28-07-2017, 05:35 PM
LISTOF WITHHELD JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS ANDTHE TOP TEN ISSUES IT PRESENTS.
BYW. KELLY
"Itmay seem to those nourished on the exploits of James Bond ,…thatjournalistic activities have little to do with intelligence work. Butintelligence is a mosaic. General material about background andpeople's interrelationships can be both illuminating and important.Quite often missing pieces of the mosaic emerge that make apreviously incomprehensible picture unexpectedly clear." MaryBancroft (Autobiographyof a Spy,William Morrow, 1983 p. 150)
Anation's history and its official secrets are often considered theFamily Jewels, and America's secret records of the assassination ofPresident John F. Kennedy are considered the most precious secretsthat the government refuses to give up, even reveal to its owncitizens.
Thereal Deep Political secret records never see the light of day and areDeep Sixed so they are forever gone, though occasionally one willfloat to the surface and be saved and placed on a shelf in a secureand temperature controlled vault where many of the nation's mostprecious secrets are stored.
Amongthe official archival records there is the JFK Collection at theArchives II industrial warehouse of records in College Park,Maryland. The JFK Collection was instituted by the JFK Act of 1992 a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W.H. Bush. It requires all of the government's records on theassassination of President Kennedy be released to the public byOctober 2017, a fast approaching date that the National Archives andRecords Administration (NARA) says it will meet despite thereluctance of other agencies of government.
Theonly way an official record can still be withheld beyond that date isby an order of the President of the United States, whoeverf he or shemay be, and this is an issue that is certain to be brought to theattention of each of the candidates for that office.
Butwe don't have to wait until October 2017 to get a glimpse of theseFamily Jewels because, thanks to the determined efforts of a fewintrepid researchers we have a new document which purports to bea list of the over 3,000 JFK assassination records still beingwithheld that are scheduled to be released in 2017.
Bothindependent researcher Michael Ravnitzky and reporter Bryan Bendercan be credited for seeking this document and breaking this story.Ravnitzky first requested the document, and had it posted at RussBaker's WWWW web site. Bryan Bender who wrote about this story forthe Boston Globe and now does so for the digital journal Politico,also requested the document under the Freedom of Information Act andhas followed up with a series of FOIA requests for other records. Sofar Jefferson Morley at JFKFacts.org and the British Daily Mail havefollowed up with additional stories.
Thislist of withheld JFK assassination records is like a small port-holewindow through which we can shine a little light into the dark worldof secrets being kept in the government's vault. Though we willhave a much better picture window view of them on stage, under thelights and in great detail when all of the records are released tothe public for everyone to read, this one document gives us someinsight into what we will find.
Thenew document purports to answer a lot of questions concerning thewithheld records but actually creates fresh doubts and sparks newquestions - like how many records are still being withheld? And whyisn't the JFK Act being strictly enforced by Congressionaloversight, as it should be?
Atfirst glance the 146 page spread sheet list of RIFs RecordIdentification Forms, for the most part lists their topic, agency oforigin and how many pages they are gives us some concrete numbersthat have thus far been missing. 3, 603 and 3,063 still with helddocuments have been the most frequent numbers thrown about butRaymon Herrera, who has put together a program to reconfigure thedocuments in a more readable form says that there are actually 3,568RIF records listed.
Ifyou use the NARA's hopelessly outdated digital data base you comeup with tens of thousands of records that are listed as withheld infull or in part but in fact are readily available as they werereleased in a number of earlier data dumps, sometimes acceleratingthe release of the records years before they were required to. Thedumping of tons of documents into the public domain at one time isalso a deliberate obstrufustion tactic in which the reallysignificant gems of informative facts are included among uselessinformation, thus insuring it won't be found for years, at leastuntil some intrepid researcher requests it or accidently stumblesacross it, discovers it and recognizes its significance. One smallpiece of the Dealey Plaza Mosaic, as Mary Bancroft would put it, apiece that makes it all so unexpectedly clear.
Atfirst glance a quick survey of the new list of still withheld JFKassassination records requires the creation of a new list of issuesthis document raises, beginning with the total number of recordsstill being withheld. Thenthere's the question of exactly how many are being withheld by eachagency of government? Is it really 3, 568 or is that a number thatwill change over time as we sift through the records.
