIA employee names describes a

name-by-name approach and sets categories and specific

requirements for the release or protection of an individual.

Even if the DO is able to complete the

research on all

employees protected to date (590), it is unlikely that it

will be able to develop the type of evidence required by the

Board to protect most individuals. Under a name-by-name

approach, we can expect a majority of the names to be

released.

CL BY:

611637

CL Reason: 1.5 (c)

DECL On:

X1

DRV From: PER 9-87; COV 1.1-86

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Issue

(AIOU) There is considerable concern among HRG

reviewers

that the continued release of hundreds of Agency

employees' true names has the potential to do unacceptable

harm to US national security.

large number of names lies in the fact that the potential

damage cannot be measured.

luked thin

The harm from release of a

This is due to the ripple effect

that would occur among assets in many places, with many

liaison services

and multiple cover entities.

(U) To date, 590 CIA employee names, mostly DO, have

been protected and are subject to review

1997.

by the Board in May

Most of these individuals have little or no

connection to the JFK assassination story.

This number is

much larger than we anticipated when we agreed in March 1996

to the case-by-case approach.

(S) The decisions made by the Board at the May meeting

will set a precedent for the potentially hundreds of

additional names not yet identified. We have reviewed only

the Oswald 201 file and 12 boxes of the JFK sequestered

collection. At this point it is impossible to determine the

total number of employees mentioned in the JFK collection.

For

example in Box 48, there is a 155 page Position Control

Register listing all employees in Far East Division

including the Tokyo station.

Recommendation

(AIOU) That the Agency re-visit the name issue with the

ARRB based on the following considerations:

* It should be recognized that there are two separate

aspects of the public. interest involved in this matter,.

and that it is necessary to achieve a reasonable

balance between them.

On the one hand, it is clear

that it is now in the public interest to release as

much of our JFK collection as is possible.

On the

other hand, it is equally clear that it is in the

public interest for this Agency to maintain its

essential security and cover practices in order to be

able to serve the nation effectively in accordance with

its enabling legislation.

* It is not in the public's interest for one of the

fundamental principles of

an intelligence agency--

protecting the identity of covert employees--to

continue to be eroded. While it is not always

possible to show harm by the release of any one

individual's name, the magnitude of the JFK release

me, the nama rude

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clearly has the potential to do harm to the Agency as

an institution and to national security.

There is

simply no way to measure the possible effect of such a

release on past and future employees, agents, liaison

relationships and operations.

* Since most of the individuals involved have little or

no connection with the JFK assassination, the release

of their true names does not add to the assassination

story.

The substitution of pseudonyms or other

identifier would meet the historian's need to track who

is saying what to whom, etc.

* However, the Agency does recognizes that there are some

employees who are part of the JFK story (many of their

names have already been released) .

We propose that the

ARRB staff and HRG

work together to establish a list

of individuals who fit this category. These are the

names that would be released unless the Agency is able

to provide the required evidence of current harm.

This approach would serve both the public's and the Agency's

interests. It would also allow the Agency to focus its

resources on completing the review and responding to the

special requests of the Board, instead of spending an

inordinate amount of time and money on individuals of'

marginal or no interest to the JFK story.

(C) [Note: There is also the issue of State, Department

equities and the impact of officially acknowledging as CIA

hundreds of officers who were under official State cover.]

•-..

Proposed Action

(AIOU) We have a little over two months to resolve this

issue and be ready for the ARRB meeting, May 12-13.

support

from, top management including a willingness to raise the

issue with the acting/new DCI and possibly the White House

is critical to

I envision a memorandum to the

Board similar to the one prepared on sources.

However, I

recommend it be signed by the General Counsel.

We should

also be prepared to discuss the issue directly with the

Board since we are asking them to reconsider a decision

in

which we initially concurred.

•(AIOU) Mr. Marwell recommends that we include examples

of documents with names of marginal interest in our package.

He also would like to

story, names which are "important to the assassination

start immediately preparing a list of

If you concur, HRG and DO JFK reviewers could begin

immediately on these two tasks.

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(AIOU) The Board has meetings scheduled for 13-14

March, 2-3 April and 23-24 April. I recommend that we begin

discussions with ARRB staff as soon as possible with the

goal of having the memo ready no later than the 2-3 April

meeting.

It is important that the DO continue to develop

evidence on the individuals who are scheduled for review in

May. The worst possible scenario is not succeeding with the

new proposal, and then not being ready to defend those

individuals who truly need to be protected.

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