President cannot declassify half of remaining records - National Archives

[Cory Santos]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna95389

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna95389

Thanks for posting. 

[David Boylan]

 It [National Archives] asserts there are no classified documents that remain withheld in their entirety.

Exhibit A - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=148969

[Tom Gram]

17 minutes ago, David Boylan said:

 It [National Archives] asserts there are no classified documents that remain withheld in their entirety.

Exhibit A - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=148969

The RIF sheet says the current status is “released with deletions”… I guess as long as you “release” the document you can redact everything and claim it isn’t withheld in full. Checks out. 

For anyone interested, Robert Reynolds has probably the best accounting on the internet of remaining redactions in the ARC, and lots of other interesting stuff: 

http://jfkarc.info

[Michael Crane]

[Cory Santos]

Interestingly the Archives fails to cite the legal authority to back up its claim. On the taxes, how did they get them from the IRS?

[Keven Hofeling]

Quote

"...In a statement to NBC News, the National Archives said that nearly half of the remaining documents are beyond the president’s jurisdiction to declassify. These include documents such as IRS records and grand jury depositions. It asserts there are no classified documents that remain withheld in their entirety...."   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna95389

'WHY THE LAST OF THE JFK FILES COULD EMBARRASS THE CIA'

Among the documents are roughly 3,600 that have never been seen by the public.

By BRYAN BENDER | 05/25/2015 07:15 AM EDT Updated 05/28/2015 12:34 PM EDT | https://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/why-last-of-jfk-files-could-embarrass-cia-118233

"...But among the 40,000 documents are roughly 3,600 that have never been seen by the public. They have been “withheld in full” primarily because they contain information that was considered “security classified” but also to protect personal privacy, tax and grand jury information, and “because information in the document reveals the identity of an unclassified confidential source,” according to Murphy.

Among the 3,600 are roughly 1,100 CIA documents, which make up the largest share. The second-largest batch belongs to the FBI, according to Murphy, while the rest include testimony and other records of the Warren Commission itself; the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reopened the investigation into JFK’s death in the late 1970s and concluded it was the result of a conspiracy (though the panel couldn’t prove it); records from the National Security Agency and other Defense Department offices; and files from a pair of 1975 congressional probes of CIA abuses — the so-called Church and Pike committees — and a related commission led by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

The withheld CIA files include those on some of the most mysterious and controversial figures in the history of American espionage — particularly individuals who were known to be involved in CIA assassination plots around the world.

There are at least 332 pages of material on E. Howard Hunt, an almost mythical spymaster who is most famous for running the ring that broke into Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Office Complex in 1972, setting in motion the events that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

But a decade before, he played a leading role in the agency’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. The failed attack by CIA-trained guerrillas generated deep discontent with Kennedy from Cuban exiles seeking to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro and who felt the president had let their forces die on Cuba’s beaches by refusing to provide air support against Castro’s army.

It was Hunt, shortly before he died in 2007, who claimed that he had been privy to a plot by several CIA affiliates to kill Kennedy — what he referred to as “the Big Event.”

Also under review by the special team of archivists are at least 606 pages about David Atlee Phillips, another CIA officer, who won a medal for his role in overthrowing the government of Guatemala in 1954, went on to run operations in Latin America, and, along with Hunt, played a leading role in anti-Castro activities in Cuba.

Phillips was accused — though never charged — of committing perjury when asked about agency ties to Oswald by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Phillips, too, late in life attributed the JFK assassination to “rogue” CIA officers.

It is the type of information that many researchers believe the agency would still like to keep secret.

“I don’t see the CIA handing out 600 pages on David Atlee Phillips in two years,” said Jefferson Morley, a leading Kennedy researcher and founder of JFKfacts.org, who has sued the CIA to reveal more information about several key figures known to be the focus of some of the withheld files.

“It may have nothing to do with JFK but about other assassinations,” he added. “They still don’t want to open that window and let everyone look in. I expect the worst.”

Another colleague of Phillips at the CIA was Anne Goodpasture. The career agency officer denied to congressional investigators in 1970 that she had any knowledge of recordings of Oswald’s phone calls in possession of the CIA’s Mexico City station, where she worked. But she later admitted in sworn testimony that she had, in fact, disseminated the tapes herself. A 286-page CIA file about her is among the documents that are supposed to be released in two years.

Also among the agency’s withheld files: 2,224 pages of the CIA’s interrogation of Yuri Nosenko, a Soviet KGB officer who defected to the U.S. shortly after the Kennedy assassination. He claimed to have seen the KGB files on Oswald in the 2 ½ years before the assassination when Oswald lived in the Soviet Union.

