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Note: Shortly before this issue of Fair Play was uploaded, an Associated Press item appeared saying the House had approved a measure extending the Board's life for another year --- that is, through most of 1998. The measure is not yet final.
The Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice held a hearing on H.R. 1553 - President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board Reauthorization Act on Wednesday, June 4th, 1997 at noon. Chairman Dan Burton was unable to attend. Rep. J. Dennis Hastert filled in as chairman.
Special thanks go to Eileen Sullivan of the ARRB's staff for sending out an e-mail notice on this without which I would have not known about this important hearing.
There were very few congressmen there, about 5, but they did seem interested and no one voiced any opposition to extending the Board. The witness list was short. Rep. Louis Stokes; Chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board John Tunheim; Mr. Steve Tilley, from the Archives; Max Holland; and Mr. Bruce Hitchcock, a teacher from Noblesville, Indiana, whose students have been interning with the Board.
Chairman of the Committee J. Dennis Hastert began the hearing by reading into the record his opening statement.
Chairman Hastert-"This hearing will focus on a very important piece of legislation, H.R. 1553 - the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board Reauthorization Act. This bill was introduced by chairman Dan Burton on May 8th, 1997 and included original cosponsors Ranking Minority Member Henry Waxman and Congressman Louis Stokes, our first witness for today, who also chaired the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
"In 1992, 30 years after the assassination, nearly one million pages of records compiled by official investigations still had not been made public. Congress decided to set up a process for reviewing and releasing to the public the records surrounding the Kennedy assassination. The result was that on October 26, 1992, President Bush signed into law PL 102-526, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The original Act provided for a three-year timetable for the Review Board to complete it's work.
"Unfortunately, extensive delays in the appointment of Board members delayed the Review Board's work from the very beginning. In 1994, Congress extended the 1992 law's termination date for one year, until September 30, 1996. The Review Board subsequently exercised its authority under the statute to continue operating for one additional year.
"The review process has provided to be more complex and time-consuming than anticipated and although we believe that Congress should not indefinitely continue funding Federal entities that were intended to be temporary, Chairman Burton and this Subcommittee support the request for a one year extension of the Board's authorization. I believe that by releasing these documents to the public, we serve the important public right to know and advance the cause of total accountability to the people of this country.
"H.R. 1533 extends the authorization of the Assassination Records Review Board for just one year to allow the Board to finish reviewing and then to make public the records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Under current law, the authorization expires at the end of fiscal year 1997. With that, I turn to my good friend and the Subcommittee's ranking member, Tom Barret for an opening statement."
That last paragraph was not read aloud. Instead Chairman Hastert turned to his colleague. "At this time I would like to recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Barrett."
Rep. Thomas Barrett-"Thank you Mr. Chairman, I'm honored to welcome my esteemed colleague Representative Louis Stokes to testify before the subcommittee. We are fortunate to be able to draw on your experience in this area.
"Over thirty years ago this country was shocked by the assassination of President Kennedy in a way it had not been shocked by since the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the bombing of Hiroshima. Yet today we are still trying to deal with allegations the government was involved in the assassination.
"The legislation that created the Assassination Review Board broke good ground by establishing a principle that there should be a presumption of public access to government information. That legislation was necessary because administration after administration took the position that that should not be.
"The Assassination Records Review Board has released millions of pages that otherwise could have remained locked in government files. We are here today to extend the authorization of this Board because the process of making government information public has been more complex and time consuming than anticipated.
"I would like to praise the work of the Board and the dedication to their function. I am, however, critical of the fact that we are still fighting with our own government to allow public access to government documents.
"Congress has passed laws and resolutions reiterating the principle of public access to government document was a policy that this government was founded on. Administration after administration has worked to thwart that access. At present President Clinton is working to declassify documents but we need to do much more. I hope that every employee of the Office of Management and Budget and every agency in the government will pay attention to what this Board has accomplished. It is the refusal to allow public access that breeds suspicion of the government. If we are to turn the tide of mistrust and suspicion it will be done by opening the doors of access. Today is one step in that process but there is much more work to be done. Thank you."
Chairman Hastert-"Any other members wishing to make an opening statement? If not, our first witness this morning is fellow Congressman Lou Stokes, who served as the Chairman on the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1976 to 1979, as a cosponsor of this important bill. And Mr. Stokes let me say welcome and thank you for your fine work in this area and please proceed with your opening statement."
Rep. Louis Stokes- "Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Turner, Mr. LaTourette. Mr. Chairman I would like to submit my written testimony for the record and finally I would like to just summarize my testimony?"
Chairman Hastert-"Without objection."
Rep. Louis Stokes- "Thank you. It seems Mr. Chairman that it was not as long as this but actually it has been 20 years, 1977, when I was appointed as the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. We were authorized at that time to complete an investigation surrounding the assassination and the death of President John F. Kennedy. We completed, as you already stated, our investigation, in 1979. And on March 28th of that year we filed a final report. In addition to it 12 volumes of evidentiary materials printed by the Government Printing Office was made available to the American public. In addition to this we conducted 18 days of public hearings and an additional two days of public policy hearings.
"Now prior to the committee running out of both time and money we had released everything we had the time and resources to release. All of our other records were placed in the National Archives under a House of Representative rules which existed at that time, Rule 36, requiring such unpublished records routinely to be sealed for thirty to fifty years. The records of our committee relative to this investigation consisted of 935 boxes which we turned over to the National Archives.
"Then over the years a considerable public debate about these records has ensued, including accusations that these records if released would contain evidence of a government coverup or complicity of government agencies in the assassination of President Kennedy. A great deal of this was fueled in 1992 by the movie entitled, "JFK". That movie contained many distortions about the facts and circumstances surrounding the death of our President. As a result of that movie my office was deluged with thousands of letters and telegrams by Americans hoping for the release of these sealed files. As a member of Congress and former Chairman of that committee I deemed it important not to have the good work of our committee impugned with such baseless accusations. Our committee had attempted to conduct its investigation into the assassination of the President and to present the results of that investigation to the Congress and to the American people in a thorough dignified manner in keeping with the memory of this great President.
"Consequently, in 1992 I introduced, and the House and the Senate passed PL 102-526, a bill entitled "The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992." That law created the Assassination Records Review Board which mandated and authorized that Board to 'identify, secure, and make available all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy.'
