The CIA Lost DRE Documents

[Tim Gratz]

I learned from the decision of the Court of Appeals in Morley v Central Intelligence Agency that despite the fact that the monthly reports of DRE case officers exist prior to December of 1962 and after April of 1964, those records are missing for the period December of 1962 through April of 1964, the very period during which Jeff Morley argues Joannides was the DRE case officer. (The CIA has refused to either confirm or deny that Joannides was the case officer for the DRE during the period in question.)

Of course the fact that these monthly reports are missing for the period leading up to and after the assassination and in which Oswald had his confrontaton with the DRE is purely a coincidence and it would be most unfair to the CIA to reach any sinister conclusions about the missing records.

The Court of Appeals notes that the CIA's brief explained (in a footnote) that it had addressed these missing monthly reports in a memorandum it had sent to the Executive Director of the ARRB.

Interestingly but perhaps parenthetically, one can infer that the Court of Appeals itself was sceptical about these missing monthly reports because it put quotation marks around the word missing in two separate places. Here is the first:

The CIA's brief explains in a footnote that it had addressed these "missing" monthly reports etc etc Morley v CIA, Slip Opinion at page 15.

The Court went on to note that the CIA neither supplied Morley with a copy of its memorandum to the ARRB Executive Director nor did it provide any explanation in affidavit form.

The Court then said:

It does not suffice for purposes of [granting the CIA] summary judgment that the CIA has written a memorandum to NARA [interestingly this may be an error in the court's opinion, on the immediately preceding page it states the memoradum was to the Executive Director of the ARRB] that "may explain" the lack of responsive documents; rather the court must be able to ascertain if it HAS explained the records' absence. . .The evidence here , , ,indicates that there is a factual question as to whether the "missing" [again note the court's use of the quotation marks for a second time] monthly reports still exist. Although the CIA indicates these documents are responsive, it has provided neither Morley nor the Court with an explanation regarding the reports' whereabouts. . . On remand the CIA must supplement its explanation. Morley v CIA, Slip Opinion at 16.

If any one reading this wants to suggest a non-sinister explanation the CIA can provide why these particular DRE case officer monthly reports happen to be "missing", I am sure the CIA would appreciate and consider any such suggestions.

Edited December 10, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

Perhaps we could come work together and come up with a list (ala Letterman) of the ten most logical reasons those monthly reports are missing.

I await Ron Ecker's reply here.

[John Dolva]

I learned from the decision of the Court of Appeals in Morley v Central Intelligence Agency that despite the fact that the monthly reports of DRE case officers exist prior to December of 1962 and after April of 1964, those records are missing for the period December of 1962 through April of 1964, the very period during which Jeff Morley argues Joannides was the DRE case officer. (The CIA has refused to either confirm or deny that Joannides was the case officer for the DRE during the period in question.)

Of course the fact that these monthly reports are missing for the period leading up to and after the assassination and in which Oswald had his confrontaton with the DRE is purely a coincidence and it would be most unfair to the CIA to reach any sinister conclusions about the missing records.

The Court of Appeals notes that the CIA's brief explained (in a footnote) that it had addressed these missing monthly reports in a memorandum it had sent to the Executive Director of the ARRB.

Interestingly but perhaps parenthetically, one can infer that the Court of Appeals itself was sceptical about these missing monthly reports because it put quotation marks around the word missing in two separate places. Here is the first:

The CIA's brief explains in a footnote that it had addressed these "missing" monthly reports etc etc Morley v CIA, Slip Opinion at page 15.

The Court went on to note that the CIA neither supplied Morley with a copy of its memorandum to the ARRB Executive Director nor did it provide any explanation in affidavit form.

The Court then said:

It does not suffice for purposes of [granting the CIA] summary judgment that the CIA has written a memorandum to NARA [interestingly this may be an error in the court's opinion, on the immediately preceding page it states the memoradum was to the Executive Director of the ARRB] that "may explain" the lack of responsive documents; rather the court must be able to ascertain if it HAS explained the records' absence. . .The evidence here , , ,indicates that there is a factual question as to whether the "missing" [again note the court's use of the quotation marks for a second time] monthly reports still exist. Although the CIA indicates these documents are responsive, it has provided neither Morley nor the Court with an explanation regarding the reports' whereabouts. . . On remand the CIA must supplement its explanation. Morley v CIA, Slip Opinion at 16.

If any one reading this wants to suggest a non-sinister explanation the CIA can provide why these particular DRE case officer monthly reports happen to be "missing", I am sure the CIA would appreciate and consider any such suggestions.

The DRE had nothing to do with Walker & co + The dog ate them?

[Tim Gratz]

The dog ate them is good. One reason every kid should have a dog.

Now do we know any high-ranking CIA officers who had dogs?

How about they were used to test the CIA's new paper shredder?

[Tim Gratz]

This is a reference to CIA/DRE documents from the Final Report of the ARRB:

5. Anti-Castro Cuban Groups, Including DRE, Alpha 66, SFNE, JURE, FRD, CRC, and Commandos-L

In an effort to gather and review records relating to the activities of prominent anti-Castro Cuban groups who might have had some involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy, the Review Board requested the FBI to provide access to files on the above-referenced anti-Castro Cuban groups for Headquarters and the New Orleans, Miami, Tampa, New York, and Dallas field offices. The FBI kept voluminous files on each anti-Castro Cuban group. Review Board staff members reviewed hundreds of volumes of records in search of assassination-related material. The files did yield approximately seventy assassination records.

The Review Board also requested the CIA to provide files on the above-referenced groups, to the extent that the CIA had not already processed such records under the JFK Act. The Review Board identified additional records from 19601964 in contemporary working files of a CIA office concerned with Latin American issues. Most of the relevant CIA records concerned the existence and activities of the CIA's JMWAVE station in Miami. The Review Board also identified a small number of records pertaining to U.S. anti-Cuban activities in the Directorate of Plans files and in the files of DCI John McCone. The Review Board marked relevant records and requested that CIA process the records for inclusion in the JFK Collection at NARA.

Why didn't the ARRB indicate the DRE-related files that the CIA had reported to its Executive Director had "gone missing"?

[Tim Gratz]

I had this thought on the "missing" documents.

The Court states that in the memorandum to the Executive Director of the ARRB, the CIA discussed the circumstances under which the douments MIGHT have been lost. The reasons proferred by the CIA are not cited in the appellate decision but it seems they were only "possibilities" offered by the CIA. The Court demands that the CIA be more specific.

The Court wants the CIA to offer more than speculation. But perhaps the CIA cannot do so. Or, if anyone still there knows who "disappeared" the documents it obviously will not ADMIT to their deliberate destruction.

What the Court may want (and how interesting it would be!) is for the CIA to submit an affidavit that states that the documents are missing and admits that it has no explanation for how they disappeared. That would leave the clear inference that someone deep-sixed the documents.

Is anyone familiar with the DRE case officer reports that DO exist? Were they, like so many CIA documents, routed to a number of people? If that is the case, as seems likely, it seems odd indeed that there would be no copies left in anyone's file. That would show that a lot of effort was made to santize the files.

Edited December 12, 2007 by Tim Gratz