Agency: FBI
Originator: FBI
From: HQ
To: WH
Document date: 5/10/96
Document type: PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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eteasen Wher The DUM T. Remedy AssasSTnation Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 USC 2107 Note).

DATE: 11-14-2017

JFK Assassination System

Date:

3/31/201

Identification Form

Agency Information

AGENCY: FBI

RECORD NUMBER:

124-10372-10290

RECORD SERIES: HQ

AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 62C-HQ-1029205-1182

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: FBI

FROM: HQ

TO: WH

TITLE :

DATE: 05/10/1996

PAGES:

15

SUBJECTS :

JFKARCA OF 1992

DOCUMENT TYPE: PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

CLASSIFICATION: Secret

RESTRICTIONS: 1B; 1C

CURRENT STATUS : Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 04/01/1999

OPENING CRITERIA: INDEFINITE

• COMMENTS :

INC PETITION

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Released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 USC 2107 Note).

DATE: 11-14-2017

May 10, 1996

BY HAND

The Honorable William J. Clinton

President of the United States

Washington, D.C: 20500

Dear Mr. President:

For the reasons set forth in detail in the enclosure,

this letter requests that you exercise your authority, under

Section 9(d) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination

Records Collection Act of 1992, to postpone public disclosure of

portions of thirteen documents ordered released by the

Assassination Records Review Board. (U)

Consistent. with the spirit of the Act, the FBI has

cooperated extensively with the Board and made the broadest

disclosure of documents in our history.

over 600,000 pages of

material have been transferred to the National Archives, and we

are working to transfer another 250,000. We have withheld very

little, deferred to the Board whenever possible, and appealed on

only one previous occasion.

interests would be compromised by the release of certain

information we have asked the Board to postpone disclosure.

Unfortunately, in this instance the Board has refused to accede

to our request.

(U)

Disclosure of the documents in question would reveal

investigative or surveillance techniques used to gather important

information from foreign countries.

Disclosure of this material

would compromise those techniques and impair foreign relations

Wakenis

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UNCLASSIFIED WI

DrAy DAta

SECRET MATERIAL ATTACHED

EPARATED FROM CHASSIFIED ENCLOSURE

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It F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 USC 2T07 Notey.

DATE: 11=11-2017

The Honorable William J. Clinton

with the concerned countries. Those countries and others in

which we have investigative interests will quickly take

countermeasures

once they

material at issue.

realize the significance of the

Given the inevitable ramifications of such

disclosures, the State Department considers release of these

documents significantly prejudicial to foreign relations and

supports our appeal. (U)

In our view, the gravity of the resulting injury to our

intelligence gathering abilities and to our foreign relations far

outweighs the interest served by making this information public.

I must, consequently, appeal the release of this information.

Sincerely,

Louis J. Freeh

Director

Enclosure

1 - Honorable Warren M. Christopher

The Secretary of State

U.S. Department of State

Washington, D.C.

1 - The Honorable Jamie S. Gorelick

The Deputy Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

Washington, D.C.

1 - Mr. David G. Marwell

Executive Director

Assassination Records Review Board

Washington, D.C.

PHERET

SECRET MATERIAL, ATTACHED

UNCLASSIFIED WHEN SEPARATED FROM CLASSIFIED ENCLOSURE

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Released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 USC 2107 Hotel.

. DATE:. 11-14-2017

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Document 10019 is a two-page document that relates to

various investigative activities, including an interview of an

individual named Cedric Younger Von Roldeston, who was also known.

as Arthur Swift. Von Roldeston claimed to have visited the

Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C.

To confirm this claim, the

document reveals that the "lookout logs" maintained by the Bureau

on visitors to the Soviet Embassy were checked.

Similarly, the

document notes that Arthur Swift wrote to, and received a reply

from, the Soviet Ambassador, thus revealing the existence of a

"mail cover" on the Soviet Embassy.

We seek to postpone

disclosure of the words "lookout logs" and "USSR' Ambassador. " (80(4)

Document 10140 is a two-page teletype that originated

in Boston and describes the activities of a mentally disturbed

individual. The document is unremarkable from our perspective

except for

the portion which discloses that the Bureau maintained

a "mail cover"

on the USSR Embassy.

We seek to postpone the word

"correspondence" from the document. Similarly, document 124-

10027-10405 (HQ 62-109060-1739) is a three-page document that

describes the activities of a man named Allen.

