LETTER: I AM ENCLOSING A TRANSCRIBED COPY OF YOUR AUGUST 6, 1996 TESTIMONY TO THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD
Originator: ARRB
From: T. JEREMY GUNN, GEN. COUNSEL. ARRB
To: JOHN PEREIRA. HRG/CSI/CIA
Document date: 08/21/1996
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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

SSINATION

SS

Assassination Records Review Board

600 E Street NW • 2nd Floor • Washington, DC 20530

(202) 724-0088 • Fax: (202) 724-0457

VIEW

BON®

August 21, 1996

Mr. Johnt Pereira

Chief, Historical Review Group

Center for the Study of Intelligence

Central Intelligence Agency

Washington, D.C. 20505

Dear John:

I am enclosing a transcribed copy of your August 6, 1996 testimony to the Assassination

Records Review Board. You should review it to determine whether there are any

substantive corrections that you wish to make and return them to me by August 29,

1996.

Thank you again for agreeing to testify before the Board.

Sincerely,

T. Jeremy Gunn

General Counsel

Enclosure

Cc: Linda Cipriani Esq.

BOARD MEMBERS: John R. Tunheim, Chair • Henry F. Graff • Kermit L. Hall • William L. Joyce • Anna K. Nelson

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: David G. Marwell

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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

-

In re:

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

PUBLIC BOARD MEETING

Pages 1 thru 110

Washington, D.C.

August 6, 1996

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ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

PUBLIC BOARD MEETING.

JOHN R. TUNHEIM, CHAIRMAN

Tuesday, August 6, 1996

1:00 p.m.

600

E Street, N.W.

ROOm 206

Washington, D.C.

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Mr.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you very much,

Tilley. We appreciate your continued help.

MR. TILLEY: My pleasure, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Next, we have two

representatives from the Central Intelligence

Agency here today, to provide factual testimony for

the board on the nature of the seguestered

collection, Mr. John Pereira and Mr. Barry

Harrelson.

And because this is primarily a factual

presentation, we decided that we should put each of

you under oath. So, if you would, raise your right

hand and repeat after me.

(John Pereira and Barry Harrelson sworn.]

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you for joining

today.

MR. PEREIRA:. A pleasure. We're pleased

to try to help and provide information that might

help the board understand the sequestered

collection. I thought, if the time allows, I might

give some background to put the sequestered

collection in context for the board.

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CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: That would be very

helpful.-

MR. PEREIRA: In the spring of 1992, prior

to the enactment of the Assassination Records Act,

the then-Director of Central Intelligence,

Robert

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, which they did.

And once that happened, our group that we

represent, the historical review group, took

custody of the records and immediately began

reviewing them for declassification for release to

the National Archives.

Ofce the Records Act was passed, our goal

became to release as many records

as possible by

the 22 August 1993 deadline established by the Act.

And approximately 125,000 pages were transferred

to

the National Archives by that date.

With subsequent releases, the Agency has

now declassified and transferred

some 227,000 pages

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to the National Archives. And based on discussions

with the Board, we're trying 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. And

final decisions on other records are awaiting

discussion with the board, as you know.

The Kennedy assassination records in the

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 that were collected after the

assassination and during the Warren Commission

*Finvestigation. And there are about 26,000 pages of

material in this file. All but a handful have been

declassified and sent to the National Archives.

The second group is one

of major interest

to you today, I think. It's

comprised of the

sequestered collection. These are records that

were made available to the House Select Committee

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on Assassination and which the committee asked CIA

to hold in safekeeping upon the completion of the

committee's investigation.

And there are certain additional records,

including 400 excerpts from the minutes of the

director of Central Intelligence morning meetings

and some working files that have been added since

1992.

But that's pretty much the landscape of the

records- we have.

By going directly to the sequestered

collection, I'd like to say that, first of all,

every document in the sequestered collection was

available to the board for review.. Every document

is available in full to the board without

redactions.

A portion of the documents that were

created specifically in response to requests from

the House Assassination Committee are in the

record. Other records were already in existence

prior to the creation of the committee. And still

other documents were created by the committee

itself.

For example, there are notes of interviews

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- are::

conducted by the committee's staff.

So, these are the three categories: those

created for the committee at their request; others

that existed that we provided to them at their

request; and others that the committee itself

created.

