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From Joseph Backes: Dr. Anna Nelson, former ARRB Board member gave a presentation at the Intelligence History Study Group on June 20, 1999 in Tutzing (near Munich), Germany. Here it is courtesy of Ralph Schuster.
OPENING THE DOOR TO INTELIGENCE HISTORY:
THE EXAMPLE OF THE
KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD
Historians of World War II and the Cold War are now painfully aware of the black hole in their research. From the time of Ultra and the Enigma machine to the current era of spy satellites, intelligence records have remained carefully hidden within the black hole. First, records from World War II gradually emerged. Then the end of the Cold War brought new information from Russian and East European Archives and inspired release of the transcribed coded messages (operation Venona) from Soviet diplomats and agents in the U.S. to Moscow. Other important additions to our knowledge of twentieth century history have also emerged. For example, the CIA has been releasing intelligence estimates of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. As is often the case, the U.S., under pressure from the public, remains in the vanguard.
For most of its fifty year existence, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been, perhaps, the most notorious intelligence agency in the world. Guilty of many unsavory acts, it is often accused of deeds never considered (1). It is an object of suspicion by citizens of the U.S. as well as those around the world.
One of the accusations levied against the CIA (and the FBI) involved the traumatic assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Many Americans were convinced that the CIA was involved in a vast conspiracy against the former president, a conviction shared by Oliver Stone's movie on the assassination "JFK".
There had, of course, been several investigations of possible conspiracy as a cause of Kennedy's assassination. One, immediately after Kennedy's death (Warren Commission), and three from 1975-1976. Each of these investigations had concluded there was no conspiracy and hence cleared the agency of participating in one, but, because of national security, documents substantiating their conclusions were not released to the public. Finally, in 1992, the U.S. Congress decided to open the records. Agencies, including the CIA, were required to put documents related to the assassination in the National Archives. To further reassure the public the act also created the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), an independent Board whose function was to seek additional documents and to examine those documents the agencies refused to release. The Review Board had the power to release documents if they disagreed with the agency's conclusion.
The five member board, four historians and one lawyer, was finally selected by the president, given top-secret security clearances, and approved by the Senate in April 1994. It issued a report and closed its doors on October 1, 1998 (2).
The Kennedy Records Act, however, had unanticipated consequences. Members of the ARRB agreed on a definition of an "assassination record" that went far beyond November 22, 1963 because it also included records that enhanced the historical understanding of th event, a category broadly interpreted.
Among those who had cause to assassinate the president, were the Cuban exiles who were abandoned in the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Indeed, Cuba marked Kennedy's greatest foreign policy disaster and greatest triumph. Examining the CIA involvement in Cuba and with Cuban emigrees from 1961-1963 the Review Board brought countless CIA records into public view, records the agency never planned to release for public perusal. These records constitute the largest collection of CIA internal records that has ever been released. These are the records I will discuss today.
The researcher who opens the boxes containing these records will be opening a kind of intelligence history of the CIA from 1960-1964. It is specific rather than general since the information centers around Florida, Mexico and Cuba, but even retired CIA officers agree that what can be learned about the CIA from this relatively small sample was applicable throughout the agency in the 1960s and may still be relevant today.
Many CIA operations in the 1960s were exposed in 1976 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. While this committee was formed to examine the CIA's involvement in the assassination of foreign leaders, it released information about the CIA that startled most Americans, who did not realize the extent of that agency's activities. Other information about the CIA can be found in journals, memoirs, conference papers, and the front page of the "New York Times".
With all this information available what is so different and new about the documents in the JFK assassination file? What more can we learn given the undeniable need for certain restrictions? The answer is threefold: They reveal certain details for the first time; confirm many that we already knew; and lead us to conclusions that are still being debated and denied.
First, the CIA is revealed as a very bureaucratic agency, with all that description connotes. Cables and Memoranda fly back and forth between the stations, the Western Hemisphere chief and the Director of Plans (now the Director of Operations) among others. During "Operation Mongoose", an operation to overthrow Castro's government, there were even more layers. One CIA officer was in charge of arranging Castro's demise and another was in charge of overthrowing the Cuban government. Both left a paper trail. Except for their subject matter (sabotaging sugar mills, for example) the memoranda appear to be typical of all government agencies. One difference was the layer between the DCI and the President. These documents confirm the fact that the president was always carefully given deniability for any foreign venture.
Although the CIA (like other government agencies) has clearly destroyed large quantities of records over the years, the number of records in its files is surprising, clearly this is another byproduct of bureaucracy. Unfortunately, given the "need to know" syndrome of intelligence agencies, internal files are hard to find. There are "archives" but no finding aids. Even open access to the files can be very limited in nature so that research with the top secret security clearances is still very frustrating.