We seek to

postpone language on the second page which would reveal the

existence of an FBi "mail coveri

on the Soviet Embassy. UN)

ocument 10396 originated in New York and concerns i

elephone conversationion a dedicated circuitebetween :

correspondent in the United States of Tass, a Soviet government

controlled news organization, and an employee in Moscow of

Pravda, a communist-party controlled news organization. We

intercepted this conversation through technical surveillance of

the Eransoceanic cable on which the circuit was carrieds) The

conversation focused on American press coverage of Lee Harvey

Oswald and related matters.

We seek to postpone disclosure of

the Tass correspondent's name, his Tass affiliation, the identity

of the individual to whom he was speaking and her Pravda

affiliation, and language which suggests that the information was

gleaned from a telephone conversation between the two.

similarly, document 10048 concerns a (telephone

conversation between a correspondent of the Polish Government's

official newspaper, "Trybuna Ludu," and an attorney hired by the

mother of Lee Harvey Oswald. We seek to protect the symbol

number for the "informant" mentioned in the document since the

number reveals that the information was (really obtained from

celephone tap on a diplomatic establishment of the Polish (s,

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Released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 144 U5C 2107 Hote).

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government. &

We also seek to postpone disclosure of other

information in the document which would reveal that the

information was derived from a telephone conversation. At least

ne of the partles to the conversation is alive and would likel

recall that the conversation was telephoniaSif this information

is not protected, thus confirming the existence of (our tarts)

Document 10222 is a two-page teletype that discusses a

statement released to the press by the Cuban government.

to protect from disclosure those portions of the document,

including the symbol number, that reveal our interception of

teletype traffic between the Cuban government in Havana, Cuba and

the cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York, New York)

Document 124-10027-10133 (HQ 62-109060-2155) is a one-

page memorandum that discusses an apparent crank letter sent to

the Bureau alleging that President Johnson conspired with

communist agents to assassinate President Kennedy.

We seek to

protect the words "Soviet official" and "Soviet officials in the

U.s. " since, in context, they demonstrate that we had typewriter

specimens of Soviet government typewriters and fingerprint

samples of some soviet officials in the United States. (SU)

Discussion

wide variety of

investigative techniques and procedures.

Some of these methods

are widely known.

That we implement wiretaps and mail covers to

gather information, for example, is hardly a surprise. How,

when, where, and under what circumstances we make such

interceptions, are, however, closely guarded secrets.

Similarly,

that we often

attempt to "follow the money" through analysis of

financial records may be intuitive but how, when, and why we do

so are matters the disclosure of which may

seriously erode our

ability to carry out analogous operations in the future

Further, if the target of such

activity is

foreign nation,

disclosure of the activity's existence will inevitably prejudice

foreign relations.

(U)

6 In the second paragraph of the State Department memorandum of 4/3/96, the State Department

inadvertently refers to the "name of the informant" when discussing this document. Although the document

refers to an informant, the source of the information was, as indicated above, really an intercept of a

conversation between two individuals. (S).

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Even

were Russia to pay little heed to the practical

aspects of these disclosures, it surely could not diplomatically

countenance this direct acknowledgement of our use of the

technique to monitor its diplomatic establishment's bank accounts

and financial transactions.

We cannot with certainty predict the

exact nature of the Russian reaction, but we are confident that

United States--Russian relations will

significantly suffer. The

State Department concurs in this view. ((U)

Just as importantly, other nations that utilize

diplomatic bank accounts and locally issued monies will be

sensitized to our ability to monitor their own financial

activities. In addition to employing their own countermeasures,

that on count asures,

we would expect such countries at the least to seek assurances

from the United States that we will respect the security of their

accounts--assurances that may prove diplomatically difficult if

Foreign nations could also be

expected to argue that our use of such techniques against their

establishments and officials violates international treaties and

law, as well as diplomatic standards. For these and similar

reasons, neither the State Department nor the FBI officially

acknowledges that the FBI uses particular techniques to

investigate foreign officials or establishments.

Given today's

uncertain and evolving relationships between the United States

and many countries, particularly Russia and the other former

members of the Soviet bloc, we cannot afford to reverse that long

standing policy now. (SU)

We seek to postpone portions of Document 10396 for

similar reasons.

As noted above, this two-page document

originated in New York and reports on a telephone conversation

between two Soviet news correspondents, one in New York and one

in Moscow.

The Board has agreed to

postpone disclosure of the

symbol number.