"It was our intention Mr. Chairman, that everything that could be released, from every agency, every court record, anywhere it existed that those records be released to the American people. Under the law the Board had until October 1, 1996 to fulfill it's mandate plus an additional year at the Board's discretion. We were very fortunate to have a very distinguished panel appointed. This panel was appointed by President Clinton 18 months after the law was enacted here by the Congress. It was a considerable delay in the appointment of this panel. But we were very fortunate to have a person such a Chairman Tunheim, Dr. Henry Graff, Dr. Kermit Hall, Dr. William Joyce, Dr. Anna Nelson and outstanding executive director David Marwell. Under this panel they have now released more than 10,000 previously secret government documents. They have released a report which I urge all the members of the committee to read if you have an opportunity because I think you will see the extensive amount of work in which they have been involved.
"They now need one additional final year in order to complete their work. Their work during this period of time will be primarily to secure the release of documents from the CIA and the FBI. Those are the two main agencies left from which they still have a considerable number of documents to be released.
"Mr. Chairman in closing, I think it is important that we complete this work in an orderly manner in a full and complete disclosure to the American people, for they will fell that they know everything that their government knows about the assassination of their President. And I would urge the support and passage of this legislation sponsored by Chairman Burton, for which I am one of the original cosponsors. I would be pleased to answer any questions."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you Mr. Stokes. We really appreciate the work that you have done here. I have just two brief questions here, actually three.
"Do you believe the Board, the Review Board is up and running smoothly now?"
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Absolutely. In spite of the delays, 18 months, they have done just a yeoman's amount of work. It's just been almost incomparable to realize how much they have done. And to their credit they feel if given just this one additional year that they will complete their work."
Chairman Hastert- "And do you believe that this process is consistent with the goals of your original legislation in 1992?"
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Yes, I do Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Hastert-"And then you are confident that you said before that the Review Board can finish it's task by September 30th 1998?"
Rep. Louis Stokes-"I am just very confident that in the projected legislation that they can finish if given just one additional year. And when they say themselves, as they will say to you when they appear, this will be one final year."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you very much and thank you for your testimony."
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Thank you, Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Hastert-"The gentleman from Wisconsin."
Rep. Thomas Barrett-"Thank you Mr. Chairman. I don't have a lot of questions either I just want to compliment Congressman Stokes for the fine job that you have done."
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Thank you."
Rep. Thomas Barrett-"Just one question you think that, in the unfortunate event of a future assassinations and hopefully we won't experience that that this was a good way to approach this problem, the panel that you served, did you accomplish what you intended to accomplish?"
Rep. Louis Stokes-"At the time that we undertook this panel, that Congress passed the Act to create this panel 85% of the American people believed that someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald had participated in the assassination of President Kennedy. A national poll had told us that. There were boundless rumors, myths, people were writing numerous books things of this sort, and as a consequence of it I think that putting this panel together and permitting this type of investigation, I think, was very helpful. I think it allayed many of the rumors and myths that grew up and around the assassination of our President.
"However, I don't think they could uncover everything. We uncovered many things for instance we pointed out many things that the Warren Commission had not done properly, and we were able to destroy many of the myths, such as "the umbrella man theory" and things of that sort but we couldn't put everything; we had begun that investigation 15 years after the assassination of the President!
"I think that if we had been given this type of investigation immediately after it had occurred it would have been a different result. But many of the witnesses had died, evidence had disappeared, as you can see now there were materials which we were not able to get in our two year period before we went out of existence. So with all of that I think we did an outstanding job. No one has ever been able to refute any of the work that we did. No one has been able thus far to say that anything has ever been covered up to the American people. So to that degree, I think, that it performed a good service for the American people."
Rep. Thomas Barrett-"Thank you very much."
Chairman Hastert-"The Gentleman from Ohio."
Rep Steve C. LaTourette-"Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for having this hearing today and also for expediting the markup on 1553 and give praise to the cosponsors, our Chairman Mr. Burton, and Mr. Waxman, also to Congressman Stokes. The editorial comment I would like to make is that I am always amazed each succeeding day that I serve in Congress about the rich history that a number of our colleagues have, to now have our fine colleague from Ohio, Congressman Stokes from Cleveland here to talk about his previous work on the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Although many members of the House will remember his service, I would mention that there are many people back home who don't know all of the things that you have done during your many years of service to this Congress and to this country. Just an example, the other day I found out that, I don't know if you were a lawyer or not Mr. Chairman, but Congressman Stokes, I am a lawyer, and proud to be a lawyer, found out that Congressman Stokes was respon sible for a ruling called "Terry vs. Ohio". That applies to arrest and search. I didn't know that until the other day that Congressman Stokes had anything to do with that. So again Congressman Stokes sharing his expertise with the country.
"One question I would have and that deals with both your written testimony and also your observation to Congressman Barrett's question, talking about the "JFK" movie and all the rumors and innuendo as the public hold. People are still interested in it. I'm still interested in it. I still meet people who are convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone on that November day in Dallas, and part of it has to do, I think, with after your commission met and the legislation in '92 and the delay in getting everybody in place with the Review Board, do you think it was necessary after you have reviewed to documents to have the government wait for 34 years to make these documents available? Was there something impinging upon the national security that you found or discovered that made it necessary for the government to wait 34 or more years before releasing this information?"
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Thank you very much for your earlier remark. It's a good question because not many people realize that this was not; when we sealed these records for a period of 30 to 50 years this was not done because of anything relative to this particular investigation. That was a House rule that existed at that time, that any commission that completed it's work and filed it's final report if it had any documents which had not been released publicly under the House rule they had to be sealed for 30 to 50 years. The same applied to the other part of that investigation which was conducted which was to investigate the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King jr., which was the companion part of our investigation. So that applied to that one also.
"As a result of it, in compliance with the house rule it just sort of sat there until things were stirred up by the "JFK" movie and so it brought things to a head."
Rep. Steve C. LaTourette-"The prinicples behind your '92 legislation, the Assassination Records Collection Act, obviously now were are dealing with different records than we did before, many electronically stored, do you think we can use that Act as a vehicle should another tragedy, God forbid another tragedy like this should occur in this country, but should another tragedy such as this occur could we use the lessons learned, and the model of this Review Board to prevent a significant time lag between the event and the eventual release of documents to the public."
Rep. Louis Stokes-"I would hope, Mr. LaTourette, that we have learned some lessons. First, we here in the Congress no longer have such a rule in effect and that will help us, I think, tremendously. But also, I think, the agencies now working with a Review Panel of this sort, and that realizing many of the type of documents which they will cite to you in their testimony, for instance there is a very interesting document that they will talk about where a whole page with the exception of just the date and the name of a country, everything was redacted. And under their work that whole page has been released and everyone can read that. What you do by that is you are able to allay all the suspicion as to what really has been redacted, and the people can then really see, and then you can't have the rumors and myths that grow up around it.
