There was a little preliminary chatting before the meeting officially opened. Dr. Graff was present for this meeting.

Dr. Graff - "Well, I see our outside constituents are here, Bob [Clark] represents all of them. (laughing) You represent all the outside constituents, right? Generic spokesman, right?"

Jeremy Gunn - "He represents the media industrial complex."

(laughs)

There was some delay in getting started. I recall speaking with Mr. Clark and a staffer for some time prior to the opening of the meeting. Mr. Clark told of how he was in the motorcade, and of getting to Parkland. He saw JFK still in the limo at Parkland. I left my recorder in the small public reading room and wished I taped him. It was a lost opportunity. I gave him my address and asked if I could interview him to record what he said. He said he would be happy to do so. I hope I get the chance again. I have seen him at prior board functions but did not know who he was. I asked the staffer to interview Mr. Clark, he said he was, but I meant formally.

Judge Tunheim - "Are we ready to go?

(someone utters umm-hmm. Judge Tunheim bangs the gavel)

"I will call to order this open meeting of the Assassination Records Review Board. Welcome everyone. We have a quorum. All five members of the Board are present for this meeting. It has been previously noted in the Federal Register. We have a number of items on our agenda today.

"First, do we have minutes to approve from I guess, the July 8th meeting? The Board members have received a copy of the minutes as drafted by Ms. Olsen. Are there any corrections, or changes, or additions to those minutes?"

Dr. Henry Graff - "Move for their acceptance."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I'll second that."

Judge Tunheim - "Discussion?

(no response)

"All in favor say, `Aye."

All - "Aye."

Judge Tunheim - "Opposed?

(no response)

"The minutes are carried five to zero.

"Now first we have a staff related issue Dr. Gunn has submitted to us his resignation effective July 24th in order to accept a new position he's taking on with the Institute of Peace that involves also work with the United States State Department, it is an exciting opportunity for him, and we wish him the very best, and it is with a great deal of regret that we accept his resignation this week. We had hoped that he would be able to stay with us through to the end. That's not possible because of the new position so Board members have received copies of the resignation letter, and as I say again, Dr. Gunn has served us very well, in a number of positions, starting as our Director of Research, moving into the General Counsel position, and for the last ten months as Executive Director and General Counsel, both positions. He has served us with great distinction, and we are sorry to see him go. We hope that we will continue to be able to work with him over the next couple of months as we complete the work of the Review Board.

"Dr. Graff, you have something to offer?"

Dr. Henry Graff - "I would like to offer as a motion the following resolution, `Whereas, T. Jeremy Gunn has served the Assassination Records Review Board well and faithfully in several capacities, most recently as Executive Director and General Counsel, and whereas the Board applauds the devoted, imaginative, and energetic service that Jeremy Gunn rendered in executing his duties, and whereas Jeremy Gunn played a major role in the Board's unremitting effort to fulfill it's legislative mandate, now therefore, be it resolved that the Assassination Records Review Board extends to Jeremy Gunn it's thanks and warmest wishes for personal satisfaction and high success in his new post.' "

Dr. William Joyce - "Here, here."

Judge Tunheim - "Second to the resolution?"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I'll second"

Judge Tunheim - "Discussion?"

(no response)

"A very appropriate resolution, all in favor say, `Aye."

All - "Aye"

Judge Tunheim - "Opposed?"

(no response)

"Carried five to zero. Thank you Jeremy-"

Dr. William Joyce - "Thank you indeed."

Judge Tunheim - "-for your excellent work.

"For purposes of focusing on continuing our work through September 30th which is when we do plan to close the effort and submit our final report to the President and to the Congress, Bill, do you want to give us a proposal that you have been working on?

Dr. William Joyce - "Mr. Chairman, the Review Board is winding down now, and is in it's final weeks of work and we look forward to September 30th with a certain amount of anticipation and an equal amount of dread I think, understanding what lies between here and there, and now that Jeremy Gunn will be leaving the Board we face the daunting challenge of replacing him and maintaining the momentum and direction that we have followed to date, and that we hope we will be able to, as I said, fulfill our mandate in the terms of the work that lies ahead of us.

"We have a very talented and capable staff, a great many people who have devoted long and energetic effort on our behalf and we are grateful to all of them in the talent and productivity they have brought to their work. As we face these last weeks we have thought about the best way to reconfigure the staff in order to accomplish our mission, and to that end I would like to propose the following staff arrangement. That as Executive Director in this last stage that we appoint Laura Denk to fulfill that responsibility, that we designate Tracy Shycroft to serve as our Deputy Director, that Ron Herrin, will serve as General Counsel, and that Kevin Tiernan will replace Laura as head of the FBI team. And having made this proposal I guess I will just say that this is now in the form of a motion for the Board to discuss and hopefully to adopt."

Judge Tunheim - "Is there a second?"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I second."

Judge Tunheim - "Discussion?"

