"Judicial Watch Files FOIA Lawsuit Against National Archives...."

[Don Roberdeau]

Good Day.... FYI....

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/judicial-watch-files-foia-lawsuit-against-national-archives-challenging-withholding-1761009.htm

<QUOTE>

SOURCE: Judicial Watch

February 25, 2013 13:51 ET

Judicial Watch Files FOIA Lawsuit Against National Archives

Challenging the Withholding of RFK Department of Justice

Records

Kennedy Family Continues to Keep Secret Government

Records in Violation of the Freedom of Information Act

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Feb 25, 2013) - On February 12, 2013,

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on

behalf of author/historian Max Holland against the National Archives

and Records Administration (NARA). The suit challenges the withholding

of Robert F. Kennedy's records while he served as Attorney General,

including "assassination records" relevant to the November 22, 1963

murder of his brother, former President John F. Kennedy (Holland v.

National Archives and Records Administration (No. 13-00185)). These

records are currently under control of the Kennedy family under the

auspices of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in

Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Judicial Watch filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests

in fall 2012 with NARA after press outlets reported that the JFK

Library was in possession of more than 60 boxes of records from Robert

F. Kennedy's tenure as the U.S. Attorney General. Contained in these

boxes are diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, memoranda,

reports, and other records concerning the Cuban missile crisis, the

war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and law enforcement

activities of both the FBI and Justice Department.

Although it has been reported that numerous government archivists and

historians believe these records -- an undetermined number of which

are government records -- should be made publicly available, none of

the records are available for review and they remain under control of

the Kennedy family.

In response to Judicial Watch's September 26, 2012, FOIA request, NARA

produced a list describing a group of records that were referenced by

the press reports, including records involving the JFK assassination.

Judicial Watch subsequently filed a FOIA request with NARA on December

5, 2012, on behalf of author/historian Max Holland seeking access to

the following records:

Copies of the seven records identified in the enclosed "Documents from

the Robert F. Kennedy Papers: Attorney General's Confidential File

which have been identified by the JFK Assassination Records Review

Board as 'assassination records.'"

NARA was required by law to respond to Judicial Watch's FOIA request

by January 9, 2013. However, as of the date of Judicial Watch's

complaint, NARA has failed to provide any records responsive to the

request or indicate when any responsive records will be produced. NARA

has also failed to demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from

production, prompting Judicial Watch's lawsuit.

November 22, 2013, will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination

of President Kennedy. The circumstances surrounding his assassination

have been a source of controversy and public fascination for decades.

To complete the public record on the Kennedy assassination, Congress

established the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), an

independent agency, to "gather and open" all "assassination records"

concerned with Kennedy's death, as mandated under the President John

F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992, 44 U.S.C.§ 2107 (Supp. V

1994).

According to Judicial Watch's FOIA lawsuit, seven records deemed to be

"assassination records" by the ARRB, which issued its final report in

1998, remain secret to this day. They include some of the president's

personal records; documents describing Central Intelligence Activities

in Cuba; a Cuban Information Service message dated 1/26/63 entitled,

"THE PLANES THAT WERE NOT THERE;" a State Department incoming cable

from Mexico; and a document entitled, "Information on Lincoln Bubble

Top Automobile sinse [sic] returning from Dallas." (A Lincoln

Continental with a removable bubble top was the presidential limousine

used by President Kennedy).

Judicial Watch and its client, author/historian Max Holland, have

requested all of these records be disclosed pursuant to FOIA law.

"Over a six-year period in the 1990s, the U.S. government spent

millions of tax dollars and untold man-hours in an effort to gather in

one place all assassination-related documents," Holland said. "It was

and remains outrageous that relevant government documents in the

papers of the attorney general at the time are somehow out of reach."

"The JFK records are clearly government records and they should be

disclosed in accordance with FOIA law," said Judicial Watch President

Tom Fitton. "This lawsuit is about much more than the Kennedy

assassination. It goes to the heart of how much control a presidential

family may assert over public records. These records do not belong to

the Kennedy family -- the records belong to the American people."

Holland, a 1972 graduate of Antioch College, is author and editor of

Washington Decoded, an online publication. He is writing a history of

the Warren Commission for Alfred A. Knopf publishers, a manuscript

which received the J. Anthony Lukas Work in Progress award in 2001. He

is a contributing editor to The Nation and the Wilson Quarterly, and

sits on the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of

Intelligence and CounterIntelligence. Holland is also the author,

editor, or co-author of six books, most recently Leak: Why Mark Felt

Became Deep Throat (University Press of Kansas, March 2012) and Blind

over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis (Texas A&M University

Press, September 2012).