"And I think, and hope, that if such an event occurs in the future which we all hope doesn't occur that our agencies will realize that this has been a good example of how we can allay some of the fears and suspicions that the American people have about the manner in which we conduct this type of thing."
Rep. Steve C. LaTourette-"Thank you very much Congressman Stokes for your expertise."
Rep Louis Stokes-"Thank you."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you. And at this time we recognize the gentleman from Texas."
Rep. Jim Turner-"Thank you Mr. Chairman. All I would add is to also compliment you Mr. Stokes for your many years of work on this effort. I too stand somewhat in awe of the number of years of service and your contribution to this body."
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Thank you."
Rep. Jim Turner-"And I know that the Congress and the American people are gratefull for the years of service you provided not only on this issue but on many other issues which you contributed. And I also want to thank those who served on this panel because I'm sure it's a time consuming endeavor to carry out this task."
Rep. Louis Stokes-"Thank you Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you Mr. Stokes. The second panel, come forward please. Our distinguished second panel includes four witnesses, John Tunheim, the Chair of the Assassination Records Review Board, Mr. Steven Tilley, the Chief of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives, we also have Max Holland, author and contributing editor to the Wilson Quarterly, and Mr. Bruce Hitchcock a historian and teacher at Nobelsville High School in Indiana, our distinguished chairman's home state. And I would also say at this time that Mr. Burton wanted to be here to make a few comments, he's not here yet, he may be here at any time. So if you gentlemen would please stand?
"Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god?"
All-"I do."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. And let's start with you Mr. Tunheim."
Mr. John Tunheim-"Thank you Mr. Chairman. I too, would like to submit my written testimony for the record and just give a brief summary to the members of the subcommittee today.
"I would like to thank the subcommittee for this opportunity to testify today in favor of House bill 1553 and I would also like to note our thanks to Congressman Stokes for his leadership on this issue and his guidance in the important effort to release the records relating to the tragic assassination of President Kennedy.
"The Review Board is confident that the additional time requested and provided by Congressman Burton's bill will allow us to complete our work and submit a truly complete final report to the Congress, to the President and to the American public.
"I would like to thank Chairman Burton for introducing the bill, and Congressmen Waxman and Stokes for cosponsoring the bill that is before the subcommittee today. And I would also appreciate Mr. Chairman your role in chairing this hearing today and assisting in this effort.
"One of the other members of the Review Board is present with us today. I would like to introduce her, Dr. Anna Nelson, who is the distinguished adjunct historian in residence at the American University. Anna is seated in the row directly behind me. Dr. David Marwell the executive director of the Review Board is also here as are a number of staff members who are very professional and very dedicated and have done their work for us very well.
"The Review Board, Mr. Chairman, began releasing records in July 1995 pursuant to the Act passed by Congress. And thus far the Board has acted specifically to transfer more than 14,000 documents to the JFK Collection at the National Archives. That Collection, as Mr. Tilley will tell the subcommittee shortly, now contains more than 3.7 million pages worth of material.
"I would like to show one brief and rather dramatic example of the work that the Review Board is doing. Congressman Stokes mentioned this issue in his testimony. This involves one particular record. (Record Number 124-10023-10236) This is the before version, the record that was available to the public up until several years ago. You probably cannot see it from here but it is a document that was sent from the FBI's representative in Paris to Director Hoover on October 12, 1960. That is indicated at the top of the memorandum. The subject is indicated as Lee Harvey Oswald, Internal Security, and then it says "Re: Paris letter 9/27/60" and the remainder of the entire document is blocked out. And not surprisingly a document like this, dated three years prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, a document sent to J. Edgar Hoover attracted a great deal of interest among researchers who saw it because everything was blacked out underneath. The speculation that individuals had about this was great. The Board aggressively pursued the release of this information, initially ordering it's release, the FBI appealed that decision to the President. Subsequently, we worked out with them including an aggressive effort to contact Swiss authorities who were the subject of this particular document. I met personally with the Swiss Ambassador to the United States to ask for his assistance in obtaining Swiss approval to release it.
"And here is the record that is now released to the American public at the National Archives. All of the material is released. And what it indicates was the FBI was interested in whether Oswald was indeed attending a college in Switzerland during that period of time. And the document tells about the investigation and [what the] Swiss authorities did to determine whether Oswald was indeed enrolled. He was someone whom the FBI was following because of his interest in defecting to the Soviet Union. That's a good example of the type of work that the Review Board is doing, pursuing individual releases of information that has long been redacted from the public.
"The Board has worked closely with federal agencies. The vast majority of the records are at the CIA and the FBI. We have completed the review of the core collections in both of those agencies. And significant numbers of materials has been released.
"The Board has also been aggressive in identifying and acquiring significant assassination related records that have been in the hands of private citizens and local governments. Just a couple of things, the examples, the papers of J. Lee Rankin, who was the Chief Counsel to the Warren Commission have now been released through the efforts of the Review Board, virtually all of the records of the prosecution in New Orleans of Clay Shaw was also released. I'm announcing for the first time today that the Review Board has just acquired the original personal papers of Clay Shaw. He was the individual prosecuted in New Orleans in 1969, the only individual prosecuted for the assassination of President Kennedy. That will add another dimension to this story. This is an example of his diary that the Review Board has just obtained and it will be released as soon as we can process the materials. It is very interesting. It is [a page from the] a diary from the day that he was arrested, March 1st, 1967 and his feelings about Oswald on that particular day.
"Despite the best estimate, Mr. Chairman, that this job could be done in three years, we cannot finish our work by the end of this fiscal year. We are confident that in the additional year we will be able to get through the records which largely involve the sequestered collection at the CIA and at the FBI, records sequestered by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
"I'd be happy to answer any questions Mr. Chairman that you or the members have."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you. We will hold the questions until the end of the testimony."
Mr. Tunheim-"Very well."
Chairman Hastert-"Mr. Tilley?"
Mr. Tilley-"Mr. Chairman, I am Steven Tilley and I am the chief of the access of the Freedom of Information staff at the National Archives and Records Administration and I wish to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf, for the National Archives in support of H.R. 1553. I am here today in my capacity as NARA's chief of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. In that role I am charged with implementing NARA's responsibilities under the Act and I serve as NARA's liaison to the Assassination Records Review Board. And it's my understanding that my written statement will be made part of the record, if I may briefly summarize my remarks.
"Mr. Chairman, this month marks the 20th anniversary of the closing of the office of the Watergate special prosecution force. I oversaw the coordinating of that office and supervised the transfer of those records to the National Archives. Most of my career at the National Archives since then has been involved in working with sensitive records. And in 1993 I became the chief of the JFK Collection and I have served in that capacity ever since.
"When the Review Board members were confirmed by the Senate in April of 1994 my staff and I began to work with the Board, and later with the Board's staff, to provide information on the records in the JFK Collection, the development and use of NARA's database, our contacts and discussions with other agencies involved in searches for assassination records and the existence of assassination records in the custody of private repositories or individuals.
"The Review Board and I have maintained an excellent working relationship through the three years of the Board's existence, and I would like to think that this cordial relationship has in some way contributed to the success of the Review Board
"NARA enthusiastically supports passage of H. R. 1553 to extend the Review Board's authorization. The Board needs the time designated in this bill to complete its important work in making available as complete a historical record as possible concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.
"I would like to briefly offer for your consideration some statistics and facts that demonstrate the success of the Board. The JFK Assassination Records Collection has grown to more than 16 hundred cubic feet of records, or approximately 3.75 million pages from more than 30 different government offices. These numbers are a testament to the work of the Board and obtained from the cooperation of the entire federal government, as well as private donors in this important task.
"For the information of the committee, Mr. Chairman, I have attached to my testimony a copy of the register of the collection which lists the major groups of federal records and private papers along with a supplemental listing of FBI records.
"Not only has the collection increased dramatically in size, the significance of the records in the collection cannot be underestimated. In addition to the records of numerous executive branch agencies and offices, the records of relative congressional committees, related court cases, and records donated by private entities are also available in the collection. This rich documentation is searchable electronically giving researchers the availability to seek documents concerning a topic, person or thing, or even individual documents, not only at NARA's College Park [,Maryland] facility but from their own personal computer through the Internet.
"And finally, Mr. Chairman, public demand for these records is the ultimate evidence of the value of this collection. Reference requests have risen in number every year since the collection opened with new records in August of 1993. This year we have already received over 600 written inquiries, an increase of over 30% from this period of time last year. The number of inquiries on our computer web site is also steadily increasing, since March 1996 when the Assassination Records database was made available through the Internet it has been accessed over 100,000 times by the public.
"Due to the exceptional work of the Assassination Records Review Board great progress has been made on making available as complete a record as possible in the history if the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Without the focus, integrity, and expertise of the Review Board the Collection would not have the size, quality, or public demand witnessed today.
"However, there is still much to do. NARA supports passage of H.R. 1553 so this important work can be completed. That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman, I'd be glad to answer any questions."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank the gentleman. Mr. Holland?"
Mr. Max Holland-"Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would like to make a brief statement summarizing my testimony.
"Nearly 75 years after President Lincoln's assassination a chemist turned author named Otto Eisenschimal provoked national furor with his 1937 book Why was Lincoln Murdered? Eisenschimal claimed that one of the most important events in American history was still a mystery. And Eisenschimal claims to have uncovered the truth. President Lincoln was the victim of a conspiracy organized by his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who was allegedly opposed to the President's program of a charitable post-war reconstruction of the South. When pressed Otto Eisenschimal openly admitted he had no evidence to support his case. At the same time though it was precisely the documentary record that enabled critics to prove that Otto Eisenschimal's book was just another in a long line of lunatic theories about the first assassination of an American president.
"Here lies, I submit, the long term importance of the work being carried out by the ARRB. The meaning of the raw data being unearthed by the Review Board will probably not be appreciated anytime soon by the generation sentient when President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. But if these generations cannot come to terms with history as it happened in their lifetimes then at the very least they have an obligation to handle over in so far as is possible a complete and thorough documentary record. Citizens will need that record to rebut the Otto Eisenschimal's of the next century, not that there is any dearth of them now.
"I strongly support without qualification the extension of the Review Board for another year and full funding of its operations. Bringing its work to an abrupt end will not only diminish the investment of time and resources already made it in all likelihood will throw the whole initiative into chaos. Not least of all gutting the effort now will surely create an elaborate suspicion about the federal government's intentions in the first place.
"I would like to spend the balance of my time describing the three areas where I think the Review Board has made its greatest contributions. The first has to do with the Warren Commission. The Review Board's labors have resulted in many new documents that I believe will eventually remove the stigma that has been attached to the Commission, which has probably [been] the most unfairly reviled and ridiculed entity ever created by the federal government. These records paint a sobering portrait of our federal government during a very traumatic time. It is not the idealized versions depicted in civics textbooks, nor the demonized version featured on talk radio, it's the real federal government, imperfect, plodding, driven by ambition, mistrust, rivalries and compartmentalized by secrecy, working at cross purposes or in ignorance, simultaneously guided by the most banal bureaucratic instincts and the most elevated national concerns. Somehow through all of that it does struggle and manage to do the right thing.
"Besides the Warren Commission I think the work of the Review Board has made a very substantial contribution towards understanding the operations of the intelligence community. The assassination necessarily caused what can only be termed a mobilization of the U.S. intelligence communities far flung resources. The government had to determine that weekend who was responsible and whether the assassin or assassins had any coconspirators either foreign or domestic.
"Consequently, the records being released now constitute a gold mine of information about domestic and foreign intelligence operations at the midpoint of the cold war. These records not only shed new light on what the government knew 34 years ago, their release is an object lesson into why they have been kept secret all of these years. They do not contradict the federal government's official conclusion as stated in the Warren Report, rather the documents were kept secret because they disclose or tend to disclose ongoing intelligence sources and methods. With the release of these documents the intelligence community verdict in the wake of the assassination can finally be assessed in some fairness and thoroughness. And the fact is that the information provided by the FBI, CIA, and other agencies was instrumental to preventing the United States government from overreacting when the circumstantial public evidence was highly suggestive of a link between Lee Harvey Oswald and a foreign power.
"The Last area in which the Review Board has made its, perhaps its greatest contribution has to do with the whole issue of secrecy and disclosure. The balance between secrecy and disclosure has always been in favor of secrecy, especially since World War II, controlled by laws highly deferential to the equities of the interested government agencies. The fine citizens who serve on the Review Board decided that if their mandate was to have any meaning it was imperative to pierce this veil. They had to get at categories [of information] that had been classified before, including information derived from intelligence sources and methods. While some historians have been critical of the resources devoted to this particular effort I like to believe that a breakthrough had to be achieved somewhere, and in fact, the records pertaining to President Kennedy's assassination make an excellent demonstration project of what can now be released. The lines drawn by the Review Board should prove helpful as the government undertakes to declassify the vast body of records generated during the cold war.
