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Date

Page

07/14/98

1

JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY

RECORD NUMBER

RECORDS SERIES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER

NSC

145-10001-10258

42

Released under the John

assassination Recorde

Collection Act of 1992

144 USC 2107 Notel.

Ease#: NW _54214 _Date:

10-04-2017

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : NSC

FROM : STEVEN L. SKANCKE

TO

MRS. JEANNE W. DAVIS

TITLE : SSC REQUEST FOR LBJ MATERIAL ON CUBA AND JFK

ASSASSINATION

DATE: 05/24/76

PAGES

: 6

SUBJECTS :

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

CLASSIFICATION :

RESTRICTIONS : 1C, 4

CURRENT STATUS : RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/18/98

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS : Duplicate of 145-10001-10259, without notes in margin.

[R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED

NW 54214

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RANDUM

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

TGDS+

Log #7602957

May 24, 1976

MEMORANDUM FOR MRS. JEANNE W. DAVIS

FROM:

Steven L. Skancke

Stave

SUBJECT:

SSC. Request for LBJ Material on Cuba and

JFK Assassination

As you know,

research staff members from the Senate Select

Committee visited the LBJ Library in Austin three weeks ago

and reviewed material relating to alleged attempts to assassinate

Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and information related to the

Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President

Kennedy. As a result of the review of those files, the Senate

Select Committee Staff has asked that certain documents be

returned and made available to them in Washington. In ac-

cordance with the arrangements made between the NSC. Staff

and Archives, these materials have been forwarded for our

review prior

to release to the SSC Staff. Accordingly, last

Thursday we received a package of 63 documents from Archives

for review.

John Matheny and I have reviewed each of these documents

and believe that although it is probably not possible to with-

hold the documents in their entirety, the in many cases

the Committee may be restricted to only having access to

the documents on Archives or NSC premises. Staff members

from the Committee have already reviewed the documents

but were not allowed to take substantive notes during their

review.

The documents have been divided into eight separate categories

of information, and a brief discussion and recommendation for

handling documents within each of these categories now follows:

SE

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- 2.

The documents themselves are tabbed as an attachment to

this memorandum and the letter on the Tab corresponds to

the letter associated with the paragraph headings below.

B.

NSC/WH Papers. Documents 1, la thru Im, 5, 6,

7, 8, 17 and 19 were prepared for, or as a result of,

White House or NSC meetings. Document #li is a

a briefing paper for the President for his participa-

tion in a meeting and Document #5 is a record of

the meeting of December 27, 1963 in which the

President actually participated. John and I believe

these documents constitute privileged information

and, as a result, as a matter of principle should

not be physically turned over to the Committee

Staff. Substantively, we have no objection to allowing

the Committee Staff to read this material or to have

repeated access to it, however. Such access arrange-

ments could be worked out through the National Archives

or could be handled directly by the NSC Staff.

CIA Papers. Documents 2, 3, 3a, 3b, 4, 4a, 4b,

11, 18, 18a, 20, 202, 22, 23, 23a and 25 were pre-

pared by the Central Intelligence Agency and either

forwarded directly to the White House or were

generally circulated by that agency. John and I

have no objection to making these documents available

to the SSC Staff but believe that the matter should be

resolved by the CIA. We understand that Document

#3, for example, has already been made available

by the CIA and would thus believe that CIA would

have no objection to also releasing #4a which appears

to be an earlier draft of #3.

My own reaction is that the release of information

contained in many of these documents could be expected

to damage either our relations with a particular country,

Mexico for example, in the case of Document: 20a, of

compromise specific sources and methods of intelligence.

I realize, however, that we must defer to CIA on pro-

tection of sources and methods.

SECRET (CIDS)

...

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SEC

C. FBI Papers. Documents 10, 12, 12a, 14, 14a, 13, 13a,

15, 15a, 15b, 16, 16a, 16b, were prepared, or are the

responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

na to rebater that to go on.

Again, although we have no major substantive problem

with the release of this information on a classified

basis, we believe that the FBI should be asked to

review it to ascertain that the sources of intelligence

described in these documents would not be unduly

compromised by releasing it to the Senate Select

Committee Staff. With regard to documents in the

#12 series, I don't believe that the two covering notes

concerning distribution of the document to Governor

Connally relate to the Committee inquiry and, thus,

would recommend that they simply be removed. In

Document I2a itself the matter for resolution by the

FBl is whether disclosure of the information would

identify sources of intelligence.

Documents in the 13 and 15 series relate to intelligence

reports on the training of Negroes in Cuba for subversive

operations against the United States.

Although we don't

believe this is relevant to the Committee investigation,

we believe the matter of disclosure should be considered

by the FBI. In this case, however, recent events would

seem to indicate that Cuban training of Negroes in sub-

versive operation tactics may not have necessarily

been geared toward the United States solely, especially

in view of recent developments in Africa.

