National Archives Decides to Withhold JFK Assassination Records Instead of Declassifying Them

[Adele Edisen]

June 12,2012
Jim Lesar, President
Assassination Archives and Research Center
1003 K Street, NW, Suite 640
Washington. DC 20001
jhlesar@gmail.com
By Email and First Class Mail

Dear Mr. Lesar:
I write in response to the letter of January 20, 2012, from you and five colleagues to David S.
Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, requesting that the National Archives and Records
Administration review the remaining classified documents that were "postponed"" from public
disclosure in accordance with the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of
1992 in time for the 50* anniversary of the assassination in November 2013.
We share your passion and commitment to providing access to JFK assassination records as
quickly as possible. As your letter recounts, the JFK Act established a rigorous process for
declassification review and release that was administered by the Assassination Records Review
Board until 1998. For any assassination records that were not released by the ARRB, subsequent
release could be postponed until a date certain not to exceed 25 years from the enactment of the
JFK Act, i.e., no later than 2017.

The JFK Act Collection consists of a total of approximately 5 million pages, and less than 1% of
the documents in the Collection are "postponed in full" until 2017. I note that your letter states
that in 2010, Assistant Archivist "Michael Kurtz revealed that the CIA continues to withhold
approximately 50,000 pages of JFK assassination-related records." I w-ould like to clarify that
NARA has never counted, and thus does not know, the actual number of pages that are
postponed in full. Dr. Kurtz accurately stated that "less than one percent'" of the total volume of
assassination records was still being withheld; he also provided our rough estimate that the
collection totals approximately five million pages. Thus, it appears that the 50,000 page number
in your letter may have been derived by incorrectly calculating a full one percent of five million
pages. All we do know is that the CIA withheld in full a total of 1,171 documents as national
security classified (there is a small number of other agency documents also postponed in full,
principally for law enforcement).

Your letter asks NARA to submit these remaining 1171 documents "currently withheld by the
CIA"' for declassification review as part of the National Declassification Center's (NDC) project
to complete the declassification of the "400 million page backlog" identified in the President's
December 29, 2009, Memorandum Implementing Executive Order 13526, by December 31,
2013. We recognize that, in a 2010 public forum. Dr. Kurtz stated that the postponed JFK
assassination records would be included as part of the NDC project. However, as we have tried
to explain before. Dr. Kurtz misspoke. Rather, because the postponed JFK assassination records
have already been subject to a full and complete government-wide declassification review, they
are not part of the 400 million page backlog of records that have yet to receive a final review.
Because of the mandated December 31, 2013 deadline for our review and processing of the
extremely large set of backlogged records, the NDC must target its efforts exclusively on records
contained within that backlog. In addition, because we are limited in the resources we can assign
to these special reviews, we try to balance historical impact, public interest, and extent of other
govemment agency involvement in order to manage government-wide declassification resource
constraints as efficiently and effectively as possible.
As you know, the JFK Act authorized unprecedented powers for the ARRB, including the ability
to overturn an agency decision on declassification, with the President as the only appeal
authority. Although agencies did appeal ARRB decisions. President Clinton did not overturn
any access determinations on appeal. The power wielded by the ARRB meant that more records
were declassified and made available under the JFK Act than would have been released under
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or any currently applicable review provision of the prior
or current Executive Order on Classified National Security Information.
As previously mentioned, the 1171 remaining postponed documents will be released in 2017,
unless the President personally certifies on a document by document basis that continued
postponement is necessary and that the harm from disclosure is of such gravity that it outweighs
the public interest in disclosure. Moreover, as you point out, the JFK Act clearly intended for
periodic releases prior to the 2017 date. To date all of the periodic release dates have been met,
including in 2006, when the CIA made preemptory releases of all documents that were
postponed from release until 2010. Thus, the only documents in the Collection that are still
withheld in full for classification reasons are the 1171 CIA documents that the ARRB agreed
should not be released until 2017.

We recognize that the remaining records are of high public interest and historical value, and we
appreciate your stated desire not to have to wait five more years to obtain access to these records.
Given this public interest, we have been consulting with the CIA to see if it would be possible to
review and release any of these remaining documents in time for the 50"^ anniversary of
President Kennedy's assassination in 2013. Although the CIA shares NARA's interest in
wanting to be responsive to your request, they have concluded there are substantial logistical
requirements that must take place prior to the release of these remaining records and there is
simply not sufficient time or resources to complete these tasks prior to 2017. Accordingly, we
will not be able to accommodate your request.

Thank you for your interest in this matter. Please share this letter with the co-signatories to your
letter, and let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely
GARY M. STERN
General Counsel

GARY M. STERN, GENERAL COUNSEL
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
850i ADELPH1 ROAD SUITE 3110
COLLEGE PARK MD 20740^6001 T 301 8373026
www archives gov garym.stern@nara.gov

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

Although the CIA shares NARA's interest in
wanting to be responsive to your request, they have concluded there are substantial logistical
requirements that must take place prior to the release of these remaining records and there is
simply not sufficient time or resources to complete these tasks prior to 2017. Accordingly, we
will not be able to accommodate your request.

This is, IMHO, 'polite' government-speak for 'no fucking way will you ever see any of these documents'!
I also don't believe that only 1171 documents are in question. What a crock! Of course if we had a President that wasn't a puppet for the same forces that use the CIA and the other such agencies as their mechanisms of control, he/she [the President] would ORDER the CIA and all others to FIND the time and resources and do so immediately!...but, alas, we have no President, only a Potemkin Puppet replete with hollow promises - and forces WAY more powerful than he to which he feels he must genuflect to. While we must keep up the pressure, it looks like it is [as it has always been] up to we few committed, interested and researchers on the subject to make the case with what we have - which really is more than enough. More would be gravy - but it is now 10000000000000000000% certain that all of the official version of 11/22/63 is a Big Invented Pre-Planned Lie and Coup D'Etat with follow-up cover-up to this very day. They will never admit the truth, nor provide the 'good' documents that prove the truth....as they know it means the collapse of their 'system'....something we must all work toward and hope for....without that, we are all [along with the Nation] lost, and all serfs in a rigged totalitarian crypto- neo- fascist police state.

[Adele Edisen]

Peter,

I suspected we would never see anythng of importance being released the moment when Michael Kurtz stepped down as Director (Temporary) of the National Declassification Center and a woman from the CIA (Sheryl J. Shenberger) was made Permanent Director. There are documents there, I am convinced, which pertain to me - reports by Orrin Bartlett, Liaison FBI Agent between the FBI, Secret Service, and the White House, concernng my interview with him and Secret Service Agent John W. Rice on November 24, 1963, and reports of an interrogation of Jose A. Rivera which Agent Bartlett ordered.

The 2017 date for release would make it 54 years after the assassination. Even if releases were to happen then, there might not be too many witnesses still alive who had been of adult age at that time who could verify the truthfulness of the documents released..

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

Peter,

I suspected we would never see anythng of importance being released the moment when Michael Kurtz stepped down as Director (Temporary) of the National Declassification Center and a woman from the CIA (Sheryl J. Shenberger) was made Permanent Director. There are documents there, I am convinced, which pertain to me - reports by Orrin Bartlett, Liaison FBI Agent between the FBI, Secret Service, and the White House, concernng my interview with him and Secret Service Agent John W. Rice on November 24, 1963, and reports of an interrogation of Jose A. Rivera which Agent Bartlett ordered.

The 2017 date for release would make it 54 years after the assassination. Even if releases were to happen then, there might not be too many witnesses still alive who had been of adult age at that time who could verify the truthfulness of the documents released..

Adele

Their strategy is to drag their feet; shred many; change others; other's lost to fictitious 'fires' and such; can't 'locate' yet others - and the best of all....wait until all who would give a damn are long dead. Were they to release, for example, the TRUE facts showing the US Military and Govt. involvement in the Lincoln Assassination, few would get excited, now. Ditto JFK after a few more years. As a university professor, I was horrified that many of my students [born long after Dallas] had already lost any feeling for the importance - no matter what was told.

Documents about you, alone, would show the lie that it was not all pre-planned and LONG pre-planned [with many contingency plans and other patsies...just in case], let alone a Military-Intelligence Coup Conspiracy for the Oligarchy for whom they work. All of these documents would also speak to the illegitimacy of the 'government' and their involvement [both parties, all in power] in the cover-up of this and all the other major assassinations and other monkey business of the Black and Deep Political Tarpit, with all of its false-flag assassinations, wars, deaths, covert ops, government overthrows, rigged elections, cooked-up economic collapses et al. All would 'fall down', as it should.

I think they feel they have released all they ever care to...as we have made too much progress, in their eyes, with what precious little they were reluctantly forced to release prior. They feel that after the 50th, public interest will abate and they will be 'home free' - having gotten away with the ultimate crimes of treason and treachery - let alone murder of millions, one of those millions being the President of the United States of America.

[Adele Edisen]

I'm afraid that you are absolutely right, Peter. Since all this secrecy protects the guilty, perhaps we should focus research on those suspects who could possibly be guilty and see where that leads us. At least we can now exclude Lee Harvey Oswald as an assassin, and there are some possibilities already available to us from research by others..

Adele

[LR Trotter]

I'm afraid that you are absolutely right, Peter. Since all this secrecy protects the guilty, perhaps we should focus research on those suspects who could possibly be guilty and see where that leads us. At least we can now exclude Lee Harvey Oswald as an assassin, and there are some possibilities already available to us from research by others..

Adele

I know I am not real smart, and sometimes over medicated, but my understanding of proof does not come at all very close to the person known as Lee Harvey Oswald as being guilty of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or the murder of J D Tippet. Even as a teenager in 1963, it all was somewhat suspect to me, but at the age of 21 when Robert Francis Kennedy was assassinated the situation became quite obvious. The icing on my belief cake came at age 41 after open heart surgery, when denial became, for me, nothing more than a memory. And, it is sometimes quite difficult to understand the power of denial. But, I am absolutely grateful to the researchers that helped my understanding of reality.
:ballchain:

[Adele Edisen]

Thank you for your comment, L.R. I don't think your reactions to the assassinations of JFK, and then RFK, were far off from that of most Americans at the time, and up to today. In every opinion poll the great majority of American people believed there had been a conspiracy, either Oswald did not act alone, or he had not acted at all and the shooting was done by others and planned by others. As for Europeans, they were mostly convinced it had been a conspiracy. The Russians and Fidel Castro of Cuba were convinced it had been a right-wing conspiracy, a coup d'etat.

And so, for a young person like yourself, I think that was pretty smart on your part, don't you?

Adele

[Adele Edisen]

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/14/national...singleton/

or

http://tinyurl.com/78kk4kv

Adele

[Adele Edisen]

From Jefferson Morley article:

The Archives' decision comes as two former CIA officers have gone public with the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had advance knowledge of JFK's assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. In a piece published in the Daily Beast this week, retired CIA officer Glenn Carle claimed that "the Cuban dictator knew of Lee Harvey Oswald's intention to kill President Kennedy." Carle also defended a deceased CIA colleague, David Phillips, from allegations of JFK conspiracy theorists that he connived in JFK's death.

The still-secret CIA records could clarify the issue. The records include more than 600 pages of material on the career of Phillips, the chief of the Agency's anti-Castro operations in 1963. Phillips oversaw the surveillance of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City six weeks before Kennedy was killed. Antonio Veciana, an anti-Castro Cuban who worked for the CIA in the 1960s, told congressional investigators in 1976 that he saw an Agency officer whom he knew as "Maurice Bishop" with Oswald two months before JFK was killed. At the time, the CIA unequivocally denied that Phillips had ever used that name. In the Daily Beast article, Carle, a colleague of Phillips, admitted what the Agency has long denied: that Phillips had used the name "Maurice Bishop."

A CIA spokesman said the Agency declined to comment on Carle's claims.

Phillips, who died in 1988, told conflicting stories about what he knew of Oswald before JFK's murder, but always rejected accusations he was involved in the assassination itself. Phillips may have been sensitive about such allegations because, unbeknownst to JFK investigators, he had been involved in another high-profile political assassination while working for the CIA. In 1999, the nonprofit National Security Archive obtained Agency records revealing that Phillips, as a senior CIA official in 1970, had orchestrated the murder of a Chilean general on behalf of the Nixon White House.

There is considerable question about Lee Harvey Oswald being in Mexico City at the time. FBI Director Hoover spoke with President Lyndon Johnson on Saturday, November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination and told him that the voice the FBI heard on a telephone call made by a person calling himself Oswald in Mexico City was not the real Oswald's voice. The CIA claimed to have a picture of Oswald in Mexico City, but when it was produced, it was of a heavy set man with no resemblence to Oswald. There had been a blond "Oswald" claimant in the Cuban Consulate there who had created a scene.

David Atlee Phillips of the CIA is one person who should be scrutinized as a conspirator in the murder of John Kennedy.

Adele

[LR Trotter]

Thank you for your comment, L.R. I don't think your reactions to the assassinations of JFK, and then RFK, were far off from that of most Americans at the time, and up to today. In every opinion poll the great majority of American people believed there had been a conspiracy, either Oswald did not act alone, or he had not acted at all and the shooting was done by others and planned by others. As for Europeans, they were mostly convinced it had been a conspiracy. The Russians and Fidel Castro of Cuba were convinced it had been a right-wing conspiracy, a coup d'etat.

And so, for a young person like yourself, I think that was pretty smart on your part, don't you?

Adele

I have to be careful and not overestimate my GED aquired astuteness, Ms Edisen, especially with the benefit of hindsight. But, as I recall, the Sunday murder of LHO in the DPD basement under guard just seemed to be something of a pattern. I was outside and not watching TV when Jack Ruby shot LHO, and my Brother came out to where we were and told us what happened, so I saw a replay shortly after it occurred. I remember being amazed, but just not surprised. Admittedly, it took a lot of study to reach the point I am at now, including the monitoring of DPF over about 1 1/2 years. Slightly over a year before the JFK Assassination, I had lost my Dad, and I would love to have known his thoughts by the afternoon of 11/24/'63.
:alberteinstein: