## Page 1

AAAAR

1104-10337-10014

é!';

2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

RELEASE IN FULL

2000

24 November, 1998

Memo for the Record

Subject: JFK Records Review - Lessons Learned

The CIA's JFK Collection is made up primarily of

records pulled together for the Warren Commission, House

Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and the

Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) .

It contains a

significant amount of duplication and non-JFK related

material.

The current index is flawed and contains gaps.

Release

standards were

liberal; basically only source

identities and information, names of agents, employees under

cover, Agency locations and foreign liaison activities were

redacted. There is no evidence in the Collection to indicate

that the Warren Commission conclusions were wrong.

I. The Jfk Act

Mandated review and declassification projects can be

two-edged

swords.

The JFK Act forced the Agency to review

records that should have been opened years ago.

The legal

requirement to presume release, backed up by an independent

review, resulted in the opening of documents that clearly

would not have been

released under other programs.

However,

the Act and the Review Board created by the Act imposed un-

realistic deadlines, inflexible standards and procedures

which created a

major drain on all Agency review resources

and had an over-all negative effect on the Agency's release

program.

Unrealistic Deadlines:

The release dates set by the

Act did not take into account the

start-up time and costs

(searches, inventorying and indexing) of a project of this

magnitude, nor the time it would then take for a page-by-

page review and sanitization of classified documents.. For

example, initial indexing of the collection was done

crash basis using overtime employees and resulted in a

flawed database.

that database took several thousand man-hours and continues

today. *

Mandated Procedures: NARA's and ARRB's interpretation

of the law created a time-consuming, labor-intensive review

process that meant an inordinate amount of time was spent by

both the Agency and Board staff on issues which were

marginal to the story and to processing decisions by the

Board. For example:

a.

Under the JFK Act every piece of paper in the

collection was considered a "unique" assassination record.

The result is a staggering amount of chaff and duplication.

---

## Page 2

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45

For example, one cable was files and processed 58 times in

the collection.

b.

The ARRB required that all sanitized documents be

reviewed by the Board and that each postponement (deletion)

be acted on individually.

procedures and accepted staff recommendations instead of

and arcaped atarke ea

Even after the Board changed

reviewing each document, the detailed tracking, recording

and coding of every deletion within each document required

processing resources well beyond what would be considered

reasonable for such a project.

A most sanitized documents

contained multiple deletions

(one contained more than 1600

deletions and many over 100).

Inflexible Standards: The level of evidence required

by the Board to postpone what was generally considered

protectable information was extremely high and usually

required docmentation of "current harm"

• Defenses based on

general principles such as official cover or sources and

methods were not acceptable.

This required the Agency to

dedicate significant resources to prepare evidence to

support recommended postponements.

Again, much time was

spent on issues that were marginal to the

JFk story.

FOr

example, several major evidence packages involving several

offices

and presentations by senior agency officers and

officials were needed to secure Board agreement to protect

Agency physical locations and names of employees and other

persons not related

to the JEK story.

Three times during the six years of the project, including

most of this past year, the JFK review effectively shut down

all other aspects of the Historical Review Program and had

to borrow additional resources from other offices and review

projects to meet deadlines. The JFK review will continue to

require a significant portion of HRP's resources through

EY99:

II. The Process

There are a number of basic lessons from the JFK review

that are applicable to other historical/systematic review

projects:

*

We need reviewers with broad Agency experience, which

can be either managerial or substantive.

*

We need to establish early on what information is

already in the public domain and address the issue of

"official release" in the context of each project.

*

Develop a strategy/policy with the IROs concerning the

release of information.

Be smart about it; do not accept

stonewalling by them on relevant information that can te

---

## Page 3

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released. At the same time, avoid confrontations with them

on marginal or non-relevant

information.

*

On-site Directorate reviewers are the most effective

way to handle the internal coordination requirements of a

large project. Without the DO's JFK team on site it would

have been impossible to complete the JFK project.

Develop guidelines and processes for coordinating Third

Agency documents; include other agencies in discussions; do

not drop documents into the black hole of other agencies'

FolA ottices without this advance discussion.

*

Maintain written, up-to-date, project-specific

declassification guidelines.

This is no small task. A

"declassification guide" must be flexible; no guide can

anticipate all the issues which will arise in a review.

After six years, we were still revising the JFK guidelines

in the last month of the project.

In establishing deadlines, allow sufficient time to do

a thorough, professional job as required by the project

activities

(see Unrealistic Deadlines above).

Ensure we have adequate support people for routine

processing tasks; declassification involves both tough

substantive analysis--and a lot of routine processing.

If possible, inventory/index all materials before the

review and processing begins.

Experienced indexers are a

must. Identification of duplicate documents should be a key

part of any inventory or index.

III The Requests

(being drafted)

Attachment I. [incomplete draft attached]

Description of the JFK Collection

Attachment II. (being draftedl

[statistical summary of collection including size and status

of documents

(RIFs, SANs, DIFs, NBR, etc.)]

- -

---

## Page 4

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DRAFT

CIA SPECULOCELECITONS

2u00

12 December, 1998

Memo for the Record

Subject: JFK Records Review Project and Lessons Learned

The CIA's JFK Collection is made up primarily of

records pulled together for the Warren Commission, House

Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and the

Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB).

It contains a

significant amount of duplication and non-JFK related

material.

The current index is flawed and contains gaps.

standards were liberal; basically only source

identities and information, names of agents, employees under

cover, Agency locations and foreign liaison activities were

redacted. There is no evidence in the Collection to indicate

that the

Warren Commission conclusions were wrong.

I. Background (1992-1995)

The setting up of the Historical Review Program by DCI

Gates in early 1992 coincided with growing interest in

Congress to require federal agencies to declassify records

related to the assassination of President Kennedy. DCI Gates

decided to start declassification process before Congress

passed legislation:

testified before Congress on 12 May 1992 about CIA's

new openness policy and announced the declassification

of the first folder of Oswald's 201 (also known as the

pre-assassination file):

*

six boxes of the Oswald's 201 were reviewed and

transferred to NARA by Oct. 1992.

The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

Act of 1992 (JFK Act) was signed 26 October 1992:

*

*

it called for Presidential-appointed Assassination

Records Review Board composed of non-government

individuals;

established "a presumption of immediate disclosure"

for records relating to the assassination.

For first two years of its existence, the Historical

Review

Program focused primarily on the review of JFK

assassination records:

---

## Page 5

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there were two major releases of Agency records (August

1993 and August 1994)of approximately 227,000 pages;

joint HRG/DO teams reviewed additional assassination

related collections at National Archives (Warren

Commission), the SSCI (Church Committee and the Fora

Presidential Library (Rockefellow Commission) plus

numerous referrals from other federal agencies

(FBI,

State, Army, etc.).

Due to delays in the appointment of its members and the

time required to hire and clear a staff, the ARRB did not

actually begin reviewing documents until May 1995. It became

clear in immediately that the ARRB would require the release

of far more information than the Agency had

released in the

1992-94 review.

In mid-1995 HRG began a re-review of the

previously released sanitized documents:

*

approximately 80% of the 227, 000 pages release in

1993-94 contained deletions

*

resources were taken from other projects and added

to JFK project to meet Board's monthly deadlines.

II. The JFK Act and the ARRB

Mandated review and declassification projects can be

two-edged swords.

The JFK Act forced the Agency to review

records that should have been opened years ago.

The legal

requirement to presume release, backed up by an independent

review, resulted in the opening of documents that clearly

would

not have been

released under other programs. However,

the Act and the Review Board created by the Act imposed un-

realistic deadlines, inflexible standards and procedures

which created

a major drain on all Agency review resources

and had an over-all negative effect on the Agency's release

program.

Unrealistic Deadlines:

The release dates set by the

Act did not take into account the start-up time and costs

(searches, inventorying and indexing) of a project of this

magnitude, nor the time it would then take for a page-by-

page review and sanitization of classified documents. For

example, initial indexing of the collection was done on a

crash basis using overtime employees and resulted in a

flawed database.

The revising, re-indexing and updating of

that database took several thousand man-hours and continues

today.

Mandated Procedures: NARA's and ARRB's interpretation

of the law created a time-consuming, labor-intensive review

process that meant an inordinate amount of time was spent by

---

## Page 6

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both the Agency and Board staff on issues which were

marginal to the story and to processing decisions by the

Board. For example:

a. Under the JFK Act every piece of paper in the

collection was considered a "unique" assassination record.

The result is a staggering amount of chaff and duplication.

For example, one cable was files and processed 58 times in

the collection.

The ARRB required that all sanitized documents be

reviewed by the Board and that each postponement (deletion)

Even after the Board changed

procedures and accepted staff recommendations instead of

reviewing each document, the detailed tracking, recording

and coding of every deletion within each document required

processing resources well beyond what would be considered

reasonable for such a project.

A most sanitized documents

contained multiple deletions

(one contained more than 1600

deletions and many over 100).

Inflexible Standards: The level of evidence required

by the Board to postpone what was generally considered

protectable information was extremely high and usually

required documentation of "current harm"

Defenses based on

general principles such as official cover or sources and

methods were not acceptable.

This required the Agency to

dedicate significant resources to prepare evidence to

support recommended postponements.

Again, much time was

spent on issues that were marginal to the JFK story.

For

example, several major evidence packages involving several

offices

and presentations by senior agency officers and

officials were needed

to secure. Board agreement to protect

Agency physical locations and names of employees and other

persons not related to the JFk story.

Three times during the six years of the project, including

most of this past year, the JFK review effectively shut down

all other aspects of the Historical Review Program and had

to borrow additional resources from other offices and review

projects to meet deadlines. The JFK review will continue to

require a significant portion of HRP's resources through

FY99.

III. The Process and Lessons Learned

There are a number of basic lessons from the JFK review

that are applicable to other historical/systematic review

projects:

We need reviewers with broad Agency experience, which

can be either managerial or substantive.

---

## Page 7

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*

We need to establish early on what information is

already in the public domain and address the issue of

"official release" in the context of each project.

*

Develop a strategy/policy with the IROs concerning the

release of information. Be smart about it; do not accept

stonewalling by them on relevant information that can be

released. At the same time,

avoid confrontations with them

on marginal or non-relevant

information.

*

On-site Directorate reviewers are the most effective

way to handle the internal coordination requirements of a

large project.

Without the DO's JFK team on site it would

have been impossible to complete the JFK project.

Develop guidelines and processes for coordinating Third

Agency documents; include other agencies in discussions; do

not drop documents into the black hole of other agencies'

FOIA offices without this advance discussion.

*

Maintain written, up-to-date, project-specific

declassification guidelines.

This is no small task. A

"declassification guide"

must be flexible; no guide

can

anticipate all the issues which will arise in a review.

After six years, we were still revising the JFK guidelines

in the last month of the project.

In establishing deadlines, allow sufficient time to do

a thorough, professional job as required by the project

activities

(see Unrealistic Deadlines above) .

*

Ensure we have adequate support people for routine

processing tasks; declassification involves both tough

substantive analysis--and a lot of routine processing.

*

If possible, inventory/index all materials before the

review and processing begins.

Experienced indexers are a

must. Identification of duplicate documents should be a key

part of any inventory or index.

IV ARRB Requests for Additional Information and Records

(see attached draft)

Attachment I.

Description of the JFK Collection

Attachment II. [being drafted-will be available 17 Dec a.m.]

[statistical summary of collection including size and status

of documents

(RIFS, SANS, DIFS,

NBR, etc.)]

---

## Page 8

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9:1rg-hrp

"reg. doc"

DRAFT :

IV

Section III, ARRB Requests for Additional

Information and Records

1. Unlike most declassification projects, the Agency's

involvement in the JFK Project was governed by the dictates

of a Federal statute, the JFK Act, and the powers it vested

in the Board it established -- the Assassination Records

Review Board (ARRB). In particular, under Section 7, the

Act armed the ARRB with the authority to dig for records and

information, specifically:

... (1) The Review Board shall have the authority

to

act in a manner prescribed under this Act, in-

cluding authority to --

(C) (ii) direct a Government office to make

available to the Review Board, and if necessary

investigate the facts surrounding, additional

information, records, or testimony from

individuals,

which the Review Board has reason

to believe is required to fulfill its functions

and responsibilities;

*

*

(F) hold hearings, administer oaths, and subpoena

witnesses. and documents.

This substantial authority provided the "ARRB and its staff

with almost unlimited access to Agency records and

personnel. It also was the basis for a number of specific

requests from the Board to the Agency for additional

information, document searches and explanatory papers. HRP

designated this ARRB activity, "Special Requests." During

its existence the ARRB sent to the Agency fifty-three

special requests, CIA 1-16 and CIA-IR 1-37.

2. Categories of Requests:

---

## Page 9

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Although each request had unique characteristics,

all began as a request by the Board or an ARRB staff member

on behalf of the board for information. The requests fell

generally into five broad categories as follows:

a. Requests for access to basic information which

would help the board understand the CIA, its organizational

structure and how it operated around the time of the

assassination which included: Requests for organizational

charts, briefings, mission statements, etc.; review of over

_ histories of CIA offices and projects; a review of the

so-called "Breckinridge files;" and, a search for an IG

index of Oswald reports.

b. Requests about methodologies which included: How

cable traffic was handled at HQ during the relevant time

period; the existence and use of the inter-agency source

registry; and, the assignment and use of alias's pseudonyms,

crypts, etc.

c. Requests for subject specific matters which

included: The Mexico City Station annual reports; the

existence of DRE monthly reports; Oswald's pre assassination

files; and, a search for any documents or information

detailing the Agency's involvement in transporting and

processing the Zapruder film.

d. Requests for project specific information and

files, which included: Requests for information and files on

AMWORLD, @KENCHANT, an index to the HTLINGUAL materials, and

the Mexico City electronic surveillance tapes.

e. Requests for individual specific information

and files, which included both CIA and CIA associated

individuals and non-CIA individuals: Information on

individuals with JMWORLD; detailed information on Sylvia

Duran; a determination of the identify of a particular

"George Bush;" and, the files on William Pawley.

---

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3. How a Request was Worked Following receipt of a

request and HRP tasking the responsible Agency component (s)

to conduct a search, the materials found were first reviewed

by HRP staff members before access was provided to the ARRB

staff. ARRB staff then reviewed the documents and materials

and identified those which it believed were relevant to

their inquiry and these materials were placed in the normal

queue to be reviewed and processed for release. However,

the mere identification of materials did not equate to

automatic release. Rather, if particularly sensitive

information was involved, negotiations took place and, on

occasion, a written statement about the materials was

provided for release vice the actual document (s) .

47. The Agency's written responses to each request -

either a letter

or memoranda - included, of course, the fact

the materials designated were to be processed for release

according to then current guidelines. The ARRB staff then

wrote its own version of the request, search, and response.

Both of these are a part of the public record on this

project.

