Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Research Notes on JFK FOIAs

Jim Lesar Note: 
There are two Oglesby (now DiBacco) lawsuits, the first, Civil Action No. 87-Bill,  There are two Oglesby (now DiBacco) lawsuits, the first, Civil Action No. 87-3349, was for recrods on Gen. Gehlen, the Gehlen Org, and post-World War II Nazi orgs such as Werewolves, Die Bruederschaft, Odessa, Die Spinne, Operation Sunrise and records on Fort Hunt meetings in 1946.  This case was recently remanded by the D.C. Circuit to consider a group of about 2600 pages that the Army and NARA forked over as a result of the appeal.  On remand, there are two different matters being litigated:  (1) a battle over roughly $600,000 in attorney fees, about $100,000 or so the Govt. has now conceded, and a battle over battle over whether additional materials have to be disclosed as a consequence of issues raised regarding the remand of the 2600 pages.
The second Oglesby case, Civil Action No. 02-0603, is still in District Court.  This suit is for records on Oglesby himself.  The FBI has been forced to do three re-processings, going from a few hundred pages, to 4,000 some pages, to 6,000 some pages to 23,000 pages.  We're now headed in to a battle for a fourth re-proccesing and hopefully some more records.
A number of requests are ready for court action, among them for records on Eddie Lopez, Prof. Blakey, the July 20 plot, the Cuban 109-files, the still withheld JFK Act records, the Nov. 22,1963 cable from Sforza to Phillips, a request by David Talbot for passport, visa records on Harvey and Wyatt, and a couple of more.  Not going to get any of them filed by Sunshine week, but hope to get a couple filed within the next month.

3349, was for records on Gen. Gehlen, the Gehlen Org, and post-World War II Nazi orgs such as Werewolves, Die Bruederschaft, Odessa, Die Spinne, Operation Sunrise and records on Fort Hunt meetings in 1946.  This case was recently remanded by the D.C. Circuit to consider a group of about 2600 pages that the Army and NARA forked over as a result of the appeal.  On remand, there are two different matters being litigated:  (1) a battle over roughly $600,000 in attorney fees, about $100,000 or so the Govt. has now conceded, and a battle over battle over whether additional materials have to be disclosed as a consequence of issues raised regarding the remand of the 2600 pages

The second Oglesby case, Civil Action No. 02-0603, is still in District Court.  This suit is for records on Oglesby himself.  The FBI has been forced to do three re-processings, going from a few hundred pages, to 4,000 some pages, to 6,000 some pages to 23,000 pages.  We're now headed in to a battle for a fourth re-proccesing and hopefully some more records.
A number of requests are ready for court action, among them for records on Eddie Lopez, Prof. Blakey, the July 20 plot, the Cuban 109-files, the still withheld JFK Act records, the Nov. 22,1963 cable from Sforza to Phillips, a request by David Talbot for passport, visa records on Harvey and Wyatt, and a couple of more.  Not going to get any of them filed by Sunshine week, but hope to get a couple filed within the next month.

OFF-GROUP

     In response to today’s post, containing Bill’s ten questions:
     At the time, I did not think my quick response to Bill last week (below) was Group-worthy.
     Perhaps some of it is – in particular the last section, emphasized below. 

     Surely someone else can do a better job than I of appropriately constraining and refining expectations about the 2017 release.

     On Thursday, Bill wrote to the Group (perhaps tongue-in-cheek, in response to my perhaps tongue-in-cheek post about Scalia and the Habsburg-influenced Order of St. Hubertus):
     “They are withholding records concerning the Exalted Ruler of the Fort Worth Elks who invited JFK to visit his lodge when he was in town, so come Oct 2017 they are the first docs I'm going after - to see why the security of the nation rests on them.”
  
     I looked into this; the Byrne papers are an “undeeded collection closed at the request of donor.”   (Search for “Elks” AND “Worth.”)

     The on-line RIF for 176-10030-10032, an oral history interview of Byrne, says “Closed until donor finishes his writing project on JFK.”

     Byrne died in 2011, at age 86. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKOH-JEB-02.aspx  (The Hapsburgs got to him.  J)
     This piece in the Archives magazine might have been his “writing project”: 

[SHARE AT WILL]

Bill:


     “Some of the withheld records, such as the Collins Radio documents are labeled “NBR” – Not Believed Relevant, yet they most certainly are as Collins Radio made the Air Force One radios and operated the relay station that broadcast the signals.”

     Those items caught my eye too:
       104-10107-10191   21 pp.
       104-10291-10005    2 pp.
       104-10291-10006  143 pp.

     Those are among the 24 NARA hits on “COLLINS RADIO” and the only ones which are listed as POSTPONED IN FULL.

     The comments on the first of these include
     “THERE ARE 4 DOCUMENTS;  THEY WERE DECLARED "NBR" BY THE ARRB, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ARRB MEMO DATED 8 OCTOBER 1997.”   

     As you know, I am generally inclined to accept an ARRB determination that specific documents are really not relevant.
     Especially since other Collins Radio documents were not called NBR.

     But I don’t always accept NBR.

     See my Group email of 9 Feb 16 (Subject: RE: List of withheld JFK assassination documents), where (on the basis of an open copy) I said that “the characterization of the withheld copy as NBR (Not Believed Relevant) is IMHO incorrect.”

     The subject was a public meeting of the Fensterwald CTIA which the CIA wanted a report on.

     In any case, I would want to see the referenced ARRB memo before reaching any conclusion that these specific items should not have been called NBR.
     And if that memo is not readily available, I would look at the 21 available Collins Radio items for clues.

     “If you want to get some deep background on a particular record that’s listed you can go to the NARA or MaryFerrell.org data base and type in the first two groups of the RIF number and it will lead you to other documents in that field, sometimes even the exact document that’s listed as being withheld has already been released and is available on line.”

     Also, what has worked for me is search for unusual keywords from the title/subject/comment fields of the RIF for the withheld item.

     Documents related to the Warren Commission interest me more than most.

     The list includes Slawson’s name four times:
       179-40003-10057  (41 pp., undated early draft of the Coleman-Slawson Report)
       179-40003-10221  (69 pp., 08/06/1964, Possible Foreign Conspiracy)
       179-40004-10333  (58 pp., 08/11/1964, Chapter VI)
       179-40005-10317  (1 p., 04/06/64, REPLY TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS IN MEMO OF MARCH 12)

     Based on my experience with documents on this “fully withheld” list, I would not be at all surprised if other copies of some of these documents were released years ago.  I have seen various drafts, some of which were released in part so long ago that I do not expect they have RIFs.

     Obviously it makes no sense for WR chapter drafts or the Coleman-Slawson to be withheld in full.  Perhaps there are bits which are properly redacted, but no more than that.

     It is possible that the first or fourth of those include references to listening to a tape in Mexico, which is still a puzzle.  If I was not convinced that Coleman never met Castro, that would be something that might me in the withheld documents.

     In my Group e-mail of 4 Feb 16, I provided the contents of 179-40004-10447 (one page, 04/17/1964, Willens to Rankin):a

     “I got a call today from Mitchell Rogovin of IRS.  The Service is about to initiate a fraud investigation into the tax affairs of Joe Tonahill....  Mr. Rogovin wanted to know if we had any recommendations concerning this investigation.”

     I would not call the withholding (until 2017) of this document unjustifiable.
     It is “assassination related” only in a very broad sense.

     Is not the answer to your issue #7 (“How come the ONI Defector and ONI Director Files are not listed among the still withheld records when they are still being withheld?”) given by #9 – they are not in the collection?

     To put it another way, do you know of item in the collection which are withheld but not listed?
     There are various issues here which are getting squished together, I think.

     One of your commenters wrote “One could also contend that if as the Government still claims - the death of JFK was all the work of one deranged, dirty little communist, now long dead - why has there been a need to withold any records at all?”

     That is not a logically persuasive argument.

     I would like to see you and others deal with that argument directly sooner rather than later.

     For example, the withholdability of the cooperation with the CIA by the Mexican government (President Lopez Mateos in particular) can be debated, but whether LHO was a LN or not is not relevant to that discussion.

     Among the first three documents on the list of those still-secret JFK Assassination records is: “178-10004-10394 McIlvain Tape 75′ Rock (Duplicate).”
     In a post for JFKCountercoup2: Judd McIlvain – TV Reporter Subject of Secret JFK File, Bill Kelly explains who McIlvain was.
    [QUOTE OFF]

     Yes, the tape is withheld (or at least listed as withheld)
     But an 18-page transcript is available, along with related documents.
     What could be sensitive?  I predict that nothing is really withholdable, but one document has SUBJECT: RESPONSE TO ALLEGATION OF FEMALE COURIER DELIVERING MONEY TO OSWALD.

     Perhaps with a comment about what we have learned about listed documents where copies are not withheld or where NBR seems correct.

Correct link to McIlvain


Paul notes there are other documents on McIlvain that have been released that I haven't added yet. 

To my article on Restoring Oliver Stone's Mercedes and the Elephant in the Archives


Bill –
     “Of the first three documents among the list of those JFK Assassination records still withheld is: 178-10004-10394...”
     “Here are some tributes to him from the Hollywood Reporter, LA Times and UM, that may give some insight into what he could of known and said during his interview with the Rockefeller Commission concerning the assassination of President Kennedy that is so sensitive that it must still be kept secret from the public.”

     An associated transcript and two other documents are already available.

Hit 1 of 2  [on ILVAIN]
             AGENCY : ROCKCOM
      RECORD NUMBER : 178-10002-10085
     RECORDS SERIES : BELIN-GRAY-GREENE FILES
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : B-G-G (IV-Z) INTERVIEW WITH JUDD MCILVAIN
         ORIGINATOR : ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION
               FROM : BELIN, DAVID
                 TO : THE FILE
              TITLE : INTERVIEW WITH MR. JUDD MCILVAIN
               DATE : 00/00/1975
              PAGES : 18
      DOCUMENT TYPE : TRANSCRIPT
           SUBJECTS : CIA; OSWALD, LEE, TRIP TO MEXICO; CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CIA; BELIN, DAVID; MC ILVAIN, JUDD
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 01/30/1997
           COMMENTS : Unmarked but may contain classified information.

Hit 2 of 2
             AGENCY : ROCKCOM
      RECORD NUMBER : 178-10004-10394
     RECORDS SERIES : ASSASSINATION FILE
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : A-III (C) INTERVIEW TAPES
         ORIGINATOR : ROCK
               FROM : [No From]
                 TO : [No To]
              TITLE : MC ILVAIN TAPE (DUPLICATE)
               DATE : 00/00/1975           
              PAGES : 5
      DOCUMENT TYPE : SOUND RECORDING
           SUBJECTS : MC ILVAIN
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : REFERRED
     CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 08/13/1993
           COMMENTS : No transcript found.  Subjects unknown.  Date unknown.

     Three additional open documents have the name only as “MCILVAIN.”
     157-10011-10073 (the 18 page item again)

             AGENCY : HPSCI
      RECORD NUMBER : 135-10001-10037
         ORIGINATOR : ROCK
               FROM : BELIN, DAVID W.
                 TO : MCILVAIN, JUDD
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 05/30/1975
              PAGES : 1
      DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
           SUBJECTS : RESPONSE TO ALLEGATION OF FEMALE COURIER DELIVERING MONEY TO OSWALD
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 05/17/1994

             AGENCY : ROCKCOM
      RECORD NUMBER : 178-10002-10001
     RECORDS SERIES : BELIN-GRAY-GREENE
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : II-C, CHRON FILES, MAY 1975
         ORIGINATOR : ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION
               FROM : BELIN, DAVID W.
                 TO : MCILVAIN, JUDD
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 05/30/1975
              PAGES : 1
      DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
           SUBJECTS : CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CIA INVOLVEMENT; OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN PERIOD, TRAVEL, TRIP TO MEXICO
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/23/1993

 Bill –
     Thanks for posting this clarification:
     Bill Kelly
     February 19, 2016 at 6:47 pm
     There are other Mcilvain docs that are open and it appears the transcript of this is available -,which appears to be the case with many of these records. I am preparing a preliminary analysis of the entire list of withheld records and the issues it presents that I will be posting soon.
     Also note that I posted that at JFKCountercoup2 – my backup blog where I post important information that I generally refer to in articles I post at my primary blog – JFKCountercoup –
     Also note that John Barron – who wrote the book on the KGB and popularized the term “disinformation” came out of the same journalism school – and he may have gotten mixed up with Mockingbird or was one of David Phillips assets.
     More to come on this
    BK
     [QUOTE OFF]

     I included the full text above because others might have not seen it.
     It has not shown up in the Comments RSS feed – I think that happens from time to time.
     I found it just now, as I was preparing to submit my own comment:
     [QUOTE ON:]

     Selected details on “open in full” McIlvain documents from the NARA database


    178-10002-10085 (157-10011-10073): Belin to File, interview transcript (18 pp.), “Comments: Unmarked but may contain classified information.”
     135-10001-10037 (178-10002-10001): Belin to McIlvain (1 p., 5/30/75), “Subjects: Response to allegation of female courier delivering money to Oswald
     (Record numbers in parentheses seem to refer to duplicate copies.)
    


 This comment by Bill Simpich on JFKfacts is worth sharing.                                                                     
     Look for your favorite document – do a RIF search with only the first eight numbers – and you’ll find the docs closely related to your favorite document. Fascinating.
     I’d like to see the audiotapes with Boris and Anna Tarasoff, the ones in Mexico City who transcribed the tapes of Oswald/the Oswald character during late Sept 1963. (see page 57)
     The most intriguing of the interviews is 180-10147-10337, entitled “Tarasoff” and McWillie and Oswald.
     Why is McWillie being discussed with Oswald? McWillie was a mobster who was a close friend of Jack Ruby in Dallas, not Oswald according to the records.
     Why is “Tarasoff” in quotation marks? Why would either of the Tarasoffs – Russiann translators who did not live in Dallas – know anything about McWillie?
     Anna also worked in CI, which makes the whole question even stranger.
     Another important document on the same page is 157-10002-10028,
     “Rapproachement with Cuba – Testimony of William Atwood”, given to the Church Committee by Kennedy’s aide who reached out to the Cubans in 1963.
     There’s so many good docs I’ll stop there – it’s really worth your time to study the neighboring documents.
     [QUOTE OFF]


     The specific document referred to might turn out not be as interesting as the title in the RIF("TARASOFF" AND MCWILLIE AND OSWALD) indicates.
     (The listing in the PDF corresponds to the RIF found for 180-10147-10337 at http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/search.html.)

     The item comprises three tapes:
       COMMENTS: Tape 1: 32 mins; tape 2: 29 mins.; tape 3: 27 mins.
     Lewis McWillie and Marina Oswald testified in the public HSCA hearings.
     The would also have been interviewed privately.

     Using a single RIF for three separate HSCA interviews would have been an error.
     And if that happened, this item should never have been postponed in full (as the RIF indicates it was).

     Over 200 other RIFs in the same “record series” (“AUDIOCASSETTES AND OTHER SOUND RECORDINGS COLLECTED BY THE JFK...” [ellipsis in original]) can be seen in this 1994 finding aid:
     Included are September 1977 HSCA interviews with James Jarman (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=923&relPageId=199) and Dr. Boswell (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=923&relPageId=201+


     An article by Bryan Bender (formerly of the Boston Globe, always worth reading):

     “The government gave a first-ever peek to what's still out there Thursday, as the National Archives released a list of the 3,063 documents that have been "fully withheld" since JFK's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.”

     Do we have a primary source for the “fully withheld” characterization?
     I suspect that copies of some of these documents have been released, with redactions.
     That is potentially useful information when the redacted version tells us something about the nature and significance (or insignificance) of the withheld information.

     I don’t have time to look further over the next few days.
     But for the benefit of those who will dig into this list, please include identifying information (such as the record number from the first column) in all references to specific documents of interest.
     For example, I would like to be able to research the five documents Jeff listed at http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/denied-the-jfk-records-the-government-doesnt-want-you-to-see/.


     Bender referred to one document which I thought I could find, if a version had been released:
     “There are a series of communications from the longest-serving and highly secretive FBI director, including one titled "Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party officials to JFK assassination" that he sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson's chief of staff, Marvin Watson, a week after the assassination;”

     This is 178-10003-10131, Hoover to Marvin Watson, 7 pp.
     The date is given as 12/01/1963 but the correct date is 12/10/1966.
     This seven-page document (in Doug Horne’s book) appears to be the FBI file copy of the document in question:
     There are no redactions.
     This Branigan-to-Sullivan memo explains why this document was created for the White House:
     (A second copy, http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60403#relPageId=113&tab=page, has a provocative reaction which is actually irrelevant information about another person.)


    I noticed that the list includes several documents to or from Warren Commission people.
     This interests me because I was under the impression that we have been told that no WC records are withheld in full.  My memory is of course unreliable.
     There are a few hits on “Willens” including 179-40004-10447.
     (Because of imperfect OCR, you have to search for 40004-10447, not the full number.  It is on p. 44 of the 164-page pdf.) 
     It is described as one page, 04/17/1964, Willens to Rankin, unclassified.
     Willens has removed his archive fromhttp://howardwillens.com/archives/ in anticipation of the documents being available on the National Archives site.  As far as I know, they are not online yet.
     From a copy I saved:
     “I got a call today from Mitchell Rogovin of IRS.  The Service is about to initiate a fraud investigation into the tax affairs of Joe Tonahill....  Mr. Rogovin wanted to know if we had any recommendations concerning this investigation.”
     (In this case, I don’t think one can infer that the document was ever cleared for release.  All we know is that Willens put it online for a while.)

     I would not call the withholding (until 2017) of this document unjustifiable.
     It is “assassination related” only in a very broad sense.

     From my Group e-mail of 29 Jul 15, Subject:  Consequences of the definitions of "assassination related" records:
     We know that much of the withheld material in the Archives collection is there because of the ARRB’s broad definition of “assassination related,” but many people do not know that and think there is a smoking gun....
     Basically, “we” got the ARRB to accept a very broad definition, which led to the release of tons of fascinating documents....
     [Quote from http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/arrb98/part04.htm omitted here
     Are there any withheld documents in the Archives collection which the ARRB did not review?... [Maybe]
     Would the ARRB have gone along with the withholding of material that was “assassination related” in the narrow sense?...
     We can predict what will happen in October 2017:
     Some people who have already found evidence of a conspiracy (no matter how implausible) in the old documents will find support in the new documents and/or in the continued withholding.
     Some of those who have said there is no proof of a conspiracy will claim that the absence of a new smoking gun confirms their position.
     The quality of the general debate will not go up.
     [QUOTE OFF]
Stuart Wexler 
Feb 6
I can't tell you how often I have come across a document whose title or date + title shouted "blockbuster" only for it to turn out to be nothing.
David Kaiser 
Feb 6
William Attwood's testimony (not Atwood) has been released and I cited it in The Road to Dallas.  This is Church Committee testimony. Among other things, when he was in Cuba as a journalist in 1959, he was at at a party with CIA men who assured him the contract on Castro was already out.  I knew him very well and you could believe anything he said.
David K

The document Bill referred to (157-10002-10028) is not the Attwood testimony,...


Bryan Bender



Hi all,
Does anyone on here recommend a must-have list of a half a dozen or so docs listed in there that are worth POLITICO trying to FOIA? If I am surmising correctly many of the docs have been declassified ahead of the 2017 release mandated. 
Bryan

     Here is another withheld document that might already be available.

     The new PDF includes (on p. 98) 104-10211-10075 and 104-10211-10076, each a one-page document dated 10/30/63 from Chief of Station, Mexico City to Chief, Special Affairs Staff.
     The titles are respectively DISPATCH: ILLEGIBLE and DISPATCH: WITHHELD.

     A search of the NARA database for that date plus [SAS OR SPECIAL] gives (among only five hits) those two documents, plus one which is OPEN IN FULL, 104-10098-10191.
     That one-page document has
              TITLE : OPERATIONAL DISPATCH
           SUBJECTS : OPERATIONAL
     CLASSIFICATION : SECRET

     Here it is:
     It is a very poor copy; I can’t read it myself.  Maybe someone with younger eyes or better software can transcribe it.
     Of course, there might have been two different dispatches from Win Scott to SAS on that date.

     Here are one or two additional pairs of withheld/open copies:
     1977 memo about CD 729A:
       Withheld:      179-10002-10165, 179-30002-10036 and 179-30002-10061
       Open in full:  179-30002-10027
     State (Mexico to DC) 23 Nov 63 (may be different documents):     
       Withheld:      179-40005-10385
       Open in full:  119-10006-10027
     Details below.

     Previous instances (from my emails of 6 Feb 16):
     Mexico CIA dispatch, 30 Oct 63
       Withheld:      104-10211-10075 and 104-10211-10076
       Open in full:  104-10098-10191  (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=30735#relPageId=2&tab=page, illegible)
     Memo about Attwood’s testimony:
       Withheld:      157-10002-10028
       Open in full:  157-10005-10106
     As I said, this sort of inconsistency is no surprise.
     It seems worthwhile to get the open copies just to see what sort of information was (half the time) deemed withholdable.


     Details:
     1977 memo about CD 729A:
     This item in the caught my eye because it refers to a CD.
     CD 729 is about the report that Oswald had distributed FPCC pamphlets in Montreal.
     It consists of a two-page FBI memo and nine photos.  
     The memo was released years ago with substantial redaction:
     This later releases has no redactions:

     Why is there a secrecy issue here? 
     Blame Canada.
     Perhaps US cooperation with Canadian agencies was seen as sensitive.
     Cooperation with Mexican agencies was orders of magnitude more sensitive, and probably accounts for some of the most interesting currently withheld records.
     Assertions that they should still be withheld would not necessarily be frivolous.  Some people in Mexico might regard fifty-year-old relationships with the CIA as near-treasonous rather than cooperative.
    
     The document in question apparently predates the release of CD 729.
     From the NARA database (with uninteresting lines omitted):
             AGENCY : NARA
      RECORD NUMBER : 179-10002-10165
     RECORDS SERIES : WC DOCUMENT REVIEWED BY FBI FOR HSCA
               FROM : KELLEY, CLARENCE
                 TO : JOHNSON, MARION  [NARA archivist]
              TITLE : REVIEW OF WARREN COMMISSION DOCUMENT 729A ...
               DATE : 02/14/1977
              PAGES : 2
           SUBJECTS : COMMISSION DOCUMENT 729; COMMISSION DOCUMENT 729A
     CLASSIFICATION : CONFIDENTIAL
     CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL

     On 9 Mar 77, Rep. Stokes asked AG Griffin Bell for many records, including this document specifically:
     Apparently it did not get to the HSCA as a result of the February 1977 review. 
     The RIFs for 179-30002-10061 and 179-30002-10025 connect this document to a Weisberg FOIA and an appeal by John Woods, generating paper later in 1977.


     State (Mexico to DC) 23 Nov 63:
     These may well be different documents, since there was surely much traffic on that date (and the RIFs give different classification levels).
     But the word “condolences” appears in both, and each is one page.
     Both Jeff and Bill have written about a visit by the Mexican President which was expected to be a condolence call but which revealed that the Mexicans had found an Oswald conversation in their copy of the LIENVOY coverage.
     This cable (or these cables) to State may well relate to that visit:
      RECORD NUMBER : 179-40005-10385
     RECORDS SERIES : DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248
         ORIGINATOR : DOS
               FROM : AMEMBASSY MEXICO
                 TO : SECSTATE
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 11/23/1963
      DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
           SUBJECTS : ASSASSINATION, KENNEDY, JOHN, CONDOLENCES IN MEXICO CITY
     CLASSIFICATION : SECRET
     CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 00/00/0000
           COMMENTS : BOX 2, FOLDER 4; TWO COPIES; ATTACHED TO CIA ROUTING SLIP THAT IS OPEN; BOX DOS3

             AGENCY : DOS
      RECORD NUMBER : 119-10006-10027
     RECORDS SERIES : CENTRAL FOREIGN POLICY FILES
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : POL 15-1 US/KENNEDY
         ORIGINATOR : DOS
               FROM : MEXICO
                 TO : STATE
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 11/23/1963
      DOCUMENT TYPE : CABLE
           SUBJECTS : ASSASINATION, JOHN KENNEDY, CONDOLENCES
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 07/26/1993
           COMMENTS : Msg. No.: 1181.  Copy attached.
I ran into this kind of thing--multiple copies with oir without redactions--many times researching American Tragedy. Often it all depends on who had what for breakfast, it seems.

 Here one more document which is both withheld and open: the CIA’s coverage of the 1973 CIA conference


     The characterization of the withheld copy as NBR (Not Believed Relevant) is IMHO incorrect.
     When the documents are released, we will find out if NBR has been systematically overused.

     I am not looking for withheld/open pairs.
     This title caught my eye as I scanned JFK-List-of-Denied-Docs-redacted.pdf.

     From the NARA database (selected lines only):     
      RECORD NUMBER : 104-10433-10165
         ORIGINATOR : CIA
               FROM : [No From]
                 TO : DIRECTOR
              TITLE : MF: CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATIONS, REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 23 NOVEMBER 1973
               DATE : 12/11/1973
              PAGES : 28
           SUBJECTS : COVERAGE; NBR
       RESTRICTIONS : 1B
     CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/18/1998
           COMMENTS : JFK-RH19 : F09 : 1998.12.18.09:46:55:936128 : NOT BELIEVED RELEVANT (NBR)

      A search for “CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE” turned up the second copy:
      RECORD NUMBER : 104-10433-10149
               FROM : ANGLETON, JAMES FOR THE DD/P
                 TO : DIRECTOR, FBI
              TITLE : WEISBERG FOIA REQUEST:MEMO:CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATIONS, REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 23 NOVEMBER 1973
               DATE : 12/11/1973
              PAGES : 37
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/18/1998
           COMMENTS : JFK-RH19 : F10 : 1998.12.18.09:08:44:076120 : TWO COPIES OF MEMO, ONE WITH ATTACHMENTS. ONE COPY IS PREVIOUSLY SANITIZED.

     The unredacted copy of the cover letter is athttp://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8081#relPageId=31&tab=page 
     It is followed by a 7-page report on the conference.  The author is not named.
     The handouts are on relPageId 12 through 30.

    The style is notably informal in spots.  For example, “Mr. Hanson has become the counsel for Sirhan Sirhan. He studied to become an engineer and then shifted to law. (To judge from the number of cases which he says he has lost, he should have remained an engineer instead of becoming an attorney.)”

     I consider the NBR characterization the most interesting aspect of this document at this time, but of course one can also wonder about the propriety of the CIA’s coverage of this public event.

     A search for “Robert Hanson” pointed to the back story.
     The CTIA had sent a newsletter mentioning the conference to FBI SA Gemberling in Dallas:
     The press release and program reached the CIA, perhaps also sent by the CTIA:
       (Group members Tink and Peter were listed as speakers.)
     According to the previous page (Rocca to Angleton, 21 Nov 73) [QUOTE ON:]
     “The Legal Counsel was looking for someone to attend this and he inquired about the possibility of sending [Art] Dooley to cover it. Apparently he thought Dooley was on contract with us or something.  I discouraged him from that notion, and he is attempting to get someone else to cover it.  I have put through a telephone call on this matter with a small brief to Brannigan.  This is a very interesting maneuver. FENSTERWALD I learned is not only McCORD’s lawyer, but also [Andrew] ST. GEORGE's.”
     I cannot decipher the reference to “a very interesting maneuver,” but the CTIA did come up in the Fensterwald-McCord story.  See, for example,http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKfensterwald.htm.

     Here one more document which is both withheld and open: the CIA’s coverage of the 1973 CTIA conference.

Peter Scott 




To the group:

Re: the CIA’s partial reporting of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA's) first national Assassination Conference, November 23, 1973:

Paul was I think quite right to suggest that “one can also wonder about the propriety of the CIA’s coverage of this public event.” I believe one can also explain it.

Jim Angleton (C/CI) and Jim Hunt (C/CI/OPS) had  been interested in Fensterwald and the CTIA since its formation in 1969,

See
124-10369-10049
ADMIN FOLDER-H9: HSCA ADMINISTRATIVE FOLDER, LEE HARVEY OSWALD VOLUME XXI
CIA LHM of 14 Jan 1969 to FBI Dir (Attn Papich) from James Angleton (signed in fact by James Hunt)

The decision to attend and report on the CTIA Conference came after a recommendation from
C/CI/OPS (Jim Hunt) and DC/CI/OPS (Ray Rocca).
See
104-10425-10074
Letter of 21 Nov 1973 to C/CI/OPS (Jim) from DC/CI/OPS (Rock) re finding someone to report on CTIA conference.

The CIA partial report itself can be seen at
104-10433-10149
 WEISBERG FOIA REQUEST:MEMO:CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATIONS, REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 23 NOVEMBER 1973
For some reason the report omits only one speaker from the first morning: Bill Turner, perhaps, as a former FBI agent, the most respectably qualified speaker.

Recently I wrote that the Helms perjured himself before the Warren Commission, and CIA officers have been lying since, in order to protect the CIA’ s “LCIMPROVE operation in October [1963] involving “Lee Oswald” (or “Lee Henry Oswald”), which unquestionably was of very great relevance” to the JFK assassination.
See
WHY CIA’S RICHARD HELMS LIED ABOUT OSWALD: PART 3,” WhoWhatWhy, 12/28/15.

LCIMPROVE is defined in two separate CIA documents as "Counter-espionage involving Soviet intelligence services worldwide." [In other words, an LCIMPROVE operation was a CI/OPS operation]
See Bill Simpich at

I take the on-going interest of the CI/OPS staff in the CTIA as still further evidence that the CIA’s interest in the assassination had to do with suppressing the relevance to the JFK assassination of their LCIMPROVE operation in October 1963, involving “Lee Henry Oswald.”



The FBI did know, before the assassination,  that Oswald had contacted Kostikov.

ADMIN FOLDER-Q10: HSCA ADMINISTRATIVE FOLDER, OSWALD FILE XEROX

Page 62

Kaack Report 10/31/63

The following information was furnished to the
Bureau by Legat, Mexico City, with the instructions that it
be classified secret and not be further disseminated:

CIA, Mexico City, advised Legat, Mexico,
on October 18, 1963, that LEE OSWALD contacted a Vice
Counsel [sic] VALERIY VLADMIRIVICH KOSTIKOV at the Soviet Embassy
on September 28, 1963, inquiring for a response from Wash-
ington, D.C. to an unknown request made by him. OSWALD
was again in contact with the Soviet Embassy, Mexico City, on
October 1, 1963.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=117797&relPageId=62

Jerry Shinley

adding text to get past filter

Jerry has discovered an extremely interesting file here, and I am trying to figure out exactly what it was.  (I see it had gone to the HSCA but I'm not sure what FBI office was in charge of it.)  Among other things, it appears (see p. 54) that the Washington Field Office had an ongoing investigation of Oswald going on, which is news to me.  I'm also intrigued that while Oswald said he had left Reilly Coffee in July, Ms. Bertucci, I believe, interviewed some time later, thought he was still there.   Jerry, have you figured out exactly what it is?
Bill Simpich
Feb 12
What is so intriguing about this post is that we don't know if this post refers to Oswald's alleged visit to the Soviet consulate on the AM of Saturday, Sept 28 (which I believe happened)...
or to the alleged Duran & Oswald phone call to the Soviet consulate on the PM ofSaturday, Sept 28 (which I believe was an impersonation)...
Among other reasons, there is no record of who supposedly received the alleged Duran & Oswald call!
Stuart Wexler
Feb 12
This reminds me of one of the most fascinating finds by John Newman of all time:  the fact that an FBI agent, CB Peck, was investigating the Mexico City trip a couple of weeks before the assassination. Has anything additional come of that? And might it connect to this?
David Kaiser
Feb 12
I think it refers to the later phone call, asking about his visa. 
Bill Simpich
Feb 12

I wrote an article about C. B. Peck...http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/mexico-manhunt-asking-oswald-jfk-shot/#more-20557

After more than a month of investigation following Oswald's visit, and a number of memo by Peck and others, the Bureau still had no idea how Oswald got in or out of Mexico.
Furthermore, on the 23rd, Peck sought out the informants with information about the Soviet and Cuban embassies.  They didn’t know anything about Oswald either!
David Kaiser
Feb 13
Bill, could you please link the entire 11/4/63 document whose picture is on that page? Thanks.
Meanwhile, I am quickly looking at the Kostikov mystery.  (Please keep in mind that I'm in the midst of a very complex book about something completely different--baseball--and am not holding myself to the highest research standards in these emails.)  The first mention I can find is in one of the October 2 conversations--the second one, in which the caller identified himself as Lee Oswald. But it's the Soviet, in that conversation, who asks the caller if he saw Kostikov, and the caller only says that the man he saw was "dark."  I can't find anything else until much later, in the November letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington Oswald wrote, but that referred to "Comrade Kostin"  And that's too late to be the source of the cable.
As you were. . .
I just looked at Jerry's cable again.  The significance is far greater than he thought.  The cable seems to be referring to the September 28 call supposedly from Duran and Oswald to Kostikov at the Soviet Embassy, since it gives that date.  But I can't see Kostikov identified as the caller in the transcript, and Nechiporenko's book seems to indicate that he was busy drafting a cable.  Kostikov is identified in the transcript of the obviously authentic September 27 call between him and Duran, in which they agree they Oswald is nothing but trouble (in effect) and that they can't give him what he wants.  That call did prove Oswald had talked to Kostikov--once you had identified "the American" as Oswald.
What this means is that Jerry has discovered documentary proof, 52 years later, that the CIA knew before the assassination that Oswald had been in the Cuban consulate, which they always officially denied.
More broadly, the file Jerry found--and I hope he or some one else can shed more light on exactly what it is--seems to confirm something I have thought for a long time. FBI HQ ran the bureau but was careful to insulate its thoughts and plans from the field.  We have never had access to what the key people at HQ were thinking about Oswald--we don't even know who they were.  But it definitely seems from this file as if they were paying close attention.

Bill Simpich




Here's the 11/4/63 Peck report - my article has a list of all of Peck's reports.
I don't think the FBI memo should be read to indicate a phone call between
Oswald and Kostikov on Sept. 28. 

Kostikov, Yatskov, and Nechiporenko all say in 
Nechiporenko's book that Oswald visited them on the morning of Sept.
28 - none of them, nor any other Soviet, says that he called that afternoon.
David is right in saying that no Soviet is identified in the transcript as
taking the call from Duran and Oswald the afternoon of Sept 28.  I think
that either the voices were faked or (like Peter Dale Scott) the call never
happened at all.
Next year, with a little luck, we may find out the identities of the transcribers who listened to those phone calls.  With a little more luck, maybe one or more of them is still alive.
This kind of evidence is precisely why these documents have been kept away from the public for more than fifty years.  It's the equivalent of destruction of evidence to hold it back until key witnesses die.

It's why even informants identities' should not be protected in a case like this.  The balance of fairness should tip towards justice, not privacy.
Bill Kelly 
Feb 13
Back in the late 1970s when I asked Marion Johnson why the HSCA and all Congressional records were sealed for 50 years - and exempted from the FOIA - he said because that's the estimated amount of time those mentioned in the records would be dead. 

To make the point - Judd McIlvain - mentioned in the third document on the list died a few months ago.

I write more about MvIlvain at my blog httpJFKCountercoup2.blogspot.com 

Bill Kelly

Sent from my iPhone

Correct link to McIlvain


Paul notes there are other documents on McIlvain that have been released that I haven't added yet. 

Bryan Bender



FYI, as a first crack here is what I have requested under FOIA from the newly released NARA list of “denied docs.”


Department of State:

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10000
Telegram 1111 from “State” to “Moscow,” record series “261.1122 Oswald, Robert L,” dated 11/01/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10001
Telegram 1310 from “Moscow” to Sec. State,” record series “261.1122,  dated 11/02/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40007-10079
Document from “AMEMBASSY” to “Department of State,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” dated 11/29/63
Originator: Department of State

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State


Department of Justice:

NARA Record Number 179-20001-10321
Document from “Kennedy, Regis,” to “SAC, New Orleans,” record series “Classified Subject File129-11, Enclosures, Serial #71, created 5/18/67
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY [OF STATE] FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI


CIA:

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State


NARA:

NARA Record Number 180-10110-10016
Document from “Phillips, David Atlee,” record series “Security Classified Testimony,” file number 014726, dated 4/25/78
Originator House Select Committee on Assassinations

NARA Record Number 157-10002-10029
“Interview with Richard Bissell” by Church Committee, record series “Interview summary,” sated 9/06/75
Originator: SSCIA
 Bryan –
     Thanks for filing and sharing these FOIA requests.
     I wonder if the recipients will initially deny them, or look for available copies.

     I have found two open-in-full copies.
     Also, I found related documents which give us some idea of what two of the withheld documents are about.
     Requested:  179-10002-10000
     A NARA search for 1111 with date=11/01/59 turned up four possible copies which are open:
       119-10021-10205, 119-10021-10243, 119-10021-10263, 119-10021-10312
     I think this unredacted document is telegram 1111:
    
     Requested:  179-10002-10001
     “1302” and “11/02/59” gives three open copies:
        119-10021-10204, 119-10021-10244, 119-10021-10262

   
     Requested:  179-20001-10321
     This six-page document has SUBJECTS: LACOUR, LOUIS; GARRISON, JAMES
     A second withheld copy (179-20002-10281) gives a better idea of the contents:
           SUBJECTS: KENNEDY, REGIS, APPEARANCE BEFORE ORLEANS PARISH GJ; GARRISON, JAMES
           COMMENTS: ATTACHED TO DIRECTOR TO AG 5/19/67; BOX 57
     One copy of the document referred to in that comment is also withheld:
      RECORD NUMBER: 179-20002-10284
           SUBJECTS: REGIS KENNEDY 5/18/67 RE KENNEDY'S  APPEARANCE BEFORE LA GJ
     But this copy is open:
          124-10045-10130
     Here is the grand jury testimony:

     Requested:  179-40006-10052
     RECORDS SERIES: DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248
               FROM: HOOVER, J. EDGAR
                 TO: DIRECTOR, CIA
               DATE: 12/06/1963
           SUBJECTS: TRANSMITTAL OF DOCUMENTS
     CURRENT STATUS: POSTPONED IN FULL
           COMMENTS: BOX 2, FOLDER 4; ATTACHED TO REPORT FROM SEATTLE OF 11/26/63; BOX F11
     Related and open:
      RECORD NUMBER: 104-10422-10185
               FROM: FBI:  SEATTLE, WASH.
              TITLE: REPORT: REACTION TO PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S DEATH BY VARIOUS SUBVERSIVE GROUPS IN THE SEATTLE AREA
               DATE: 11/26/1963
              PAGES: 10
           SUBJECTS: FPCC; NELSON, BURT GA

Paul

From: Bryan Bender [mailto:bbender@politico.com]

FYI, as a first crack here is what I have requested under FOIA from the newly released NARA list of “denied docs.”

Department of State:

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10000
Telegram 1111 from “State” to “Moscow,” record series “261.1122 Oswald, Robert L,” dated 11/01/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10001
Telegram 1310 from “Moscow” to Sec. State,” record series “261.1122,  dated 11/02/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40007-10079
Document from “AMEMBASSY” to “Department of State,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” dated 11/29/63
Originator: Department of State

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State


Department of Justice:

NARA Record Number 179-20001-10321
Document from “Kennedy, Regis,” to “SAC, New Orleans,” record series “Classified Subject File129-11, Enclosures, Serial #71, created 5/18/67
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY [OF STATE] FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI


CIA:

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State


NARA:

NARA Record Number 180-10110-10016
Document from “Phillips, David Atlee,” record series “Security Classified Testimony,” file number 014726, dated 4/25/78
Originator House Select Committee on Assassinations

NARA Record Number 157-10002-10029
“Interview with Richard Bissell” by Church Committee, record series “Interview summary,” sated 9/06/75
Originator: SSCIA


Bryan Bender
Defense Editor/National Security Correspondent
POLITICO


Correct link to McIlvain
...


Rex Bradford




David Philip's 4/25/78 testimony is already available:


Bryan Bender



Thanks all. Weird -and frustrating that somebody this stuff is available but is deemed withheld. Is it possible what has been released is only partial?

McAdams, John



 Is it possible what has been released is only partial?

Is it possible the Federal Government is not a well-oiled machine, and one agency refuses to release something that another agency has already released?

Is it possible that the Federal Government can’t actually keep up with what it has or hasn’t been released?

Is it possible bureaucrats are often confused and clueless?

.John

Subject: Re: Bryan Bender's FOIA request

Jim Lesar




The answer to the above is "yes," but the list is not necessarily all-encompassing.  Jim

Dear Bryan et al,
        Regarding the two documents listed under NARA, I am quite certain I read Phllips's HSCA testimony and Bissell's SSCIA testimony. (It's not clear whether you are looking for something slightly different from the testimony.)  Phillips's testimony was fascinating because while he denied that he was Maurice Bishop, he confirmed an astonishing amount of Veciana's story--almost as if he were teasing the committee.  Bissell gave the most arrogant testoimony I have ever seen before a Congressional committee.  I am pretty certain the Phillips testimony was at history-matters.com and the Bissell testimony was among the Church Committee testimony at NARA.  However,. your citations suggest you may be looking for supplementary materials.



Bissell's testimony was on the discs released by JFK Lancer many years ago. I read it in 2005.

I don't recall Bissell being particularly arrogant, but rather simply explaining how the CIA participated in carrying out things that were official US policy. I guess things hit people different ways. I do recall that on the Church Committee there was some tension between those who wanted to blame the Kennedy brothers and those who wanted to blame Dulles, Bissell, Cabell, etc.

Don


Bryan Bender
Defense Editor/National Security Correspondent
POLITICO



What the government is still hiding about the JFK assassination
The National Archives, for the first time ever, released a list of documents related to the assassination that are still shielded from public view.

02/04/16 08:07 PM EST
Updated 02/04/16 08:14 PM EST

More than five decades after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, thousands of government files detailing the activities and testimony of shadowy spies, long-deceased witnesses and others with possible knowledge of the events remain shielded from public view.

The government gave a first-ever peek at what's still out there Thursday, as the National Archives released a list of the 3,063 documents that have been "fully withheld" since JFK's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

The documents listed — released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from POLITICO, other news organizations and researchers — were collected by the Assassination Records Review Board, an independent panel created by the 1992 JFK Records Act.

That same act requires that all the documents on the list be released by October 2017 unless the next president decides to keep them classified.

Based on what has been revealed previously, many of the files are expected to have no direct bearing on Kennedy's death in Dealey Plaza but could reveal intelligence operations involving Cuba, secret relationships between U.S. spy agencies and unsavory characters during the height of the Cold War, as well as other secrets the U.S. government might have resisted disclosing publicly as part of a full and open investigation at the time.

Cold War scholars have long suspected that many of the still-withheld files will not necessarily shed new light on whether Oswald acted alone. They could, however, help explain why some top officials at the time might have sought to prevent a thorough investigation, out of concern it would require airing the dirty laundry of covert activities.

Yet asked whether there might be any significant revelations about Kennedy's unsolved murder, Martha Murphy, head of the Archives' Special Access Branch, told POLITICO last year, “I’ll be honest. I am hesitant to say you’re not going to find out anything about the assassination.”
The Archives says that "certain information has been removed" from the list, including titles and other identifying information, to protect national security, personal privacy and tax information.
Here is a snapshot of what is still being hidden from the public about key figures, probes and other events that the Archives has deemed relevant to the JFK investigation.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Secret CIA "personality" studies of the reported lone assassin fingered by the Warren Commission produced immediately after the assassination have yet to be released, along with a telegram about him from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to the State Department a week after the assassination. Oswald, a former Marine who had temporarily defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, is suspected of having visited Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination, reportedly to obtain a visa to travel to Cuba.

There also are hundreds of other pages of undated CIA files that contain classified information on Oswald, including a handwritten note from Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union and also is the subject of numerous other secret transcripts and tapes contained in the withheld records, as well as another document on Oswald's "contacts with Cuban and Soviet embassies." The trove also includes a pair of 1959 telegrams — one from the State Department to Moscow and the other from Moscow to Secretary of State Christian Herter — regarding Oswald's brother Robert.

J. Edgar Hoover

There are a series of communications from the longest-serving and highly secretive FBI director, including one titled "Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party officials to JFK assassination" that he sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson's chief of staff, Marvin Watson, a week after the assassination; another a few weeks later to the deputy secretary of state for security relating to Oswald; and a series of 1964 memos sent to J. Lee Rankin, the general counsel of the Warren Commission, about Jack Ruby, the Dallas night club owner with mafia ties who killed Oswald two days after the assassination in the basement of the Dallas police station, preventing a trial.

Jacqueline Kennedy

At least five communications are contained in the files from the former first lady to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the days immediately following the assassination.

James Jesus Angleton

Still classified is the top-secret testimony from the chief of the CIA's counterintelligence branch from 1954 to 1975 before the so-called Church Committee, convened by the U.S. Senate in 1975 to investigate abuses by the spy agency. It was the Church Committee that revealed for the first time that the CIA had hired figures in organized crime with deep ties to Havana to help overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro, including through assassination attempts.

Frank Sturgis

Also contained in the remaining JFK files is the former military officer and undercover operative's 1975 testimony before the Church Committee. Sturgis was also one of the five Watergate burglars whose break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

David Atlee Phillips

The trove includes the secret testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 from the longtime CIA officer who was involved in covert U.S. plans to assassinate Castro and also was a person of interest in the JFK case for scholars and researchers.

Regis Kennedy

Kennedy (no relation to the president) is among several witnesses connected to the events in Dallas in 1963 who died before they could be fully questioned. Kennedy reportedly suffered a heart attack the day before he was scheduled to testify before a grand jury on confiscated home movies of the assassination. The unreleased files contain an untitled communication from Justice Department files from Regis Kennedy to the special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans field office on May 18, 1967.

Protected sources

Several unidentified CIA documents, according to the newly released inventory of withheld JFK records, have been kept from the public to protect an intelligence source that is still living.
Illegible material

Sure to fuel conspiracy theories, a sizable portion of CIA documents related to the JFK case is deemed “illegible.” The documents include one from the general counsel of the Warren Commission to the CIA's Richard Helms. Helms, who later became director, managed the agency's cooperation with the independent panel that was set up by President Johnson and concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin.

Another set of documents the agency shared with the Warren Commission deemed unreadable: several communications from the agency's station in Mexico City before and after the assassination, including a cable to "Director Info Havana" on Nov. 11, 1959.

Also deemed unreadable is a secret communication from the CIA to the Office of Naval Intelligence before the assassination — in October 1963 — about Oswald.

Not believed relevant

Some of the withheld documents were designated in the 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board as "not believed relevant" to the assassination but are nevertheless of keen historical interest. They include the CIA "operational" files of E. Howard Hunt, another of the Watergate burglars and a career spy. Also withheld is a CIA file on Jack Wasserman, a lawyer for New Orleans mafia boss Carlos Marcello and a longtime suspect in the assassination who was also involved in CIA plots to overthrow Castro in Cuba.

  this; the Byrne papers are an “undeeded collection closed at the request of donor.”   (Search for “Elks” AND “Worth.”)
     The on-line RIF for 176-10030-10032, an oral history interview of Byrne, says “Closed until donor finishes his writing project on JFK.”
     Byrne died in 2011, at age 86. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKOH-JEB-02.aspx  (The Hapsburgs got to him.  J)
     This piece in the Archives magazine might have been his “writing project”: 


Subject: Collins Radio documents, NBR, WC documents

[SHARE AT WILL]

Bill:
     “Some of the withheld records, such as the Collins Radio documents are labeled “NBR” – Not Believed Relevant, yet they most certainly are as Collins Radio made the Air Force One radios and operated the relay station that broadcast the signals.”

     Those items caught my eye too:
       104-10107-10191   21 pp.
       104-10291-10005    2 pp.
       104-10291-10006  143 pp.
     Those are among the 24 NARA hits on “COLLINS RADIO” and the only ones which are listed as POSTPONED IN FULL.
     The comments on the first of these include
     “THERE ARE 4 DOCUMENTS;  THEY WERE DECLARED "NBR" BY THE ARRB, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ARRB MEMO DATED 8 OCTOBER 1997.”   

     As you know, I am generally inclined to accept an ARRB determination that specific documents are really not relevant.
     Especially since other Collins Radio documents were not called NBR.

     But I don’t always accept NBR.
     See my Group email of 9 Feb 16 (Subject: RE: List of withheld JFK assassination documents), where (on the basis of an open copy) I said that “the characterization of the withheld copy as NBR (Not Believed Relevant) is IMHO incorrect.”
     The subject was a public meeting of the Fensterwald CTIA which the CIA wanted a report on.

     In any case, I would want to see the referenced ARRB memo before reaching any conclusion that these specific items should not have been called NBR.
     And if that memo is not readily available, I would look at the 21 available Collins Radio items for clues.

     “If you want to get some deep background on a particular record that’s listed you can go to the NARA or MaryFerrell.org data base and type in the first two groups of the RIF number and it will lead you to other documents in that field, sometimes even the exact document that’s listed as being withheld has already been released and is available on line.”

     Also, what has worked for me is search for unusual keywords from the title/subject/comment fields of the RIF for the withheld item.

     Documents related to the Warren Commission interest me more than most.

     The list includes Slawson’s name four times:
       179-40003-10057  (41 pp., undated early draft of the Coleman-Slawson Report)
       179-40003-10221  (69 pp., 08/06/1964, Possible Foreign Conspiracy)
       179-40004-10333  (58 pp., 08/11/1964, Chapter VI)
       179-40005-10317  (1 p., 04/06/64, REPLY TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS IN MEMO OF MARCH 12)

     Based on my experience with documents on this “fully withheld” list, I would not be at all surprised if other copies of some of these documents were released years ago.  I have seen various drafts, some of which were released in part so long ago that I do not expect they have RIFs.
     Obviously it makes no sense for WR chapter drafts or the Coleman-Slawson to be withheld in full.  Perhaps there are bits which are properly redacted, but no more than that.
     It is possible that the first or fourth of those include references to listening to a tape in Mexico, which is still a puzzle.  If I was not convinced that Coleman never met Castro, that would be something that might me in the withheld documents.

     In my Group e-mail of 4 Feb 16, I provided the contents of 179-40004-10447 (one page, 04/17/1964, Willens to Rankin):a
     “I got a call today from Mitchell Rogovin of IRS.  The Service is about to initiate a fraud investigation into the tax affairs of Joe Tonahill....  Mr. Rogovin wanted to know if we had any recommendations concerning this investigation.”
     I would not call the withholding (until 2017) of this document unjustifiable.
     It is “assassination related” only in a very broad sense.

     Is not the answer to your issue #7 (“How come the ONI Defector and ONI Director Files are not listed among the still withheld records when they are still being withheld?”) given by #9 – they are not in the collection?
     To put it another way, do you know of item in the collection which are withheld but not listed?
     There are various issues here which are getting squished together, I think.

     One of your commenters wrote “One could also contend that if as the Government still claims - the death of JFK was all the work of one deranged, dirty little communist, now long dead - why has there been a need to withold any records at all?”
     That is not a logically persuasive argument.
     I would like to see you and others deal with that argument directly sooner rather than later.
     For example, the withholdability of the cooperation with the CIA by the Mexican government (President Lopez Mateos in particular) can be debated, but whether LHO was a LN or not is not relevant to that discussion.


     Among the first three documents on the list of those still-secret JFK Assassination records is: “178-10004-10394 McIlvain Tape 75′ Rock (Duplicate).”
     In a post for JFKCountercoup2: Judd McIlvain – TV Reporter Subject of Secret JFK File, Bill Kelly explains who McIlvain was.
    [QUOTE OFF]

     Yes, the tape is withheld (or at least listed as withheld)
     But an 18-page transcript is available, along with related documents.
     What could be sensitive?  I predict that nothing is really withholdable, but one document has SUBJECT: RESPONSE TO ALLEGATION OF FEMALE COURIER DELIVERING MONEY TO OSWALD.
     This information should be posted (under someone else’s name – and don’t use this part of my email, which I unedited).
     Perhaps with a comment about what we have learned about listed documents where copies are not withheld or where NBR seems correct.

Paul notes there are other documents on McIlvain that have been released that I haven't added yet. 

To my article on Restoring Oliver Stone's Mercedes and the Elephant in the Archives


Bill –
     “Of the first three documents among the list of those JFK Assassination records still withheld is: 178-10004-10394...”
     “Here are some tributes to him from the Hollywood Reporter, LA Times and UM, that may give some insight into what he could of known and said during his interview with the Rockefeller Commission concerning the assassination of President Kennedy that is so sensitive that it must still be kept secret from the public.”

     An associated transcript and two other documents are already available

Hit 1 of 2  [on ILVAIN]
             AGENCY : ROCKCOM
      RECORD NUMBER : 178-10002-10085
     RECORDS SERIES : BELIN-GRAY-GREENE FILES
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : B-G-G (IV-Z) INTERVIEW WITH JUDD MCILVAIN
         ORIGINATOR : ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION
               FROM : BELIN, DAVID
                 TO : THE FILE
              TITLE : INTERVIEW WITH MR. JUDD MCILVAIN
               DATE : 00/00/1975
              PAGES : 18
      DOCUMENT TYPE : TRANSCRIPT
           SUBJECTS : CIA; OSWALD, LEE, TRIP TO MEXICO; CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CIA; BELIN, DAVID; MC ILVAIN, JUDD
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 01/30/1997
           COMMENTS : Unmarked but may contain classified information.

Hit 2 of 2
             AGENCY : ROCKCOM
      RECORD NUMBER : 178-10004-10394
     RECORDS SERIES : ASSASSINATION FILE
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : A-III (C) INTERVIEW TAPES
         ORIGINATOR : ROCK
               FROM : [No From]
                 TO : [No To]
              TITLE : MC ILVAIN TAPE (DUPLICATE)
               DATE : 00/00/1975           
              PAGES : 5
      DOCUMENT TYPE : SOUND RECORDING
           SUBJECTS : MC ILVAIN
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : REFERRED
     CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 08/13/1993
           COMMENTS : No transcript found.  Subjects unknown.  Date unknown.

     Three additional open documents have the name only as “MCILVAIN.”
     157-10011-10073 (the 18 page item again)

             AGENCY : HPSCI
      RECORD NUMBER : 135-10001-10037
         ORIGINATOR : ROCK
               FROM : BELIN, DAVID W.
                 TO : MCILVAIN, JUDD
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 05/30/1975
              PAGES : 1
      DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
           SUBJECTS : RESPONSE TO ALLEGATION OF FEMALE COURIER DELIVERING MONEY TO OSWALD
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 05/17/1994

             AGENCY : ROCKCOM
      RECORD NUMBER : 178-10002-10001
     RECORDS SERIES : BELIN-GRAY-GREENE
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : II-C, CHRON FILES, MAY 1975
         ORIGINATOR : ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION
               FROM : BELIN, DAVID W.
                 TO : MCILVAIN, JUDD
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 05/30/1975
              PAGES : 1
      DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
           SUBJECTS : CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CIA INVOLVEMENT; OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN PERIOD, TRAVEL, TRIP TO MEXICO
     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 06/23/1993

 Bill –
     Thanks for posting this clarification:
     Bill Kelly
     February 19, 2016 at 6:47 pm
     There are other Mcilvain docs that are open and it appears the transcript of this is available -,which appears to be the case with many of these records. I am preparing a preliminary analysis of the entire list of withheld records and the issues it presents that I will be posting soon.
     Also note that I posted that at JFKCountercoup2 – my backup blog where I post important information that I generally refer to in articles I post at my primary blog – JFKCountercoup –
     Also note that John Barron – who wrote the book on the KGB and popularized the term “disinformation” came out of the same journalism school – and he may have gotten mixed up with Mockingbird or was one of David Phillips assets.
     More to come on this
    BK
     [QUOTE OFF]

     I included the full text above because others might have not seen it.
     It has not shown up in the Comments RSS feed – I think that happens from time to time.
     I found it just now, as I was preparing to submit my own comment:
     [QUOTE ON:]

     Selected details on “open in full” McIlvain documents from the NARA database


    178-10002-10085 (157-10011-10073): Belin to File, interview transcript (18 pp.), “Comments: Unmarked but may contain classified information.”
     135-10001-10037 (178-10002-10001): Belin to McIlvain (1 p., 5/30/75), “Subjects: Response to allegation of female courier delivering money to Oswald
     (Record numbers in parentheses seem to refer to duplicate copies.)
     [QUOTE OFF]

 This comment by Bill Simpich on JFKfacts is worth sharing.                                                                           
     [QUOTE ON:]
     
     Look for your favorite document – do a RIF search with only the first eight numbers – and you’ll find the docs closely related to your favorite document. Fascinating.
     I’d like to see the audiotapes with Boris and Anna Tarasoff, the ones in Mexico City who transcribed the tapes of Oswald/the Oswald character during late Sept 1963. (see page 57)
     The most intriguing of the interviews is 180-10147-10337, entitled “Tarasoff” and McWillie and Oswald.
     Why is McWillie being discussed with Oswald? McWillie was a mobster who was a close friend of Jack Ruby in Dallas, not Oswald according to the records.
     Why is “Tarasoff” in quotation marks? Why would either of the Tarasoffs – Russiann translators who did not live in Dallas – know anything about McWillie?
     Anna also worked in CI, which makes the whole question even stranger.
     Another important document on the same page is 157-10002-10028,
     “Rapproachement with Cuba – Testimony of William Atwood”, given to the Church Committee by Kennedy’s aide who reached out to the Cubans in 1963.
     There’s so many good docs I’ll stop there – it’s really worth your time to study the neighboring documents.
     [QUOTE OFF]


     The specific document referred to might turn out not be as interesting as the title in the RIF("TARASOFF" AND MCWILLIE AND OSWALD) indicates.
     (The listing in the PDF corresponds to the RIF found for 180-10147-10337 at http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/search.html.)

     The item comprises three tapes:
       COMMENTS: Tape 1: 32 mins; tape 2: 29 mins.; tape 3: 27 mins.
     Lewis McWillie and Marina Oswald testified in the public HSCA hearings.
     The would also have been interviewed privately.

     Using a single RIF for three separate HSCA interviews would have been an error.
     And if that happened, this item should never have been postponed in full (as the RIF indicates it was).

     Over 200 other RIFs in the same “record series” (“AUDIOCASSETTES AND OTHER SOUND RECORDINGS COLLECTED BY THE JFK...” [ellipsis in original]) can be seen in this 1994 finding aid:
     Included are September 1977 HSCA interviews with James Jarman (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=923&relPageId=199) and Dr. Boswell (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=923&relPageId=201+


     An article by Bryan Bender (formerly of the Boston Globe, always worth reading):

     “The government gave a first-ever peek to what's still out there Thursday, as the National Archives released a list of the 3,063 documents that have been "fully withheld" since JFK's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.”

     Do we have a primary source for the “fully withheld” characterization?
     I suspect that copies of some of these documents have been released, with redactions.
     That is potentially useful information when the redacted version tells us something about the nature and significance (or insignificance) of the withheld information.

     I don’t have time to look further over the next few days.
     But for the benefit of those who will dig into this list, please include identifying information (such as the record number from the first column) in all references to specific documents of interest.
     For example, I would like to be able to research the five documents Jeff listed at http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/denied-the-jfk-records-the-government-doesnt-want-you-to-see/.


     Bender referred to one document which I thought I could find, if a version had been released:
     “There are a series of communications from the longest-serving and highly secretive FBI director, including one titled "Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party officials to JFK assassination" that he sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson's chief of staff, Marvin Watson, a week after the assassination;”

     This is 178-10003-10131, Hoover to Marvin Watson, 7 pp.
     The date is given as 12/01/1963 but the correct date is 12/10/1966.
     This seven-page document (in Doug Horne’s book) appears to be the FBI file copy of the document in question:
     There are no redactions.
     This Branigan-to-Sullivan memo explains why this document was created for the White House:
     (A second copy, http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60403#relPageId=113&tab=page, has a provocative reaction which is actually irrelevant information about another person.)


    I noticed that the list includes several documents to or from Warren Commission people.
     This interests me because I was under the impression that we have been told that no WC records are withheld in full.  My memory is of course unreliable.
     There are a few hits on “Willens” including 179-40004-10447.
     (Because of imperfect OCR, you have to search for 40004-10447, not the full number.  It is on p. 44 of the 164-page pdf.) 
     It is described as one page, 04/17/1964, Willens to Rankin, unclassified.
     Willens has removed his archive fromhttp://howardwillens.com/archives/ in anticipation of the documents being available on the National Archives site.  As far as I know, they are not online yet.
     From a copy I saved:
     “I got a call today from Mitchell Rogovin of IRS.  The Service is about to initiate a fraud investigation into the tax affairs of Joe Tonahill....  Mr. Rogovin wanted to know if we had any recommendations concerning this investigation.”
     (In this case, I don’t think one can infer that the document was ever cleared for release.  All we know is that Willens put it online for a while.)

     I would not call the withholding (until 2017) of this document unjustifiable.
     It is “assassination related” only in a very broad sense.

     From my Group e-mail of 29 Jul 15, Subject:  Consequences of the definitions of "assassination related" records:
     We know that much of the withheld material in the Archives collection is there because of the ARRB’s broad definition of “assassination related,” but many people do not know that and think there is a smoking gun....
     Basically, “we” got the ARRB to accept a very broad definition, which led to the release of tons of fascinating documents....
     [Quote from http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/arrb98/part04.htm omitted here
     Are there any withheld documents in the Archives collection which the ARRB did not review?... [Maybe]
     Would the ARRB have gone along with the withholding of material that was “assassination related” in the narrow sense?...
     We can predict what will happen in October 2017:
     Some people who have already found evidence of a conspiracy (no matter how implausible) in the old documents will find support in the new documents and/or in the continued withholding.
     Some of those who have said there is no proof of a conspiracy will claim that the absence of a new smoking gun confirms their position.
     The quality of the general debate will not go up.
     [QUOTE OFF]

Stu 

I can't tell you how often I have come across a document whose title or date + title shouted "blockbuster" only for it to turn out to be nothing.

David Kaiser 

William Attwood's testimony (not Atwood) has been released and I cited it in The Road to Dallas.  This is Church Committee testimony. Among other things, when he was in Cuba as a journalist in 1959, he was at at a party with CIA men who assured him the contract on Castro was already out.  I knew him very well and you could believe anything he said.
David K


The document Bill referred to (157-10002-10028) is not the Attwood testimony,...


Hi all,


Does anyone on here recommend a must-have list of a half a dozen or so docs listed in there that are worth POLITICO trying to FOIA? If I am surmising correctly many of the docs have been declassified ahead of the 2017 release mandated. 


Bryan

     Here is another withheld document that might already be available.

     The new PDF includes (on p. 98) 104-10211-10075 and 104-10211-10076, each a one-page document dated 10/30/63 from Chief of Station, Mexico City to Chief, Special Affairs Staff.
     The titles are respectively DISPATCH: ILLEGIBLE and DISPATCH: WITHHELD.

     A search of the NARA database for that date plus [SAS OR SPECIAL] gives (among only five hits) those two documents, plus one which is OPEN IN FULL, 104-10098-10191.
     That one-page document has

              TITLE : OPERATIONAL DISPATCH
           SUBJECTS : OPERATIONAL
     CLASSIFICATION : SECRET

     Here it is:
     It is a very poor copy; I can’t read it myself.  Maybe someone with younger eyes or better software can transcribe it.
     Of course, there might have been two different dispatches from Win Scott to SAS on that date.

     I am adding Bryan Bender to the cc list for this thread.  (I bcc’d him on two earlier messages.  Since he responded to one of them, I assume he does not object.)

     1977 memo about CD 729A:     Here are one or two additional pairs of withheld/open copies:
       Withheld:      179-10002-10165, 179-30002-10036 and 179-30002-10061
       Open in full:  179-30002-10027
     State (Mexico to DC) 23 Nov 63 (may be different documents):     
       Withheld:      179-40005-10385
       Open in full:  119-10006-10027
     Details below.

     Previous instances (from my emails of 6 Feb 16):
     Mexico CIA dispatch, 30 Oct 63
       Withheld:      104-10211-10075 and 104-10211-10076
       Open in full:  104-10098-10191  (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=30735#relPageId=2&tab=page, illegible)
     Memo about Attwood’s testimony:
       Withheld:      157-10002-10028
       Open in full:  157-10005-10106
     As I said, this sort of inconsistency is no surprise.
     It seems worthwhile to get the open copies just to see what sort of information was (half the time) deemed withholdable.


     Details:
     1977 memo about CD 729A:
     This item in the caught my eye because it refers to a CD.
     CD 729 is about the report that Oswald had distributed FPCC pamphlets in Montreal.
     It consists of a two-page FBI memo and nine photos.  

     The memo was released years ago with substantial redaction:
     This later releases has no redactions:

     Why is there a secrecy issue here? 
     Blame Canada.

     Perhaps US cooperation with Canadian agencies was seen as sensitive.

     Cooperation with Mexican agencies was orders of magnitude more sensitive, and probably accounts for some of the most interesting currently withheld records.

     Assertions that they should still be withheld would not necessarily be frivolous.  Some people in Mexico might regard fifty-year-old relationships with the CIA as near-treasonous rather than cooperative.
    
     The document in question apparently predates the release of CD 729.

     From the NARA database (with uninteresting lines omitted):

  AGENCY : NARA
  RECORD NUMBER : 179-10002-10165
  RECORDS SERIES : WC DOCUMENT REVIEWED BY FBI FOR HSCA
  FROM : KELLEY, CLARENCE
  TO : JOHNSON, MARION  [NARA archivist]
  TITLE : REVIEW OF WARREN COMMISSION DOCUMENT 729A ...
  DATE : 02/14/1977
 PAGES : 2
 SUBJECTS : COMMISSION DOCUMENT 729; COMMISSION DOCUMENT 729A
 CLASSIFICATION : CONFIDENTIAL
 CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL

     On 9 Mar 77, Rep. Stokes asked AG Griffin Bell for many records, including this document specifically:

     Apparently it did not get to the HSCA as a result of the February 1977 review. 

     The RIFs for 179-30002-10061 and 179-30002-10025 connect this document to a Weisberg FOIA and an appeal by John Woods, generating paper later in 1977.

     State (Mexico to DC) 23 Nov 63:

     These may well be different documents, since there was surely much traffic on that date (and the RIFs give different classification levels).

     But the word “condolences” appears in both, and each is one page.

     Both Jeff and Bill have written about a visit by the Mexican President which was expected to be a condolence call but which revealed that the Mexicans had found an Oswald conversation in their copy of the LIENVOY coverage.



     This cable (or these cables) to State may well relate to that visit:

 RECORD NUMBER : 179-40005-10385
 RECORDS SERIES : DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248
ORIGINATOR : DOS
FROM : AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO : SECSTATE
TITLE : [No Title]
DATE : 11/23/1963
DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
SUBJECTS : ASSASSINATION, KENNEDY, JOHN, CONDOLENCES IN MEXICO CITY
CLASSIFICATION : SECRET
CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 00/00/0000
COMMENTS : BOX 2, FOLDER 4; TWO COPIES; ATTACHED TO CIA ROUTING SLIP THAT IS OPEN; BOX DOS3

AGENCY : DOS
RECORD NUMBER : 119-10006-10027
RECORDS SERIES : CENTRAL FOREIGN POLICY FILES
AGENCY FILE NUMBER : POL 15-1 US/KENNEDY
ORIGINATOR : DOS
FROM : MEXICO
TO : STATE
TITLE : [No Title]
DATE : 11/23/1963
DOCUMENT TYPE : CABLE
SUBJECTS : ASSASINATION, JOHN KENNEDY, CONDOLENCES
CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 07/26/1993
COMMENTS : Msg. No.: 1181.  Copy attached.

I ran into this kind of thing--multiple copies with oir without redactions--many times researching American Tragedy. Often it all depends on who had what for breakfast, it seems.


     Here one more document which is both withheld and open: the CIA’s coverage of the 1973 CIA conference.

     The characterization of the withheld copy as NBR (Not Believed Relevant) is IMHO incorrect.
     When the documents are released, we will find out if NBR has been systematically overused.

     I am not looking for withheld/open pairs.
     This title caught my eye as I scanned JFK-List-of-Denied-Docs-redacted.pdf.

     From the NARA database (selected lines only):     
RECORD NUMBER : 104-10433-10165
ORIGINATOR : CIA
FROM : [No From]
TO : DIRECTOR
TITLE : MF: CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATIONS, REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 23 NOVEMBER 1973
DATE : 12/11/1973
PAGES : 28
SUBJECTS : COVERAGE; NBR
RESTRICTIONS : 1B
CURRENT STATUS : POSTPONED IN FULL
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/18/1998
COMMENTS : JFK-RH19 : F09 : 1998.12.18.09:46:55:936128 : NOT BELIEVED RELEVANT (NBR)

      A search for “CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE” turned up the second copy:

RECORD NUMBER : 104-10433-10149
FROM : ANGLETON, JAMES FOR THE DD/P
TO : DIRECTOR, FBI
TITLE : WEISBERG FOIA REQUEST:MEMO:CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATIONS, REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 23 NOVEMBER 1973
DATE : 12/11/1973
PAGES : 37
CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/18/1998
COMMENTS : JFK-RH19 : F10 : 1998.12.18.09:08:44:076120 : TWO COPIES OF MEMO, ONE WITH ATTACHMENTS. ONE COPY IS PREVIOUSLY SANITIZED.

     The unredacted copy of the cover letter is athttp://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=8081#relPageId=31&tab=page 
     It is followed by a 7-page report on the conference.  The author is not named.
     The handouts are on relPageId 12 through 30.

    The style is notably informal in spots.  For example, “Mr. Hanson has become the counsel for Sirhan Sirhan. He studied to become an engineer and then shifted to law. (To judge from the number of cases which he says he has lost, he should have remained an engineer instead of becoming an attorney.)”

     I consider the NBR characterization the most interesting aspect of this document at this time, but of course one can also wonder about the propriety of the CIA’s coverage of this public event.

     A search for “Robert Hanson” pointed to the back story.

     The CTIA had sent a newsletter mentioning the conference to FBI SA Gemberling in Dallas:

     The press release and program reached the CIA, perhaps also sent by the CTIA:

       (Group members Tink and Peter were listed as speakers.)

     According to the previous page (Rocca to Angleton, 21 Nov 73) [QUOTE ON:]
     “The Legal Counsel was looking for someone to attend this and he inquired about the possibility of sending [Art] Dooley to cover it. Apparently he thought Dooley was on contract with us or something.  I discouraged him from that notion, and he is attempting to get someone else to cover it.  I have put through a telephone call on this matter with a small brief to Brannigan.  This is a very interesting maneuver. FENSTERWALD I learned is not only McCORD’s lawyer, but also [Andrew] ST. GEORGE's.”
     I cannot decipher the reference to “a very interesting maneuver,” but the CTIA did come up in the Fensterwald-McCord story.  See, for example, http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKfensterwald.htm.


     {Typo in the first sentence corrected:  CTIA not CIA]

     Here one more document which is both withheld and open: the CIA’s coverage of the 1973 CTIA conference.

PDS 

To the group:

Re: the CIA’s partial reporting of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA's) first national Assassination Conference, November 23, 1973:

Paul was I think quite right to suggest that “one can also wonder about the propriety of the CIA’s coverage of this public event.” I believe one can also explain it.

Jim Angleton (C/CI) and Jim Hunt (C/CI/OPS) had  been interested in Fensterwald and the CTIA since its formation in 1969,

See
124-10369-10049
ADMIN FOLDER-H9: HSCA ADMINISTRATIVE FOLDER, LEE HARVEY OSWALD VOLUME XXI
CIA LHM of 14 Jan 1969 to FBI Dir (Attn Papich) from James Angleton (signed in fact by James Hunt)

The decision to attend and report on the CTIA Conference came after a recommendation from
C/CI/OPS (Jim Hunt) and DC/CI/OPS (Ray Rocca).
See
104-10425-10074
Letter of 21 Nov 1973 to C/CI/OPS (Jim) from DC/CI/OPS (Rock) re finding someone to report on CTIA conference.

The CIA partial report itself can be seen at
104-10433-10149
 WEISBERG FOIA REQUEST:MEMO:CONFERENCE OF THE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ASSASSINATIONS, REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 23 NOVEMBER 1973
For some reason the report omits only one speaker from the first morning: Bill Turner, perhaps, as a former FBI agent, the most respectably qualified speaker.

Recently I wrote that the Helms perjured himself before the Warren Commission, and CIA officers have been lying since, in order to protect the CIA’ s “LCIMPROVE operation in October [1963] involving “Lee Oswald” (or “Lee Henry Oswald”), which unquestionably was of very great relevance” to the JFK assassination.

See
WHY CIA’S RICHARD HELMS LIED ABOUT OSWALD: PART 3,” WhoWhatWhy, 12/28/15.

LCIMPROVE is defined in two separate CIA documents as "Counter-espionage involving Soviet intelligence services worldwide." [In other words, an LCIMPROVE operation was a CI/OPS operation]

See Bill Simpich at

I take the on-going interest of the CI/OPS staff in the CTIA as still further evidence that the CIA’s interest in the assassination had to do with suppressing the relevance to the JFK assassination of their LCIMPROVE operation in October 1963, involving “Lee Henry Oswald.”

Peter Dale Scott



The FBI did know, before the assassination,  that Oswald had contacted Kostikov.

ADMIN FOLDER-Q10: HSCA ADMINISTRATIVE FOLDER, OSWALD FILE XEROX

Page 62

Kaack Report 10/31/63

The following information was furnished to the
Bureau by Legat, Mexico City, with the instructions that it
be classified secret and not be further disseminated:

CIA, Mexico City, advised Legat, Mexico,
on October 18, 1963, that LEE OSWALD contacted a Vice
Counsel [sic] VALERIY VLADMIRIVICH KOSTIKOV at the Soviet Embassy
on September 28, 1963, inquiring for a response from Wash-
ington, D.C. to an unknown request made by him. OSWALD
was again in contact with the Soviet Embassy, Mexico City, on
October 1, 1963.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=117797&relPageId=62

Jerry Shinley

adding text to get past filter

Jerry has discovered an extremely interesting file here, and I am trying to figure out exactly what it was.  (I see it had gone to the HSCA but I'm not sure what FBI office was in charge of it.)  Among other things, it appears (see p. 54) that the Washington Field Office had an ongoing investigation of Oswald going on, which is news to me.  I'm also intrigued that while Oswald said he had left Reilly Coffee in July, Ms. Bertucci, I believe, interviewed some time later, thought he was still there.   Jerry, have you figured out exactly what it is?

or to the alleged Duran & Oswald phone call to the Soviet consulate on the PM of Saturday, Sept 28 (which I believe was an impersonation)...
What is so intriguing about this post is that we don't know if this post refers to Oswald's alleged visit to the Soviet consulate on the AM of Saturday, Sept 28 (which I believe happened)...Among other reasons, there is no record of who supposedly received the alleged Duran & Oswald call!


This reminds me of one of the most fascinating finds by John Newman of all time:  the fact that an FBI agent, CB Peck, was investigating the Mexico City trip a couple of weeks before the assassination. Has anything additional come of that? And might it connect to this?
I think it refers to the later phone call, asking about his visa. 

Bill Simpich




I wrote an article about C. B. Peck...http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/mexico-manhunt-asking-oswald-jfk-shot/#more-20557

After more than a month of investigation following Oswald's visit, and a number of memo by Peck and others, the Bureau still had no idea how Oswald got in or out of Mexico.
Furthermore, on the 23rd, Peck sought out the informants with information about the Soviet and Cuban embassies.  They didn’t know anything about Oswald either!

David Kaiser



Bill, could you please link the entire 11/4/63 document whose picture is on that page? Thanks.
Meanwhile, I am quickly looking at the Kostikov mystery.  (Please keep in mind that I'm in the midst of a very complex book about something completely different--baseball--and am not holding myself to the highest research standards in these emails.)  The first mention I can find is in one of the October 2 conversations--the second one, in which the caller identified himself as Lee Oswald. But it's the Soviet, in that conversation, who asks the caller if he saw Kostikov, and the caller only says that the man he saw was "dark."  I can't find anything else until much later, in the November letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington Oswald wrote, but that referred to "Comrade Kostin"  And that's too late to be the source of the cable

I just looked at Jerry's cable again.  The significance is far greater than he thought.  The cable seems to be referring to the September 28 call supposedly from Duran and Oswald to Kostikov at the Soviet Embassy, since it gives that date.  But I can't see Kostikov identified as the caller in the transcript, and Nechiporenko's book seems to indicate that he was busy drafting a cable.  Kostikov is identified in the transcript of the obviously authentic September 27 call between him and Duran, in which they agree they Oswald is nothing but trouble (in effect) and that they can't give him what he wants.  That call did prove Oswald had talked to Kostikov--once you had identified "the American" as Oswald.
What this means is that Jerry has discovered documentary proof, 52 years later, that the CIA knew before the assassination that Oswald had been in the Cuban consulate, which they always officially denied.

More broadly, the file Jerry found--and I hope he or some one else can shed more light on exactly what it is--seems to confirm something I have thought for a long time. FBI HQ ran the bureau but was careful to insulate its thoughts and plans from the field.  We have never had access to what the key people at HQ were thinking about Oswald--we don't even know who they were.  But it definitely seems from this file as if they were paying close attention.

Bill Simpich



Here's the 11/4/63 Peck report - my article has a list of all of Peck's reports.

I don't think the FBI memo should be read to indicate a phone call between
Oswald and Kostikov on Sept. 28. 

Kostikov, Yatskov, and Nechiporenko all say in 
Nechiporenko's book that Oswald visited them on the morning of Sept.28 - none of them, nor any other Soviet, says that he called that afternoon.
David is right in saying that no Soviet is identified in the transcript as taking the call from Duran and Oswald the afternoon of Sept 28.  I think that either the voices were faked or (like Peter Dale Scott) the call never happened at all.

Next year, with a little luck, we may find out the identities of the transcribers who listened to those phone calls.  With a little more luck, maybe one or more of them is still alive.
This kind of evidence is precisely why these documents have been kept away from the public for more than fifty years.  It's the equivalent of destruction of evidence to hold it back until key witnesses die.

It's why even informants identities' should not be protected in a case like this.  The balance of fairness should tip towards justice, not privacy.

Bill Kelly 
Feb 13
Back in the late 1970s when I asked Marion Johnson why the HSCA and all Congressional records were sealed for 50 years - and exempted from the FOIA - he said because that's the estimated amount of time those mentioned in the records would be dead. 

To make the point - Judd McIlvain - mentioned in the third document on the list died a few months ago.

I write more about MvIlvain at my blog httpJFKCountercoup2.blogspot.com 


Bill Kelly 



Correct link to McIlvain


Paul notes there are other documents on McIlvain that have been released that I haven't added yet. 

To my article on Restoring Oliver Stone's Mercedes and the Elephant in the Archives



 FYI, as a first crack here is what I have requested under FOIA from the newly released NARA list of “denied docs.”

Department of State:

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10000
Telegram 1111 from “State” to “Moscow,” record series “261.1122 Oswald, Robert L,” dated 11/01/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10001
Telegram 1310 from “Moscow” to Sec. State,” record series “261.1122,  dated 11/02/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40007-10079
Document from “AMEMBASSY” to “Department of State,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” dated 11/29/63
Originator: Department of State

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State

Department of Justice:

NARA Record Number 179-20001-10321
Document from “Kennedy, Regis,” to “SAC, New Orleans,” record series “Classified Subject File129-11, Enclosures, Serial #71, created 5/18/67
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY [OF STATE] FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI

CIA:

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State

NARA:

NARA Record Number 180-10110-10016
Document from “Phillips, David Atlee,” record series “Security Classified Testimony,” file number 014726, dated 4/25/78
Originator House Select Committee on Assassinations

NARA Record Number 157-10002-10029
“Interview with Richard Bissell” by Church Committee, record series “Interview summary,” sated 9/06/75
Originator: SSCIA

 Bryan –
     Thanks for filing and sharing these FOIA requests.
     I wonder if the recipients will initially deny them, or look for available copies.

     I have found two open-in-full copies.
     Also, I found related documents which give us some idea of what two of the withheld documents are about.
     Requested:  179-10002-10000
     A NARA search for 1111 with date=11/01/59 turned up four possible copies which are open:
       119-10021-10205, 119-10021-10243, 119-10021-10263, 119-10021-10312
     I think this unredacted document is telegram 1111:
    
     Requested:  179-10002-10001
     “1302” and “11/02/59” gives three open copies:
        119-10021-10204, 119-10021-10244, 119-10021-10262

   
     Requested:  179-20001-10321
     This six-page document has SUBJECTS: LACOUR, LOUIS; GARRISON, JAMES
     A second withheld copy (179-20002-10281) gives a better idea of the contents:
           
SUBJECTS: KENNEDY, REGIS, APPEARANCE BEFORE ORLEANS PARISH GJ; GARRISON, JAMES
COMMENTS: ATTACHED TO DIRECTOR TO AG 5/19/67; BOX 57
     
One copy of the document referred to in that comment is also withheld:
      
RECORD NUMBER: 179-20002-10284
SUBJECTS: REGIS KENNEDY 5/18/67 RE KENNEDY'S  APPEARANCE BEFORE LA GJ
 But this copy is open:
          124-10045-10130
     
Here is the grand jury testimony:

     Requested:  179-40006-10052
     
RECORDS SERIES: DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-28924
FROM: HOOVER, J. EDGAR
TO: DIRECTOR, CIA
DATE: 12/06/1963
SUBJECTS: TRANSMITTAL OF DOCUMENTS
CURRENT STATUS: POSTPONED IN FULL
COMMENTS: BOX 2, FOLDER 4; ATTACHED TO REPORT FROM SEATTLE OF 11/26/63; BOX F11

Related and open:
RECORD NUMBER: 104-10422-10185
FROM: FBI:  SEATTLE, WASH.
TITLE: REPORT: REACTION TO PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S DEATH BY VARIOUS SUBVERSIVE GROUPS IN THE SEATTLE AREA
DATE: 11/26/1963
PAGES: 10
SUBJECTS: FPCC; NELSON, BURT GA

Paul

From: Bryan Bender [mailto:bbender@politico.com]

FYI, as a first crack here is what I have requested under FOIA from the newly released NARA list of “denied docs.”

Department of State:

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10000
Telegram 1111 from “State” to “Moscow,” record series “261.1122 Oswald, Robert L,” dated 11/01/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-10002-10001
Telegram 1310 from “Moscow” to Sec. State,” record series “261.1122,  dated 11/02/59
Originator: Department of State

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40007-10079
Document from “AMEMBASSY” to “Department of State,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” dated 11/29/63
Originator: Department of State

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State

Department of Justice:

NARA Record Number 179-20001-10321
Document from “Kennedy, Regis,” to “SAC, New Orleans,” record series “Classified Subject File129-11, Enclosures, Serial #71, created 5/18/67
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40001-10352
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “DEP ASSIST SECRETARY [OF STATE] FOR SECURITY,” record series “Lot 85D275: Records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald,” created 12/20/63
Originator: FBI

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI

CIA:

NARA Record Number 179-40006-10052
Document from “Hoover, J. Edgar” to “Director, CIA,” record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” dated 12/06/63
Originator: FBI

NARA record Number 179-40006-10141
Document from “AMEBASSY MEXICO CITY” to SECSTATE, record series “DO PERSONALITY FILE ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, FILE 201-289248,” 11/22/63
Originator: Department of State

NARA:

NARA Record Number 180-10110-10016
Document from “Phillips, David Atlee,” record series “Security Classified Testimony,” file number 014726, dated 4/25/78
Originator House Select Committee on Assassinations

NARA Record Number 157-10002-10029
“Interview with Richard Bissell” by Church Committee, record series “Interview summary,” sated 9/06/75
Originator: SSCIA


Bryan Bender
Defense Editor/National Security Correspondent
POLITICO



Rex Bradford



David Philip's 4/25/78 testimony is already available:



Bryan Bender



Thanks all. Weird -and frustrating that somebody this stuff is available but is deemed withheld. Is it possible what has been released is only partial?

Is it possible what has been released is only partial? 

Is it possible the Federal Government is not a well-oiled machine, and one agency refuses to release something that another agency has already released?

Is it possible that the Federal Government can’t actually keep up with what it has or hasn’t been released?

Is it possible bureaucrats are often confused and clueless?

John

Subject: Re: Bryan Bender's FOIA reques

Jim Lesar



The answer to the above is "yes," but the list is not necessarily all-encompassing.  Jim


Dear Bryan et al,
        Regarding the two documents listed under NARA, I am quite certain I read Phllips's HSCA testimony and Bissell's SSCIA testimony. (It's not clear whether you are looking for something slightly different from the testimony.)  Phillips's testimony was fascinating because while he denied that he was Maurice Bishop, he confirmed an astonishing amount of Veciana's story--almost as if he were teasing the committee.  Bissell gave the most arrogant testoimony I have ever seen before a Congressional committee.  I am pretty certain the Phillips testimony was at history-matters.com and the Bissell testimony was among the Church Committee testimony at NARA.  However,. your citations suggest you may be looking for supplementary materials.



Bissell's testimony was on the discs released by JFK Lancer many years ago. I read it in 2005.

I don't recall Bissell being particularly arrogant, but rather simply explaining how the CIA participated in carrying out things that were official US policy. I guess things hit people different ways. I do recall that on the Church Committee there was some tension between those who wanted to blame the Kennedy brothers and those who wanted to blame Dulles, Bissell, Cabell, etc.

Don


Bryan Bender
Defense Editor/National Security Correspondent
POLITICO



What the government is still hiding about the JFK assassination

The National Archives, for the first time ever, released a list of documents related to the assassination that are still shielded from public view.


More than five decades after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, thousands of government files detailing the activities and testimony of shadowy spies, long-deceased witnesses and others with possible knowledge of the events remain shielded from public view.

The government gave a first-ever peek at what's still out there Thursday, as the National Archives released a list of the 3,063 documents that have been "fully withheld" since JFK's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

The documents listed — released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from POLITICO, other news organizations and researchers — were collected by the Assassination Records Review Board, an independent panel created by the 1992 JFK Records Act.

That same act requires that all the documents on the list be released by October 2017 unless the next president decides to keep them classified.

Based on what has been revealed previously, many of the files are expected to have no direct bearing on Kennedy's death in Dealey Plaza but could reveal intelligence operations involving Cuba, secret relationships between U.S. spy agencies and unsavory characters during the height of the Cold War, as well as other secrets the U.S. government might have resisted disclosing publicly as part of a full and open investigation at the time.

Cold War scholars have long suspected that many of the still-withheld files will not necessarily shed new light on whether Oswald acted alone. They could, however, help explain why some top officials at the time might have sought to prevent a thorough investigation, out of concern it would require airing the dirty laundry of covert activities.

Yet asked whether there might be any significant revelations about Kennedy's unsolved murder, Martha Murphy, head of the Archives' Special Access Branch, told POLITICO last year, “I’ll be honest. I am hesitant to say you’re not going to find out anything about the assassination.”
The Archives says that "certain information has been removed" from the list, including titles and other identifying information, to protect national security, personal privacy and tax information.
Here is a snapshot of what is still being hidden from the public about key figures, probes and other events that the Archives has deemed relevant to the JFK investigation.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Secret CIA "personality" studies of the reported lone assassin fingered by the Warren Commission produced immediately after the assassination have yet to be released, along with a telegram about him from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to the State Department a week after the assassination. Oswald, a former Marine who had temporarily defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, is suspected of having visited Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination, reportedly to obtain a visa to travel to Cuba.

There also are hundreds of other pages of undated CIA files that contain classified information on Oswald, including a handwritten note from Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union and also is the subject of numerous other secret transcripts and tapes contained in the withheld records, as well as another document on Oswald's "contacts with Cuban and Soviet embassies." The trove also includes a pair of 1959 telegrams — one from the State Department to Moscow and the other from Moscow to Secretary of State Christian Herter — regarding Oswald's brother Robert.

J. Edgar Hoover

There are a series of communications from the longest-serving and highly secretive FBI director, including one titled "Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party officials to JFK assassination" that he sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson's chief of staff, Marvin Watson, a week after the assassination; another a few weeks later to the deputy secretary of state for security relating to Oswald; and a series of 1964 memos sent to J. Lee Rankin, the general counsel of the Warren Commission, about Jack Ruby, the Dallas night club owner with mafia ties who killed Oswald two days after the assassination in the basement of the Dallas police station, preventing a trial.

Jacqueline Kennedy

At least five communications are contained in the files from the former first lady to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the days immediately following the assassination.

James Jesus Angleton

Still classified is the top-secret testimony from the chief of the CIA's counterintelligence branch from 1954 to 1975 before the so-called Church Committee, convened by the U.S. Senate in 1975 to investigate abuses by the spy agency. It was the Church Committee that revealed for the first time that the CIA had hired figures in organized crime with deep ties to Havana to help overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro, including through assassination attempts.

Frank Sturgis

Also contained in the remaining JFK files is the former military officer and undercover operative's 1975 testimony before the Church Committee. Sturgis was also one of the five Watergate burglars whose break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

David Atlee Phillips

The trove includes the secret testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 from the longtime CIA officer who was involved in covert U.S. plans to assassinate Castro and also was a person of interest in the JFK case for scholars and researchers.

Regis Kennedy

Kennedy (no relation to the president) is among several witnesses connected to the events in Dallas in 1963 who died before they could be fully questioned. Kennedy reportedly suffered a heart attack the day before he was scheduled to testify before a grand jury on confiscated home movies of the assassination. The unreleased files contain an untitled communication from Justice Department files from Regis Kennedy to the special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans field office on May 18, 1967.

Protected sources

Several unidentified CIA documents, according to the newly released inventory of withheld JFK records, have been kept from the public to protect an intelligence source that is still living.
Illegible material

Sure to fuel conspiracy theories, a sizable portion of CIA documents related to the JFK case is deemed “illegible.” The documents include one from the general counsel of the Warren Commission to the CIA's Richard Helms. Helms, who later became director, managed the agency's cooperation with the independent panel that was set up by President Johnson and concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin.

Another set of documents the agency shared with the Warren Commission deemed unreadable: several communications from the agency's station in Mexico City before and after the assassination, including a cable to "Director Info Havana" on Nov. 11, 1959.

Also deemed unreadable is a secret communication from the CIA to the Office of Naval Intelligence before the assassination — in October 1963 — about Oswald.
Not believed relevant

Some of the withheld documents were designated in the 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board as "not believed relevant" to the assassination but are nevertheless of keen historical interest. They include the CIA "operational" files of E. Howard Hunt, another of the Watergate burglars and a career spy. Also withheld is a CIA file on Jack Wasserman, a lawyer for New Orleans mafia boss Carlos Marcello and a longtime suspect in the assassination who was also involved in CIA plots to overthrow Castro in Cuba.

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