"Finally, I'd like to say that the entire history of the federal government's efforts in the wake of the assassination including the experience of the Review Board serves as a cautionary tale. Perhaps it will enable the government to strike a better balance between secrecy and disclosure in the future. For there exists no better example of the heavy wages of doubt, suspicion and public cynicism exacted by secrecy in the Kennedy assassination experience. Thank you Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank the gentleman. And now Mr. Hitchcock, I'd like to welcome you especially. The gentleman from Ohio asked a little while ago if I was an attorney. Indeed I am not an attorney. I happened to have been a history teacher for 16 years before I ever got into politics. So I certainly know of your trade and am happy that you are here. I know the Chairman wanted to introduce you personally but he couldn't make it here this afternoon. Your students I understand, the clerk has mentioned that they are of a very high degree and so we welcome you and will listen to your testimony."
Mr. Hitchcock-"Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I too ask that my written statement be entered into the record and I will-"
Chairman Hastert-"Without objection all witness statements will be entered into the record."
Mr. Hitchcock-"Thank you. My name is Bruce Hitchcock and I am a teacher at Nobelsville High School located in Nobelsville, Indiana which is a community approximately 20 miles north of Indianapolis. I am currently completing my 28th year in secondary education. My teaching assignment has primarily been in the areas of United Stated history, American government, and International relations. I want to express my appreciation to the committee for affording me the honor and the privilege of being here today and permitting me to make some brief remarks concerning an issue about which I have very strong convictions, not only as a citizen, but as an educator.
"In the Spring of 1994 I assigned my Honors United States History class a project studying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This project culminated in the students' placing the Warren Commission Report on trial. Half of the class represented the prosecution and half of the class defended of the Warren Commission Report. The class became quite interested in, many would say obsessed with this subject. The project resulted in a trial which became quite intense and divisive, so much so that the class had to have a party at the end of the semester to rekindle friendships. They became so fascinated with the subject of the assassination that they requested an opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. during the summer following their graduation to do additional research.
"From that modest class assignment developed an internship opportunity with the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. To date four student groups from Nobelsville High School have interned with the Review Board with the 5th scheduled for the week of June 16th of this year. When this group completes its work a total of 56 of our students will have participated in this unique and truly educational opportunity. I might add that except for the first group, succeeding student groups have studied, researched and prepared for their internships on their own time, outside normal class meetings. The most recent group to participate did so over spring break. The fact that students wanted to spend their vacation working with government records reflects the interest that the JFK assassination has for students. In my 28 years of teaching I have never had a topic create as much interest as the assassination of President Kennedy. It is a mystery and it provides an excellent research opportunity as well as a chance for students to be actively involved in learning.
"Since November 22, 1963 there have been many who have believed and still believe the government did conceal, continues to conceal, and will continue to conceal the truth. If the Review Board is permitted the time to complete its work it will assist in diffusing the last two charges. We cannot prevent the speculation that someone did conceal the truth but the argument that a coverup continues and will continue can at least be diffused, or discouraged. What has been lost cannot be replaced, however, what still exists can be made public. We should have access and our students should have access to the information and documents still in existence. This is an opportunity for the United States government to provide a credible response to public interest. The Review Board, established by the Congress, is actually a group of citizens telling the government what to do and what to release. An opportunity exists in this era of skepticism to restore some credibility and trust in the government.
"In his recent book, "The Approaching Fury", author Stephen B. Oates quotes John Ferling as saying, 'Events by themselves are unimportant, it is the perception of events that is crucial.' Perhaps in 1997, the most important aspect concerning the assassination of President Kennedy is the perception, shared by many, of a conspiracy involving individuals and agencies of the United States government.
"Do we not owe our young people the opportunity to form the most accurate perception possible? Do we not owe them the opportunity to see as much of the truth intact as can be assembled? It seems to me that we owe this generation and all succeeding generations the opportunity to question, to study, and to form opinions on the basis of information they can view independently without solely relying on the opinions of others.
"Oftentimes, while I am in the classroom, I observe students who have opinions but little to substantiate them. Congress has a chance before it in some small way, or maybe in some large way, to at least provide them with more information so that they can have their turn in determining what the JFK assassination means. We have been affected by this event. For 34 years we have been affected. The 56 students from Nobelsville High School have, as have countless others, been affected by the events of November 22, 1963.
"The study of this event has the public's interest. It is an event to which the public and students can relate. It touches people. As an aside, last week an article was published in "The Indianapolis Star", I have a copy of it with me today, regarding our school's ongoing JFK Assassination project. Within a day of its publication I had received phone calls from a gentleman offering 500 pages of documents for our use and from a former teacher helping me with information regarding some scholarship opportunities. I also received a call from ABC News "Nightline". And yesterday before leaving Nobelsville High School received a call from Atlanta, Georgia, offering information. The subject of the call from "Nightline" was seeking information as to what Nobelsville High School Students were doing with regard to the study of the assassination. Together, I think these calls reflect continued local and national interest in continuing the probe into what happened in Dallas.
"Congress has an opportunity to lay the facts before the American public and permit a more reasoned, rational, and fact-based account and discussion about the assassination."
"I would hope that the committee would take into consideration the fact that the Review Board had a one year delay before truly becoming operational, that it is making a one time request for an extension, that the Review Board has been on task and on budget, that the Review Board has done its business in a professional and non-partisan manner, in 1992 when the Act was passed by this Congress and signed by President Bush the enormity of the task was not and could not be fully appreciated. An opportunity exists to complete a task which I believe is overwhelmingly supported by the American public. And it is important that this mission and mandate authorized by Congress be completed.
"I would like to end with just a couple of quotes, one from former Senator Bob Dole, who said in a different context, 'This is not only about who we are...it is about have we made a difference.' This is a chance to make a difference. And as former President Reagan often said, [who was actually quoting President Kennedy] "If not us, who? And if not now, when?" After 34 years it is time to let the public know the facts that remain. To do less would be a tragedy and a travesty. As an educator I believe our most important task is to provide our young people the complete story of who we are and why we are who we are. We have an opportunity to work towards the accomplishment of that goal. It is an opportunity, I believe, we cannot afford to miss.
"In his last speech, in Fort Worth, on November 22, 1963 President Kennedy said, 'We would like to live as we once lived but history will not permit it.' History can only be served by permitting the public to see the evidence.