Rex Bradford, who runs the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a research organization that has digitized more than 1 million records related to the JFK case, has also identified numerous depositions before the Church Committee that are referenced in the panel’s final report but have yet to be made public.

They include testimony on secret plots to assassinate Castro from CIA officers; Kennedy’s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy; and the head of the CIA at the time, John McCone.

The collection includes thousands of files that were partially released over the years but with key sections blacked out, like the CIA’s official history of its Mexico City station (which was opened in 1950 by E. Howard Hunt).

Rex Bradford, who runs the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a research organization that has digitized more than 1 million records related to the JFK case, has also identified numerous depositions before the Church Committee that are referenced in the panel’s final report but have yet to be made public.

“The principal question we were trying to pursue was who ordered the assassination of Castro and five other leaders around the world — was it the president or the attorney general?” former Sen. Gary Hart, who was a member of the Church Committee and tasked with looking into the issue, said in an interview.

It was Hart’s digging that first revealed that the CIA had enlisted leading figures in organized crime to help kill Castro, who had closed down all their gambling and prostitution rings in Havana when he took power in 1959. The CIA’s assassination plots at the time have been considered by many government investigators to be relevant to finding out who might have had a motive to kill the American leader.

“How could the U.S. government bring itself to order these [CIA] assassinations?” added Hart. “We never resolved that. If these documents answer any of those questions it would be worthwhile.”

Also withheld are the Church Committee’s interviews with CIA officials about “JM/WAVE,” the code name for the secret CIA station overseeing covert operations in Cuba that was located on the campus of the University of Miami — and files on the obscure figure who ran its psychological operations branch, George Joannides.

It was revealed in a previous document release in 2009 that Joannides had links to some of the same anti-Castro forces that were connected to Oswald — something that was never shared with the Warren Commission.

Meanwhile, Joannides also served as the liaison between the agency and the House assassinations panel that reopened JFK’s murder in 1978 and inquired about the agency’s links to Oswald. But Joannides never told the panel about his role in Miami, a failure that the federal judge who ran the Assassination Records Review Board recently said amounted to “treachery.”

The CIA acknowledged in a lawsuit filed by Morley that there are more than 50 documents about Joannides’ activities, including in 1963 and 1978.

The bulk of the JFK collection now being processed by the National Archives includes thousands of files that were partially released over the years but with key sections blacked out — some of them “heavily redacted,” according to Murphy. Among these files are the CIA’s official history of its Mexico City station (which was opened in 1950 by Hunt)...."

 

Edited January 4 by Keven Hofeling

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

'WHY THE LAST OF THE JFK FILES COULD EMBARRASS THE CIA'

Among the documents are roughly 3,600 that have never been seen by the public.

By BRYAN BENDER | 05/25/2015 07:15 AM EDT Updated 05/28/2015 12:34 PM EDT | https://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/why-last-of-jfk-files-could-embarrass-cia-118233

"...But among the 40,000 documents are roughly 3,600 that have never been seen by the public. They have been “withheld in full” primarily because they contain information that was considered “security classified” but also to protect personal privacy, tax and grand jury information, and “because information in the document reveals the identity of an unclassified confidential source,” according to Murphy.

Among the 3,600 are roughly 1,100 CIA documents, which make up the largest share. The second-largest batch belongs to the FBI, according to Murphy, while the rest include testimony and other records of the Warren Commission itself; the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reopened the investigation into JFK’s death in the late 1970s and concluded it was the result of a conspiracy (though the panel couldn’t prove it); records from the National Security Agency and other Defense Department offices; and files from a pair of 1975 congressional probes of CIA abuses — the so-called Church and Pike committees — and a related commission led by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

The withheld CIA files include those on some of the most mysterious and controversial figures in the history of American espionage — particularly individuals who were known to be involved in CIA assassination plots around the world.

There are at least 332 pages of material on E. Howard Hunt, an almost mythical spymaster who is most famous for running the ring that broke into Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Office Complex in 1972, setting in motion the events that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

But a decade before, he played a leading role in the agency’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. The failed attack by CIA-trained guerrillas generated deep discontent with Kennedy from Cuban exiles seeking to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro and who felt the president had let their forces die on Cuba’s beaches by refusing to provide air support against Castro’s army.

It was Hunt, shortly before he died in 2007, who claimed that he had been privy to a plot by several CIA affiliates to kill Kennedy — what he referred to as “the Big Event.”

Also under review by the special team of archivists are at least 606 pages about David Atlee Phillips, another CIA officer, who won a medal for his role in overthrowing the government of Guatemala in 1954, went on to run operations in Latin America, and, along with Hunt, played a leading role in anti-Castro activities in Cuba.