Thisdocument gives us the names and subject matter that is the topic ofeach document, at least some of them, and discloses or explains whysome of the records are being withheld, many under (b)(3) 26 U.S.C.&6103 the IRS personal privacy law. Does this law trump theJFK Act? Will it be used to keep records withheld beyond October 2017even without a presidential order?
Someof William Manchester's records are also among these records,including interviews with Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy. Manchesterhas placed a personal time of release that is beyond the JFK Act, sowhich one rules? Will William Manchester's personal last will andtestament over rule the JFK Act, or will that issue be used tocontinue the withholding of the records with or without thepresident's approval? Thelist indicates a few things right off the bat including the fact thathundreds of the documents are identified as being "illegible,"meaning you can't read it, which begs the question - why theagencies of government would withhold a record that can't be read,and why would the ARRB approve the withholding of such a record?
Anotherthing that jumps out of the list is the fact that there are manyWarren Commission documents still being withheld, when it waspreviously alleged by the NARA that all of the Warren Commission erarecords had been released.
Inaddition, while the House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA)MLK records were not included in the JFK Act, there are many MLK andMLK assassination records on the list, as well as a number of recordsconcerning racial riots, anti-war demonstrations and the 1968Democratic National Convention, all of which occurred years after theassassination. Why are these documents being included among the JFKAssassination Records Collection?
Someof the withheld records, such as the Collins Radio documents arelabeled "NBR" Not Believed Relevant, yet they most certainlyare as Collins Radio made the Air Force One radios and operated therelay station that broadcast the signals. This begs the question asto why they would include dozens of irrelevant records on politicaldemonstrations that occurred years after the assassination, yet tryto with hold the most significant records that are directly connectedto the assassination?
Ofthe ONI records being withheld, it is noteworthy that the ONIDefector Files are not among them, which indicates that they havebeen deliberately excluded from the JFK Collection, not given a RIFnumber and are simply being withheld without being included among theofficial list of records being with held.
OtherONI records, such as the 119 Reports we know exist or did exist atone time, and the assassination records of ONI chief Admiral RufusTaylor, are not listed either, so they are not being withheld, andwon't be released in October 2017, but must be considered missing,lost, stolen or intentionally destroyed. Why is there is noinvestigation into what became of these missing records?
Mostnoteworthy is the fact that some of the records listed as beingwithheld have already been released, though in most cases, inredacted form.
TheSubjects-Topic of the documents on the list can be broken down intofour categories names of individuals, organizations, places andrecordtypes. I have listed as many of the individuals mentioned as Ican at JFKCountercoup2 - https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=522635142791807512- allposts/postNum=2
Ihave previously reviewed some of the background off Judd McIlvaine,the University of Missouri Journalism grad who specialized in Centraland South American news and whose interview with the Church Committeeis among the list of withheld records. It was quickly establishedthat McIlvaine had also been interviewed at length by others andthere are related government records already released, so whatever itis in this record that is being suppressed is probably alreadyavailable from other sources.
Assome researchers have noted, some records being withheld by oneagency have already been released by another agency. If you want toget some deep background on a particular record that's listed youcan go to the NARA or MaryFerrell.org data base and type in the firsttwo groups of the RIF number and it will lead you to other documentsin that field, sometimes even the exact document that's listed asbeing withheld has already been released and is available on line.
Oneseries of documents on the list relates to JFK advance man John Byrneand one Bill Turner - not the recently deceased former FBI agent, butthe Exalted Ruler of the Fort Worth Elks Club. He sked JFK'sadvance man John Byrne if the president would stop to visit his clubhouse, a request that was politely rejected. But apparently hegenerated a half dozen reports and official documents that have beenofficially deemed so secret that they must be kept from the curiousand reading public in order to maintain the nation's security.
Butyou can read about Byrne's successful and fateful advance trip toFort Worth in the article "The Day Before Dallas" that he wrotefor Prologue, the glossy NARA magazine, in which he mentions therequests he received from various Texas civic leaders, including BillTurner, the Exalted Ruler of the Elks. Maybe there was a plot to killthe President at the Elks Club, or some other issue of nationalsecurity, one that we will learn the answer to come October 2017.