"Mr. Chairman, as a further request, if I could have a few seconds to reflect upon our students interest in this event I have my honors government classes perform a project of a moral compass. And one of the students this year could write a bill on whatever subject they wished, and one student who worked with the Review Board last year, introduced House Concurrent Resolution One in support of the Review Board, and concludes after all the whereases, 'The Congress of the United States firmly support the Assassination Records Review Board in all endeavors leading to the collection, review, and release of the documents regarding the assassination of President Kennedy and supports the extension of the life of the ARRB for an additional fiscal year. Thank you Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank the gentleman, thank the panel. Now I recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Barret."
Rep. Barrett-"Mr. Hitchcock, can you give us the name of that student so we can name him or her as honorary cosponsor, just to get the name into the record?"
Mr. Hitchcock-"Abigail Neyer." [I hope I spelled that right. --JB]
Rep. Barrett-"Mr. Tunheim you mentioned that you were releasing materials...
(end of tape side A. This was a question about the Clay Shaw diary)
Mr. Tunheim-"...on our staff, the page that I cited to you was interesting in that he made a notation in there, and it is fortunate in that it's in his own handwriting, that it was perhaps unfortunate that he had never met Oswald because then he might have possibly been a tiny footnote in history. An ironic statement given the role that he played in the trial. We have not had a chance to analyze it thoroughly yet. It does contain his reactions to events as they were going on around him during the course of the prosecution. And certainly supports his view that he was not involved whatsoever in the assassination which ultimately was the verdict of the jury which acquitted him."
Rep. Barrett-"For my benefit, as a person who has not been immersed in this issue at all you just mentioned it took some aggressive work from you staff to get this released. Can you tell me what that entails, where it was, why it was so difficult to get this information?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Certainly. Part of this is an investigation into where records are and the bulk of our work has been with federal agencies that hold assassination records but we also at the direction of Congress in the bill that was passed entertain a search for records wherever they might be. Records that are in private hands are not records that we can subpoena and take from people. So we have to find where they are, staff members often talk to people and encourage them to donate those records to the American public to the National Archives and that was done in this case. We received a tip that an individual had records that were left over from Mr. Shaw and staff went and talked with the person, spent some time with the person, encouraged them to share those records with the American public, and that's how it was developed."
Rep. Barrett-"How do you determine which assassination records you can disclose now and not have to wait?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Well, there's a standard that's set up by the Act. There is first of all, a presumption that all records should be public, that presumption has governed what the Board has done throughout the process. But then there is a standard where the Board has to weigh the public interest in a particular record or information with the potential harm that might be caused by the release of the material. The standards that we look at are are there national security interests such as the disclosure of an intelligence agent whose name has not been [previously] disclosed and whether that person perhaps may be in some danger from the release of his/her name, does it disclose the method of protecting a President that is not generally known today so therefore might be a threat to the President, are there personal privacy considerations that are involved. I will tell you that when all is said and done a very, very tiny percentage of information gets redacted under the standards that we are applying. And the process of going through the records has led the Board to arrive at a number of policy decisions which the agencies by and large are now following in their own review of records and therefore decisions that we had to make two years ago now we don't have to make because the agency is following the advice that the Board made on earlier records."
Rep. Barrett-"As long as there are some records that are not being released do you think that we will inevitably face criticism from some people in the American public that there is still some sort of, kind of coverup? I make reference to Mr. Holland telling us about a book written 75 years after President Lincoln's assassination. Will the time ever come, do you think, when all records will be released?"
Mr. Tunehim-"I think it will Mr. Barrett. The Board is releasing every record. The question is whether certain information in these records gets redacted or not. For every redaction we are attaching a specific release date. Some of the dates are 5 years in the future, the law that was passed which established the Review Board provided that all records that are redacted, all information redacted will be released in 2017, unless whoever is present at that time makes a specific determination that the record cannot be released because of some continuing national security concern. So we expect that virtually all of the information by 2017 will be released but a very high percentage, in the 99.999 range is being released right now."
Rep. Barrett-"Mr. Tilley in your written statement you indicate that the Collection currently consists of 3.75 million pages. What's your estimate of how many more records you will get?"
Mr. Tilley-"Well, it's hard to say because there is still a great deal that is still being reviewed by agencies at this time. We have located some records at the National Archives that are still under review, such as the Secretary of the Army's records dealing with Operation Mongoose, the campaign to destabilize the Cuban government in the period after the Bay of Pigs, other records have been located at other agencies. I received a call from the Customs bureau today. They will be turning over their assassination records to me, hopefully, this afternoon, after this hearing, so I will be picking up the records that they located. So it's tough to say. Not much is still out there. But I think there is still going to be another, considerable amount of material, probably added to this collection before this process is finished."
Rep. Barrett-"Another million pages?"
Mr. Tilley-"Oh no, I would say probably another, I would say if we add another half a million pages that might be the extent of it, But what's interesting and fascinating about this process is that we continue to turn up records where we did not know there were records before as the agencies are aware of this effort they come to the Board, and the Board is responsible for a lot of this by their aggressive work with these agencies. Now I don't see us ever doubling the Collection again but I think we will add a significant amount of material in the weeks and years ahead."
Rep. Barrett-"Thank you Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Hastert-"Mr. Tunheim, just a very short question you mentioned the movie that came out "JFK", Mr. Oliver Stone's work, did Mr. Stone ever have any questions about your work?"
Mr. Tunehim-"Well, Mr. Stone has been very supportive of the work of the Review Board. He testified before the Congress when this bill was passed initially and encouraging a broad release of the records. And he sent a representative to one of our public hearings who testified and spoke very favorably about the work of the Board. So he's been strongly supportive and we've appreciated that support."
Chairman Hastert-"Why did you wait so far into the process before reviewing FBI and CIA records?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Well, we've been reviewing CIA records and FBI records from the very beginning Mr. Chairman. The volume of records in those agencies is really significant. We have completed the entire review of the core collections of those agencies and those are numbers between the two agencies it's more than a million pages of records. What we are doing right now is delving into what is called the sequestered collections in both of these agencies. Within the CIA these are records that the House Select Committee on Assassinations asked to be sequestered and taken away from their (the CIA's) files and kept in a secure place for future review. The House Select Committee did not have the time to review these records carefully. Some of them are highly relevant to the assassination, others are not. Within the CIA there are about 62 boxes of material and about 72 reels of microfilm. In the FBI the same kind of sequestered collection is about 280,000 pages of records. And those are records that will be the focus of the Review Board's work over the next year if given the extension."
Chairman Hastert-"Let me ask the same question of the panel, do you think you can finish your work by September 1998?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Mr. Chairman, I'm confident that the Board can complete its work, members of the Review Board are confident, we will make every effort to ensure that that is done. In fact we will be happy to provide to your staff a timeline which sets out our anticipation of how we will review these records over the next year. We have set up a review process which we are working with right now that is moving quickly and we are confident that the work can be done. We were set up to be a temporary Board and no one on the Board wishes this effort to take a long time. We need to get the information to the American public."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you. Mr. Hitchcock, I wanted to ask you bringing students into the real realm of research, how important is it that records like these be made available to the public so that folks like yourself can add them to the availability, for students."
