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FEBRUARY 18, 1998
CONTACT: EILEEN SULLIVAN
(202) 724-0088, ext. 253
January 22, 1998 Board Meeting Totals
The Assassination Records Review Board met on January 22, 1998 and
processed for release 4,835 CIA, FBI, HSCA, Johnson Library, Department of
State, and NSA documents related to the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy.
CIA/HSCA Records
The Review Board voted to release 707 CIA and three HSCA documents in part.
The CIA records include documents regarding E. Howard Hunt's personnel
files, Yuri Nosenko's compensation agreement with the CIA, and files on
Ivan Alferyev, Boris Belitsky, Manuel Artime, Luis Conte Aguerra, David
Morales, and JMWAVE. The HSCA documents contain staff notes from the CIA
files. An additional 294 HSCA records will be open in full by consent
release.
FBI Records
The Board also voted to release 1,126 FBI documents, eight in full and
1,118 in part. The majority of these documents are from the HSCA subject
files, which contain issues that the HSCA investigated as potentially
relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy. These particular HSCA
subjects include Sam Giancana, Jack Caesar Grossi, La Cosa Nostra, Gabriel
Mannarino, Sam Mannarino, Pedro Diaz Lanz, Edward Browder, Jr., John Orion
Pittman, and Frank Sturgis. In addition, 2,459 FBI documents will be open
in full by consent release.
Johnson Library Records
The Review Board voted to release nine documents from the Johnson Library
in part. These documents include 1963 Standing Group Meetings on Cuba,
State Department and CIA memos regarding the situation in Southeast Asia,
U.S. policy toward Cuba and western hemisphere relations following the
death of President Kennedy, and a November 1963 Office of the Secretary of
Defense report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the Military Force
Structure. An additional 153 documents from the Johnson Library will be
open in full by consent release.
Department of State Records
The Board voted to release six State Department records in part. These
documents include CIA cables pertaining to Lee Harvey Oswald's Intourist
guide in Moscow, CIA memos assessing Secret Service protection for
President Kennedy's 1962 visit to Brazil, and a State Department memo
regarding security concerns for President Kennedy's 1961 trip to South
America. In addition, the State Department passport file on Robert Edward
Webster is open in full and has been transferred to the JFK Collection at
the National Archives. An additional 59 State Department documents will be
open in full by consent release.
NSA Records
The Review Board voted to release 19 NSA documents in part. These
documents include Senate Select Committee on Intelligence requests
regarding NSA work performed for the Warren Commission, HSCA requests for
information, communications intelligence reports regarding Cuba in the days
following the assassination, and NSA responses to Review Board questions.
Notification to the President and the Agencies
Notification of the Review Board's action on the above documents was sent
to the President of the United States and the agencies on February 2, 1998.
Unless an agency objects and the President agrees with that objection, the
documents will be available 30 days from the date of the Federal Register
notification, and after administrative processing.
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 29, 1998
CONTACT: EILEEN SULLIVAN
(202) 724-0088, EXT. 253
The Assassination Records Review Board, an independent federal agency overseeing the identification, review, and release of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, today released an additional 600 pages of previously classified military records from 1962-63 that relate to U.S. policy toward Cuba.
"These military records further demonstrate how high on the U.S. government's radar screen getting rid of the Castro government was in the early 1960's," said Judge John R. Tunheim, Chair of the Review Board. "However, the records also show a sobering dose of reality through discussion of what would be minimally acceptable for the U.S. to live with Castro. Nearly 35 years later, the Review Board is seeking to ensure that the historical record surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy is fully available to the American public."
The mandate of the Review Board is to make the record surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy as complete as possible. The Board has aggressively sought to uncover records on U.S. foreign policy that put the assassination into its historical context and previously released records related to U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba, as well as Vietnam.
The Review Board worked cooperatively with representatives from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to locate records stored at NARA that met the definition of being "assassination related." The documents being released today are from the files of Joseph Califano, who served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army during this period.
The records have been transferred to NARA for inclusion in the JFK Collection, which is housed at the NARA facility in College Park, Maryland. These documents are now available to researchers.
Copies of selected documents are available from the Assassination Records Review Board, 600 E Street, NW, Second Floor, Washington, DC 20530; telephone number: (202) 724-0088.
The Assassination Records Review Board was established by the JFK Act, which was signed into law by President George Bush. The five members of the Board were appointed by President Clinton, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn in on April 11, 1994. The law gives the Review Board the mandate and the authority to identify, secure, and make available all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy. It is the responsibility of the Board to determine which records are to be made public immediately and which ones will have postponed release dates.
ASSASSINATION RECORDS ADVISORY
JANUARY 21, 1998
CONTACT: EILEEN SULLIVAN
(202) 724-0088, ext. 253
December 15, 1997 Board Meeting Totals
The Assassination Records Review Board met on December 15, 1997 and
processed for release 3,762 CIA, HSCA, Ford Library, FBI, and Department of
State documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In addition to this total, 151 Army and 53 Joint Chiefs of Staff records
will be open in full by consent release.
CIA/HSCA/Ford Library Records
The Review Board voted to release 290 CIA documents in part, and an
additional seven documents will be postponed in full (these documents have
"no believed relevance" (NBR) to the assassination of President Kennedy).
The majority of the documents are from the CIA's "Sequestered Collection."
The CIA documents relate primarily to the Agency's dealings with the HSCA,
as well as records that relate to the CIA's investigation of the
assassination. In addition, there are documents containing information
that relate to individuals such as Charlotte Bustos-Videla, Aline Mosby,
Richard C. Nagell, J. Walton Moore, David Atlee Phillips, Boris and Anna
Tarasoff, and Richard Snyder.
The Board voted to release 11 HSCA records in part that include records regarding anti-Castro activities and the HSCA investigation. An additional 117 HSCA documents will be open in full by consent release.
The Review Board also voted to release 26 Ford Library records, with CIA equities, in part. These majority of these documents are from the Rockefeller Commission, and include CIA cables and memoranda, and internal Commission records that relate to its investigation of CIA activities during the 1960s. The remainder of these documents include records related to the program of covert operations in Cuba.
FBI Records
The Board also voted to release 822 FBI documents in part. The majority of
these
documents are from the HSCA subject files, which contain issues that the
HSCA investigated as potentially relevant to the assassination of President
Kennedy. These particular documents relate to Sam Giancana, Gus Alex,
Anthony Provenzano, John Orion Pittman, Sam Mannarino, Gabriel Mannarino,
Maurice Lerner and George McGann. In addition, 2,490 FBI documents will be
open in full by consent release.
Department of State records
The Board voted to release six State Department records in part. This
group of documents contain a survey outlining the procedures involved in
the Lee Harvey Oswald case that the Passport Office provided by request to
the Warren Commission, CIA-generated cables that alerted diplomatic posts
of conspiracy theories immediately following the assassination, and records
pertaining to author Norman Mailer's 1992 trip to Minsk.
Notification to the President and the Agencies
Notification of the Review Board's action on the above documents was sent
to the President of the United States and the agencies on December 19,
1997. Unless an agency objects and the President agrees with that
objection, the documents will be available 30 days from the date of the
Federal Register notification, and after administrative processing.
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