We are gratified for this action since disclosure

of the symbol would have revealed that the document was the fruit

of a telephone intercept in New York City. The Board, however,

refuses to postpone the name of the subject--the correspondent

New York--and his Tass affiliation, the identity of the

individual to whom he was

and language which suggests that the information was gleaned

speaking and her Pravda affiliatio"from

a telephone conversation between the two.

In other words, the

Board refuses to protect the very information that we sought and

the Board decided to protect by postponing disclosure of the

symbol number. (E)(Us

For virtually identical reasons, we also seek to

protect the indicated portions of documents 10048 and 10222. The

former concerns an interception of allelephone conversation

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between a Polish government news correspondent and an American

attorney while the latter reports onfan intercepted teletype sent

by one component of the Cuban governient to another] (s)

Again, one may surmise that the FBI has an interest in

eavesdropping on the telephone and teletype conversations of the

agents of its adversaries without being privy to any classified

materials.

That, however, does not mean that the how,

when,

where, and why of

such electronic interceptions are well or

hardly known.

On the contrary, our abilities in this regard are,

and

should remain, closely guarded secrets.

Electronic

intercepts of foreign conversations is an

investigative technique

that we employ on a daily basis. We cannot afford to compromise

one of whom was located in the Soviet capitol, or that we were

able to and did intercept alwire transmission from Havana to New

York City?&)Disclosure

would also reveal the speed with which we

were able to translate and digest these conversations and

transmissions, our

interests and priorities, and what we

considered important or trivial.

Such information will be used

to develop and deploy effective countermeasures.

Similar arguments apply to documents 10019, 10140, and

124-10027-10405 (HQ 62-109060-1739) concerning mail

covers on the

Soviet Embassy. Together these documents show that we were able

to track a wide variety of correspondence going to and from a

number of Soviet officials at the Embassy. Our abilities,

interests, uses, and priorities can all be cogently surmised if

this information is released.

Perhaps more importantly, official

acknowledgement of this technique will cause the government

concerned and others in which we have investigative interests to

reassess the security of their written communication systems,

complicating, if not weakening, our collection efforts.

1(4)

Portions of document 124-10027-10133 (HQ 62-109060-

2155) should be protected for essentially the same reasons.

Here, however, we would note that our ability to compare

typewriting specimens and fingerprints to known samples from

Soviet officials is not commonly known or even suspected. Even

if it were, an official acknowledgement that we employed

techniques

as long ago as the early 1960's under the

circumstances outlined in this document would provide foreign

governments with ample reason to tighten their security, change

their habits, and deploy false leads, making it all the more

difficult to execute our counter-intelligence mission. (n)

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Two other points are also worth making. First, if we

officially confirm what the public may logically

suspect

about

the nature and extent of our counter-intelligence investigative

ictivities outlined in these documents, the countries in questior

Jould be all but compelled to diplomatically respond.

We may

presume that most nations will tolerate in diplomatic stoicism

the clandestine intelligence activities of their peers so long as

such activities remain officially covert but no country can be

expected to countenance the publicly avowed targeting and

investigation of their diplomatic inviolate establishments

and

agents without reaction.

The inevitable ramifications of such

official acknowledgements would complicate and impair the

relations of even long-standing allies, much less those of former

enemies or neutrals.

Uncertainties in this arena may adversely

affect evolving relationships in others.

When the relationships

in question are in a state of evolution, such as those between

prove especially harmful.

Second, if we declassify today the investigative

techniques that we use when targeting foreign establishments,

officials, and agents, we may not under prevailing classification

principles

keep classified the same information tomorrow.

Thus,

even

though the consequences of a seemingly innocuous

disclosure may be well understood in a particular context,

assessing their impact from all other relevant perspectives is

difficult at best.

If, for example, we declassify our use of

mail covers,

wire interceptions, lookout logs, money traces, and

so forth to investigate Soviet officials in this instance, then

all other uses of the same techniques on the same officials in

other situations may prove impossible to classify in the future

on the grounds that disclosure would compromise foreign

relations. Put differently, once we discard the policy against

officially acknowledging our use of particular investigative

techniques against specific foreign establishments and agents, we

can no longer use it to justify withholding similarly sensitive

is breached, we may not be able to use it to shield our use of

similar techniques on other countries which we target for

surveillance.

The same issue, for example, can be expected to

arise with regard to our investigation of other members of the

former soviet blo, France, Venezuela, Israt)

and a large number

of other nations.

7 See Fitzgibbon v. CIA, 911 F.2d 755 (D.C. Cir. 1990).

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