The CIA Edited The Church Report

[Gerry Down]

According to the book In Search of Enemies by CIA whistleblower John Stockwell, it says:

"[The Church Committee] published its final report in April 1976 but the CIA was permitted to edit that report before it was released." 

So if the CIA edited the Church Report, how come they forgot to edit out the footnotes at the bottom of some pages of book V which refer to testimony by INS/customs officers in New Orleans who may have interacted with LHO? The testimony of some of these INS/customs officers seems to have gone missing as is well known to JFKA researchers, but the footnotes referencing those testimonies have been left behind.

One possible reason is that those testimonies have nothing to do with CIA involvement with LHO, but rather have to do with FBI involvement with LHO. I'm thinking of the Orest Pena sighting of LHO in the company of FBI agent DeBrueys and some INS/customs officers walking across the street from the Habana bar. 

This could mean the FBI/INS/Customs were behind the disappearance of those testimonies, but if they did not have access to edit the final report (like the CIA did) then they may not have had the ability to remove references to those testimonies in the footnotes of Book V.

The CIA should have known those testimonies linked LHO to INS/Customs officers but for some reason they left the footnotes referencing the testimonies in place. Perhaps the CIA officers editing the Church Report did not want to draw attention to themselves by editing out those footnotes as it would make it look like they were trying to hide something by editing out those footnotes. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

Interesting, thank you. I did know about the missing  records, but  I don´t have that book.  Do you happen to know if there is like a list of those footnotes some where, do they contain the names of the INS officers or just the ref. numbers (and perhaps dates)? 

[Gerry Down]

11 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Interesting, thank you. I did know about the missing  records, but  I don´t have that book.  Do you happen to know if there is like a list of those footnotes some where, do they contain the names of the INS officers or just the ref. numbers (and perhaps dates)? 

@Tom Gram is well versed in this area, more so than me. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

Thanks, the Church report is on my list, don´t even  know why I never actually got to it.  I find that odd myself, as it has been on my list since like day 1 or so.. 

[Gerry Down]

11 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Thanks, the Church report is on my list, don´t even  know why I never actually got to it.  I find that odd myself, as it has been on my list since like day 1 or so.. 

Same here. The Church Report is six books long, unlike the Warren Report which is just one book. Then there are seven books of hearings.

 

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

So if the CIA edited the Church Report, how come they forgot to edit out the footnotes at the bottom of some pages of book V which refer to testimony by INS/customs officers in New Orleans who may have interacted with LHO?

As far as I know Gerry, the INS officer testimony references and footnotes are NOT in Book V of the Church Committee Report. They only appear in a rough draft, and that draft probably would’ve never seen the light of day were it not for the ARRB. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

As far as I know Gerry, the INS officer testimony references and footnotes are NOT in Book V of the Church Committee Report. They only appear in a rough draft, and that draft probably would’ve never seen the light of day were it not for the ARRB. 

That rough draft is in the ARRB files? Are these footnotes any good (to be used for..).  Do they contain names, dates and/or just ref. numbers?

Has one tried to make some sort of analysis?

A lot of questions, I know, but I don´t even know how many there are.  If the data they contain is very limited, an analysis could be even  useless.

On the other hand, the records were lost, so whatever is left could be interesting... So I can imagine that perhaps one has already tried making something of it.

 

[Gerry Down]

4 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

As far as I know Gerry, the INS officer testimony references and footnotes are NOT in Book V of the Church Committee Report. They only appear in a rough draft, and that draft probably would’ve never seen the light of day were it not for the ARRB. 

That is fascinating. One could argue the CIA edited them out because they knew of LHOs connection to INS in New Orleans.

It would be interesting to see what else was edited out to see if any pattern emerges as to what the CIA did not want seen. That would involve a detailed study of comparing the final books to the draft.

Of course such a study would need to be approached with caution as I presume the writers of the report themselves would be doing some editing themselves and not just the CIA. In which case it might not be possible to definitively say it was the CIA who edited out those INS footnotes.

[Mart Hall]

14 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Interesting, thank you. I did know about the missing  records, but  I don´t have that book.  Do you happen to know if there is like a list of those footnotes some where, do they contain the names of the INS officers or just the ref. numbers (and perhaps dates)? 

Jean, there are a number of documents in Malcolm Brunt's archive on DealeyPlazauk.com which should interest you.

The link below contains a list of the missing testimonies with references to the footnotes (presumably as at 6 Jan 2000) 

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sTAweGVRb1gk_KeWgNPDrZzGyFYfqLEl

If you cannot access the file through this link you should be able to locate it in http://dealeyplazauk.com/research/collections/malcolm-blunt/, see Church Committee, the file has been given the name "Church Committee Missing Tedtimony List" [sic].

 

 

 

 

 

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

That rough draft is in the ARRB files? Are these footnotes any good (to be used for..).  Do they contain names, dates and/or just ref. numbers?

Has one tried to make some sort of analysis?

A lot of questions, I know, but I don´t even know how many there are.  If the data they contain is very limited, an analysis could be even  useless.

On the other hand, the records were lost, so whatever is left could be interesting... So I can imagine that perhaps one has already tried making something of it.

 

I can’t find the source on MFF but here are the relevant pages from the Book V draft in a Blunt archive link: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ngkQhFjLVri9G5vNdhbFdNmvuWVXXcnW/view?usp=drivesdk

And here’s a draft of the report on MFF.  I can’t find the INS stuff but it might just not be showing up in the search. I don’t have time to flip through right now. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1464#relPageId=10

The Blunt version has some handwritten corrections in it so the INS info might have only appeared in earlier drafts if it really isn’t in that MFF link. 

[Tom Gram]

Correction: the final Book V report DOES contain a footnote on Ron Smith’s 12/11/75 testimony. This makes sense since that report footnote is referenced in ARRB documents as missing Church testimony: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1161#relPageId=97

The excerpts from Smith’s transcript plus the much more controversial stuff on Orestes Peña and Wendell Roache’s 12/9/75 testimony was all removed. That is what only appears in the drafts. 

Edited August 13 by Tom Gram

[Jean Ceulemans]

2 hours ago, Mart Hall said:

Jean, there are a number of documents in Malcolm Brunt's archive on DealeyPlazauk.com which should interest you.

The link below contains a list of the missing testimonies with references to the footnotes (presumably as at 6 Jan 2000) 

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sTAweGVRb1gk_KeWgNPDrZzGyFYfqLEl

If you cannot access the file through this link you should be able to locate it in http://dealeyplazauk.com/research/collections/malcolm-blunt/, see Church Committee, the file has been given the name "Church Committee Missing Tedtimony List" [sic].

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you

[Jean Ceulemans]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Correction: the final Book V report DOES contain a footnote on Ron Smith’s 12/11/75 testimony. This makes sense since that report footnote is referenced in ARRB documents as missing Church testimony: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1161#relPageId=97

The excerpts from Smith’s transcript plus the much more controversial stuff on Orestes Peña and Wendell Roache’s 12/9/75 testimony was all removed. That is what only appears in the drafts. 

Thank you

[Ron Bulman]

So, the CIA did edit the Church Committee report?  Not real surprising, is it?