Dr. William Joyce - "I would just like to reiterate that frankly, as I say, we have a great many talented staff who have worked very effectively, and I think all of us are involved in a project that since it's inception has covered new ground, and we have made a remarkable, in my opinion, accomplishment and a contribution to a much broader effort to open federal records, to introduce a new accountability, and that all of us should be proud in that effort. And as we face these last weeks where we begin to draw these various strands together that we look forward to this, as I said, a certain anticipation and dread because we have a lot in front of us and yet I am very confident that by pulling together and by building on the substantial contributions of those who have already been here and those who are about to leave that we will be able to complete out work"

Judge Tunheim - "That's a good proposal Bill, anyone wish to discuss or comment? Anyone?"

Dr. Graff - "No, I know that we have such a talented staff that the committee, such potential leaders everywhere, in our choice of Laura Denk, and Tracy, and Kevin for his place and Ron, we've made what we think is a team that will see us through safely to the end, and we are very proud to make such an announcement."

Jeremy Gunn - "Mr. Chairman, if I could make a comment, I've worked with all of these people since I've came here, and I have been very impressed by all of them. I think that Ron has done a superb job during the last, since he's arrived, particularly with responsibility for the compliance program and the level of detailed understanding and analysis that he has. I think it's what makes him an invaluable member in the team.

"I think that Laura has done a superb job with running the FBI team, and handling that, organizing that, and bringing a lot of order to a very difficult system. She has done that with a great deal of, I think, poise and intelligence, and has been able to work extremely well with the FBI, and I have great confidence in her judgment, perceptiveness, I think she will be very good in that position.

"I've worked with Tracy the longest, I remember when the first day that I came in, actually we were probably sitting about where we are now, though the door entrance was on that side, Tracy was sitting at a desk and David was here, and that was, well Cheryl started the same day that I did, and that, but that was it, and things have gone through a big process, and Tracy has just done a superb job. One thing that one often does not appreciate is the fact that things are going well until they don't go well, so no staffer has missed a paycheck because Tracy forgot to turn things in. (they start to laugh) We were recently audited and the accountant tried, as hard as they would, the auditors trying as hard as they could could not find any mistakes at all. They said it was a perfect filing system, a model for other agencies. And so we all appreciate that, it made the part of my job that had to do with administrative very easy, I just had to make sure that it was okay with Tracy and then I knew that it was allright.

"And then for Kevin as well, Kevin was I think the first person who was hired after I came on board so he has really been here from the long haul. And I've said to Kevin at one point, I remember the first week things didn't seem to be so smooth between Kevin and me, I don't know why that was but I was concerned about our disconnecting communication but fortunately that was some issues of the first week.

And he has been energetic in everything that he has done. He is a pleasure to work with in the sense that he is somebody who identifies the problems in advance and approaches them very well. So, he also, he and Laura are the two most knowledgeable at the FBI [team] so he will do a very good job keeping the FBI in line.

"So, I think these are extremely good selections by the board."

Judge Tunheim - "Thank you."

Dr. Henry Graff - "That's very nice."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I will say this, that this project is really built on nitty-gritty, looking at everybody else around, the piles of documents, the amount of time that is just rote, going through things, finding things. I mean we really have a devoted staff that has sat, and everyone deserves credit for what they have been sitting and doing which often is exciting and sometimes is pretty boring but they have kept at it. And it takes good leadership. And it takes lots of good people working away at what has to be done. And it has been very tedious sometimes and we know that, very tedious to go through all of that. You pass through the rooms and you see these piles of documents. You see people sitting at computers trying to put all of these numbers down, look at the numbers in The Federal Register, somebody has to put those numbers down. It is very time consuming and I think the staff, often the people who are sitting at the desks are the ones we depend on the most. So, we've had good leaders and we have had good people, we have lost some, and we are losing some because our the deadline, people get new jobs. We want everyone to have a job by November 15th. (laughter)

Dr. Henry Graff - "We are the employer of last resort."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "And we just should just recognize that its been a tedious as well as an exciting experience."

Judge Tunheim - "Well, the Board has taken the time to interview people and talk with them about these positions so I'm confident that individuals are willing to accept these positions. I guess, technically, Kevin, we haven't talked with you (laughter) but we presume that you are willing to step up to this one, but the others we did. Let me just say that I think this will give us an opportunity to continue the team approach around here until we finish. Our senior staff, well, the people aren't really changing other than Dr. Gunn's departure which we've already noted. We are grateful for that, but I want to mention also Michelle Coombs (spelling?) who is one of our senior staff members who has done an absolutely superb job for us and I hope she will continue to be part of the team to the end because she is a very valuable player.

Dr. Jeremy Gunn - "Mr. Chairman, I hate to keep jumping in."

Judge Tunheim - "that's allright."

Dr. Jeremy Gunn - "I'd like to say something about Michelle as well. I think more than any other member, she has, this is partly her area, so that this makes sense, she understands how to push the buttons at the CIA. She has, I think, both an intuitive grasp and experience that has made her invaluable in the ability to ferret out information, including some that the Board has become aware of in the last month or month and a half, but I think without her particular knowledge and ability would not have come out. I think that she is deserving of high praise for that and has done a young woman's task (laughter). [A play on words of the phrase yeoman's task.] If that's correct

Dr. Ann Nelson - "Well, that is politically correct."

Jeremy Gunn - "I'm sure the CIA wishes that she had never joined the Review Board staff but I thank God that she did."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "They actually wish we had never been created."

Jeremy Gunn - "We could add the PFIAB---"

Dr. William Joyce - "Yes."

Jeremy Gunn - "to the list of institutions that wish Michelle had not joined the Review Board. For that she deserves a great deal of credit."

Judge Tunheim - "Well said. Any further discussion on the proposal that Dr. Joyce has offered us?

(No response.)

"If not, all in favor say aye."

All - "Aye"

Judge Tunheim - "Opposed?"

(No response)

"Carried 5 to one.

"Congratulations to all of you in your new positions, and we look forward to working with you.

"Let's move on to discuss the item which is at the top of all our agendas

right now and that is the final report. We have a draft here of Chapter 4 that we thought would be useful and helpful to have some discussion on today. Anyone wish to start out the discussion?"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Well, let's start out the discussion by asking where we are with the pieces yet to come. For Chapter 4 there are some NSA materials that I think we are waiting for."

staff member - "I think the NSA materials are here."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I think the current draft has-

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Well, the draft I have says-

Dr. Anna Nelson - "place holder

Dr. Kermit Hall - "The draft I have says `holding for'."

staff member (Laura Denk) - "I guess the one thing we have yet to resolve is an issue of privacy, postponements. We had talked about it at one point, and I had left a space in the various relevant chapters but I haven't heard back, so that will take care of the place holders certainly. And then it is not clear whether the Secret Service will be taking exception (something about using "presidential protection" to block release of some information.)

Jeremy Gunn - "As far as I recall, right now they have not ultimately prevailed on any of those."

Laura Denk - "Right now it's a place holder if it ever happens, or else it can be taken out. But I think other than that everything is there in Chapter 4 in some form or other."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "it says place holder for record groups of other agencies, that's one other place holder."

Dr. William Joyce - "Mr. Chairman, I wonder if it would be appropriate to ask Laura, who I understand is the principal author of the Chapter 4 draft to date, if she would want to discuss the organization of the Chapter or any other issues that you think would be especially relevant to help us to assess where we are with this and what Laura, you think might need to be done and how it might frame or fit into the balance of the report. I would like your comments on all these points."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "We might also want to nail down what this chapter is all about."

Judge Tunheim - "Why don't you give us an overview?"

Laura Denk - "Okay, when Jeremy and I were first involved in, he was the CIA team leader, we first talked about Chapter 4 we thought it would be important to, somewhere in the report list with great specificity the classification standards established by the Board under each of the Section 6 postponements of the JFK Act. So, we talked about different ways of organizing this chapter into, and there are, there in the beginning section of the chapter there are some introductory remarks, but the heart of the chapter, I you will is about, or it is in outline form organized according to the Section 6 postponement standards, each of the issues that the Review Board faced with the main agencies that we deal with and a listing of the Review Board guidelines and a commentary on each of the Section 6 standards. So to make it easier to understand if we are dealing with Section 6 (1) b and (c) which are the notorious "sources and methods" postponement that the agencies use in the FOIA and in other areas, in that section we talk about the specific sources and methods that the Review Board addressed and the decisions that have been made with each postponement and the release that was made under the Section 6. There is some commentary on appeals where those arose, and just talked about the Board's decisions making process. And one thing that Jeremy suggested that we ended up following in Chapter 4 was that the chapter be organized along the line of the Review Board's "common law" so that we would say this is the issue that the Review Board faced and these are the rules. And we ended up offering a commentary on the rules from the "common law" of the Review Board."

Dr. Joyce - "The rules being the decisions."

Laura Denk - "The guidelines, the decisions, exactly."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "The guidelines, we aught to call them guidelines, that's what we call them in Chapter 2."

Laura Denk - "So that was the general overview of the chapter. In the introductory part we have talked about, we have so far, we have talked about, subject to change, talked about how the Review Board when it took over the duty of enforcing the JFK Act it had very little guidance from the Congress on this chapter, on the Executive standards, so that when we went to the legislative history and said well how does Congress intend for the Review Board to apply enforcement of the postponement section there is really very little in the legislative history that directed the Review Board in how to go about its decisions. So, we tried to talk about the way that that decision making process evolved and the way in which other "laws" were used."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I think probably the most important part of that chapter is, that would be most interesting to our audience, different audiences, will be the guidelines, that is to say our guidelines. And I love that term "common law"."