54. Lessons learned:

A number of things surfaced as

HRP worked to complete these requests which required

considerable explanation, negotiation, and resolution.

a. First among these was the fact there existed an

outside Board which asked for information and carefully

monitored the responses (a very powerful external Board with

subpoena authority), without doubt caused documents and

information to be found and made available that would not

have been provided to an internal declassification project.

b. Second, for any large project such as JEK to be

successful, there is an absolute requirement that each

directorate

and independent office identify two responsible

persons -- a senior management official who can ensure that

deadlines (particularly deadlines established by an external

---

## Page 11

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= *

authority) are met; and, a senior focal point officer who

has the substantive knowledge and background to both* locate

all relevant material and make decisions on its sensitivity.

c. Third, the individuals identified and appointed

in sub-paragraph "b" next above must be fully versed in the

guidelines which pertain to each specific project. They

cannot rely on FOIA or other guidelines as to the depth of

their searches or the conditions governing release/

redaction/denial of materials.

---

## Page 12

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ATTACHMENT #1

CIA'S JFK ASSASSINATION RECORD COLLECTION

Oswald Files

Pre-assassination "201" file - approximately 40 documents that existed at the time of

the assassination. Released in 1992 with minimal deletions.

DO 201 File (Approximately 26,000 pages): Agency's primary file for documents dealing

with the assassination or mentioning Oswald; the file is still active. Contains pre-

assassination documents; materials collected after the assassination and during the

Warren Commission investigation; Mexico City files, Garrison investigation materials

plus other documents related to the assassination or Oswald received over the years. A

microilim copy of file, as it existed in 1978, was sequestered by the House Select

Committee on Assassination (HSCA).

The DO's original (record copy) 201 was transferred to HRG in early 1992; a

declassified version was released in August 1993; it was re-released with fewer

deletions in 1996 under the authority of the ARRB. Additional documents, filed into the

201 after the its transfer to HRG, were released in September 1998.

Office of Security File (2041 pages): Contained key Oswald documents, FBI

investigative reports, newspaper clippings. This file, primarily duplicative of the 201,

was reviewed by the HSCA, but a copy was not sequestered with the rest of the

Agency's "JFK" collection. The file surfaced as a result of an ARRB request in 1997. A

declassified version of the file was released in

1998.

DCD "A" File (41 pages): A microfilm copy of this Oswald file was in the sequestered

collection. The ARRB requested that the original file by reviewed for release.

Marina Oswald's 201 file. A copy of this file from the sequestered microfilm collection

was reviewed and released in 1994. The ARRB requested that the original file be

reviewed for release by September 1999.

The ARRB directed that the classified originals of all documents from the Oswald files

be transferred to NARA for secure storage. These documents were transferred to

NARA in October 1998.

The Sequestered Collection

At the end of its investigation, the HSCA directed that all materials (tiles,

documents, memos, notes, tapes, etc.) collected or prepared in response to its

investigation be sequestered. This included files made available for review, but not

reviewed by the HSCA staff.

JFK boxes 1-63 (hardcopy): These boxes are the core of the Agency's JFK collection.

They are the working files/materials of the HSCA staff and reflects the wide range of

issues pursued by the Committee. In addition to Agency documents, they include

---

## Page 13

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approximately 30,000 pages of notes, letters and memos created by the HSCA or its

staff. The boxes are a combination of files on subjects and persons of interest to HSCA

including documents prepared by the Agency as a result of the investigation, eight

boxes of security files and Mexico City cable chrono files. The boxes contain a

significant amount of duplication (most of the Oswald 201 documents appear multiple

times in this part of the collection). A declassified version was released in August 1993,

then re-released under ARRB in 1997.

JFK Microfilm (72 reels): These reels are copies of Agency files that were made

available to HSCA staff. Although the HSCA interest usually focused on a small portion

of a file, the Committee sequestered the complete file. The microfilm includes

approximately 25 reels of 201 files, 6 reels of Office of Personnel files, 14 reels of

Anti/Castro - Cuban exile material, extensive files on Nosenko and operational and

production files from Mexico City. The microfilm also contains copies of all the Oswald

files except for the security file.

DCI Morning Meeting Minutes

This file contain 442 excerpts from the minutes of the DCI's Morning Meetings

that refer to JFK assassination and related issues and investigations. The initial search

for the minutes was in response to an FOIA. The material was turned over to HRG in

1993 for review and inclusion into the Collection.

Russ Holmes' Working Files (19 boxes)

Russ Holmes was a DO officer initially assigned to work on JFK assassination

records in the mid-70s. He was one of the Agency's liaison officers with the HSCA

during its investigation and subsequently became custodian of HSCA sequestered

collection. He continued in this role until 1992.

As the focal point for JFK related requests, Russ Holmes created a JFK

reference file know as the "Ancillary Collection" (13 boxes). The contents are primarily

duplicative (approximately 80%) of material found in Oswald's 201 and in the

sequestered collection, but organized by subjects and requests. The collection contains

some non-related material reflecting Holmes' involvement in other FOIA, etc. requests.

There were an additional six boxes of unorganized reference material and files from his

office transferred to HRG when he retired. These 19 boxes became know as the "Russ

Holmes Working Files" and were declared assassination records as a collection by the

ARRB. Non-duplicative records from this collection were released in September 1998.

The duplicative material is currently being reviewed and will be transferred to NARA in

early January 1999.

LA Division JFK Task Force Files

The survey undertaken in response to Executive Order ##*#### located seven

boxes of DO Latin American Division continuing JFK Task Force files and related Cuban

material. The ARRB staff reviewed the boxes; the non-duplicative JFK Task Force

---

## Page 14

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documents and selected documents from the Cuban material were designated as

assassination records. 1637 pages from these boxes were transferred to NARA in

October 1998.

New assassination Records - "M" [Miscellaneous] Series

The ARRB submitted 53 numbered "Requests for Additional Information and

Records" (CIA # and CIA-IR # series) plus many informal requests on individuals and

subjects in their search for additional assassination records. Theses requests

generated several 100 additional assassination records including 185 audio tapes from

the Mexico City telephone taps. Additional material related to the JFK Act including DO

cables to the field and working files of the HRP project officer were declared

assassination records in the final actions of the Board. Over 4500 pages and 17 tapes

have been reviewed and prepared for transfer to NARA. The remaining records and

tapes are scheduled for completion by September 1999,.

---

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CIA SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

RELEASE IN FULL

2000

JFK Assassination Records Collection Act

• Five year Effort; Estimated 100 person years expended

• Extraordinary Authorities/ Access/ "non Precedent Setting Releases"

• Processed over 14,000 CIA documents upon which the Board took

direct action.

• Transferred to the National Archives over 100,000 redacted pages for

the JFK Collection.

• Prepared a Declaration of Compliance with the Act, with a detailed

accounting of CIA actions in response to the Board's requests..

During FY 1998, compliance with the legal requirements of the JFK Act

absorbed the preponderant portion of HRP resources. HRP completed necessary

coordination with the JFK Assassination Records Review Board on behalf of the

Agency, an ongoing process since FY 1994. HRP provided a central Agency

focus for a process which:

Coordinated with Board Staff on relevancy and classification on roughly

250,000 pages (many duplicates)

Processed over 14,000 CIA documents upon which the Board took direct action.

Transferred to the National Archives over 100,000 redacted pages for the JFK

Collection.

Prepared CIA's Declaration of Compliance with the Act, a detailed accounting

of CLA actions in response to the Boards requests.

Negotiated a detailed Memorandum of Agreement among CIA, the JFK Board

and the National Archives regarding the disposition and processing of all

documents resulting from the five year review.

The Board's report of 30 September 1998 states that "The Review Board

considered the CIA's compliance with the JFK Act....to be one of [the Board's]

highest priorities." It is particularly significant that the board fully accepted the

Agency's Declaration of Compliance and reported favorably on the Agency's

activities in response to the Board.

---

## Page 16

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JFK Act -- Process

• Scope/Deadlines/Decisions defined by law and outside Board.

• Focal Point (HRP) Serves Primarily as: (1) Moderator

between Board and Components, (2) Bookkeeper, (3)

Consistency Keeper.

• Everything reviewed by Focal Point (HRP) and the appropriate

component (Often many times).

• Components often take strong initial position but recede in

face of strong arguments.

• Senior Agency Managers unaware of intricacies of the Process

unless problems come up.

• Exceptions: Issues Taken to Board by senior management:

Cover, Employee Names, Facilities Stations.

Without making a value judgment on the merits of the JFK Act, it is possible to

characterize the process which the Act dictated for CIA.

The scope/deadlines and decisons were defined in the law and by the

Assassination Records Review Board, an outside body. Over the course of the

history of this effort (5 years), CLA, as did other agencies, developed (and

redeveloped) processes and responses to the Board. For the most part the

detailed work by the Staff was at a level which did not involve senior managers

unless a major problem arose.

When problems did arise, Senior Agency officials were asked to make

presentations to the Board and, in all cases, consensus was achieved. No issues

from CIA had to be appealed to the President, the formal procedure in the Act

for resolving differences between Agencies and the Board.

7

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JFK Lessons Learned

• Statutory Mandates are Not Efficient

- Requirements to declassify All drives out focus on important

- Standards for Declassification are Invariably Different

- Projects of equal merit without a statute are orphaned

• Structure and Planning

- Good Communications with Oversight Body

- Expertise in Subject matter and Information Management

- Strategy, Concepts and Policy known and Understood:

• Guidelines (flexible),

• Deadlines (reasonable),

• Responsibilities

- Understanding of Final Product Desired:

• Media, Databases, indexes, etc.

• Support of Senior Management

• Our experience is that statutory mandates such as the JFK Act are very inefficient. The specific

requirements of the act, including Board administrative decisions, required us to :

• Address all possibly related documents, no matter how insignificant.

• Engage in lengthy negotiation processes over an almost endless number of documents.

• Establish databases for management of the documents and workflow

• Treat documents in ways different from all other release programs.

• Postpone plans for systematic declassification on other programs fer which we has no legal

That ded mut have the bereft

mandate.

• Our expectation is that there will be more of such mandates, including the recently enacted Nazi

War Crimes Disclosure Act. Similar proposals are under consideration for human rights violations in

central america. What we have learned from our JFK experience is that:

• We need to remain in very close coordination with the Oversight body to assure that we are

not going down the wrong street and will have to repeat efforts.

• We have found that annuitants "who know the territory" can be extremely valuable as a

resource for finding and understanding the sensitivity of material.

• We know that we have to organize within the Agency and to gain agreement early on with

regard to strategies for managing the effort, including agreement on what the final product is to

be and how we are to get there.

• We also need to keep senior management attention on what we are doing so that they are not

surprised at the end, which not only causes delays in an orderly process but can lead to

significant misunderstandings between senior participants.

• We are trying to apply these lessons learned to our planning for the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure

Act.

8

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SECRET

OIM 99-0281

29 October 1999

MEMORANDUM FOR:

Chief, Information Review Group, OIM

FROM:

Charles A. Briggs

JFK Declassification Project, OIM

SUBJECT:

The JFK Declassification Experience

1.

My assumption in preparing the attached is that—

I was asked because:

a) for seven-plus years I've been.

involved in the project; and b) my past Agency assign-

ments, including being the first DO Information Review

Officer, gave me the opportunity to see declassification

from many vantage points: from a legalistic directorate-

oriented, either-or standpoint (taking full advantage of

allowed exemptions), to a "corporate" Agency-wide strategy

to foster credibility while protecting secrets that should

remain secret.

My comments and conclusions reflect that

experience and do not necessarily reflect the views of HRP

management.

2.

Historically, the Deputy Directors have not

paid much attention to information management - unless

there's a problem. Then the approach has been:

what went

wrong; who's to blame; how can we ensure that this doesn't

happen again; what lessons have we learned?

What this JEK

experience reiterates is the need for a proactive, not just

reactive, flexible strategy, with corporate Agency direction

through the Deputies to their Information Review Officers.

And the IROs, who, in essence, determine credibility and

resource impact, should be supergrades, with experience

in at least two directorates.

Because information release

has become a major management issue, the Executive Director

is the obvious officer to ensure consistent and informed

implementation of release policy.

AIUO When Separated

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3.

Considerable skepticism in the public, the media,

and, unfortunately,

the Congress results from the in-house

conclusion that denial is Justiflable in the absence of

"official acknowledgment" of Executive Branch information,

even though such information is already in the public

domain, from senior Agency officials' publications,

Congressional investigations, books by former Cabinet-level

NSC members, even Presidents. This inflexible legal

strategy may win the battle and lose the war. Lawsuits are

a lot more expensive than negotiation.

4. The Agency Task Force that in 1992 considered

some of the aspects of DCI Gates' "openness" philosophy

did not have the benefit of the JEK experience.

I suggest

that a senior-level panel be established to consider an

objective look at the need for continued classification

of generic versus specific sources and methods information,

particularly that already in the public domain and when

dealing with matters of high public or historic interest.

HR 70-14, referring as it does in paragraph e. (4) to

"Guidelines for Declassification" in Executive Order 12356,

does not promote the tactical approach which is suggested

in the Comments section on page eight of the attached.

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OIM 99-0282

29 October 1999

MEMORANDUM FOR: Chief, Information Review Group, OIM

FROM:

Charles A. Briggs

JFK Declassification Project, OIM

SUBJECT:

The JEK Declassification Experience

1. (AIUO) BACKGROUND: The impact of the JFK

declassification law on Agency resources and information

release decisions was dramatic and to the Do, traumatic. The

resource trauma stemmed from the unanticipated number of years

required to complete the project.

In a memorandum for the DCI

dated 11 June 1993, the then-Director of the Center for the

Study of Intelligence outlined a plan for implementing the

"openness philosophy" espoused by both DCIs Gates and Woolsey

through a series of "Cold War Declassification" projects.

He

noted

that priority, by virtue of a Congressionally-mandated

deadline of 22 August 1993, had been given to declassification

of the JFK collection; however, he said, "with the end of the

JFK activity in sight," resources could be applied to the

other projects.

Six years later (actually seven since the

project got underway), we are almost finished.

2. (AIUO) The substantive, versus administrative,

trauma stemmed from the fact that the JEK Act superseded

all other existing laws, including FOIA, the Privacy Act,

the DCI's authorities,

as well as Executive Orders

and

Regulations.1

The Act presumed release.

It did allow for

appeal but only to the President from the Del. It allowed

"postponements" but only if clear and convincing evidence

was presented for each requested postponement and that

release would demonstrably impair the national security.

The net effect was the release of names, crypts, pseudos,

methods, station locations (within specified dates), file

identifier numbers, and tradecraft generally, which are

protectable under the other laws - and which the Agency had

See OGC-92-5325, 14 Dec 92 and OGC-94-52916, 19 Sep 94 (Attachment B)

AIUO When Separated

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learned to live with (See Appendix A for the Assassination

Records Review Board (ARRB) "Standards For Review" and "Key

Distinctions Between Those Under FOIA, Executive Order 12356

and the JFK Act," with examples).

3.

(U) Finally, a Presidentially-appointed

assassination review board (the ARRB) had the final say

both on postponement and on relevance, subject only to a

successful DCI appeal to the President. Although a few

appeals were considered, particularly in the early period,

none was

made.

4. (U) The JFK Act called for each agency to review

and transfer its relevant material to NARA by 22 August 1993.

Thus, a significant set of materials was transferred from

CIA to NARA in 1993, reflecting CIA's then-current judgment

on the redactions

permitted.

Subsequent Board reviews and

ARRB staff inquiries resulted in the addition of material to

that original set of documents, as well as adjustments to the

original set, to reflect Board actions - generally to release

more information.

Although many documents have been adjusted

or added to the collection, requiring substantive HRG and DO

reviews as well as administrative actions, the net number of

pages in CIA's JFK Collection at NARA is about 260,000.

SIZE AND NATURE OF THE COLLECTION

5.

(U) The material requiring line-by-line review

included 17 boxes called the Oswald 201 File; 64 boxes called

the "Segregated Collection" File, containing those documents

made: available to the House SubCommittee on Assassinations

(HSCA) during its 1978 investigation; 23 boxes of HSCA

referrals - staff notes in longhand and type, draft sections

of the HSCA final report, correspondence on HSCA letterhead,

trip reports - anything referred to us by the National

Archives (NARA) for review of possible Agency equities:

19 boxes called "The Holmes Collection" - a reference

•JFK queries, Russell Holmes; Presidential libraries material,

Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission testimonies,

National Security Council papers, PFIAB Minutes and other

Community papers

made available through the ARRB staff; and

13 boxes called "Miscellaneous," including follow-on

questions from the ARRB, a previously overlooked Latin

American Division working file, DCI calendars, some DI/OCI

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"Dailies." Box 64 of the "Segregated Collection" consisted

of 72 reels of microfilm of complete files from which the

material reviewed by the HSCA staffers was drawn: CIA staff

personnel and security files; a duplicate Oswald 201 file;

26 reels of 201 files on Cubans, Russians, and Americans

linked

with Oswald, the JEK assassination, and the

several

investigations; DO project history files, and so on.

6. (AIUO) Included were printed text, almost illegible

Thermofax, photographs, computer listings, typed 3X5 cards,

buckslips, routing sheets, handwritten scraps - every

imaginable form of documentation, with a tremendous amount

of duplication, in one instance, 54 copies of a Mexico City

cable.

Every one of these pieces of paper had to be handled

according to NARA instructions, as a unique document for

inclusion in the NARA collection for public access and with

an Identification Aid for research assistance and retrieval.

to procedures propounded by NARA itself for Records

Management, including destruction of duplicate copies.

7. (AIUO)

The pressure to meet an initial Congress-

ionally-mandated release date of 22 August, 1993 with the

NARA-required Research Identification Forms, resulted in a

crash effort at indexing done, mainly, by individuals on

loan from the directorates on

an overtime basis and generally

unfamiliar with the collection and the subject matter. Thus,

a major factor in inconsistent redacting of multiple copies

of the same document in different boxes was a function of the

quality of the indexing and the effort of the reviewers

to

cope: with constantly changing guidelines. Inadvertent

release was inevitable.

THE REVIEW PROCESS

8.

(AIUO) The majority of the reviewers were

independent contractors with many years of experience,

in some cases senior management experience in at least two

directorates. Two HRG reviewers had been Information Review

Officers themselves as supergrades, one in the Do, the other

in the DA. After the HRG review with suggestions

for release

in full or with redactions, the documents went to a DO review

team.

The DO agreement or disagreement was reflected on each

document, and the package was returned for a senior-level HRP

review prior to forwarding to the ARRB.

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9.

(AIUO) As complicated and

frustrating as

the

process was, it wouldn't have worked at all without the on-

site presence of the DO team with their link to DO/IMS and

the area divisions in Headquarters.

Not surprisingly, the

DO Headquarters tended to use the familiar FOIA standards,

under which much more information could be withheld than was

defendable under the JFK law.

A major part of the JEK story

was Oswald's trip to Mexico City; it took several months for

the DO to agree to allow acknowledgment of

the existence of

a station in Mexico City and many more months to release the

name, pseudo, and tenure of the chief of station -

information, except for the pseudo, long since in the public

domain.

10.

(AIUO)

Another long time debate concerned

acknowledgment of teltap and photo surveillance by the

Mexico City Station on the Soviet and Cuban embassies and

consulates - both discussed in open literature but disguised

as unidentified sensitive source materials in the Warren

Commission report, along with a cropped photo and transcripts

of telephone conversations that came to the station from

somewhere.

One issue, for a long time, was acknowledging

that the teltaps were

station activities.

The ARRB insisted

on nearly total release of Mexico City Station traffic,

history, personnel, and

project approvals because Oswald's

trip to Mexico City remained one of the most controversial

conspiracy theory aspects of the JEK story.

Proof of

Oswald's presence there, of his contact with the Soviet

and Cuban embassies and consulates, and the reasons

therefore, of the station's unfamiliarity with him prior

to the assassination became evident through release of the

detailed information on the teltap and photo operations.

11. (AIUO) After the ARRB staff received the Agency

reviewed material, discussion of the validity of the

deletions (the "postponements") occurred. In the early

stages there was a tendency for the Agency Information Review

Officers in the directorates to deny rather than release, to

test using FOIA standards until challenged, then back off.

In a couple of instances, assertions were made that the

information that the ARRB said should be released was so

sensitive that an appeal to the President would be made - but

it wasn't.

The net result of the deny-until-pushed approach

was an absence of credibility, leading the ARRB to include

the following statement in its Final Report to the President

on 30 September 1998:

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"A small number of CIA staff officers, almost

exclusiveLy in the Directorate of Operations,

unnecessarily impeded the process and damaged

the Agency's interests by resisting compromise

with all-or-nothing positions."

12.

(AIUO) As time passed and both Agency and ARRB

staffers became better educated in attempting the balance

between the public interest and the legitimate need for

secrecy, credibility improved; the ARRB members delegated

the negotiation process to the staff. Previously; every

postponed word, phrase, or paragraph had to the approved

by the Board.

Toward the end, only remaining disagreements

were passed by the staff to the Board.

THE ISSUE OF RELEVANCE

13. (AIUO)

The ARRB, under the law, determined

relevance of file material - the Agency could not do so

although it could and did, eventually quite successfully,

negotiate.

Because of the impact of the Oliver Stone movie

"JEK," reflecting a 70-80% public view that the Warren

Commission conclusion that Oswald acted on his own was wrong,

the ARRB pursued all the major conspiracy theories.

Thus,

Agency files on the USSR's handling of American defectors,

entry and departure controls on foreigners, alien employment

and marriage with Soviet citizens, and, particularly, KGB

interest in Oswald, and Nosenko's claim to have reviewed

Oswald's KGB file in Moscow were declared relevant - as was

the whole Nosenko bona fides issue. Agency contact with the

Mafia to arrange for Castro's assassination, not known to the

Warren Commission, were obviously relevant and, by extension,

assassination as

an Agency activity was considered relevant -

hence, all such testimony before the Church Committee had to

be reviewed. Of particular interest was the plot against

Lumumba because of the involvement of the former Chief of the

Technical Services

Division, which division was also involved

in the Castro assassination planning.

14. (U)

The major conspiracy theory of interest

to the Board concerned Cubans: either alleged Castro

involvement because of his awareness of plotting against

himself or Cuban exiles, furious with JEK for the Bay of Pigs

failure.

Thus, all files on Agency support to the many Cuban

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exile groups and CIA involvement in Project MONGOOSE were

declared relevant. Hundreds of JMWAVE cables, Mexico City

Station documents, and Cuban names, and many with their

crypts, were released.

15.

(U) Those records that the Board concluded

"truly had no apparent relevance to the assassination"

vere designated "not believed relevant" (NBR). Cooperative

negotiation resulted in about 50,000 pages being declarec

NBR.

INADVERTENT RELEASES/FOREIGN LIAISON CONCERNS

16. (AIUO) As noted above, inadvertent releases were

inevitable.

The contributing factors included: guidelines

that changed almost continuously as negotiations with the

ARRB reduced the claims of current sensitivity; inaccurate

and incomplete records on the cover status of retirees; an

initial tendency, consistent with FOIA practices, to deny

crypts but to release true names- the crypt implying an

Agency relationship- if the text did not imply same.

(Later:

duplicate copies plus mosaic pattern analysis made linkage of

some crypts and true name quite easy.); and a surge of

inexperienced

reviewers loaned during the closing days to

meet the agreed NARA deadline for the remaining files.

(S)

The inadvertent releases of former employees

names resulted in a few individual complaints but no known

foreign government or liaison service complaints. Four

foreign governments opposed release of their information.

when queried, but no inadvertent releases were involved.

(See Appendix C.) The worst slip appears to have been the

name of a former NOC, living abroad, who, upon being

informed, demanded and received compensation for the

violation of his confidential relationship with CIA and the

FBI.

The other outraged former employee, also living abroad,

threatened to contact the President if it became known in his

adopted country that he had been CIA.

His true name, on a

great many documents, is the only redaction; he was of

considerable interest to the Board as a key player in the

HSCA investigation because he was the Mexico Branch chief

and was initially appointed by the DDO to be the focal point

for JFK

assassination information and briefings.

The HSCA

allowed him to testify in alias, and the ARRB allowed the

substitution of his alias wherever his true name appeared;

however, the Board ruled that his true name should be

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released in May 2001 or on his death if before that date.

Given

the volume of the documents in which his name appeared,

there were inadvertent

releases of his true name.

IMPACT OF THE JEK RELEASES ON FUTURE DECLASSIFICATION

PROGRAMS

18. (AIUO) Whether the JEK Act is, or should be

considered, precedent-establishing has been argued since

its passage.

It addresses a unique, highly emotional event,

of obvious interest to the public; and it should serve

as a

catalyst for future declassification policy discussion. But

it should not be considered to have set a legal precedent.

What should result is what the ARRB directed in the case

of exact duplicate documents: that they all be handled.

consistently, with the same, or no, redactions.

Other

documents concerning the same or a

similar event, not exact

duplicates but relevant to the issue, and not subject to the

tight legal demands of the JFK legislation, could be reviewed

in accordance with the exemptions allowed under the FOIA or

However, the basic factor in deciding

on release or denial should not be the avoidance of

embarrassment through inconsistent or inadvertent release.

It should be the current need for protection of sources and

methods.

19. (U) The JFK experience did demonstrate that a

traditional generic sources and methods denial is not always

necessary, defendable, or smart. Instead of being negatively

reactive, it may well be tactically smarter to be proactive

to better ensure protection of important secrets.

More on.

that below.

20. (AIUO) LESSONS LEARNED:

• Don't cut costs on indexing.

Use experienced indexers.

Aim for indexing all materials before review and

processing begins. A key focus should be identification

of duplicate documents.

• Use retirees with broad Agency experience under staff

supervision.

Because the most common release problems

usually involve DO material, seriously consider an on

site-Do team.

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• Develop and keep updating written guidelines, including

those for coordinating third-agency documents

• Establish early what is already in the public domain.

Take a fresh look at the "official release" philosophy,

particularly as concerns

former DCIs, Cabinet Officers,

Presidents, and Congressional investigations.

• Develop better information on the cover status of retired

employees.

• Avoid confrontation on marginal or non-relevant

information.

Avoid stonewalling on relevant information.

• Because the Information Review Officers are the key

implementers of information release policy, ensure that

the guidance given them by their Deputy Directors has

Agency corporate equity.

21: (AIUO) COMMENTS:

Information Management,

Information Warfare, Information Handling, Information

Declassification: at least three of these terms have

elicited

groans

from senior Agency management and

preference to have someone else, some staffer, deal with

the subject, keeping the boss out of trouble and minimally

informed.

But inflexible insistence on continued

classification of dated information, particularly that

known to the public, ignorance of what has already been

declassified and released, and counterproductive stonewalling

- these factors have caused trouble and will cause more

trouble as the "Information Age" matures.

22. (C) In 1976, then DDI Ed Proctor wrote to the Del,

citing "the need to rationalize the classification process."

A 1977 memorandum for the Agency's Executive Committee by two

of the current HRG contract reviewers urged the development

of an O/DDCI level (the Executive Director position having

been abolished) policy review of flap potential in

information release and a computer-supported index to

released documents.

At various times in the 1970s,

consideration was given to establishing a fifth Directorate

of Information Handling. After a good bit of internal

agonizing, DCI Gates in April 1992 signed off on HR 70-14

to make "significant historical information available without

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damage to national security."

Subsequently, a central

management focal point was established in the Office of

Information Management and a system that addresses part of

the indexing goal and,

with its mandatory declassification

"metrics" (millions of pages of released documents),

modulates some of the outside criticism alleging that CIA

is reneging on "openness."

23. (AIUO) What is missing is a Year 2000 look at

secrecy. When the FOIA law was passed and the Agency was

traumatized by receipt of 150 public requests a day for

information, we were able to make case law in the courts and

protect sensitive sources and methods by non-arbitrary and

non-capricious use of allowed exemptions. It is obvious

today that a more forward-thinking strategy than the "no

comment" of the 1950s and the "answer the question only as

asked" of the 1970s is needed - the JFK experience

demonstrated both the counterproductive result of an all-or-

nothing defense and that credibility and compromise can be

gained without current sensitivity loss.

And the fact that

Chairman Porter Goss has joined with Senator Moynihan in

proposing

the existence of an outside group on the model of

the JFK Assassination Review Board as arbiter in the

government declassification arena is a very clear signal.

24. (AIUO) In my view (and as was the case, briefly,

in the past), this extremely complicated, frustrating, and

ubiquitous topic requires the personal attention of the

Executive Director with "corporate" Agency focused guidance

to the Deputies for their personal attention and policy.

guidance to the IROs.

And because the IROs, as the

implementors of their Deputies' policies, determine the

credibility and resource impact levels, they should be

supergrades and experienced in at least

two directorates.

25.

(AIUO) The eventual development of a credible

association with the JEK ARRB was a function of:

(1) the

patience and diplomacy of the HRP/JFK Project Officer,

Barry Harrelson and (2) the presence, on site, of the DO

team, without whom this exercise could not have been

completed.. Ironically, as is so often the case when an

individual or group is between a rock and a hard place,

as the DO team was between the DO desk officers, the DO/IRO,

and the HRP reviewers, there were allegations of their having

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been

co-opted.

Both the DO team and HRG were seen, at times,

as "the enemy." That kind of in-house idiocy needed instant

quashing.

26. (AIUO) CONCLUSIONS: The JEK Project cost far

too much, took far too long, produced no information to

change the conclusion that Oswald acted alone.

But it did

make available to the public previously withheld operational

material to negate what DCI Gates had called the most

heinous of the conspiracy theories: that CIA was involved

in the assassination of the President of the United States.

The resource impact was a function of: the unique

requirements of the law; the crash nature of the initial

release; the National Archives decision that every duplicate

must be

reviewed and indexed as a unique document; less

than

satisfactory indexing, contributing to inadvertent releases

and time wasted in checking for consistency in the handling

of duplicates; problems in determining the cover status of

retired employees; and stonewalling.