Now, within the sequestered collection,

there are two major categories of records. This is

a simple breakdown. I hope this is helpful. One

category consists of about 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.

Now, the question has come up of why the

documents were sequestered. And this is explained

a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the

chairman of the Assassination Committee and the

director of Central Intelligence.

copy here to submit to the board.

And I have a

The memorandum states that, "Upon

termination of the Committee, all materials

provided by CIA and examined by the Committee will

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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, the chief

counsel and staff director of the Assassinations

Committee, visited CIA headquarters; and he

completed the process of designating what materials

were to be sequestered. All the documents made

available to the Assassination Committee were

included in this sequestered collection.

The second question that often comes up

is, where did we get authority to start reviewing

these records prior to the Assassination Act? And

this goes back to my point about Robert Gates

wanting to get started as quickly as possible in

the review and declassification.

So, the Agency wrote to the Speaker of the

House, Thomas Foley, in 1992, requesting approval

to begin declassifying and releasing the records.

And in October of that year, Speaker Foley wrote a

letter to the director, granting CIA the authority

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to

do so.

The Speaker's decision was clearly made in

anticipation of passage of the Assassination

Records Collection Act. So, we have lhe records,

and we started processing.

Within the two categories that I

mentioned, the hard copy material is one. And we

have a page describing that for the board, which

I'11 leave with you.

This includes copies of most

of the CIA documents and the Oswald 201 file that I

referred to earlier.

Also included in the hard copy are other

201 files, personnel files, security files on

persons who are mentioned in documents relevant to

the assassination or

who figure in one of the

*conspiracy theories.

This part,

the hard copy, also includes

about 30,000 pages of documents, memos, and notes

-- many of these, handwritten -- that were created

by the Assassination Committee itself.

so, those

are in the hard copy.

Now, the microfilm portion of the

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sequestered collection, as I mentioned, contains 72

reels of microfilm. Incidentally, we found very

quickly that working with microfilm wasn't all that

easy, so we arranged to have all of the microfilm

printed out in hard copy. So, we have both; and

both of these are available to the board, both the

microfilm itself and the printout.

The decision to microfilm was

apparently

based on two major considerations, as far as we can

determine from our records. First, the integrity

of the sequestered

records had to be maintained.

second, a number of the files that the

Assassination Committee requested were active

files, and had to be available to allow people to

continue conducting their normal activities within

* fthe Agencÿ.

So, the solution was to replace certain

records with microfilm versions.

And these records

were microfilmed during 1979 and 1980 with the

approval of the Assassinations Committee. And we

have memos for the records showing how that

happened, so that you will have the history on

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that.

Now, looking at the content of the

microfilm, a

sizeable portion of this -- probably

50 percent -- duplicates the hard copy in the

sequestered 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

small percentage are CIA-originated cables, or

dispatches, or memoranda

and other documents.

In looking at the microfilm, we believe

there are questions of privacy that the board may

want to consider in determining what information is

= to be reléased.

Some of the records, for example,

contain 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 time frame of the assassination or

investigations into the

• assassination.

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That's rather brief; but I hope this is

useful to the board in trying to understand the

sequestered documents, sometimes called segregated

documents.

We use those terms interchangeably.

And we certainly look forward to continuing

cooperating with the board, with the goal of

releasing as much information as possible to the

American public.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Very well. Mr.

Harrelson, do have anything to add?

MR. HARRELSON: NO.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Questions on the part

of the board?. Dr. Joyce.

DR. JOYCE: MI.

Pereira, you mentioned

that 50 percent of the microfilm appears to

duplicate what already exists in hard copy. you

mentioned the 201 file

as an example of that.

Maybe I missed it, but could you

characterize perhaps the portion that appears not

to be duplicated in hard copy? Do you have any

information about that?

MR. PEREIRA: The types of material that

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isn't duplicative?

DR. JOYCE: Yes.

MR. HARRELSON: This is where you get into

the 201 files which make up the bulk of the

microfilm, and it covers the areas of individuals

who were not .- or areas of their careers that were

not involved in the assassination periods. So,

there would not be documents from there in the hard

copy.