Judge Tunheim - "it's a lawyer term isn't it?"

(laughter)

Dr. Henry Graff - "But there is new usage here isn't there?"

(laughter)

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Well, I hope so. Well it is, it is a very good phrase for what we actually did. And every once in awhile I say, `Well, we just set policy' but that wasn't an accurate term really. So, I think that that has to be...but what people will be most interested in our job."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Do you think Laura that we will make this in a final form more reader friendly by some kind of introduction, I think some overall summary, Tracy, whatever you want to call it, that will allow someone to know what you are doing, the whole philosophy of it, without the specificity of subheads and heads. I keep thinking of the possibility that we may have some kind of, of a collection of those chapter summaries maybe in a separate, I say volume, maybe a separate place, so that the larger public will come to appreciate what everybody has done here without getting bogged down in details that are not bedtime reading-"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "They are bedtime reading."

(laughter)

Dr. Henry Graff - "They are bedtime reading."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "If you have a second Sunday."

Dr. Henry Graff - "So I hope you will get a larger judgment of all of this and somehow broaden out these summary statements."

Laura Denk - "So an executive summary for each chapter-"

Dr. Henry Graff - "I think so."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "It's more than that, I think."

Dr. Henry Graff - "It's more than that."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Actually it's a narrative, what it amounts to is a problem in the entire report and that is that we really have an obligation to put in a lot of detail."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Oh yeah."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "But on the other hand we really want folks to read it, so maybe, a two part report is what we need to end up with."

Dr. Henry Graff - "We were talking informally before about that with a certain historical work that had all it's conclusions in a separate volume from the volume that had all the footnotes and all the data, and we don't know whether that's possible."

[That could describe the Warren Commission Report.]

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Well, we really don't need two volumes

Dr. Henry Graff - "Well, we don't need two volumes, but [maybe] two parts."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I think it is something to talk about, to think about."

Dr. Henry Graff - "...because I think that this should have an impact on the whole idea of the relationship of the public to the Federal government which as you needn't be reminded is what President Bush had in mind when he signed the legislation that produced the Board, to enhance or recover, whatever was stated, faith in the government, that was shaken by a variety of events in the past generation and a half. We aught to make that in some substantial way what it is we are addressing."

Dr. Anna Nelson - " Actually, Henry, what I think you're saying is that we have a likely audience, now can we create a new audience?"

Dr. Henry Graff - "Or enlarger the old one."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Or a enlarger the old one, though that's an issue I'm not sure we really aught to try-."

Laura Denk - "Chapter 4 as written has a couple of different audiences in mind, one is the agencies themselves. I had discussions with the FBI about the impact of the JFK Act on their future decision making. I guess the second would be FOIA requesters. (more but it's unclear) So, those are the two main audiences, and they are very detail oriented audiences."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Yes, they are and they need to be there."

Laura Denk - "So, I think this idea of a more reader friendly report is also very important, because we need to have someone to read it." (laughs)

Dr. William Joyce - "I think, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we have to remember is that this is new ground. I am reminded of our first meetings where we spent an entire meeting discussing four documents and didn't come to a resolution on how to deal with them. I remember, I think that was in the Spring of 1995, and how from that beginning when there was a great deal of frustration about our inability, really, to begin to codify and to form the common law that we are now discussing. But we have gone on from that inauspicious beginning to what Kevin reported yesterday as in excess of 50,000 documents that have either been released through Board action or by consent releases of the agencies based on the precedents in the pattern of decisions that we've made till now. And I think in that history and in the evolution of this process is an enormously important lesson that I, for one, hope might be transferable and there might be lessons for the larger government in terms of it's documentary body of records to look at, to evaluate, and perhaps to begin to make some impact in terms of secrecy and accountability. So I think this is an enormously important way of documenting just how it is we got from there to here, so to speak. And I think this [report] bears it out admirably well, and I think we've done a great job."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "This chapter has everything in it. I must say this chapter has everything in it.

Laura Denk - "We'll, we had other things to put in there." (laughs)

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I think this is one of the more important chapters."

Laura Denk - "Bob and I were discussing before, the idea that the chapter is currently written, that the guidelines are currently written in an agency specific way, so that we have an FBI rule, and a CIA rule, and a NSA rule. Bob raised the question of whether the Board wants to discuss in the chapter....to the documents and he thought that, well he said should chapter four discuss the ways in which the Review Board gained knowledge or experience in the review of one agency's records that informed its decisions on the records of other agencies. So, that if the CIA came up with an argument in the release of records and we heard the same argument from another agency, say the NSA or FBI, that what we did with one agency might spill over into the other, and we were curious to hear your thoughts and again a cross pollination."

Dr. Henry Graff - "That's the kind of thing that belongs in there, a description, how we got as you say, from four documents that we couldn't decide upon to a release of over 50,000. You know, modern journalism is full of beginning a story with an anecdote which is a terrible way to begin, it's the old Saturday Evening Post style and we don't want to get into that, but this kind of thing, we were instructing one agency out of the experience we had with another agency, kind of check-kiting that we did."

Dr. William Joyce - "I think it's actually quite important to be able to do that, because for one thing it will create a broader precedent of application and it will show the potential for how records in a certain sense are reflective of government activities that do have certain common attributes and I would hope that the fact that it is done in agency A would have application in another place and in another time and that there would be some way of evaluating this. You don't want to be blind to conflicts and circumstances but you certainly want to be able to draw reasonable inferences. So, I think that is a very important thing to be able to do.

"Now we are beginning to reach the point where some of the impact of our earlier decisions may come back to us and even for us to become more aware of some of the precedents that we have been in the process of setting."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Is there no difference between the national security agencies, as you think of them, NSA, (more but it's obliterated by noise) and the FBI? Though somehow in my own mind I had the sense that the FBI was almost stand alone in its insistence on closure of certain items. This has been fairly consistent throughout the national security establishment as opposed to the FBI which had its own set (of standards). I think we've learned but it wasn't the same.

Laura Denk - "I guess we could talk about [how] we learned a lot of rules, a lot of lessons....."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "I think just to add on to that the detail that is here is important as a matter of original intent because once we are gone those who will come to the documents yet to be released or have been postponed for a variety of reasons, individuals other than us, will be asked to consider those and there is always the opportunity for appeal to the President. So whoever will be the spokespersons for us in the future, we need to arm them with sufficient insight into how we reached our decisions that they can advocate in favor of the openness which we have so, which we have pursued with such vigor.

"And in fact, I think that this chapter especially, while probably saying it directly would be inappropriate, it is the case that this, I think, will become one of the key chapters as a guide to the interpretation of this, of this "common law". And second is that the question that you and Bob, I think, have raised is kind of at the core of what is lacking in this chapter. It's good, and it's kind of like a scenario, you set the writer down and you say, `I've good news and I've bad news. The good news is you've got your draft done, the bad news is it's a draft.' And I think that perhaps the best way to address these concerns, the ability to get to the principal part of what we have been doing, that it is worth remembering that overwhelmingly we have opened documents. So this has been a very principled activity in favor of openness and how do you get to that point? How did the board get, why is it that half of these documents remain closed? And I think that what's occurred is that there has been a lot of running across a variety of documents and when you run across a variety of documents, it is very, very difficult for an agency, for example, PFIAB to make or insist that it has exclusivity with regard to a particular set of arrangements. And I think making that point is a critical one and what it will effectively do will I think will not only lift up the detail which is central to the original intent but it will also carry the larger message: the power of this group to open."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Common sense is that way, that is to say you had a much keener, a much better way to deal with something like that, because we already went after CIA stuff knowing what was in it, that's why I say the whole national defense, the whole national security establishment worked in that way

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Well, there is a chapter on standards. I guess that is what we will end up calling it. And one of the great books in the history of American law is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Common Law" (to Dr. Graff), you want some bedtime reading? (laughs) but as a guide, you know, the book is still authoritatively cited for baseline principles on American common law. So I think that I want to make it (the Final Report) as accessible as possible. I want to make sure that whoever comes back to this understands as clearly as possible what drove us to those decisions."

Judge Tunheim - "Perhaps that is the best way to do it, a combination of this providing the details which I find very readable and good with the kind of overview at the beginning."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Well, yeah, like the old argument with the Ph.D. thesis, `You made this too long and in order to shorten it, I suggest you add the following' and that is what we're saying here. This is a long segment and we have to have is a long running start in order to get over the high-board fence."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Well it is a chapter that has no definitive end."

unknown - "That's true."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Since we are not writing the Great American Mystery novel here, we probably have an end conclusion that can be added to other conclusions or summaries or at least can be broadly encompassed.

"I do think there is a pretty profound potential conflict here between `I want to make this accessible' and `I want to make this, um-"

Dr. William Joyce - "Comprehensive."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Comprehensive, and a guide, and in the end for me, the comprehensiveness of it needs to be weighed quite heavily because this is it, this is our chance to explain and on an issue as critical as this I'm actually less concerned that it make it to the Rexall Drugstore [bookshelf] than I am that in some point in the future somebody has to make a decision not just about the documents that remain postponed but a decision about what does the JFK Act tell us that would inform other documentary declassification efforts that its there."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Well, I don't think any of us thinks this is going to be popular reading. When we say "accessible" we want that people who can read it to read it. I kind of disagree in the sense that I don't think that you, why do you need to choose one or the other? I think we can figure out a way to have exactly what you need in terms of specificity, I have to agree with you on that, and still have either a narrative beginning or an executive summary or something of that sort that sets up the context, however it works out. It depends on other chapters, too."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Well, I think I indicated what my concerns are.

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Well..."

Dr. Kermit hall - "I hope it registered with my other colleagues and the staff as well."