27. (AIUO) Although there was inconsistency and

inadvertent release and some resultant retiree anger, we

know of no significant national security breech.

Previously

withheld information from the Church Committee hearings and

from the Presidential libraries declared relevant by the ARRB

will be titillating and may stimulate FOIA requests, but the

variance from FOIA rules was not a legal justification for

withholding under the JEK law.

(U) If this experience leads to a serious

obiective look at the theory and practice of secrecy in -

this changed world, perhaps the cost will have been worth it.

Attachments:

A. Excerpt from Final Report

of the ARRB (Standards)

B.

C.

OGC Memorandum

Foreign Government Information

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

closure-oriented than President Reagan's

order. The current Executive Order applies to

all Executive branch records and, unlike the

JFK Act, requires agencies to engage in a sys-

tematic declassification of all records more

than 25 years old. The Executive Order gives

agencies five years-until April 2000-to

declassify all classified information that is (1)

more than 25 years old, and (2) is of perma-

nent historical value unless the "agency

head" determines that release of the informa-

tion would cause one of the nine enumerated

harms. The Executive Order provides for

continuing protection for sources and meth-

ods where disclosure would damage the

national security. It also protects, inter alia,

information that involves diplomatic rela-

tions, U.S. cryptologic systems, war plans

that are still in effect, and protection of the

President.®

The JFK Act guidelines.

sources

could be the

of the Board.

that governed the disclo-

sure of records relating to

the assassination of Pres-

ident Kennedy were

detailed in section 6 of

the JFK Act? The JFK Act

allowed the Review Board to postpone the

release of assassination records only where

the agencies provided clear and convincing

evidence that one of five enumerated harms

would occur if the Review Board released

the record and that the harm outweighed

the public interest in disclosure. The statute

allowed protection of intelligence agents

and intelligence sources and methods if the

agency could show that the agent, source,

or method currently required protection.

The statute further allowed the Board to

protect the identity of living persons who

provided confidential information to the

government if the agency could show that

disclosure of the person's identity would

pose a substantial risk of harm to the per-

son. The JFK Act allowed the Review Board

to postpone release of information if release

would constitute an unwarranted invasion

of personal privacy or if release would com-

promise the existence of an understanding

of confidentiality between a government

agent and a cooperating individual or for-

eign government. Finally, the Jrk Act

allowed the Review Board to protect cur-

rent information concerning protection of

government officials.

2. Key Distinctions Between Standards

of Release Under the FOIA, the Execu-

tive Order, and the JFK Act

In considering whether the JFK Act was nec-

essary to guarantee public access to assassi-

nation records, Congress evaluated the effec-

tiveness of both

the FOIA and the

then-current Executive Order 12356. Both the

House and the Senate concluded that the

FOIA and the Executive Order, as adminis-

tered by the executive branch, had failed to

guarantee adequate public disclosure of

assassination records.

At the time that the JFK Act became law, the

largest collections of records concerning the

assassination were under the control of the

FBI, the CIA, and the Congressional Commit-

tees who investigated the assassination. The

FOIA provides special protections for each of

these entities, and thus could not serve as the

mechanism for maximum disclosure of

assassination records. First, the FOIA

exempts CIA operational files from disclo-

sure." Second, the FOIA provides broad-

based protection for law enforcement files

and therefore allows the FBI to protect a sub-

stantial amount of its information from dis-

closure." Third, the FOIA does not apply to

unpublished Congressional records. Con-

gress found that the FOIA did not require

adequate disclosure in those records that it

did cover. Thus, Congress believed that the

FOLA was not a satisfactory mechanism for

guaranteeing disclosure of assassination

records. 13

President Clinton did not sign Executive

Order 12958 until April 17, 1995-over two

years after Congress passed the JFK Act.

Clearly, the terms of the Executive Order

applied to most assassination records since

they were of permanent historical value and

were over 25 years old. Even if President

Clinton's Executive Order had been in effect

prior to 1992, it could not have achieved the

maximum disclosure accomplished by the

JFK Act. The problem with the Executive

Order is that it allowed "agency heads" to

make the decision to exempt records from

automatic declassification provided that the

"agency head" expected that disclosure of

the records would result in one of the nine

enumerated categories of harm. As many sec-

tions

of this Report explain, the Review:

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW: REVIEW BOARD -COMMON LAW

Board found that "agency heads" tended to

be quite reluctant to release their agencies'

secrets. The Executive Order, while well-

intentioned, failed to provide for any inde-

pendent review of "agency heads"" decisions

on declassification. Thus, although the Exec-

utive Order's standards for declassification

appeared to be disclosure-oriented, the Exec-

utive Order failed to hold agency heads

accountable for their decisionmaking.

The JFK Act did require agencies to account

for their decisions. To ensure such account-

ability, Congress included four essential pro-

visions in the JFK Act: first, the JFK Act pre-

sumed that assassination records may be

released; second, the JFK Act stated that an

agency could rebut the presumption of dis-

closure only by proving, with clear and con-

vincing evidence, that disclosure would result

in harm and that the expected harm would

outweigh any public benefit in the disclo-

sure; third, the JFK Act created an independent

agency-the Review Board-whose mandate

was to ensure that agencies respected the

presumption of disclosure and honestly pre-

sented clear and convincing evidence of the

need to protect information; and fourth, the

JFK Act required agencies to provide the

Review Board with access to government

records, even when those records would not

become part of the JFK Collection. Without

these accountability provisions, the JFK Act

would not have accomplished its objective of

maximum release of assassination records to

the public. So, while the FOIA and the Exec-

utive Order each expressed the goal of

obtaining maximum disclosure, the JFK Act

ensured that the goal would be met. The two

accountability provisions that relate directly

o the Section 6 grounds for postponement-

the presumption of release and the standard

of proof-are discussed in detail below. The

third provision discussed below is the

Review Board's obligation to balance the

weight of the evidence in favor of postpone-

ment against the public interest in release.

a. JFK Act presumes disclosure of

assassination records.

The most pertinent language of the JFK Act

was the standard for release of information.

According to the statute, "all Government

records concerning the assassination of Pres-

ident John F. Kennedy should carry a pre-

sumption of immediate disclosure."" The statute

further declared that "only in the rarest cases is

there any legitimate need for continued protection

of such records."'s

b. JFK Act requires agencies to provide clear

and convincing evidence.

If agencies wished to withhold information

in a document, the JFK Act required the

agency to submit clear and convincing evi-

dence that the informa-

tion fell within one of the

narrow

postponement

criteria. 16

Congress selected the

clear and convincing evi-

dence standard because

"less exacting standards,

such as substantial evi-

dence or a preponder-

ance of the evidence,

The bill cre

sumption on releas

ments. The onus

who would

to prove to the Re

the American pe

aocuments mus.

public scrutiy

Senator John: Glenn

May 12, 1992

were not consistent with

the legislation's stated goal" of prompt and

full release." The legislative history of the

JFK Act emphasized the statutory require-

ment that agencies provide clear and con-

vincing evidence.

There is no justification for perpetual

secrecy for any class of records. Nor can

the withholding of any individual

record be justified on the basis of gen-

eral confidentiality concerns applicable

to an entire class. Every record must be

judged on its own merits, and every

record will ultimately be made available

for public disclosure. 18

Nhen agencies did present to the Revien

oard evidence of harm that would resul

from disclosure, it had to consist of more

than speculation.

The [Review] Board cannot postpone

release because it might cause some con-

ceivable or speculative harm to national

security. Rather in a democracy the

emonstrable harm from disclosure mus

e weighed against the benefits o

release of the information to the public.

The Review Board's application of the clear

and convincing evidence standard is covered

in more detail in Section B of this chapter.

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

Section B includes a discussion of the "Rule

of Reason" that the Review Board ultimately

adopted with regard to receiving evidence

from the agencies.

c. JFK Act requires the Review Board to

balance evidence for postponement against

public interest in release.

Assuming that agencies did provide clear

and convincing evidence that information

should be protected from disclosure, the

terms of section 6 required that information

not be postponed unless the threat of harm

outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

As used in the JFK. Act, "public interest"

means "the compelling interest in the prompt

public disclosure of assassination records for

historical and governmental purposes and

for the purpose of fully informing the Amer-

ican people about the history surrounding

the assassination of President John F.

Kennedy."2 The Review Board interpreted

the balancing requirement to mean that agen-

cies had to provide the Review Board with

clear and convincing evidence of the threat of

harm that would result from disclosure.

However, to the extent that the JFK Act left

room for discretion in evaluating the histori-

cal significance, or public interest, of particu-

lar assassination records, it was the Review

Board-not the agency that originated the

document that was to exercise this discre-

tion. The burden was on the agencies to make

the case for postponement, not to judge the

level of public interest in a particular docu-

ment. The JFK Act established the Review

Board as a panel of independent citizens with

expertise as historians and archivists pre-

cisely in order to secure public confidence in

such determinations."l

d. Segregability and substitute language.

When the Review Board determined that the

risk of harm did outweigh the public interest

in disclosure, it then had to take two addi-

tional steps: (1) ensure that the agency

redacted the least amount of information

possible to avoid the stated harm, or "segre-

gate" the postponed information, and (2)

provide substitute language to take the place

of the redaction.

3. Federal Agency Record Groups and

the Standards Applied to Them.

The JFK Act defines "assassination records"

to include records related to the assassination

of President Kennedy that were "created or

made available for use by, obtained by, or

otherwise came into the possession of" the

following groups: the Warren Commission,

the four congressional committees that inves-

tigated the assassination, any office of the

federal government, and any state or local

law enforcement office that assisted in a fed-

eral investigation of the assassination.

When it passed the JFK Act, Congress

intended for the JFK Collection to include the

record groups that it identified in section

3(2), but it also intended for the Review

Board to consider carefully the scope of the

term "assassination record" and to issue an

interpretive regulation defining this crucial

term. The Act requires government agencies

to identify, organize, and process those assas-

sination records that are defined as assassi-

nation records in section 3(2). Chapter 6 of

this report explains how the Review Board

interpreted its responsibility to define and

seek out "additional records and informa-

tion." Set forth below is a description of some

of the core government holdings on the

assassination which were released under the

standards of the Review Board.

a. The FBI's "core and related" files.

The FBI's "core and related" files consist of

those records that the FBI gathered in

response tò FOIA requests that it received in

the 1970s for records relating to the assassi-

nation of President Kennedy. The "core" files

include the FBI files on Lee Harvey Oswald

and Jack Ruby, as well as the FBI's Warren

Commission files and the JFK assassination

investigation file. The "related" files include

FBI files on Lee Harvey Oswald's wife

Marina and mother Marguerite, Oswald's

friend George DeMohrenschildt, and the

Oswalds' Dallas friends Ruth and Michael

Paine. The FBI began its processing of the

core and related fles in 1993. Theskeview

Board applied strict standards to its review of

postponements in the core and related files.

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW: REVIEW BOARD "COMMON LAW"

b. CIA's Lee Harvey Oswald "201" file.

CIA opens a 201 file on an individual when it

has an "operational interest" in that person.

The CIA opened its 201 file on Lee Harvey

Oswald in December 1960 when it received a

request from the Department of State on

defectors. After President Kennedy's assassi-

nation, the Oswald 201 file served as a depos-

itory for records CIA gathered and created

during CIA's wide-ranging investigation of

the assassination. Thus, the file provides the

most complete record of the CIA's inquiry in

the months and years immediately following

the assassination.

c. The FBI's "House Select Committee on

'Assassinations"(HSCA) Subject Files.

During the HSCA's tenure, the Committee

made a number of requests to the FBI for

records that the Committee believed might

be relevant to their investigation of the

Kennedy assassination. In response to the

HSCA's requests, the FBI made available to

the HSCA staff approximately 200,000 pages

of FBI files. The FBI began its processing of

the "HSCA Subject" files in 1993, The Review

Board applied its "Segregated Collection"

guidelines (explained below) to the HSCA

subject files.

d. The CIA's "Segregated Collection" files.

HSCA investigators gained access to CIA

files. Upon completion of the HSCA's work,

the CIA kept separate the files that it had

made available to the HSCA and retained

them as a segregated collection. This collec-

tion is divided into two parts: paper records

and microfilm. CIA made 63 boxes of paper

records available to the HSCA staff. The

paper records consist, in many cases, of par-

ticular records that CIA culled from various

files. The 64th box of the CIA's segregated

collection contains 72 reels of microfilm and

represents the entire set of files from which

records were made available to the HSCA.

Thus, in many cases, the microfilmed files

contain material well beyond the scope of the

HSCA investigation and may, for example,

cover an agent's entire career when only a

small portion of it intersected with the assas-

sination story.

c. FBl records on the congressional commit-

tees that investigated the assassination.

The JFK Act defined "assassination record"

to include records relating to the Kennedy

assassination that were used by the congres-

sional committees who investigated events

surrounding the assassination.24

Before President Clinton appointed the

Review Board, the FBI collected and began to

process its administrative files relating to its

involvement with each of these committees.

In large part, the records contained in the

Bureau's administrative files related to topics

other than the Kennedy assassination. To the

extent that the Review Board found records

in these files that concerned topics other than

the Kennedy assassination, it designated the

records not believed relevant (or "NBR" as-

that acronym is defined infra) and removed

them from further consideration.

f. Requests for Additional Information.

Congress included in the JFK Act a provision

that allowed the Review Board to obtain

additional information and records beyond

those that were reviewed by previous inves-

tigations. Chapter 6 of this report explains

the requests that the Review Board made and

the assassination records designated as a

result of those requests.

B. DECLASSIFICATION STANDARDS

The Review Board's primary purpose, as out-

lined in section 7(b) of the JFK Act, was to

1. Standard of Proof: Clear and

Convincing Evidence

Text of Section 6

Disclosure of assassination records or par-

ticular information in assassination records

45

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIE

to the public may be postponed subject to the

limitations of this Act i lagencies provide)

clear and convincing evidence that (the

harm from disclosure outweighs the public

interest in release.]

a. Review Board guidelines. For each recom-

mended postponement, the JFK Act requires

an agency to submit "clear and convincing

evidence" that one of the specified grounds

for postponement exists. The Review Board

required agencies to submit specific facts in

support of each postponement, according to

the Review Board's guidelines for each post-

ponement type.

b. Commentary. Although the agencies

argued that the clear and convincing evi-

dence standard could be

gul exists

satisfied by a

explanation of general

Doubts

agencies'

positions in

support of postpone-

ments, the Review Board

SoL think

eanng is to

Why does

besworth-

me,

are

determined that the clear

and convincing evidence

requirement was a docu-

ment-specific one. Thus,

the Board required agen-

cies to present evidence

that was tailored to indi-

vidual

postponements

within individual docu-

ments.