Most of the hard copy, apparently, was

created as the HSC staffers asked for particular

information. They would look at a file, and ask

for copies of it. The ultimate was one cable,

where we found 43 copies. So, most of it --I

would say, every document

is duplicated at least

fonce, and'used at multiple times throughout the

collection.

DR. JOYCE: And it would appear, then,

that most of the information within the 201 file --

MR. HARRELSON: The other area of unique

information is the Cuban exile activities. Much

more in the microfilm than in the hard copy.

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collection. And most of that was released in

August 94.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Other questions?

MS. NELSON: How much have you been able

to look at this sequestered file? It's enormous.

It boggles the mind, going through 72 reels of

microfilm. No wonder you printed hard copy. But I

would imagine you've only done some sampling.

MR. HARRELSON: With the exception of the

201 file

-- the duplicate microfilm 201 file and

the --

Well, that's the only exception. We have

looked at every page of material.

MS. NELSON: Do you have a sense of what's

not, in your view, an assassination record?. Are

there certain percentages or certain numbers of

Lt hose?

MR. PEREIRA: I think we need to defer to

the board on that. We're suggesting certain --

MS. NELSON: Yes. That's what --

MR. PEREIRA: - questions that the board

may address, but we are deferring completely to you

in interpreting the law. And, so, we're assuming

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that every piece of paper we have that was

sequestered is potentially relevant.

MS. NELSON: Under the 'statute,

we'll have

to see what that is:

MR. PEREIRA: Yes, following the statute.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Any further questions?

DR. HALL: John, do you know what of these

materials the HSCA used and didn't use?

MR. PEREIRA: There's à -- I'll let Barry

comment on this, as well. There's a little bit of

uncertainty. To go back, every record that we made

available to the committee is in the sequestered

coliection.

Some of the indications are that there was

a very thorough review, obviously, by the committee

*of a lot of records. My impression is that, for

other records, the committee staff requested

certain files. We provided an entire file -- let's

say, on an individual.

But the committee staff may have said,

"Well, this really isn't all that relevant to our

work,

but thank you. We now know who that person

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is, because someone suggested this person may have

been involved, and we needed to check that name."

And in checking the name, we get the

impression very quickly they determined they didn't

have to read every single paper in the file. It's

that sort of breakdown, I think.

MR. HARRELSON: There are indications, as

you go through the

microfilm, that some of the

files were not reviewed. There is a sheet for

these files signed by the staffers, and the

notations there.

We have never -- Since we were

viewing the file as a whole, we never went through

and calculated which one of these it indicated they

had reviewed or not.

DR. HALL: And was it the case, or were

there instances that you're aware of, where they

HSCA staff and/or related individuals marked on

these documents or dealt with them in a way other

than merely reading them?

MR. HARRELSON: The 30,000 pages,

frequently are handwritten notes taken from the

documents.

Since the hard copy -- or in copies

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made available today, you sometimes find notations,

their names written on them -- different things.

MR. PEREIRA: But they seem to have made

very thorough notes on documents that they found:

were valuable.

DR. HALL: Did the CIA, in providing

these

materials, put any restrictions on them with regard

to copying that could be done?

MR. PEREIRA: By the

committee itself, you

mean?

DR. HALL: Yes.

MR. PEREIRA: I don't know what the record

shows.

MR. HARRELSON: They were held in one

central location -- all notes -- for review. The

"staffers, as I understand it, would come and review

these files, makes their notes. And the notes

would then be reviewed by - at least, by a staff

person. And their notes could be taken, but the

files were held in one location securely.

MR. PEREIRA: There was an arrangement

whereby, if they wanted

to use a record elsewhere

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for some reason or other, there was a means for

making that available to them; possibly, by

redacting something extremely sensitive, like the

name of an agent. But they could --

DR. HALL: I see.

MR. PEREIRA: But they could make the

arrangement to have them use the document.

DR. HALL: Congress has less than a

distinguished history in handling some documents of

a classified nature, and there is this kind of

problem.

As document hunters, there's sort of an

interesting problem -- the extent of which, we get.

unauthorized copying made; and then those documents

are out there somewhere else.

But that's a side show to this. So, thank

You very much.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Anything further?

[No response.]

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you very much,

gentlemen. We appreciate your help today.

MR. PEREIRA: A pleasure.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Next, I'd like to ask

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