Judge Tunheim - "Any other discussions? Jeremy, do you have any discussions on this chapter?"

Jeremy Gunn - "I think it's on its way."

Judge Tunheim - "I think it seems to be well along in the process"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "How about the process generally? We've got a time table here, how is it going?"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Umm, how is it going?"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Where are we with the various pieces of the report?"

Judge Tunheim - "Chapter one. Joe has been working on it, is that correct?

Jeremy Gunn - "Joe has submitted a draft which came in last week, which I have not read yet. I don't think anyone here has read it yet."

Laura Denk - "Kevin has read it."

Jeremy Gunn - "He is also making edits to it and should have another draft, I assume, in the next day or two. He manages the (jokingly) Phoenix office of the Assassination Records Review Board. He has been asking questions and doing research questions for the last two weeks and has been bombarding, particularly Doug, with questions to prepare the introduction. Although I haven't seen it Joe is quite conscientious and I have great hopes for it."

Judge Tunheim - "Is he doing Part B as well? Is that part of the draft or is that part-"

Jeremy Gunn - "That part is essentially on hold. There was a discussion in the last meeting of turning that into an Appendix. Joe has not been working on a section by section analysis."

Judge Tunheim - "Was that something that Joe was going to do or not?"

Jeremy Gunn - "No, that would be something that Ron would do and it depends partly on what the direction of the report is generally. The presumption that I had in my mind for that particular section is that it would go through and identify the provisions of the statute that were important either for the operations of the Board, or, well principally the operations for the Board the one section of the statute that is not there would be the one that is covered by Chapter 4, it would be the things that did or did not work so well. It is something that I would imagine is and, Ron doesn't like it when I say this sort of thing, this is the least scintillating reading of anything in the report. And I think Anna suggested the last time, if I remember correctly, that that be an appendix and that may well be an appropriate thing something that would be useful for someone setting up another agency like this but not the kind of thing that anybody is going to, particularly care about.

"Section by section analysis to my mind is probably more detailed than it would be but just to go through and highlight important things, just to use one example, is the confusion that we had over the subpoena. There are two subpoena provisions of the statute that they are to some extent inconsistent. My own guess is that that was part of the legislative process that [they] didn't quite work the thing out but it would be identifying issues of that sort and this is, in a sense, has little to do with the actual work of the Review Board but it would be part of the statutory background."

Judge Tunheim - "My own view is that we should get the draft of that back on track and we can decide later if it is better [or more] appropriate-"

Dr. William Joyce - "A possibility."

Judge Tunheim - "-for an appendix-"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Oh yeah."

Judge Tunheim - "-and we should keep that on track for the rest of chapter one."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "So, that would be up to Ron, or Ron and Joe together?"

Jeremy Gunn - "The way that I had imagined it, and I'm not sure how his will go in the future, but the way I had imagined it is Ron would write that part. Joe would not be particularly involved with that or be much less involved in it."

Judge Tunheim - "He is working on the legislative history?"

Jeremy Gunn - "Joe? Yes. Again the conception is everything up until the creation of the Board is what Joe would do. So from the assassination itself, the prior investigations, the problems, which to my mind or the theme that I had suggested to Joe was one of the biggest problems of the Kennedy assassination, obviously in addition to the death of the President himself, has been the secrecy surrounding it and how the prior attempts did not end the secrecy but in many cases they promoted the secrecy, that setting the theme up thematically that the Board is the one that then tries to deal with the problem by opening the records, pursuing records that have not been found before."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "So this will be done by?"

Judge Tunheim - "Well, it's a draft of the first part."

Jeremy Gunn - "The draft, I think the really important part of Chapter One, the most interesting part that sets it up, that is now completed. Again, I have not read that myself. But that is done in draft form."

Judge Tunheim - "And Chapter Two, Eileen, are you working on that?"

Eileen Sullivan - "That's right."

Judge Tunheim - "How far along is that at this time?"

Eileen Sullivan - "I have a first draft which I can give to you."

Dr. William Joyce - "Does that include 1E? A short summary of the Board's actions on records?"

Eileen Sullivan - "Yes, it's short because all of those issues are discussed in a handful of additional chapters which is noted in that section of this chapter."

Dr. William Joyce - "So, there is already some nature of a summary built into the structure of the work as we look at it now, whether it remains there-"

Dr. Henry Graff - "Or whether we want it all over."

Dr. William Joyce - "Right."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "If I could just go back to Chapter One and raise-"

End of Side A

Start Side B

Dr. Kermit Hall - (continuing) ... "In terms of making the report accessible and framing the issues that will draw people into it, certainly A will do it. And it becomes the explanation of why the Board was created and the issues around it and then B ends up far more on the technical side, it seems to me. If you couple those, you would wind up with a real strong Chapter One in terms of sketching the broad issues and then a Chapter Two would be very much more detail oriented."

Jeremy Gunn - "Let me try just a little bit of a correction. When we were referring to `B' before I did not have a copy of the outline in front of me. I was referring to `B sub B' for the section by section analysis, and that I have since learned was taken out. Partly, as I was thinking about this, what is now A and B was at one point two different chapters and then they went back to one chapter and partly what I thought is let's see how it looks when it comes out. Because I think that can be a very, I think even the first draft that the Board saw was those were two separate chapters and that would be a, something to see how it works out, but that would be something that makes sense."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Yes, and in the age of word processing it is possible to add Chapter 1 to Chapter 2. "

Dr. William Joyce - "Right, that's real quick."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "I guess one of my points is, in light of what Bill and Anna are saying that accessibility is not just in the prose but in the organization as well-"

Dr. William Joyce - "Absolutely."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "and some of these are much more thematic, and I think will have-"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "That's right."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "-will have, will draw reader interest."

Dr. Henry Graff - "It is also true that in a good composition, there should be relative comparability to the length of chapters. It may not be possible to do this. Split that, but I agree, that we aught to take a look."

Dr. William Joyce - "This is good, something to look at."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Maybe we could bring Congressman (?) in here

(Dr. Graff laughs)

Judge Tunheim - "Anything yet on Chapter 3?"

Jeremy Gunn - "That's one that is, was, relatively recently created and there haven't been deadlines set, so that is a-"

Judge Tunheim - "Is there a draft?"

Jeremy Gunn - " There is not a draft on that."

Judge Tunheim - "And Chapter 4 we have already talked about."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Chapter 5?"

Judge Tunheim - "Yeah, Chapter 5."

unknown (an ARRB staffer. Joe?) - "Chapter 5, I am principally responsible for. And I have to admit I have missed the first deadline. So I do not have a complete draft for you, I have started on it and I think I can have a draft for you by the next time that you are here. And I mean I envision that pretty much as an agency by agency description of, kind of, general compliance issues and I'd be happy to hear any ideas you may have for that and if you want to know more specifically what I'm thinking about I'd be happy to do that too. And I apologize for not having a draft ready."

Jeremy Gunn - "To some extent this is a conception that I was working with. And the various authors may not be entirely comfortable with the conception or maybe they are comfortable with it but just saying how I was understanding this one is to be largely a series of questions that would be posed or answered to each agency so it will be following something like a formula. Where I would imagine that the agencies themselves where the CIA will say well what are they saying about the CIA and they will immediately go to that part of the chapter. Some people would be interested in what the NSA did or what is PFIAB(?) and what kind of records do they have? So this would be written although entirely in prose it would be done by agency with a few sorts of questions coming up over and over. It's the kind that would, that in my conception would be not scintillating in that it is not a detective story but it is letting the public know what the agencies did to comply with the statute, whether they produced records that they were asked to produce , whether they completed their review on time. And Ron early on, early on worked out a draft for the types of questions that would be available for, or that should be posed to each of the agencies."

Dr. William Joyce - "Presumably, if there were recurrent issues, we might, they would lend themselves to a summary discussion and overview, what follows?"

Jeremy Gunn - "I think that some of the other chapters would have some of the continuing themes. I think that Chapter 3 is one that is going to have the kinds of problems that we ended up having with agencies typically but to the extent that there are two or three agencies and it is not an overall thing that would be an appropriate place to draw thematic conclusions as well."

Judge Tunheim - "Chapter 6?"

ARRB staffer (Michelle Coombs?)- "Chapter 6 is a chapter with many authors and many holes. It is perhaps the one that is getting the most contributors. At the moment it is very rough. We are still looking at a first draft for you by August 6th.

Judge Tunheim - "Good."

Michelle Coombs - "We are still waiting for some things to come in. Some requests need to be fulfilled in order to be written about and a number of contributors need to submit reports."

Jeremy Gunn - "Chapter 6 is one of the, I think for the people who are interested in the Kennedy assassination, as opposed to interested in the process of declassification, that will be one of the chapters that is most interesting for them. The problem in creating that is that there are dozens and dozens of issues that come up and it is hard to deal with any of the issues, although one could write a chapter about many of the issues. It is largely trying to identify the different types of records that would be of interest. It is a massive process to try and bring all that together."

unknown (Doug Horne?) - "Some sections are already done."

Jeremy Gunn - "There is a lot that has been done. I don't know how many pages."

Michelle Coombs - "Some sections are done but the outline itself is almost 15 pages.

Dr. Kermit Hall - "It can be a critical chapter."

Michelle Coombs - "It is indeed."

Judge Tunheim - "OK, Chapter 7. The Board has spent some time on it in its past meetings and is continuing to do that. We have at least an outline that we are working from last time that Dr. Joyce put together."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "We have certainly come to a great many agreements."

Judge Tunheim - "The Appendices? Anything to report on that? Is that largely done? Tracy?

Tracy Shycroft - "Done."

Judge Tunheim - "Done. The summary of records has essentially been done as we have gone along."

Jeremy Gunn - "We have all of the data on that. Pete has been, has run a few different sorts of searches through his, `cause we wanted to do some practices. So we would like to make this as comprehensive as possible at the end. So that we will have done run-throughs to be able to print out the kind of data that we want, make sure that the system is working so that we can take the last reasonable, the idea that I would have is that one week before it would, one would hope the final to be done is to have everything that is available by that week run out and that would then be at least what would be available the following week to try to get something that is updated and provided there are no glitches, which there shouldn't be, then that would be able to come out. We would at least have something a week before the end."

Dr. Henry Graff - "What are we doing about staff members? Are we just putting their names? Their cities, where they live, or what?"

(laughter)

"I notice there is no place for board members."

(many talk at once)

unknown - " a title page, "Starring...."

unknown - "So people can see here they live? (Laughter)

(Everyone talking at once)

Judge Tunheim - "batting averages."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "Yeah, batting averages."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Well, we have such an interesting group. Yeah, batting averages, that's what we need."

unknown - "How about the town where they came from? You don't want to say Washington."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Yeah, that's how the Federal government does commissions and has since George Washington's time. They put the state."

unknown - "Where they were born or where they were formed, depending on-"

Dr. Henry Graff - "That's right."

Dr. William Joyce - (jokingly) "Where they died."

(All talking at once)

Dr. Anna Nelson - "The time I was on the commission [I don't know which commission Dr. Nelson is referring to.] all I had was a name."

Dr. Henry Graff - "On your commission? Maybe they didn't know where you came from."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "One of the pieces of information-

Dr. Henry Graff - (incredulously) "Really? Your commission it doesn't say?"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "The Public Documents Commission? Or the, [nope] just names'

(they try to continue.)

Judge Tunheim - "Kermit here."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "All I want to say is if you are thinking about biographical information, it might be of use to subsequent researchers looking at the work of the Board and using this as an entry point providing information on education and previous work experience could be a great asset because those who would come and analyze how we deployed our staff could then link talent and experience education to the kind of duties that were assigned. I think it would also give a nice breakdown of the different occupations that we brought in to the Board."

Jeremy Gunn - "Just for clarification for me, that is certainly included for the Board. Were you thinking of doing that for the staff as well?"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Absolutely, it is for the staff. Yes."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Otherwise a list of names wouldn't be satisfactory, for all of the parents of all of the people."

(big laughter)

Jeremy Gunn - "Tracy has a big smile on her face knowing what that entails."

Laura Denk - "No home addresses please."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Or faxes."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "And certainly no Social Security numbers."

unknown - "Yeah, right."

Judge Tunheim - "I think that is a good suggestion to have a brief biographical sketch of the staff members, nothing extensive obviously but a background, education, etc."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "And anybody who does comes to this and I think there will be people who will come to study the work of the Board one of the first places they go is to the staff."

Judge Tunheim - "Anything else on the appendices?"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "Well, I had another, this has to do with the deadline for the final printout of the, of some of these records and it raises the more general question of when we expect to deal with the report, both having a completed document, and then serving the document to the appropriate audiences, the President perhaps and other individuals or groups but I don't think September the 29th is going to work for this, and I know this is a draft, I guess that I would hope that by September the 15th that this exercise would be completed, and that would give us then approximately two weeks to work, for purposes of what we need to do not the least of which is to allow colleagues, critics, and others to digest the report and then come to us and say, hey.

Dr. William Joyce - "I think the 15th at the latest, and I think this might bear some more thought actually."

Dr. Kermit Hall - "I mention the 15th only because it is two weeks to question, but I am very appreciative of all that the staff has done, but I think it is going to be a hard march especially with five potential editors to get all of this done."

Dr. Anna Nelson - "The trouble really is new things, new records all of a sudden, out of the blue."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Please."

Judge Tunheim - "That would be a useful exercise this week to go through it based on current realities for all aspects of it. Anything else? Any other comment on the report? Any other business to come before the Board today?"

Jeremy Gunn - "Yes, the next meeting, to close portions of the August 6th meeting."

Dr. William Joyce - "I so move."

Judge Tunheim - "Is there a motion, is there a second?"

Dr. Anna Nelson - "I'll second."

Judge Tunheim - "Any discussion? All those in favor say, `Aye."

All - "Aye."

Judge Tunheim - "Opposed?"

(no response)

"Carried. 5 to zero. Okay, anything else?"

Dr. Kermit Hall - "May I move to adjourn?"

Judge Tunheim - "You may. Is there a second?"

Dr. William Joyce - "Second."

Dr. Henry Graff - "Second."

Judge Tunheim - "Discussion?"

(no response)

"All in favor of adjournment say `Aye."

All - "Aye."

Judge Tunheim - "Opposed?"

(no response)

"Meeting is adjourned, thank you."

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