The JFK Act clearly

required agencies to pro-

vide clear and convinc-

Coher

ing evidence in support

of their postponements,

but it did not establish a

mechanism for when and

how such evidence should be presented. The

legislative history provides a clue as to Con-

gress' intent: "[To the extent possible, con-

sultation with the government offices creates

an understanding on each side as to the basis

and reasons for their respective recommen-

dations and determinations."26 The Review

Board did consult with government offices to

determine fair, efficient, and reasonable pro-

cedures for presenting evidence.

The Review Board began its review of assas-

sination records by considering pre- assassi-

nation records on Lee Harvey Oswald. In an

attempt to arrive at consistent decisions, the

Board asked the staff to present the records

on an issue-by-issue basis. For example, with

FBI records, the Review Board first sched-

uled a group of FBI records for review and

notified the FBI of the meeting date at which

it intended to vote on the records. The

Review Board invited the FBI to present its

evidence. Second, the FBl requested that it be

allowed to brief the members of the Review

Board. At the briefing, the FBI presented its

position to the Board-both in an oral pre-

sentation and in a "position paper." The FBI's

"position papers" summarized the FBI's gen-

eral policy preferences for continued classifi-

cation of certain categories of information.

Third, the Review Board staff researched

existing law on each of the FBI's "positions"

and determined that the arguments that the

FBI put forth in support of its JFK Act post-

ponements were essentially the same argu-

ments that the FBI offers to courts for FOIA

cases. Of course, in legislating the declassifi-

cation standards of the JFK Act, Congress

intended for the JFK Act standards-and not

the FOIA standards-to apply. Aware of con-

gressional intent, the Review Board rejected

the FBI's general policy preferences on the

basis that the arguments did not constitute

the clear and convincing evidence necessary

to support a request for a postponement.

under section 6. The FBI did appeal the

Review Board's decisions to the President,

but the Review Board's document-specific

interpretation of the clear and convincing

evidence standard ultimately prevailed

when the vote was withdrawn.

i. "Rule of Reason." Of course, some assassi-

nation records are of greater interest than

others. With regard to records that had a

close nexus to the assassination, the Review

Board strictly applied the law. For example,

the Review Board voted to release in full

nearly all of the information in the FBI's pre-

assassination Lee Harvey Oswald file and the

bulk of the information in the HSCA's report

on CIA activities in Mexico City-the

"Lopez" report-because of the high public

interest in that material. With regard to the

FB files, the FBl believed that its arguments

were compelling enough to merit appeals to

the President on nearly all of the Review

Board's decisions on the pre-assassination

Lee Harvey Oswald records. The FBI, the

Review Board, the White House Counsel's

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW: REVIE

Office, and ultimately the Department of

State spent a substantial amount of time

resolving the issues that arose in the appeal

process, and for those important records that

were at issue, the Review Board considered

its time well-spent. The Review Board simi-

larly dealt with other key records and spent

as much time as was necessary to deliberate

and decide upon those records.

The postponement-by-postponement review

at each early Review Board meeting proved

to be a slow and careful process. The post-

ponement-by-postponement review proved

to be a necessary educational process for the

Board members. The Board members were a

group of five citizens who were selected not

for their tamiliarity with the subject of the

assassination, but for their professional com-

petence in history and law. Thus, through

reviewing individual documents at its early

meetings, the Board essentially educated

itself about the assassination.

While the Review Board did need time to edu-

cate itself and to develop its policies, the

Board's pace eventually increased. In an effort

to streamline its work, the Review Board con-

sulted with federal agencies such as the CIA

and FBI to work out an approach for review of

records that would allow the Review Board to

make informed decisions, but not require

agencies to spend hundreds of hours locating

evidence for and providing briefings on each

postponement within an assassination record.

The first step to developing a reasonable

approach was for the Review Board to for-

mulate general rules for sustaining and

denying postponements. The Review Board's

"guidance" to its staff and the agencies

common and feels veerie noti

fied an agency of its approach on a particular

type of postponement, the agency learned to

present only those facts that the Review

Board would need to make a decision. For

example, with regard to FBI informants, the

Review Board notified the FBI of what it con-

sidered to be the relevant factors in its deci-

sionmaking. In other words, it defined for the

Bureau what it considered to be "clear and

convincing" evidence. Then, the Review

Board worked with the FBI to create a one-

page form titled an "Informant Postpone-

ment Evidence Form" that the FBI could use

JARD COMMON LAW"

to provide evidence on an informant. (See

illustration.) The form allowed the FBI to

simply fill in the answers to a series of ques-

tions about the informant in question, which

in turn allowed the Review Board to focus on

those facts that it deemed to be dispositive in

a particular document. This approach had

the added benefit of providing consistency to

the Review Board's decisionmaking.

A large number of records that the JFK Act

defined as "assassination records" proved to

be of very low public interest. The JFK Act

required the Review Board to process all

records that were "made available" to the

Warren Commission and the Congressional

Committees that investigated the assassina-

tion, whether or not the records were used by

the Commission or the committees. Many of

these records, while interesting from a histo-

rian's perspective, are not closely related to _

the assassination. For those documents that

were of little or no public interest, the Review

Board modified its standards in the two ways

described below.

A. "NBR" Guidelines: Records that Review

Board judged were "not believed relevant" to the

assassination. For those records that truly had

no apparent relevance to the assassination,

the Review Board designated the records

"not believed relevant" (NBR). The "NBR"

Guidelines allowed the Review Board to

remove irrelevant records from further con-

sideration. Records that the Review Board

designated "NBR" were virtually the only

groups of records that the Review Board

agreed to postpone in full. Thus, the Review

Board was always extremely reluctant to des-

ignate records "NBR" and rarely did so.

B. Segregated Collection Guidelines. For those

records that were not immediately relevant,

but shed at least some light on issues that the

congressional committees that investigated

the assassination explored as potentially rele-

vant to the assassination, the Review Board

created the "Segregated Collection Guide-

lines." The segregated collections records,

although marginally relevant, were not

appropriate for "NBR" designation, as the

"NBR" Guidelines would have resulted in

withholding records in full. Instead, the

Board passed the "Segregated Collection"

Guidelines, which ensured that the Review

Board staff would review every page of the

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

marginally relevant records, but would not

require agencies to present the same amount

of evidence in support of postponements.

The regulations that the Review Board

adopted on November 13, 1996, define "Seg-

regated Collections" to include the following:

(1) FBI records that were requested by the

HSCA in conjunction with its investigation

into the assassination of President Kennedy,

the Church Committee in conjunction with

its inquiry into issues relating to the Kennedy

assassination, and the Pike Committee and

Rockefeller Commission that investigated

issues related to the assassination; (2) CIA

records including the ClA's segregated col-

lection of 63 boxes as well as one box of

microfilm records (box 64) and several boxes

of CIA staff "working files." The Review

Board adopted revised guidelines on April

23, 1997 in an attempt to streamline the

review process of postponements in the seg-

regated collections, and ensure a page-by-

page review of all documents in the segre-

gated collections. The guidelines state,

...even with the assumption that our oper-

ations may be extended through Fiscal Year

1998, the Review Board cannot hope to com-

plete review of postponements in the Segre-

gated Collections under the current method

of review." Where the Review Board's stan-

dards differed between core files and segre-

gated collection files, the guidelines set forth

below note the distinction.

Thus, throughout its tenure, the Review

Board sought to be vigorous in applying the

lave us any rodemo complete is wort, found

2. Intelligence Agents

Text of Section 6(1)(A)

...clear and convincing evidence that the

threat to the military defense, intelligence

operations, or conduct of foreign relations of

the United States posed by the public disclo-

sure of the assassination record is of such

gravity that it outweighs the public interest,

and such public disclosure would reveal—

(A) an intelligence agent whose identity

currently requires protection...

a. CIA officers.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board usually protected the names of CIA

officers who are still active or who retired

under cover and are now living in potentially

risky circumstances. The Review Board usu-

ally released names of deceased CIA officers

and the names of CIA officers whose connec-

tion to the CIA was public knowledge. When

the Review Board postponed names, it usu-

ally substituted the phrase, "CIA Employee."

i. Commentary. Names of numerous CLA

officers appeared in the CIA's assassination

records. The Review Board and the CIA had

to confront the challenge presented by the

statute, which requires name-specific evi-

dence, but gathering such evidence proved to

be time-consuming and burdensome for the

CIA and the names of CIA officers in the

records were not always relevant to the

assassination. The statute, of course, states

that the only way that the Review Board

could protect names of intelligence agents

was if the CIA provided clear and convincing

evidence that the CIA officer's identity "cur-

rently" required protection.

The CIA initially believed that the solution to

the above-referenced challenge was for the

Review Board to agree with CIA that the

names of all CIA officers within the JFK Col-

lection should be postponed until the year

2017. The CIA supported its request for blan-

ket postponements with two arguments: first,

since many CIA employees are "under

cover," CIA argued that its intelligence gath-

ering capability depended on employees

maintaining cover, and, second, even though

the majority of CIA officer names in the Col-

lection are names of retired CIA employees,

CIA is bound by a confidentiality agreement

to protect the relationship. Many of these for-

mer employees objected to release of their

former Agency affiliation, complaining that it

violates this agreement and suggesting that

such release might jeopardize business rela-

tionships or threaten personal safety.

Mindful of the JFK Act's requirement that

agencies provide name-specific evidence, the

Review Board would not agree to ClAs

request for blanket postponements of CIA

names. Instead, the Review Board requested

CIA to provide evidence for each name.

48

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS TOR'REVIEW, REVIEW BOARD COMMON LAW"

The CIA, however, was reluctant to produce

name-specific evidence and, on occasion,

CIA failed to furnish evidence when it

promised to do so. CIA's initial refusal to

supply evidence on, individual names was

met, not with the wholesale release of names

Is the Board, but with a firm insistence that

the Agency meet the requirements of the Act.

The Review Board released the names of a

iew individuals who were of central impor

lance to the assassination story early in the

process, but gave the Agency a number of

additional opportunities to provide specific

evidence on other names.

for example, in December 1995, the Review

Board designated one day of their meeting

"name day," and invited CIA to provide evi-

donce for names the Review Board had

encountered in CIA records during the previ-.

ous six to seven months. On that day, CIA

gain requested the Review Board to sustain

the postponement of all CIA names. The

Review Board did not want to jeopardize the

personal safety of individuals and gave CIA

more time to provide evidence. The Board set

other "name days" in May 1996 and May

1997. As deadlines for submission of evi-

dence approached, CIA agreed to release

some names, but in most cases, continued to

offer less than satisfactory evidence on those

they wished to protect. Gradually, the CIA

did begin to provide supporting evidence of

the postponement of individual names.

By May 1996, the Review Board had decided

what evidence would meet the clear and con-

vincing evidence standard. If the CLA pro-

vided evidence that the individual retired

under cover or abroad, or evidence that the

individual objected to the release of his or her

name when contacted (CIA agreed to attempt

to contact former employees), the Review

Board would protect the CIA officer's name.

Moreover, where the CIA specifically identi-

fied an ongoing operation in which the indi-

vidual was involved or CIA could demon-

Strate that the person was still active with

CIA, the Review Board would protect the

name. Because the JFK Act required the

Review Board to balance the potential harm

from disclosure against the public interest in

release, there were cases in which the Review

Board determined that, even though the CIA

had provided the required evidence, the

Review Board believed' that the individual

was of sufficiently high public interest that it

would require the CIA to provide additional

evidence before it would consider protecting

the name. in these cases, the Review Board

asked CIA to provide information on the

employee's current status, his or her location,

and the nature of the work he or she did for

the CIA.

The Review Board determined that names

were of high public interest when the CIA

officer at issue had a substantive connection

to the assassination story or where the CIA

officer's name appeared in CIA's Oswald 201

file. By July 1997, the Review Board had

determined that where CIA officer names did

not fit within one of the "high public inter-

est" categories, it would require CIA to pro-

vide significantly less evidence in support of

Its requests for postponement. Given the

large number of CIA officer names in the CIA

records, the Review Board determined that it

had to adopt the practical high public inter-

est/low public interest approach, particu-

larly since it had limited time and resources

available to complete its own review of CIA

records. The Review Board would have pre-

ferred to review each name at the same high

level of scrutiny that it used to review names

of high public interest. Nevertheless, the

Board's approach compelled the CIA to

release many more names than it would have

b. "John Scelso" (pseudonym).

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board protected the true name of the individ-

ual known by the pseudonym of John Scelso

until May 1, 2001 or three.months after the

decease of the individual, whichever comes

first.

ii. Commentary. The CIA employee who

was head of CLA's division "Western Hemi-

sphere 3" during the period immediatel)

ifter the assassination of President Kenned

testified before the HSCA and the Church

Committee under the "throw-away" alias

John Scelso. His true name appears on hun-

dreds of documents in the JFK collection,

many of which were the product of the

Agency's extensive post-assassination inves-

tigation that spanned the globe. In reviewing

this particular name, the Review Board's

desire to satisty the public's interest in release

49

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L REPORT OF THE

SSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

clashed with the CIA's strong evidence in

support of postponement. Initially, the Board

was inclined to release Scelso's true name, but

the Agency argued convincingly against

release. CIA provided evidence on the current

status of the individual, shared correspon-

dence sent by him, and even arranged an

interview between him and a Review Board

staff member. As an interim step, the Review

Board inserted his prior alias "Scelso" as sub-

stitute language. (See illustration.) Then, at its

May 1996 meeting, Board members deter-

mined to release "Scelso's" true name in five

years or upon his death.

ONG: SIRCH O'NEAL

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RELEASE AS SANITIZED

REF: MEXI 6453 (IN 360177/

1. IMPORTANT YOU REVIEW ALL LIENVOY TAPES AND

TRANSCRIPTS SAGE 1 SETTENDER TO LOCATE ALL MATERIAL

POSSIBLY PERTINENT TO SUBJECT REF.

2. DISPATCH SOONEST BY SPECIAL COURIER, STAFFER IF

NECESSARY, FULL TRANSCRIPIS AND ORIGINAL TAPES I

AVAILABLE ALL PERTINENT MATERIAL.

S. FARE ORIGINAL TAPES AVAILABLE?

OLASSAFICATION REVIEN

CONDUCTEO ON 16 A'8 291

END OF MESSAGE

CS Comment: *Reported that oin l October 63, an American male mbo said

his name was hoe Oswald was at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.

Document Numbor 40-541

201-289248

1: 200-5-41

for FOlA Reviem or APR 1976

200-5=41

23710063

ES: COPYI

SCELSO

ARREAIIRE OrFICEN

LOWE

"EPEBAT

REFRODUCTION BY OTHER THAN THE ISSUING OFFICE IS PROMINITED.

opy Na

c. Information that identifies CIA officers.

i. Review Board guidelines. For specific

information that, if released, would reveal

the identity of an individual CIA officer that

the Board had voted to protect, the Review

Board protected the information.

ii. Commentary. Whenever the Review

Board voted to protect the identity of an indi-

vidual throughout federal agency assassina-

tion records, it had to be realistic enough to

realize that some information about individu-

als is so specific that release of the information

would reveal the individual's identity. Exam-

ples of specific identitying information include

home addresses, birth dates, job titles, names

of family members, and other less obvious, but

equally revealing pieces of information.

d. Names of National Security Agency

employees.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board protected the names of all National

Security Agency employees that it encoun-

tered. The Review Board would have consid-

ered releasing names of National Security

Agency employees if it determined that a par-

ticular name was extremely relevant to the

assassination.

ii. Commentary. Due to the nature of NSA

information, few NSA employee names

appeared in NSA's assassination records.