Mr. Hitchcock-"Well, I think, Mr. Chairman it's exteremly important not only for the teachers of history and historians but also for future students and future generations but one of the things so special about our relationship with the Review Board has not only been the opportunity for students to travel to Washington, they pay their own way, they do their own research on their own time, but it has helped change opinions in many cases by students about, not only about the assassination, but about government, politics, agencies and people who work for the government. I cannot overstate the importance it has had for the 43, thus far, soon to be 56 students, from Nobelsville High School that have had this research opportunity to enable them to actually see, handle, original documents to work with documents, to see first hand the evidence that exists and to have that opportunity is something that no teacher, no classroom, no film, no laser disc, nothing in the classroom can stimulate or simulate such interest and focus as a trip to Washington, D.C. to look at the review of documents, to working with people, we have had the opportunity to be working with the Review Board on a first hand basis, it is just something that can not be duplicated, or as I said simulated in any classroom anywhere in the country. It has just been a fantastic opportunity and will provide students in the future with a place to go to find those records, to look at the records, to look at the documents, and be at least assured that as much as is available, and is in existence, can now be made available to them as ordinary citizens of this country, whether they be students at university, students at high school or in their, just curiosity and interest as American citizens. I don't think it can be overstated the impact that this will have in helping bridge that gap of skepticism that this represents, that exists. I just cannot imagine what the many conspiracy theorists out there will thing if the Review Board has to finish its stay without completing its work."
Chairman Hastert-"Thank you. The gentleman from Ohio."
Rep. LaTourette-"Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would begin by indicating that my earlier inquiry about your legal training was not meant to be an affront. I should have recognized that your learned demeanor-"
Mr. Chairman-"Not at all."
(The above was said somewhat humorously)
Rep. LaTourette-"And Mr. Holland, I don't have a question but I am gad you told the story about Otto Eisenshcimal, somewhere in the back of my mind I remember a book, or a movie called the Lincoln conspiracy, and I was certain that Secretary Stanton had something to do with it, the murder of our 16th President. So I am glad you brought that up. Mr. Tunheim, I do want to ask you a followup question, when you were talking to Congressman Stokes, I was fascinated by the document you held up, when I was in the prosecution business we had a public records law in Ohio that was new in the books we found that many agencies wanted to take a big black magic marker and redact everything. That always led to more conjecture, rumors and suspicion than not, and I think that this document that you brought forward knowing that it came from the Swiss Federal Police that would give, I think, some cause to believe that Mr. Oswald had some Swiss bank account and was squirrelling away money as part of the conspiracy, when you unredact it, if that is really a word, you find out that someone, I think probably illegally registered for the Albert Schweitzer college for the fall semester of 1960 that didn't show up, nothing sinister or unusual in that at all. And the question that I have is that when you were testifying you had indicated that the FBI originally had appealed the decision to withdraw the redaction on this particular document, you also indicated that the vast majority of documents that you have left to review during this renewal period are located in the CIA and the FBI in the sequestered section, I assume. Are you experiencing any unusual difficulties with either of those agencies in terms of cooperation as you attempt to get at the public release of what could be appropriately called..."
(sorry, couldn't make it out, it was one or two words)
Mr. Tunheim-"Well, Mr. LaTourette, the answer to the question is no we are not receiving any great difficulty with those agencies right now they are committed to this process, they are supportive of the effort to keep the process going for one additional year. The CIA has not appealed decisions that the Review Board has made. We have a good working relationship with the people within that agency who are doing their work. The FBI appealed a significant number of our decisions but now all of those appeals have been withdrawn, and we got a good working relationship with the FBI that I think has been constructive and professional and is working quite well. Now the FBI initially opposed release of the document that I held up and appealed the decision because they had contacted, in a general way, the Swiss Federal Police and asked whether this record could be released and the answer was no. Our followup through the Ambassador showing what really this document was all about led to some wider approach to the particular issue, and sometimes it takes additional work like that to come to the release of important material."
Rep. LaTourette-"And then the last question that I want to add is Congressman Stokes expressed the view that perhaps the fine work of this Review Board should another review board say be required in the future to review another situation similar to this that you may be breaking down some of the barriers in terms of suspicions that the intelligence community may have about do we need to stick to the script and have a page that has all that many magic marker ink. Do you find that the lessons learned by this Review Board will be constructive to us as we move forward as we release documents in the future?"
Mr. Tunheim-"I think that is a very good question and we have found through this effort being the first group, independent group outside any agency to have this degree of control over the declassification process. The process at first was rough and difficult and fraught with suspicion, that has changed. There has been a sea change as these agencies have realized that the release of this information is not going to harm our national security. That perhaps it is time simply to trust the American people with access to important information about their government. I think if we are ever to learn important lessons from this process, the process is time consuming, and worked very well for this set of records."
Rep. LaTourette-"And in that regard, in that vein, have you, or the Review Board put together a sort of instruction or operating manual to be left behind for future such endeavors?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Well, we certainly will. We have, virtually all of our work has been computerized so that we have an extensive record, in fact of how we approached all of these issues. We do intend in our final report to, to make recommendations of how this effort can be extended into the future into other areas if the Congress so wishes."
Rep. LaTourette-"Thank you for answering my questions. Thank you for your fine work, and thank you."
(At this point Rep. Hastert left and a new, very young looking Congressman, maybe younger than me, took over as Chairman.)
New Chairman-"I have a couple of questions. I was read your testimony as I was listening to you. I'm sorry I was late. I want to ask Mr. Holland were there credible historians who at this point were still questioning the assassination, the Warren Commission, and the information that came out before this commission existed, (I think he was referring to the ARRB there.) before these documents came out?"
Mr. Holland-"Basically most historians have stayed away from it because they regard it as a tarbaby so there are actually, surprisingly few historians or professors who have written about it, cause they just see it as a morass and will never be able to figure out what happened ... So my answer would be; you know "credible" is a, well I would hope; but there is actually remarkably few, and that's one of my arguements, you have to deal with it. It is time to insert it back into history. It did happen during the Cold War and that exerted a tremendous influence over what the government did right after the assassination, it was a percipitating element of the formation of the Warren Commission,that the Cold War was ongoing and they worried about, to be frank, they worried Congressional committees holding hearings and disclosures of sources and methods such as the fact that Oswald had gone to Mexico City and had been observed by, ahem, photographic surveillance and how was that going to be handled by a congressional committee? (I found it odd that Mr. Holland cleared his throat and corrected himself there, almost as if he was going to say someone's name.)