The docu-

ments in the #16 series, although they would appear

to be relevant to the investigation, relate to sensitive

intelligence source materials. This document, however,

must also be cleared by the CIA since the last page

of the document relates to the CIA Station Chief in

a European country.

D. State Department Memorandum. Document 9 is a

December 1963 memorandum from Executive

Secretary Read to McGeorge Bundy concerning

papers prepared for a December Presidential

meeting on Cuba. The memorandum indicates that

the papers were prepared for the "President's",

(CDS)

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and then it was crossed out to state "Secretary's",

use at a 6 p.'m. December 2 meeting. There is

no further substantive discussion in that document.

I would defer, however, to the Department of State

as to whether or not that document could be released.

E.

Bill Attwood Activities. Documents 26,27, 27a, 28,

28a, 29 and 29a relate to a special channel being

cultivated between Premier Castro and President

Kennedy. Although it may not be necessary to

protect the information contained in these documents,

without knowing whether there has been another

public disclosure of the existence of this channel,

I would recommend that we not do so. In the event

that this, or another similar channel, were ever

to be used again in contacting or negotiating with

the Cuban Government, it would be important not

to disclose the existence or the substance of this

one. I would believe that the Department of State

would be the most appropriate agency to review

these documents and to inform us about the sensi-

tivity of theexistence of the Attwood channel.

F. Mafia Assassination Involvement.

Documents 24

and 24a concern plans of Cuban exile groups to

assassinate selected Cuban Government leaders

and their tie-in with elements of "Cosa Nostra."

The covering memorandum from Gordon Chase

to MI..

Bundy discloses the substance of the

under]feet CIA memorandum and I would propose

to make it available only en an access basis.

With regard to the CIA report itself, I believe

that we should defer to the CIA on the matter of

release or access.

G. Cubelas Trial. Documents 21, Zla ang 2lb contain

intormation that was furnished by the British.

Government. The British Embassy in Havana

monitored the trial

of the alleged involvement of

Majors Cubelas and Guin in assassination attempts

against Castro. (You may recall that the Washington

Post article by Mr. George Crile 3 weeks ago

related to AM-Lash and Major Cubelas.)

celi)(c) 12

0(4) 12

SECT

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Although the substance of the information contained

in these documents is not sensitive, disclosure of

the documents would reveal our relationship with

the British Government and the fact that the British

Embassy in Havanewas reporting information to the

United States Government.

Whether this relationship

or information is disclosed is a matter that must

be decided by the Department of State and the

British Government and I would recommend that

the Department of State be consulted.

12

H. MI. Hoover's November 24, 1963 Report. Document 30

is an interesting memorandum. Either it is a transcript

of a telephone conversation with FBI Director Hoover

or it is a memorandum of conversation on his meeting

with an official whose initials are WJ (presumably

Walter Jenkins). The memorandum containing Mr.

Hoover's remarks is a substantive and relatively

complete report on points that he evidently made in

his conversation. Indeed, it appears to be a verbatim

transcript of what he may have said. Although it

is not so marked, I believe the document should be

classified SECRET and that we should effect that

classification.

You will note that the memorandum relates to events

surrounding the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by

Jack Ruby. It discusses the Dallas Police Department

handling of the case and the GlA Contributions. In

addition, in indicates that we were tapping the telephone

lines of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico and opening

mail addressed to the Soviet Embassy in Washington.

John and I believe that the memorandum could be

made available on an access basis only to the Com-

mittee Staff and that the FBI and CIA should be

informed of its existence.

You may wish to review each of these documents yourself to

determine whether they may or may not be released to the

Committee Staff. Although my view may be a somewhat

ciLi)(c)

12PEU(4)

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conservative view, in that in some cases I would recommend out y

access as opposed to release, I believe the nature of some

of the documents is such that copies should not be delivered

to the Committee. At least, that should be our initial position.

Because the Committee will more than likely buck at anything

less than full and complete disclosure, you will, more than

likely, want to consult either with Bill Hyland or General

Scowcroft. 4 You should be aware that the Committee is very

anxious to have these documents made available and have

been calling me at least twice every day. I have informed

Mr. Epstein and Mr. Wallach, who are members of the

Committee Staff, that we are revealing these documents as

quickly as is possible, and because of the complexity and

involvement of many different agencies that it is taking a

considerable period of time. I indicated that although the

NSC Staff review is nearly finished, it will be necessary

to seek formally the views of other agencies. Although I

gave no definite time when we expected to complete our

review, I indicated that I thought by the end of this week

there would be an answer ready for them. When Mr. Epstein

called me at 1:30 this afternoon he indicated that unless we

produced the documents that he would be forced to have them

subpoenaed. I indicated, in response, that we had been

working diligently and devoting most of our time to this

matter. I stated that most of my own time on Friday and

all of my time today, Monday, had been devoted to this

project and, that in my opinion, a subpoena could not quicken

a review process that was already moving at full speed.

Mr. Epstein indicated that although they were unhappy with

this delay that, for now, they would wait on our review.

SE

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