Even though the Review Board did not often

encounter NSA employee names, it did have

to vote on those names that it did confront.

NSA's policy of not releasing the names of its

employees conflicted with section 6(1)(A) of

the JFK Act that presumed release of such

information unless NSA could prove that

individual NSA employee names required

protection. NSA argued that the release of any

names, other than those of publicly acknowl-

edged senior officials, jeopardized the poten-

tial security of U.s. cryptographic systems

and those individuals. As it did with the

names of other intelligence agents and offi-

cers, the Review Board considered the names

of NSA officers on a document-by-document

basis. Given the nature of NSA information,

the Review Board members agreed that none

of the few names which appear in the docu-

ments, and for which NSA requested protec-

tion, was of high enough public interest or

central to an understanding of the assassina-

tion story. Thus, it protected the names.

3. Intelligence Sources and Methods,

and Other Matters Relating to the

National Security of the United States

Text of Section 6(1)(B) and (C)

50

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## Page 42

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW. REVIEW BOARD "COMMON LAW"

clear and convincing evidence that the

threat to the military defense, intelligence

operations, or conduct of foreign relations of

the United States posed by the public disclo-

sure of the assassination record is of such

gravity that it outweighs the public interest,

and such public disclosure would reveal—

(B) an intelligence source or method which

is currently utilized, or reasonably expected

to be utilized, by the United States Govern-

ment and which has not been officially dis-

closed, the disclosure of which would inter-

fire

with

the conduct of intelligence

nitivities; or

(C) nny other matter currently relating to

the military defense, intelligence operations

«' conduct of foreign relations of the United

States, the disclosure of which would

demonstrably impair the national security of

the United States;

n. ClA sources.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board handled CIA sources, assets, infor-

mants, and specific identifying information

under standards similar to the Board's deci-

sions for CIA officers. Where the Review

Board believed names held a high level of

public interest, either because the name was

central to the story or because assassination

researchers expressed interest in the name,

the Review Board subjected them to close

scrutiny. The Board generally protected the

identity of foreign nationals unless they were

of high public interest and then the Review

Board required CIA to provide specific evi-

dence in support of its claimed postpone-

ments. The Review Board protected domestic

sources, assets and informants where CIA

demonstrated that release would jeopardize

ingoing operations or harm individuals. 1

_IA did not provide evidence of one of the

two above-referenced harms, the Review

Board released the name at issue. In addition,

where the public already knew the names of

individuals who were connected to the CIA,

especially if the government had previously

released the information, the Review Board

released the information.

I. Commentary. The Review Board

addressed the issue of whether to postpone or

release source names at the same time that it

considered

CIA employee names,

and

encountered the same problems as it had in

the review of CIA employee names. As with

CIA employee names, CIA was reluctant to

provide name-specific evidence to the Review

Board, opting instead to offer general princi-

ples supporting CIA's request that the Review

Board redact all names.

The Review Board ulti-

mately decided to protect

the names of sources,

assets, and informants in

cases where the identity

of the source is of

reduced public interest

because CIA sources live

in countries other than

the U.S. and were more

likely to face harm if the

Board

disclosed their

relationship with CIA. In

those records where the

source's identity was of

possible public interest

in relation to the assassi-

nation story or was

important to understand-

The Review Board s

sider a variety of

acL

orsirelate

to the need to pos

sure of intellige

methods, includin

the record, whether the us

particular source orm

122004

already well knou

lic leg that the Soviet I

in Mexico City

wno

during the alleged o

Harvey, Oswald),

zana

the source or met

ently secret, or wnether was

information in collecteds i

was secret. s

-Senate Reporton EKA

July 22, 1992

ing information related to

the assassination, the

Review Board required the CIA to provide

additional evidence to support the protection

of the source's identity.

When the Review Board postponed release of

source names, it did so for ten years except in

cases where a foreign government might

accuse the source of committing treason for

assisting the CIA. In those cases, the Review

Board protected the source's name and iden-

tifying information until 2017.

b. CIA pseudonyms.

1. Review Board guidelines. With only a

few exceptions, the Review Board released

the pseudonyms of individuals. In some

nstances, the Review Board used pseudo

yms as substitute language for the individ

ual's true name.

ii. Commentary. Very early in the review

process, the Review Board determined that,

since pseudonyms were a sort of "throu

away" identity for individuals who were

under cover, the Review Board could release

51

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## Page 43

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

the pseudonym without harming the indi-

vidual. The CIA did not object to the Review

Board's policy to release pseudonyms. The

CIA did identify several pseudonyms that it

believed to be particularly sensitive, and

demonstrated to the Review Board with clear

and convincing evidence that release of those

pseudonyms would do irreparable harm.

c. CIA crypts.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board released some CIA "crypts" -code

words for operations and individuals. The

Review Board also generally released CIA

"digraphs" —the first two letters of a crypt

that link a particular crypt to a particular

location. CIA often created crypts to refer to

other U.5. government agencies; for example,

the FBI was "ODENVY.'

The Review Board

made a blanket decision to release all U.S.

government crypts. The Review Board nearly

always released CIA crypts where those

crypts denoted operations or individuals

relating to Mexico City or Cuba. (l'he

digraph for Mexico City was "LI," and for

Cuba, it was "AM.") For all other crypts, the

Review Board protected the digraph and

released the remainder of the crypt. The

Review Board established a few exceptions,

and where exceptions applied, the Board

required CIA to provide crypt-specific evi-

dence of the need to protect.

i. Commentary. The Review Board had

to determine whether it believed that release

of CIA crypts would harm CIA operations

and individuals. Section 6(1)(B) and (C) of

the JFK Act provided the standard for post-

ponement of CIA crypts. The Review Board

required the CIA to provide crypt-specific

clear and convincing evidence that CLA cur-

rently used, or expected to use the crypt and

that CIA had not previously released the

crypt. Thus, in order to convince the Review

Board to sustain postponements, the Board

required CIA to research each crypt to deter-

mine whether CIA still used the individual or

the operation and provide that evidence to

the Review Board.

As it did with CIA agent names, CIA initially

requested the Review Board to sustain post-

ponements

all ClA crypts- even

"ODENVY" —the CIA's old crypt for the FBI

that CIA had already released in other CIA

records. CIA argued that its use of crypts was

an operational method that should remain

secret, even though CIA had replaced most of

the crypts at issue years earlier. CIA believed

that if the Review Board released the crypts,

researchers would be able to piece together

the records and determine the identity of

operations and individuals. CIA further

argued that the burden of locating evidence

on each crypt was too heavy.

The Review Board, conversely, believed that

CIA conceived crypts as a code to hide the

identity of an operation or an individual, and

so the Review Board could release the crypts

and not compromise the operation or the

individual. As with CIA agent names, the

Review Board allowed the CIA ample time to

locate evidence on each crypt. Finally, the

Review Board released a group of ClA crypts

from Mexico City with the "LI" digraph. CIA

eventually agreed to release its crypts and

digraphs in assassination records, and the

Review Board eventually agreed to protect

certain sensitive crypts.

The Review Board recognized that it could

not conduct a crypt-by-crypt review for

every CIA record that it encountered. CIA

records contain hundreds of thousands of

crypts. Given the need to finish its work, the

Review Board decided that, for all crypts

except the "LI," "AM," and "OD" series

crypts, it would agree to postpone the loca-

tion-specific digraph and release the actual

crypts. Thus, the Review Board released most

crypts in the collection and the most relevant

digraphs. The Review Board did make three

exceptions to its general rule: it protected the

digraph in non-core files when (a) the crypt

appeared next to a true name that had been

released, (b) when the crypt appeared next to

specific identifying information, and (c)

when CIA provided clear and convincing

evidence that the Review Board should pro-

tect the digraph.

d. CIA sluglines.

i. Review Board guidelines. "Sluglines" are

CIA routing indicators, consisting of two or

more crypts, that appear above the text in

CIA cables. (See illustration.) The Review

Board released CIA sluglines according to the

same criteria it applied to crypts and

digraphs.

52

---

## Page 44

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW: REVIEW BOARD "COMMON LAW"

il. Commentary. The Review Board

released CIA sluglines because the Agency

never offered the Review Board any evidence

explain why the Board should not release

them. An example of a CIA slugline is

"RYBAT GPFLOOR." "RYBAT" is a CIA

crypt that meant "secret," and GPFLOOR

was the crypt that CIA gave Lee Harvey

(rald during its post-assassination investi-

gation. CIA initially asked the Review Board

" postpone the CIA slugline even where CIA

had released the individual crypts that made

up the slugline elsewhere. For example, in

the case of "RYBAT GPFLOOR," the CIA

greee to release the crypt "RYBAT" in two

place's elsewhere in the document at issue,

and the CIA agreed to release the crypt

(:I'TI.OOR when it appeared in the text. CIA

told the Review Board that it could not, how-

ever.

release

the

slugline

"RYBAT

CiI'FI.OOR." CIA offered no substantive

orguments to support its request for post-

ponement of the slugline. Given the statute's

demand that CIA provide clear and convinc-

ing evidence in support of its requests for

postponement, the Review Board voted to

release CIA sluglines.

: 111 surveillance methods.

i Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board generally released CIA surveillance

ithods, the details of their implementation,

in the product produced by them where the

Review Board believed the methods were rel-

"sant to the assassination. The Review Board

sustained postponements of CIA surveillance

methods where CIA provided convincing

"vidence that the method still merited pro-

lection. Where the Review Board sustained

the CIA's requests for postponement of sur-

reillance methods, it substituted the lan-

guage "surveillance method," "operational

details," or "sensitive operation."

ii. Commentary. As with all its sources

and methods, CIA initially requested the

Review Board to postpone all of its surveil-

lance methods since, CIA argued, CIA cur-

rently conducts surveillance operations. The

Review Board, on the other hand, believed

that it was not a secret that CIA currently

conducts surveillance operations. Moreover,

the Review Board did not believe that its

votes to release CIA surveillance methods in

Mexico City in 1963 would jeopardize cur-

rent CIA surveillance operations. Finally, the

Review Board recognized that certain CIA

surveillance operations in Mexico City in

1963 were already well-known to the public

because the U.S. government had disclosed

details about those operations. CIA surveil-

lance, particularly telephone taps and photo

operations, was a major element in the story

of Oswald's 1963 trip to Mexico City. (See

illustration.)

The Board, therefore, concluded that the pub-

lic interest in disclosure far outweighed any

risk to national security and directed release

of the information. However, in records that

CIA proved did contain information about

current operations, the Review Board voted

to postpone the information.

CLASSIFIED MESSAGE

DATEI

29 NOV 63

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CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROFAN ER

RELEASE IN FULL 1995

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RET MANA 4617

DUP OF

Cable Prefix

Отурь

230-650

1O FEEL ERTHYROID S SHOULD CO MEXI IVEI THOUGH ALVARADO MAY BE

IN MEXICAN HANDS.

ASSUME HE CAN BE USED AS CONSULTAHT AT LEAST,

THAT HE VILL KNON VAITHER HI CAN AND SHOULO CONTACT HEXICAN AUTHORITIES,

AND THAT MITI WILL CLEAR ANT ACTIVE USI VI MAXI OF HIM VITH THE

ODINY REP. ODDITY HERE KHOUS HE IS COMINE TO MEXI TO HELP.

29/01057

посожно

Tite: 18593

f. CIA installations.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board used date "windows" within which it

released the locations of CIA installations

where the location was relevant to the assas-

sination. Specifically, the Review Board

released the location of CIA installations

relating to Mexico City during the time

period 1960-1969. Likewise, the Review

53

---

## Page 45

13-00000

FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

Record reviewed unilaterally by CIA in 1992.

Same record after Review Board action in 1995.

CIA HUSTORICAL REVIEN PROGRAM

RELEASE IN FULL 1995

569587) *el92

OSYAID.

утос

- aires male san e tense on on an

Lease a rigade to so nuber or spare doo on

j000{S1

SENSE

UCO1151

SEGAET

REPPADUCTION

PROHIBID

• APPROTTO FAS RELESE 162:

SANCHENCE SENON PAEGRA

-STRET

D 9105...

REP RANUS THOR

PROUIBITED

SEARE!

D 01075.

Board generally released the location of all

CIA installations that were relevant to the

assassination during

the time period

between the date of the assassination—

November 22, 1963-and the date that the

Warren Commission issued its report in Sep-

tember 1964. Finally, the Review Board gen-

erally released the location of all CIA installa-

tions that appeared in Oswald's 201 file

during the time period January 1, 1961

through October 1, 1964. The Review Board

did grant CIA a few exceptions to its general

rule, and except for the specific time win-

dows described above, the Review Board

protected all information that identified CIA

installation locations.

The Review Board created substitute lan-

guage for its postponement of CIA installa-

tions to enable researchers to track a particu-

lar CIA installation

through the JFK

collection without revealing the city or coun-

try in which it is located. To accomplish this,

the Review Board divided the world into five

regions:

Western Hemisphere, Western

Europe, Northern Europe, East Asia/ Pacific,

and Africa/ Near East/ South Asia. Then the

Board added a number to refer to each differ-

ent location in the region. Thus, "CIA Instal-

lation in Western Hemisphere 1"' serves as a

place holder for a particular installation in all

CIA assassination records.

ii. Commentary. Initially, the Review

Board released CLA installation locations in

CIA documents relevant to Oswald's visit to

Mexico City. CIA did not raise significant

objections to the Review Board's release of its

installations in these records.

When the Review Board began to vote to

release the location of additional CIA instal-

lation locations, the CIA did object, but did

not offer evidence of the harm to national

security that it believed would result from

disclosure of the information. The ClA

54

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## Page 46

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDÄRDS FÖR REVIEW: REVIEW BOARD "COMMÖN LAW"

threatened to appeal to the President to over-

turn the Review Board's votes, but the

Review Board's position was that the JFK Act

required release of information where CIA

dia not provide convincing evidence to sup-

port their postponements. The Review Board

allowed the CIA ample time to gather and

present its evidence to support its requests

for postponements as both the ClA and the

Review Board hoped to avoid a CIA appeal

to the President.

Ultimately, the CIA determined that it would

trust Review Board members with the infor-

mation that the Review Board required to

postpone the release of the location of a

small number of CIA installations. In an

effort to balance high public interest in the

location of CIA installations and the need to

protect certain installations, the Review

Board decided to establish date "windows"

within which it would release CIA installa-

tion locations.

The CIA never appealed a Review Board vote

to the President.