Phillips was accused — though never charged — of committing perjury when asked about agency ties to Oswald by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Phillips, too, late in life attributed the JFK assassination to “rogue” CIA officers.

It is the type of information that many researchers believe the agency would still like to keep secret.

“I don’t see the CIA handing out 600 pages on David Atlee Phillips in two years,” said Jefferson Morley, a leading Kennedy researcher and founder of JFKfacts.org, who has sued the CIA to reveal more information about several key figures known to be the focus of some of the withheld files.

“It may have nothing to do with JFK but about other assassinations,” he added. “They still don’t want to open that window and let everyone look in. I expect the worst.”

Another colleague of Phillips at the CIA was Anne Goodpasture. The career agency officer denied to congressional investigators in 1970 that she had any knowledge of recordings of Oswald’s phone calls in possession of the CIA’s Mexico City station, where she worked. But she later admitted in sworn testimony that she had, in fact, disseminated the tapes herself. A 286-page CIA file about her is among the documents that are supposed to be released in two years.

Also among the agency’s withheld files: 2,224 pages of the CIA’s interrogation of Yuri Nosenko, a Soviet KGB officer who defected to the U.S. shortly after the Kennedy assassination. He claimed to have seen the KGB files on Oswald in the 2 ½ years before the assassination when Oswald lived in the Soviet Union.

Rex Bradford, who runs the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a research organization that has digitized more than 1 million records related to the JFK case, has also identified numerous depositions before the Church Committee that are referenced in the panel’s final report but have yet to be made public.

They include testimony on secret plots to assassinate Castro from CIA officers; Kennedy’s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy; and the head of the CIA at the time, John McCone.

The collection includes thousands of files that were partially released over the years but with key sections blacked out, like the CIA’s official history of its Mexico City station (which was opened in 1950 by E. Howard Hunt).

Rex Bradford, who runs the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a research organization that has digitized more than 1 million records related to the JFK case, has also identified numerous depositions before the Church Committee that are referenced in the panel’s final report but have yet to be made public.

“The principal question we were trying to pursue was who ordered the assassination of Castro and five other leaders around the world — was it the president or the attorney general?” former Sen. Gary Hart, who was a member of the Church Committee and tasked with looking into the issue, said in an interview.

It was Hart’s digging that first revealed that the CIA had enlisted leading figures in organized crime to help kill Castro, who had closed down all their gambling and prostitution rings in Havana when he took power in 1959. The CIA’s assassination plots at the time have been considered by many government investigators to be relevant to finding out who might have had a motive to kill the American leader.

“How could the U.S. government bring itself to order these [CIA] assassinations?” added Hart. “We never resolved that. If these documents answer any of those questions it would be worthwhile.”

Also withheld are the Church Committee’s interviews with CIA officials about “JM/WAVE,” the code name for the secret CIA station overseeing covert operations in Cuba that was located on the campus of the University of Miami — and files on the obscure figure who ran its psychological operations branch, George Joannides.

It was revealed in a previous document release in 2009 that Joannides had links to some of the same anti-Castro forces that were connected to Oswald — something that was never shared with the Warren Commission.

Meanwhile, Joannides also served as the liaison between the agency and the House assassinations panel that reopened JFK’s murder in 1978 and inquired about the agency’s links to Oswald. But Joannides never told the panel about his role in Miami, a failure that the federal judge who ran the Assassination Records Review Board recently said amounted to “treachery.”

The CIA acknowledged in a lawsuit filed by Morley that there are more than 50 documents about Joannides’ activities, including in 1963 and 1978.

The bulk of the JFK collection now being processed by the National Archives includes thousands of files that were partially released over the years but with key sections blacked out — some of them “heavily redacted,” according to Murphy. Among these files are the CIA’s official history of its Mexico City station (which was opened in 1950 by Hunt)...."

 

Thanks for this post. 

It is entirely without merit to announce that nearly all docs have been released, if the 1,000 most-important docs have not been released, and that is likely the case. 

The Biden Administration snuff job on the JFK Records Act is craven, and beneath contempt. 

RFK2 says he will open up the records. Given his family history, I believe him. 

[Mike Aitken]

Are the CIA files relating to people such as George Joannides, William King Harvey, etc. held in the JFK records at the archives, or were these files never handed over when the ARRB was collecting documents in the 90s?  If the files were never turned over, does anyone know if they still exist, or would they have been destroyed at some point by the Agency?

If the president doesn’t have the authority to release IRS files, who does and how would that be done?

[Mike Aitken]

I could be way off on this, but from what I’ve read, the KGB file on Oswald has never been released either.  Allegedly, it’s still held in some intelligence archive in Minsk, Belarus.  With everything going on in Ukraine, I’m surprised that Russia hasn’t made this happen just as a shot at the US.