"So I do believe it has to be inserted into the historical context that is the proper element that has been missing all of this time.
New Chairman-"I believe one of the benefits this commission brings is to remove the JFK assassination out of the Pop culture and into the more main stream as more documents are there less questions will now be analyzed. And also you seem to hint that, it is not as necessarily that there is a lot of new information on the assassination but we will learn a lot about how our government worked and what the relationships were, and I think more along these lines than any questions they have remaining about the assassination.
Mr. Holland-"I think my own particular views are besides, you know, being an investigation of three crimes, the murder of President Kennedy, the assault on Governor Connally, the murder of Officer Tippet, and then the murder of Oswald, so four crimes, the Warren Commission is a fantastic lense to view the operation of the government circa 1963-1964 because they had an overriding mandate yet they were running up against agencies such as the FBI and CIA with entrenched interests and, especially Hoover's FBI, who was a wonder to behold. He dealt with things very gingerly so it's very, the FBI had not been second guessed since Hoover became Director. This was the first time. You can't underestimate what that meant in terms of difficulties to the Commission. Now I maintain they still came to the right conclusion but the fact is that they had a lot of trouble with the FBI.
New Chairman-"One of the questions is why it took so many years to get to this point in time, when looking at what each commission is like, how much of that do you think can be overcome, in other words how much of this was the Hoover FBI, and how much of this was institutional that in the first ten years you had so many ongoing intelligence operations, in the first twenty years there is still some, can you accelerate the process of what has emerged...... ( I couldn't make out most of what he said.) What will we learn in investigations in the future will the FBI and the CIA release information sooner, and if so will it still be redacted, will we be able to read all of it?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Mr. Chairman I think that the fact that these records are thirty years old has helped in obtaining their release. It is not information about the assassination per se that agencies have objected to releasing it's more who said what to whom, who is an intelligent agent, and who is an informant for the FBI, those kinds of issues, and there will still be institutional reluctance to release any of that information. I hope that through this process we can demonstrate to the public and to these agencies that this information can be released to the public, that the public can be entrusted with information like this. There will still be a need for secrecy to a certain extent but certainly not with the broad brush, black pen approach of the past.
New Chairman-"Our first experience with secrecy on this committee was with Waco, where we had similar questions and still we had some information that wasn't able to be released. We certainly are having the same thing ongoing with the administration right now because the initial investigation was on Travel gate and that led to the databank, and what's the databank, and that leads to the code, and the code leads to this, and pretty soon your off into a new investigation, that's going to be an ongoing problem. Do you believe in the end that this will have silenced most critics?
Mr. Tunheim-"In my view Mr. Chairman, it will silence some it will perhaps provoke others. We are many years after an event that was investigated in a different era. There were many mistakes made at the time that cannot be corrected at this stage of time. But I think when the Review Board is done with its work one thing we should be able to prove to the American people is that the federal government is no longer keeping secrets from them relative to the Kennedy assassination. I think that will be a very significant development. Whether all of the questions will be resolved or not, that's a question for historians of the future who will review these materials and will make their determinations.
"This is like a gigantic puzzle with a lot of pieces missing. We are putting some of those pieces in, small pieces and large pieces, but there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that will never be found."
New Chairman-"I want to ask one last question and that's how can you be able to acquire the Zapruder film? Is that going to cost an additional amount to what you are requesting? How are you going to be able to pay for that? What is the status of that?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Well, the Zapruder film, as the Chairman is aware the Review Board designated that as an assassination record about a month or so ago. We felt that that decision was determined by the Congress in the passage of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act when it said that all records in the possession of the National Archives are assassination records and should be included in this collection. Recognizing the potential cost of a film like this we did set forth a 16 month period before the taking would take place so that the Congress could address this issue and make appropriate determinations of the Congress, if the Congress wished to make those determinations. The Board did feel that the decision had been made for it by the Congress in the earlier Act, and it is the most significant piece of evidence of one of the most significant crimes in our nation's history so therefore, the original has an intrinsic value and it should belong forever to the American public. We are hopeful that the Zapruder family will agree eventually to donate that film to the American public, we have no assurances of that at this point but we did set the time frame far out in the future so that the Congress can review this issue and make its own determinations if it so wishes."
New Chairman-"With that I thank you all-
Rep. LaTourette-"Mr. Chairman, if I beg your indulgence to just ask one more question. Mr. Tunheim, I asked this question about difficulty with the CIA and the FBI, sometimes I don't make things broad enough, and I guess my query would be then it was brought to my attention some difficulty in getting some records from the other bodies, is there any agency within the federal government that you are having difficulty in terms of cooperation that is impeding your ability to complete your work in a timely fashion as applies by this legislation?"
Mr. Tunheim-"Mr. LaTourette, I have not seen any evidence currently that anyone is deliberately stonewalling us so that when we go away they will put their records back in the files. We had some significant problems early in the process, just in, really because agencies didn't understand what this was all about and didn't understand what the law really provided for. So it took some time. It has taken some time, for example, with the Secret Service to get them to the point of realizing their obligations under the Act. They do now. They have been very cooperative and easy to work with. But this has been a learning process for all of the agencies. And I feel at the current time there are no impediments among any of the agency partners that we are dealing with to completing a review of the records in a timely basis."
Rep. LaTourette-"Thank you."
New Chairman-"Thank you all for your testimony and for coming today.
"For procedural purposes I will now close this hearing. (BANG!) Meeting adjourned. And open a subcommittee markup on H.R. 1553, the markup, the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board Reauthorization Act. The meeting is now open. There are no opening statements. The Subcommittee will now proceed with a consideration of the bill for amendment. Without objection the first reading of the bill is explicit. The bill will be considered for amendment at any point. Do any members wish to be so recognized? Hearing none the question is on the favorable recording of bill H. R. 1553 - The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board Reauthorization Act. All those in favor say "aye."
ALL-"Aye."
New Chairman-"Opposed, "no".
(No response)
New Chairman-"In the opinion of the Chair the "Ayes" have it. (BANG.) The bill passes. The bill will now become part of a subcommittee report to be reported to the full committee. All in favor say "Aye."
ALL-"Aye."
New Chairman-"Opposed, "no".
(No response)
New Chairman-"In the opinion of the chair the "Ayes" have it. The bill moves forward to the full committee. There is no other business before the subcommittee we now stand adjourned.
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