8. CIA prefixes (cable, dispatch, field report).

i. Review Board guidelines. CIA cable, dis-

patch, and field report "prefixes" are identi-

fiers that CIA uses on its communications to

indicate the installation that generates a par-

ticular message. Where the Review Board

had voted to release the location of a particu-

lar CIA installation, the Review Board also

voted to release CIA cable, dispatch, and

field report prefixes that the installation gen-

erated. Likewise, the Review Board protected

cable, dispatch, and field report prefixes

where it voted to protect the location of the

CIA installation.

The Review Board replaced the prefixes that

it protected with substitute language similar

to that used for CIA installations. An exam-

ple of substitute language for CIA prefixes is:

"Cable Prefix for CIA Installation in Western

Hemisphere 1."

ii. Commentary. Once the Review Board

voted to release the location of a particular

CIA installation, the Review Board and CIA

did not disagree that the Board should release

cable, dispatch and field report prefixes.

h. CIA job titles.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board voted to release CIA employees' job

titles except when the Board's disclosure of

the title might reveal the identity of an indi-

vidual or CIA installation requiring protec-

tion.

ii. Commentary. Although the Review

Board did not believe that it should vote to

protect CIA job titles, standing alone, it some-

times voted to protect titles it they revealed

other information that the Review Board had

voted to protect.

i. CIA file numbers.

i. Review Board guidelines. CLA organizes

mountry identifiers witnin pattic asrine

"country identifiers'

numbers. The Review Board released nearly

all CIA file numbers that referred to Mexico

City. The Review Board protected the "coun-

try identifiers" in CIA file numbers for all

other countries with the exception of country

identifiers "15" and "19." The Review Board

generally released all CIA "201" or "person-

ality" file numbers where the files related to

the assassination.

ii. Commentary. The CIA rarely objected

to the Review Board's release of its file num-

bers.

j. CIA domestic facilities.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board released references to domestic CIA

facilities where the CIA has previously offi-

cially disclosed the existence of the facility.

The Review Board did not release informa-

tion that would reveal the location of domes-

tic CIA facilities where the CIA provided evi-

dence that the facility was still in use.

ii. Commentary. The Review Board rarely

encountered the issue of whether to release

the location of CIA domestic facilities in

assassination records, as CIA officially

acknowledges most of its domestic facilities.

When the Review Board did vote to postpone

the location of CIA domestic facilities, it

required the ClA to provide extensive evi-

dence as to why the CIA had to keep the loca-

tion of those facilities secret.

55

HST

-

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW: BOARD

k. CIA official cover.

i. Review Board guidelines. CIA "official

cover" is a means by which a CIA officer can

operate overseas in the guise of an employee

of another government agency. In congres-

sional documents, the Review Board released

general information about official cover but

protected specific details. With regard to exec-

utive branch documents, the CIA convinced the

Review Board that, while Congress might

reveal information about official cover, the

executive branch does not generally reveal

information about official cover because to

do so would damage the national security.

Thus, the Review Board sustained CIA's

postponements regarding official cover in

executive branch documents unless the U.S.

government had previously officially dis-

closed the information at issue.

The Review Board inserted the phrase "offi-

cial cover" as substitute language when it

postponed such information.

ii. Commentary. The Review Board ini-

tially considered the issue of official cover to

be an "open secret" that was well-known to

the public. Thus, they were loathe to withhold

such obvious information. The CIA, however,

supported its strong objections in briefings

and negotiations with the Board, and eventu-

ally convinced the Review Board that the

harm in releasing information about official

cover outweighed any additional information

that assassination researchers might gain from

knowing details about official cover.

I. Alias documentation.

i. Review Board guidelines. CIA employ-

ees and agents use aliases and the CIA cre-

ates documentation to support its employ-

ees' and agents' aliases. The Review Board

released information that revealed that CIA

employees and agents used aliases. The

Board protected specific details about how

CIA documents particular aliases.

i. Commentary. The CIA argued that it

currently uses alias documentation and that

aliases are vital to CIA's performance of its

intelligence operations. The CIA also argued

that the Review Board's release of specific

information about alias

documentation

would not be useful to assassination

researchers. The Review Board members

accepted CIA's arguments, primarily because

they agreed that the public interest in the

specific details about alias documentation

was low. The Review Board determined that

it did not want the CIA to spend a large

amount of time gathering evidence in sup-

port of postponements that were of low pub-

lic interest and, thus, it did not require the

CIA to provide evidence in support of every

postponement relating to alias documenta-

tion.

m. Foreign intelligence cooperation.

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board postponed references to foreign intelli-

gence cooperation with the CIA.

ii. Commentary. The Review Beard vigor-

ously debated the issue of foreign intelli-

gence cooperation with

the CIA and,

demanded extensive evidence and multiple

briefings from the CIA on the subject.

Though in some instances Board members

judged that the information might add to the

historical understanding of the assassination,

the Review Board, with some dissent, deter-

mined that the evidence to postpone the

information outweighed this potential value.

n. Human sources in FBI foreign

counterintelligence (assets).

i. Review Board guidelines. The Review

Board evaluated the need to postpone the

identity of human sources in foreign counter-

intelligence operations on a case-by-case

basis. Where the human source was a foreign

national, the Review Board generally agreed

to protect the individual's identity unless the

individual's connection with the FBl was

already known to the foreign government at

issue. Where the human source was a United

States citizen interacting with foreign govern-

ment officials, the Review Board sometimes

released the identity of the individual if the

public interest in the name of the asset was

high. Where the human source was a United

States citizen interacting with other United

States citizens, the Review Board tended to

evaluate the release of the source's name

more like other domestic informants.

i. Commentary. In its position paper, the

FBI defined "intelligence source"

as "any

56

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## Page 48

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CHAPTER 5: THE STANDARDS FOR REVIEW: REVIEW BOARD "COMMON LAW"

individual who has provided or is currently

providing information pertaining to national

security matters, the disclosure of which

could reasonably be expected to result in

damage to the FBI's intelligence and counter-

intelligence-gathering capabilities."

The FBI offered the following arguments in

support of its request to keep intelligence

sources' identities secret: (1) Review Board

disclosure of intelligence sources would harm

the FBI's ability to develop and maintain new

and existing sources, because sources would

reasonably believe that the government

would reveal their identities, and (2) disclo-

sure of intelligence sources may subject the

sources, their friends, and their families to

physical harm, ridicule, or ostracism.

The Review Board's interpretation of the

"ilear and convincing" evidence. standard

required it to reject the fbi's general policy

arguments, and instead required the FBI to

present asset-specific evidence that explained

the particular harm that the FBI expected the

asset to face if the Review Board voted to dis-

¿ lose his or her identity. As a general rule, the

Keriew Board usually protected the identities

"I loreign nationals who could be prosecuted

in their home countries for espionage. Like-

wise, where the asset was a United States cit-

iven interacting with foreign government offi-

cials, the Review Board considered whether

the individual was in a position of trust with

the foreign government and whether he or

she might be in danger if the Review Board

disclosed his or her relationship with the FBI.

Unlike the above-referenced scenarios, the

source who was a United States citizen interact-

illy with other United States citizens was gener-

ally evaluated according to the Board's

domestic informant standards.

". FBI foreign counterintelligence activities.

i. Revier Board guidelines. As a general

rule, the Review Board believed that most

aspects of the FBI's foreign counterintelli-

gence activities against Communist Bloc

countries during the cold war period were

well-known, were of high public interest,

and were not eligible for postponement pur-

sulant to § 6(1)(B)-(C) of the JFK Act.

ii. Commentary and overview of foreign

counterintelligence appeals. The FBI's assassi-

nation records contain information that

reveal many of the FBI's foreign counterintel-

ligence activities during the cold war period.

Beginning in late 1995, the Review Board

considered how it could release as much

information as possible in the records with-

out jeopardizing operations that still require

protection.

In

spring

1996,

the

Review Board considered

and voted on a group of

FBI records relating to the

FBI's foreign counterin-

telligence activities.

In

response to the Review

Board's requests for evi-

dence on

the foreign

counterintelligence

records, the FBI had pro-

vided its "position paper"

on foreign counterintelli-

gence activities. In its

In all cases where the Revi

Board is considering postpone

ment, it should kee

held information to

minimum, and ensure

postponement

is

drawn for the shortest.

duration. In so doi

Review Board should rel

much information

records as is possible

-Senate Keport onse

July 22, 1992,

paper, the F'bl defined

"intelligence activities" as

"intelligence gathering action or techniques

utilized by the FBI against a targeted individ-

ual or organization that has been determined

to be of national security interest." The FBI's

primary argument in support of its request for

continued secrecy of intelligence activities

was that disclosure of specific information

describing intelligence activities would reveal

to hostile entities the FBI's targets and priori-

ties, thereby allowing hostile entities to

develop countermeasures.

Sections 6(1)(B) and (C) of the JFK Act pro-

vided the standard for postponement. In

addition, the JFK Act's legislative history

instructed the Review Board to consider a

variety of factors related to the need to post-

pone disclosure of intelligence sources and

methods, including the age of the record,

whether the use of a particular source or

method is already well-known by the public,

whether the source or method is inherently

secret, or whether the information collected

was secret.27

The Review Board considered the FBI's evi-

dence and weighed it against public interest

in the records. After careful consideration,

the Review Board decided to release some

foreign counterintelligence information. The

Board's primary reason for releasing such

57

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## Page 49

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FINAL REPORT OF THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS

202459.

REVIEW BOARD

records was its belief that the FBI's evidence

did not enumerate specific harms that would

result from disclosure.

A. The FBI's May 1996 Appeals to the

President. On May 10 and 28, 1996, the FBI

appealed to the President to overturn the

Board's vote on 17 records relating to the

FBI's surveillance of officials and establish-

ments of four Communist countries-the

Soviet Union, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and

Poland-during the 1960s. The FBI's overar-

ching arguments were that disclosure of the

information would reveal sensitive sources

and methods that would compromise the

national security of the United States, and

that disclosure of the targets of the surveil-

lance the four Communist countries-

would harm the foreign relations of the

United States.

The FBI sought to postpone five types of

source and method capabilities: tracing of

funds, physical surveillance (lookout logs),

mail cover, electronic surveillance, and type-

writer and fingerprint identification. The

Review Board's response briefs to the Presi-

dent dealt with each source or method in

turn. Specific details regarding the appeal of

each issue are discussed below.

In response to the FBl's overarching argu-

ment that disclosure of the information

would reveal sensitive sources and methods

and compromise the national security, the

Review Board responded that if the national

security would be harmed by release of this

information, the harm would have already

occurred, since the FBI had already released

both the identities of the target countries and

the sources and methods that the FBI used in

its operations.

In response to the FBI's arguments that dis-

closure of the targets of the surveillance

would harm the foreign relations of the United

States, the Review Board responded in three

parts. First, the information that the FBI

sought to protect is widely available in the

public domain, from both official govern-

ment sources and secondary sources, so if

foreign relations are harmed by disclosure of

the information, then the harm has already

occurred. Second, the FBI simply did not

prove its argument that it may have violated

international law or "diplomatic standards"

by employing the sources or methods at issue

since the FBI did not cite the laws or treaties

to which it referred and the Review Board

could not locate any laws or treaties that

were in effect at the time that the records

were created. Third, despite the FBI's asser-

tion to the contrary, the Review Board had

evidence that other governments do acknowl-

edge that, in past years, they conducted for-

eign counterintelligence operations against

other countries.

The Review Board believed that the FBI had

not provided evidence of a "significant,

demonstrable harm" to current foreign rela-

tions or intelligence work. Thus, the Board

asked the President to deny the FBI's requests

for postponement. The White House did not

expressly rule on the appeals. Instead, after

several meetings involving representatives

from the Review Board, the FBI, and the White

House, the White House directed the FBI to

provide the Review Board with specific evi-

dence in support of its postponements. The

White House requested the Review Board to

reconsider the Bureau's specific evidence. The

FBI, in turn, withdrew the first two of its

pending appeals, including some records in

which the Review Board voted to release

information obtained from a technical source.

B. Post-appeal decisionmaking. After fur-

ther negotiations, the Review Board and the

FBI agreed to release most information

regarding its. foreign counterintelligence

activities against Communist Bloc countries

as "consent releases." In those few cases

where the Bureau believed that foreign coun-

terintelligence activity against Communist

Bloc countries still required protection, the

Bureau submitted for the Board's determina-

tion postponement-specific evidence.

To the extent that the information in the FBI's

proposed redaction did not meaningfully

contribute to the understanding of the assas-

sination, the Review Board allowed the FBI

to postpone direct discussions of foreign

counterintelligence activities against non-

Communist Bloc countries. With regard to

the FBI's

"segregated

collections," the

Review Board stated in its segreated collec-

tion guidelines,

It is presumed that the FBI will, at least

partially, carry over its post-appeal stan-

---

## Page 50



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## Page 51

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OGC-92-53256

14 December 1992

MEMORANDUM FOR:

VIA:

FROM:

SUBJECT:

Chief, Historical Review Group

Associate Jamesa

ounse

Litigation Division,

OGC

Robertant General counsel

Litigation Division, OGC

Declassification Guidelines Established by the

President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records

Collection Act of 1992

1.

The enactment of the President John F. Kennedy

Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 ("the Act") has

created declassification guidelines that are to some extent

different from the Historical Review Program guidelines

established by the Director of Central Intelligence.

In the

continuing review of material related to the assassination of

President Kennedy, the guidelines established by the Act must be

used.

2. The Act's most fundamental changes are the burden it

creates on agencies to justify continued classification of

information, and a requirement that agencies balance the national

security concerns against the public interest.

Under the Act,

information must be declassified unless a showing is made by

clear and convincing evidence that release of the information

would demonstrably impair the national security.

3.

The Act's guidelines for declassification are found in

its Section 6 and are as follows:

Sec 6.

GROUND FOR POSTPONEMENT OF PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF

RECORDS.

Disclosure of assassination records or particular

information in assassination records to the public may be

postponed subject to the limitations of this Act if there is

clear and convincing evidence that--

(1) the threat to the military defense,

intelligence operations, or conduct of foreign

relations of the United

States posed by the public

disclosure of the assassination is of such gravity that

---

## Page 52

13-00000.

it outweighs the public interest, and such public

disclosure would reveal--

(A) an intelligence agent whose identity

currently requires protection;

(B) an intelligence source or method which

is currently utilized, by the United States

Government and which has not been officially

disclosed, the disclosure of which would interfere

with the conduct of intelligence activities; or

(C) Any other matter currently relating to

the military defense, intelligence operations or

conduct of foreign relations of the United States,

the disclosure of which would demonstrably impair

the national security of the United States;

the public disclosure of the assassination

record would reveal the name or identity of a living

person who provided confidential information to the

United States and would pose a substantial risk to that

person;

(3) the public disclosure of the assassination

record could reasonably be expected to constitute an

unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, and that

invasion of privacy is so substantial that it outweighs

the public interest;

(4) the public disclosure of the assassination

record would compromise the existence of an

understanding of confidentiality currently requiring

protection between a Government agent and a cooperating

individual or a foreign government, and public

disclosure would be so harmful that it outweighs the

public interest;

or

(5) the public disclosure of the assassination

record would reveal a security or protective procedure

currently utilized, or reasonably expected to be

utilized, by the Secret service or another Government

agency responsible for protecting Government officials,

and public disclosure would be so harmful that it-

outweighs the public interest.