Second, the records in this collection reveal the sources of the agencies information and the methods used to obtain it. Not every source or method, of course, since releasing the names of some sources would jeopardize those individuals still alive. Nevertheless this is unusual documentation of new information and conformation of information found only in secondary literature. The CIA, like its counterparts, has always refused to reveal sources and methods no matter how inncuous or how old the information.
Of course these are sources used by intelligence agencies around the world, but the details not only add colour, they help researchers evaluate the information and the method of obtaining it. Information is only as good as its source. Wiretapping is obviously a more reliable source than second hand information from an emigree.
These examples [transparencies] illustrate the methods used in Mexico City in 1963 for surveillance and the source of information gleaned from wire taps.
In addition to sources and methods, the CIA (and counterparts) carefully shelter their liaisons with security agencies in other countries, especially our closest allies. The wire taps enumerated here, however, hint at the fruit of the liaison with Mexico. It would be difficult to plant this many taps in 1963 without the knowledge of the host government. For this reason, the CIA argued repeatedly against the release of this information, and continued to carefully analyze all documents mentioning liaison. Ultimately, they won the battle and lost the war. The word liaison and the crypt for local police or security agencies were covered, but the information in the documents generally make the connection quite clear (3).
Researchers may be disappointed if they seek names of CIA employees, especially those who have spent their entire professional lives under cover. The CIA is adament about protecting the names of their own employees, and, in many instances, for good reason. This protection is almost biblical, however, since it goes from generation to generation even after the death of the CIA officer. The ARRB would not accept this policy or other generic exemptions based upon the "we-have-always-done-it-this-way." Unfortunately, the State and Defense Departments had equally strong sentiments about revealing the fact that they harbor agents under cover. As a compromise, names of living agents (especially those living in foreign countries) were protected. But unless a deceased agent's family was in jeopardy, pseudonyms were discarded and true names substituted.
Not every CIA originated documents rests in CIA files. Many are in the Defense Department. That department was instructed to support the CIA efforts to create dissention and unrest in Cuba so that Castro would be toppled by his own people. Aside from the foolish ideas they passed along to the CIA, (airdropping valid one-way airline tickets good to passage to Mexico City and Caracas to encourage unrest) there is interesting information about the relationship between the CIA and groups it funds to carry out U.S. interests. In this case, the groups are Cuban. Two aspects of this kind of CIA activity become clear: first, the client groups never cease their demand for money and meetings with those in authority. Since the groups are never united, the parceling of money becomes a diplomatic chore in itself; second, when such groups are no longer a priority, they continue to cost money because they must continually be pacified. Thus, after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion to rally the Cuban population, the failure to assassinate Castro, and the ineffectiveness of sabotage, the U.S. continued to support the emigree groups with CIA funds. Clearly it is easier to organize dissident groups than to disband them (4).
Finally, this collection, more than any other in American archives, illustrates the culture of the intelligence agency and the culture of secrecy. The CIA, like other such agencies, has its own language: higher authority (the president or his top advisers), assets (who may not know they are regarded as agents or sources), crypts (often amusing such as LIcooky). But it primarily thrives on the language of ambiguity. Interviews with former CIA officials such as Richard Helms provide many examples. The Committee was looking for information on the presumed plan for assassinating Fidel Castro, among others. No one would admit to ever hearing about such a plan or receiving such a direction, but readily admitted that it was perfectly clear that the "desire was to get of rid of Castro and the Castro regime." Were there plans, the Senators asked. No plans. But they were directed to use all means necessary. Plans were not necessary when the task could be accomplished by the ambigous language of "higher authority." (5)
What cannot be found in this collection of CIA documents is as instructive as the information readily found. Did the flurry of activity we read about matter to the formulation of American foreign policy? Was the impact far greater on the receiving end abroad than the formulating end at the White House? This collection does not tell us what the president knew and how he used the information. But together with the documents in the FRUS series on Cuba, and the testimony of participants, the CIA sources do lead to one conclusion. The CIA was not a "rogue elephant" in 1961-1963, and probably is not one today. Its information is often wrong (or wrongheaded), and its 50 years of existence riddled with mistakes and misperceptions, but when it embarks on a covert action in another country, it does so at the direction of the White House. Ultimately, President Kennedy, not the CIA, was responsibility for meddling in Cuba with such ambigous directions that the agency assumed assassination was always on the table. And in spite of the preferred belief that the CIA is an agency out of control, it remains subject to the President and in the mainstream of U.S. policy.
Prof. Anna Nelson
(1) The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed by NATO after the CIA
supposedly supplied intelligence from an out-of-date map. Eveidently on the
assumption that the CIA would not make such a mistake, the Chinese refused to
believe that the CIA and NATO had not planned the attack.
(2) Over 4 million pages were ultimately released to the National Archives,
most of which were FBI records.
(3) This information is in the Lopez Report, CIA material in the HSCA files,
JFK Collection.
(4) JCS documents, JFK Collection
(5) See, for example, testimony of Richard Helms, Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, JFK Collection.
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