Whetherthe JFK Collection contains all of the official records as requiredis yet to be seen but one thing is for certain, there will be anotherdata dump come that day, and the most precious of secrets will bemade available to the public for all to see, but it will be up to theresearchers, historians, journalists and reporters who will have todig through the morass to find the real gems that are the finalpieces to Mary Bancroft's Mosaic, the total picture of what reallyhappened at Dealey Plaza.
Bancroftwas also fond of quoting her uncle C.W. Barron, who oftenreminded her, "Remember that facts are not the truth. They onlyindicate where the truth may lie!"
So`the Top Ten Issues this document presents and the questions theypose are:
1)How many records are still being withheld? 2)How many agencies are involved and how many are being withheld fromeach agency? 3)Why are there so many described as "illegible"? Why were theywithheld and why did ARRB agree to withhold them? 4)How many Warren Commission records are still being withheld? The zeroanswer previously provided by NARA is clearly incorrect. 5)Why are MLK assassination records, race riots and the DNC 1968records, clearly unrelated to the assassination included in the JFKCollection when they are clearly NBR? 6)Why are the Collins Radio records described as NBR when theyv arerelevant? 7)How come the ONI Defector and ONI Director Files are not listed amongthe still withheld records when they are still being withheld? 8)Why are there so many records listed as withheld when in fact theyhave been released and are available? 9)What about the records we know exist that are not among the JFKCollection ONI 119 Reports, ONI Director Files, Richard Sprague'sHSCA records, the original Air Force One radio tapes and other suchrecords? Is the NARA actively searching and seeking these records?10)Will the AOTUS Mr. Ferraro ever get around to publishing anindex and guide to the JFK Collection as the JFK Act law requires?
Andfinally, when will the appropriate committee of Congress hold publichearings on the JFK Act, inquire as to why there are so many missingand possibly destroyed records, and see to the strict and properenforcement of the JFK Act?
Afterall, these records - the Family Jewels are the history of America our history, our nation, and they do not belong to any secretgovernment agency, classified redactor or petty bureaucrat theybelong to the citizens who paid for them and legally own them, as thesecrets of the assassination are all our secrets.
Andas Dan Ellisberg asked, once we learn the secrets, what are we goingto do with that new knowledge?
BYW. KELLY
"Itmay seem to those nourished on the exploits of James Bond ,…thatjournalistic activities have little to do with intelligence work. Butintelligence is a mosaic. General material about background andpeople's interrelationships can be both illuminating and important.Quite often missing pieces of the mosaic emerge that make apreviously incomprehensible picture unexpectedly clear." MaryBancroft (Autobiographyof a Spy,William Morrow, 1983 p. 150)
Anation's history and its official secrets are often considered theFamily Jewels, and America's secret records of the assassination ofPresident John F. Kennedy are considered the most precious secretsthat the government refuses to give up, even reveal to its owncitizens.
Thereal Deep Political secret records never see the light of day and areDeep Sixed so they are forever gone, though occasionally one willfloat to the surface and be saved and placed on a shelf in a secureand temperature controlled vault where many of the nation's mostprecious secrets are stored.
Amongthe official archival records there is the JFK Collection at theArchives II industrial warehouse of records in College Park,Maryland. The JFK Collection was instituted by the JFK Act of 1992 a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W.H. Bush. It requires all of the government's records on theassassination of President Kennedy be released to the public byOctober 2017, a fast approaching date that the National Archives andRecords Administration (NARA) says it will meet despite thereluctance of other agencies of government.
Theonly way an official record can still be withheld beyond that date isby an order of the President of the United States, whoeverf he or shemay be, and this is an issue that is certain to be brought to theattention of each of the candidates for that office.
Butwe don't have to wait until October 2017 to get a glimpse of theseFamily Jewels because, thanks to the determined efforts of a fewintrepid researchers we have a new document which purports to bea list of the over 3,000 JFK assassination records still beingwithheld that are scheduled to be released in 2017.
Bothindependent researcher Michael Ravnitzky and reporter Bryan Bendercan be credited for seeking this document and breaking this story.Ravnitzky first requested the document, and had it posted at RussBaker's WWWW web site. Bryan Bender who wrote about this story forthe Boston Globe and now does so for the digital journal Politico,also requested the document under the Freedom of Information Act andhas followed up with a series of FOIA requests for other records. Sofar Jefferson Morley at JFKFacts.org and the British Daily Mail havefollowed up with additional stories.
Thislist of withheld JFK assassination records is like a small port-holewindow through which we can shine a little light into the dark worldof secrets being kept in the government's vault. Though we willhave a much better picture window view of them on stage, under thelights and in great detail when all of the records are released tothe public for everyone to read, this one document gives us someinsight into what we will find.
Thenew document purports to answer a lot of questions concerning thewithheld records but actually creates fresh doubts and sparks newquestions - like how many records are still being withheld? And whyisn't the JFK Act being strictly enforced by Congressionaloversight, as it should be?
Atfirst glance the 146 page spread sheet list of RIFs RecordIdentification Forms, for the most part lists their topic, agency oforigin and how many pages they are gives us some concrete numbersthat have thus far been missing. 3, 603 and 3,063 still with helddocuments have been the most frequent numbers thrown about butRaymon Herrera, who has put together a program to reconfigure thedocuments in a more readable form says that there are actually 3,568RIF records listed.
Ifyou use the NARA's hopelessly outdated digital data base you comeup with tens of thousands of records that are listed as withheld infull or in part but in fact are readily available as they werereleased in a number of earlier data dumps, sometimes acceleratingthe release of the records years before they were required to. Thedumping of tons of documents into the public domain at one time isalso a deliberate obstrufustion tactic in which the reallysignificant gems of informative facts are included among uselessinformation, thus insuring it won't be found for years, at leastuntil some intrepid researcher requests it or accidently stumblesacross it, discovers it and recognizes its significance. One smallpiece of the Dealey Plaza Mosaic, as Mary Bancroft would put it, apiece that makes it all so unexpectedly clear.
Atfirst glance a quick survey of the new list of still withheld JFKassassination records requires the creation of a new list of issuesthis document raises, beginning with the total number of recordsstill being withheld. Thenthere's the question of exactly how many are being withheld by eachagency of government? Is it really 3, 568 or is that a number thatwill change over time as we sift through the records.
Thisdocument gives us the names and subject matter that is the topic ofeach document, at least some of them, and discloses or explains whysome of the records are being withheld, many under (b)(3) 26 U.S.C.&6103 the IRS personal privacy law. Does this law trump theJFK Act? Will it be used to keep records withheld beyond October 2017even without a presidential order?
Someof William Manchester's records are also among these records,including interviews with Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy. Manchesterhas placed a personal time of release that is beyond the JFK Act, sowhich one rules? Will William Manchester's personal last will andtestament over rule the JFK Act, or will that issue be used tocontinue the withholding of the records with or without thepresident's approval? Thelist indicates a few things right off the bat including the fact thathundreds of the documents are identified as being "illegible,"meaning you can't read it, which begs the question - why theagencies of government would withhold a record that can't be read,and why would the ARRB approve the withholding of such a record?
Anotherthing that jumps out of the list is the fact that there are manyWarren Commission documents still being withheld, when it waspreviously alleged by the NARA that all of the Warren Commission erarecords had been released.
Inaddition, while the House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA)MLK records were not included in the JFK Act, there are many MLK andMLK assassination records on the list, as well as a number of recordsconcerning racial riots, anti-war demonstrations and the 1968Democratic National Convention, all of which occurred years after theassassination. Why are these documents being included among the JFKAssassination Records Collection?
Someof the withheld records, such as the Collins Radio documents arelabeled "NBR" Not Believed Relevant, yet they most certainlyare as Collins Radio made the Air Force One radios and operated therelay station that broadcast the signals. This begs the question asto why they would include dozens of irrelevant records on politicaldemonstrations that occurred years after the assassination, yet tryto with hold the most significant records that are directly connectedto the assassination?
Ofthe ONI records being withheld, it is noteworthy that the ONIDefector Files are not among them, which indicates that they havebeen deliberately excluded from the JFK Collection, not given a RIFnumber and are simply being withheld without being included among theofficial list of records being with held.
OtherONI records, such as the 119 Reports we know exist or did exist atone time, and the assassination records of ONI chief Admiral RufusTaylor, are not listed either, so they are not being withheld, andwon't be released in October 2017, but must be considered missing,lost, stolen or intentionally destroyed. Why is there is noinvestigation into what became of these missing records?