4.

The Act therefore superseded the guidelines established

for the Historical Review Program to the extent the historical

Review Group (HRG) is processing information related to the

assassination of President Kennedy. The specific changes are as

follows.

The most basic change is that you must apply a

balancing test before maintaining the classification of any

information. You must balance continued classification

against the public interest in the information. Therefore,

the greater light disclosure of the information would shed

on the assassination of the President, or on the

2

---

## Page 53

13-00000

government's investigation into that assassination, the more

serious must be the need to continue to withhold the

information for classification to be maintained.

b. HR 70-14.e(2) states the reviewers of information

advocating continued classification of information will bear

the burden identifying any damage that disclosure could

reasonably be expected to cause to the national security.

The Act defines that burden as one of "clear and convincing

evidence. "

Further, the Act changes "reasonably could be

expected to cause" to "demonstrably." Therefore, unless a

showing is made by clear and convincing evidence that

release of the information would demonstrably impair the

national security, the information must be declassified.

c .

HR 70-14.e(4) addresses the standards for

maintaining the classification of foreign government

information, the identity of a foreign source, and

intelligence sources and methods.

It notes that Executive

Order 12,356 presumes that this information is classified.

Under the Act, with respect to these categories of

classified information

found with records related to the

assassination of President Kennedy, you must still find

demonstrable damage by clear and convincing evidence

regardless of the presumption in the Executive Order.

Further, with respect to intelligence sources and methods,

the Act

reguires that they--

(1) be either currently utilized or reasonably

expected to be utilized by the U.S. Government; and

(2) that they not have been officially disclosed;

and

(3) that their disclosure would interfere with the

conduct of intelligence activities.

All of these factors must be met by a showing of clear and

convincing evidence.

d.

HR 70-14.e(4) also discusses CIA personnel and

organizational information.

The Act only permits the

continued withholding of the identity of an "intelligence

agent" if, by clear and convincing evidence, it can be shown

the person's identity requires protection.

Further, the Act

does not permit the withholding of organizational

information unless, by clear and convincing evidence, it can

be shown

the disclosure of the organizational data would

demonstrably impair the national security.

e.

HR 70-14.e(7) states that the HRG will determine

whether information warrants continued protection pursuant

to statutory or other requirements.

The Act supersedes all

other statutory authority for withholding information except

3

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## Page 54

13-00000

for a provision of the Internal Revenue Code dealing with

tax return information.

This means the Act takes precedence

over 50 U.S.C. § 403(d) (3) and & 403g, as well as the

Privacy Act, when determining whether to release records

related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Act

also makes no provision for protecting information on the

basis of executive privilege, such as deliberative process

and attorney-client communications.

5. Certain categories of information may fall into more

than one of the grounds set forth in Section 6 of the Act.

We

recommend that you review all of the grounds when determining

whether to release or withhold specific information. For

example, a human intelligence source may fall into grounds (1) (A)

"intelligence agent"),

(1) (B) ("intelligence source"), (2)

("living person who provided confidential information to the

United States"), and/or (4)

("understanding of confidentiality

currently requiring protection between a Government agent and a

cooperating individual").

At this point, we do not know how the

Assassination Records Review Board will interpret each of these

if you determine the standards of the Act

are met to permit withholding of certain information, you should

assert as many grounds as may arguably apply as authority for

that withholding.

6. Although the Act severely limits what information may be

withheld from disclosure, it may be possible to protect

information not expressly covered by the Act. However, such

information may be withheld only with the personal authorization

of the President.

When the President signed the Act, he issued a

statement that included the following:

My authority to protect [executive branch

deliberations, law enforcement information of the

executive branch, and national security information]

comes

from the Constitution and cannot be limited by

statute.

Although only the most extraordinary

circumstances

would reguire postponement of the

disclosure of documents for reasons other than those

recognized in the bill, I cannot abdicate my

constitutional responsibility to take such action when

necessary.

?. The Act provides individuals the ability under the

Administrative Procedures Act to challenge in court final

decisions of the Assassination Records Board. We can expect,

then, court challenges to the Board's decisions to uphold any of

our determinations that certain information meets the criteria

for postponement of release.

Additionally, as you know, there

are FOIA litigations for this same material. Plaintiff's counsel

has indicated in court pleadings and orally that he wants the

court to review our redactions not under FOIA standards, but

under the standards of the act.

Thus, you should apply the Act's

standards knowing your judgments may be questioned by the Board,

4

suftwars-per

5or

redartin

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## Page 55

13-00000

...'

subsequent court challenges

to the Board's action, and the FOIA

cases.

8. If you have any questions concerning the application of

the Act to your review of the assassination records, please call

me on secure extension 76105.

Robert J

=

5

---

## Page 56

13-00000

...

:..

DCI/OGC/RJE: ig

OGC-92-53256

Distribution:

76105/ 15 Dec

1992

1

- Addressee

1

- DO/IRO

1 - DI/ IRO

1

- DS&T/IRO

1 - DA/ IRO

1

- DCI/ IRO

1

- PCS/PGG

1

-

ERR

1

DPH

1

- Lit file

1

EC

1

- WGJ

- RJE Soft file

1

OGC Chrono

1

-RJE

Signer

---

## Page 57

13-00000

AGENCY- INTERNAL USE ONLY

PRIVILESZS ATTORNEY WORK PROD-CT

CFAn

OGC-94-52916

19 September 1994

MEMORANDUM FOR:

David P. Holmes

Deputy General Counsel

FROM:

Robert J. Eatinger. Jr.

Assistant General Counsel

Litigation Division, OGC

SUBJECT:

DCI Sources and Methods Authority With Respect

to JFK Assassination Records

President Do your Kennedy A hase attachecords coolection Act of

1992 (ARCA), Pub. L. 102-526, 106 Stat.

3443-3458, reprinted at

44 0.S.0.g

for your convenience, I nave higriigried

the pertinent provisions that will aid in respondirg to aa

inquiry regarding the statute's effect on the DCI's statutory

authority to protect intelligence sources and methods.

2. The clear language and intent of the law is to supe-sede

staiutes that prohibit disclosure of informazion, except for some y

irrelevant subject areas, suchas

_tax records.

The statute

•--

provides that "it shall

take precedence over any other law

(except section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code), judicial

decision construing such law, or common law doctrine that would

otherwise prohibit" the disclosure of information subject to the

ARCA § 11(a). This language, taken with the provisions

discussed below which limit the intelligence sources and methods

thai may be protected and set a strict procedüral scheme by which

information is to be reviewed under the ARCA, effectively

supersedes the DCI's National Security Act authority with respect

to intelligence sources and methods information subject to the

ARCA.

3.

Section 6 of the ARCA provides the grounds for which the

release of information may be "postponed."

The statute

contemplates that

all information will eventually be released.

Indeed, it specifies that all information will be made available

to the public no later than 25 years after the passage of the

ARCA (which occurred in October 1992) unless the president

certifies that continued postponement is necessary.

§ 4 (g) (2) (D).

With respect to intelligence-related information,

ARCA allOwS

postponement if:

"(1) the threat to ... intelligence operations ... is

of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest, and

such public disclosure would reveal--

PRIVILEGED ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT

AGENCY - INTERNAL USE ONLY

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## Page 58

13-00000.

SUBJECT:

AGENCY - INTERNAL ÜSE ONLY

PRIVILEGED ATTOR.EY WORK PROF:IT

DCI Sources and Methods Authority With Respect to JFK

Assassination Records

(A)

an intelligence agent whose identity currently

requires protection;

(B) an intelligence source or rethod which is

activities; or

(C) any other matter currently relating to

intelligence operations... the disclosure of which

would demonstrably impair the national security of the

United States.*

=

ARCA § 6(1) (Emphasis added.)

4.

The originating agency is to make the first review to

ider-ify information that meets the standards for postponement.

ARCA § 4(C) (2) (D) (i).

For CIA, this effort is being undertaken

by the Historical Review Group, in consultation with the

Directorate of Operations and other appropria: Agency

components.

te of peration che

Information the originating ageries identify for

postponement must be transmitted to the Revie. Board.

ARCA

§ 4(C) (2) (E).

The Review Board shall consider and render

decisions on

a determination by a Government office to seek to

postpone the disclosure of assassination recc=as." ARCA §

7(1) (1) •

Specifically, the

"Review Soard sha'l consider and

render decisions on

... whether an assassination record or

particular information in a record qualifies for postponement of

disclosure under the Act." ARCA § 7(i) (2) (B).

5. If the Review Board determines to order the disclosure

of information that the originating agency feit met the criteria

for postponement, it "shall notify the head cs the originating

body of its determination and publish a copy of the determination

in the Federal Register within 14 days after the determination is

made."

ARCA § 9(c) (4) (A) .

If the information contained in an

assassination record is "obtained or developed solely within the

executive branch, the President shall have the sole and

nondelegable authority to require the disclosure or postponement

..the information under the standards set forth in

Section 6.*

ARCA § 9 (d) (2) (emphasis added). The President's

decision must be certified to the Review Board within 30 days of

the Review Boards determination.

• President must be re-reviewed every 5 years. ARCA § 9(d) (2).

e-reviewed every

Id. Records postponed by the

PRIVILEGED ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT

AGENCY - INTERNAL USE ONLY

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## Page 59

13-00000

AGENCY- INTERNAL USE ONLY

FRIVILEGED ATTORNEY WORK PREJUCT

SUBJECT: DCI Sources and Methods Authority With Respect to JFK

Assassination Records

6. I would be happy to discuss this further if you so

You might also want to contact John Pereira (x30373)

since he has met with some or all of the Review Board members.

bert J. Eating

Attachment

3

PRIVILEGED ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT

AGENCY - INTERNAL USE ONLY

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## Page 60

13-00000

SUBJECT: DCI Sources and Methods Authority w/Respect

to JFK Assassination Records

OGC-94 - 52916

DCI/OGC/RJEat inger: 76105 (19 Sept 94)

Original • Addressee i/attach) ihand delivered)

- OGC Registry (W/attacie)

- Lit File

1 - RBB (OGC/I¿>)

1

- C/HRG (J. Pereira-404 Ames)

1 - RJE - Soft File (w/attach)

1

RJE - Signer

1

PDP

1

KK - fy!

1

- PAS-Ey=

-

---

## Page 61



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## Page 62

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SECRET

Attachment C

Friday, October 29, 1999

Foreign Government Information Contained in JFK Collection

CIA's JFK Collection includes Foreign Government Information (FGI) in a number of forms:

First, some CIA documents in the collection contained FGI but, by general agreement with the

Assassination Records Review Board, the source could be protected by redaction even when CIA and

the Board agreed that substantive information could be released.

Second, documents were provided by foreign governments in the aftermath of the assassination in response

to requests from the US Government for information about the assassination or individuals whose

names may have been associated with it. Such documents subsequently became a part of CIA's

"sequestered collection" and thus were automatically designated by the JFK Board as "Assassination

Records," subject to declassification review. A number of such documents were released in full in the

early years of the project (1992-1994), with the concurrence of the DO/IRO, but OIM has no

documentation regarding coordination with liaison.

Third, in a number of documented cases, the DO consulted with liaison services regarding documents that

were clearly identifiable as from a liaison service, and handling of both the substance and the sources

was discussed with the liaison services and their views obtained. In all such documented cases, the

BOARD agreed to protect the foreign government source and, as appropriate, to postpone the release

of redacted portions or entire documents until the year 2017, reflecting the language of the JFK Act.

The information below reflects those instances of coordination with liaison services that are

reflected in OIM records:

Australian

1. (S) A 1968 letter from Charles C. F. Spry, on Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

letterhead, to DCI Richard Helms objected to the proposed release of a Warren Commission document in

which reference is made to the 'Australian security service.' [The Warren Commission document (CD #97)

was a memorandum to Mr. J. Lee Rankin from DDP Helms dated 22 May 1964 reporting an anonymous

caller -- who described himself as a Polish chauffeur for the Soviet Embassy in Canberra -- to the US

Embassy there. That memo was sanitized to delete the 'Australian security service.'] The Board did not

accept the Agency's initial action to "deny in full" Sir Spry's letter and the Board's acceptance of

substitute text provided only additional time to pursue the possibility of full release. Consultations between

and among EA/PAMSI, OGC, and others and queries to the Australian desk, and, in turn, the Station and

the Australian Government brought an acceptable compromise. ASIO authorized the release of a redacted

and retyped version of Sir Spry's letter that did not reveal Sir Spry as the writer and that did not reveal an

ASIO/CIA relationship, and ASIO further stated "this ... should not be seen as setting any precedent in

releasing ASIO documents." The Board postponed release of the original until 2017.

2. (S) Helms' response to Sir Spry and two related CIA documents were released in sanitized

form that protected the liaison relationship. The release of the redacted portions are postponed until 2017.

3. (S) Cables exchanged between Headquarters and Canberra over the issue in-Item-I-were-

~ declared assassination records, but release of the cables was postponed until 2017.

SECRET

LIA 2-82

X5

1.5d

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## Page 63

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SECRET

British

1. (S) The BOARD wanted to release the 1963 British Security Service's (BSS) interview of the

spouse of a West-East defector (Sloboda). The BSS advised the Station that release would be a violation of

privacy rights in the UK. The BOARD agreed that the document was "not intrinsic to assassination story"

and that the document could be postponed until 2017

2. (S) Another British document in the collection provided information that as of 1982

"KOSTIKOV ... was posted in Beirut in 1978….. and may still be there." (The author EPSTEIN in

Legend claims KOSTIKOV was Lee Harvey Oswald's KGB case officer in Mexico City.) The British desk

accepted the release of the one pertinent paragraph (one of five paragraphs in the document), and the Board

agreed to postpone until 2017 the release of all other text and source originating information.

3. (S) The BOARD learned of the existence of a British document that the CIA possessed from the

BOARD's examination of FBI files. One member of the BOARD reviewed the entire document and

declared one portion of the document as relevant to the JFK assassination. The four-page section of the

document regarding KGB Active Measures was released in full and further noted that it was from a foreign

government that specifically requested not to be identified.

Canadian

(S) A report received through Canadian liaison channels on West-East defectors (Martin and

Mitchell) is in the collection. As consultations with the Canadian desk were underway, the BOARD

determined the document as not believed relevant and postponed its release until 2017.

Dutch

(S) The BOARD wanted to release two attachments (teltap transcripts) to a dispatch from the

Dutch Station. The matter was coordinated with the Dutch desk, the Dutch Station, and the Director

General of the Dutch National Security Service. As a result, translation substitutions provide the

information from intercepted conversations on the topics of "Mr. Lee (sic)" and Richard Gibson, but

redactions obscure the source of the transcripts, according to guidelines in a letter from the service. Release

of the redacted portions is postponed until 2017.

SECRET

LIA 2-82

X5

1.5d

---