Visit www.judicialwatch.org

<END QUOTE>

Best Regards in Research

+++Don

Donald Roberdeau

United States Navy

U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, CV-67, plank walker

Sooner, or later, The Truth emerges Clearly

For your key considerations and independent determinations....

Homepage: President KENNEDY "Men of Courage" speech, and Assassination Evidence, Witnesses, Suspects + Outstanding Researchers Discoveries and Considerations.... http://droberdeau.bl...ination_09.html

The Dealey Plaza Map Detailing 11-22-63 Victims precise locations, Witnesses, Films & Photos, Evidence, Suspected bullet trajectories, Important information & Considerations, in One Convenient Resource.... http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/3966/dppluschartsupdated1111.gif

(new info, 2012 updated map)

Visual Report: The First Bullet Impact Into President Kennedy: while JFK was Still Hidden Under the "Magic-limbed-ricochet-tree".... http://img504.images...k1102308ms8.gif

Visual Report: Reality versus C.A.D. : the Real World, versus, Garbage-in, Garbage-out....http://img248.images...ealityvscad.gif

Discovery: "Very Close JFK Assassination Witness ROSEMARY WILLIS

Zapruder Film Documented 2nd Headsnap: West, Ultrafast, and

Directly Towards the Grassy Knoll"....

http://educationforu...?showtopic=2394

T ogether

E veryone

A chieves

M ore

For the United States:

http://www.dhs.gov

[William Kelly]

Max Holland has withdrawn his suit after discovery that most if not all of the records he sought were already released.

As noted in this survey of JFK records related to Cuba, the RFK papers at the JFK Library were surveyed by the ARRB and many documents were designated JFK Assassination records and processed and released as part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection.

A Guide to Microfilmed Papers From The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection At the National Archives Part 1: Kennedy Administration Policy toward Cuba

http://cisupa.proque...talog/10615.pdf

According to Holland:

28 February 2013

RFK OK’d Sabotage Against Cuba in November 1963

Ever since the Church Committee’s investigation of the intelligence community in the mid -1970s— if not earlier—it has been well known that Robert F. Kennedy was deeply involved in the Kennedy administration’s efforts to subvert and overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro. RFK regularly attended meetings of the so-called Special Group of the National Security Council, which directed and coordinated US policy toward Cuba, including most covert operations. And as Harris Wofford observed in his 1980 book, Of Kennedys and Kings, within the Special Group the attorney general was the driving force behind the clandestine efffot to overthrow Castro. From inside accounts of the pressure he was putting on the CIA to “get Castro,” he seemed like a wild man who was out-CIAing the CIA..

Still, extant records specifying RFK’s direct involvement are few and far between. One of seven documents released by the National Archives in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit, however, is an EYES ONLY memo that reveals Robert F. Kennedy personally signed off on a sabotage operation against Cuba in November 1963.

See Doc Op 3111

JFKcountercoup: CUBAN OPERATION 3111

The November 1963 document released to Judicial Watch is a brief, one-page proposal for a “low-key sabotage operation” with the plan to be accomplished by a commando group on or about 8 November 1963. Using demolition charges and incendiaries, the commandos were to destroy a pier and warehouse on the northern coast “as part of our continuing long-range program.”

Sterling J. Cottrell, the coordinator of Cuban affairs, submitted the sabotage proposal to Robert Kennedy on November 4. The next day, the operation was one of several items discussed at a meeting of the Special Group, which included, among others, RFK; McGeorge Bundy, the president’s national security adviser; John McCone, CIA director; Richard Helms, CIA deputy director for plans; and U. Alexis Johnson, deputy undersecretary of State for political affairs.

In the mid-1990s, the document was one of seven identified by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) as “assassination-related” and contained in the papers of Robert F. Kennedy. But none of the seven were released, according to the ARRB, by the time it ceased operating in September 1998.

BK Notes: The Judicial Watch lawsuit was filed subsequent to a December 2012 Freedom of Information Act request by Washington Decoded’s editor Max Holland. Upon release of all seven documents, the lawsuit was dropped.

For more on the subject of administration approval of CIA maritime raids against Cuba see:

JFKcountercoup: JFK Coup - The Administrative Details

Edited March 2, 2013 by William Kelly

[Frankie Vegas]

This is fantastic. I would give an arm to be able to go see this in court. It's history in the making. I hope Jeff Morley gets lots of supporters down there. The files are of great interest to the public!