Mostnoteworthy is the fact that some of the records listed as beingwithheld have already been released, though in most cases, inredacted form.
TheSubjects-Topic of the documents on the list can be broken down intofour categories names of individuals, organizations, places andrecordtypes. I have listed as many of the individuals mentioned as Ican at JFKCountercoup2 - https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=522635142791807512- allposts/postNum=2
Ihave previously reviewed some of the background off Judd McIlvaine,the University of Missouri Journalism grad who specialized in Centraland South American news and whose interview with the Church Committeeis among the list of withheld records. It was quickly establishedthat McIlvaine had also been interviewed at length by others andthere are related government records already released, so whatever itis in this record that is being suppressed is probably alreadyavailable from other sources.
Assome researchers have noted, some records being withheld by oneagency have already been released by another agency. If you want toget some deep background on a particular record that's listed youcan go to the NARA or MaryFerrell.org data base and type in the firsttwo groups of the RIF number and it will lead you to other documentsin that field, sometimes even the exact document that's listed asbeing withheld has already been released and is available on line.
Oneseries of documents on the list relates to JFK advance man John Byrneand one Bill Turner - not the recently deceased former FBI agent, butthe Exalted Ruler of the Fort Worth Elks Club. He sked JFK'sadvance man John Byrne if the president would stop to visit his clubhouse, a request that was politely rejected. But apparently hegenerated a half dozen reports and official documents that have beenofficially deemed so secret that they must be kept from the curiousand reading public in order to maintain the nation's security.
Butyou can read about Byrne's successful and fateful advance trip toFort Worth in the article "The Day Before Dallas" that he wrotefor Prologue, the glossy NARA magazine, in which he mentions therequests he received from various Texas civic leaders, including BillTurner, the Exalted Ruler of the Elks. Maybe there was a plot to killthe President at the Elks Club, or some other issue of nationalsecurity, one that we will learn the answer to come October 2017.
Whetherthe JFK Collection contains all of the official records as requiredis yet to be seen but one thing is for certain, there will be anotherdata dump come that day, and the most precious of secrets will bemade available to the public for all to see, but it will be up to theresearchers, historians, journalists and reporters who will have todig through the morass to find the real gems that are the finalpieces to Mary Bancroft's Mosaic, the total picture of what reallyhappened at Dealey Plaza.
Bancroftwas also fond of quoting her uncle C.W. Barron, who oftenreminded her, "Remember that facts are not the truth. They onlyindicate where the truth may lie!"
So`the Top Ten Issues this document presents and the questions theypose are:
1)How many records are still being withheld? 2)How many agencies are involved and how many are being withheld fromeach agency? 3)Why are there so many described as "illegible"? Why were theywithheld and why did ARRB agree to withhold them? 4)How many Warren Commission records are still being withheld? The zeroanswer previously provided by NARA is clearly incorrect. 5)Why are MLK assassination records, race riots and the DNC 1968records, clearly unrelated to the assassination included in the JFKCollection when they are clearly NBR? 6)Why are the Collins Radio records described as NBR when theyv arerelevant? 7)How come the ONI Defector and ONI Director Files are not listed amongthe still withheld records when they are still being withheld? 8)Why are there so many records listed as withheld when in fact theyhave been released and are available? 9)What about the records we know exist that are not among the JFKCollection ONI 119 Reports, ONI Director Files, Richard Sprague'sHSCA records, the original Air Force One radio tapes and other suchrecords? Is the NARA actively searching and seeking these records?10)Will the AOTUS Mr. Ferraro ever get around to publishing anindex and guide to the JFK Collection as the JFK Act law requires?
Andfinally, when will the appropriate committee of Congress hold publichearings on the JFK Act, inquire as to why there are so many missingand possibly destroyed records, and see to the strict and properenforcement of the JFK Act?
Afterall, these records - the Family Jewels are the history of America our history, our nation, and they do not belong to any secretgovernment agency, classified redactor or petty bureaucrat theybelong to the citizens who paid for them and legally own them, as thesecrets of the assassination are all our secrets.
Andas Dan Ellisberg asked, once we learn the secrets, what are we goingto do with that new knowledge?
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass