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104-10337-10014 JFK Assassination Records Archives 1 (11/24/1998)

handle is hein.jfk/jfkarch84015 and id is 1 raw text is: 104-10337-10014  2023 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992



                                             2000
                                                     24 November,  1998

             Memo for the Record

             Subject:  JFK Records Review - Lessons Learned

                  The CIA's JFK Collection is made up primarily of
             records pulled together for the Warren Commission, House
             Select Committee on Assassinations  (HSCA) and the    -
             Assassinations Records Review Board  (ARRB).' It contains a
             significant amount of duplication and non-JFK related
             material.  The current index is flawed and contains gaps.
             Release standards were liberal; basically only source
             identities and information, names of agents, employees under
             cover, Agency locations and foreign liaison activities were
             redacted. There is no evidence in the Collection to indicate
             that the Warren Commission conclusions were wrong.

             I. The JFK Act                                        -

                  Mandated review and declassification projects can be
             two-edged swords.  The JFK Act forced the Agency to review
             records that should have been opened years ago.  The legal
             requirement to presume release, backed up by an independent
             review, resulted in the opening of documents that clearly
             would not have been released under .other programs. However,
             the Act and the Review Board created by the Act imposed un-
             realistic deadlines, inflexible standards and procedures
             which created a major drain on all Agency review resources
             and had an over-all negative effect on the Agency's release
             program.

                  Unrealistic Deadlines:   The release dates set by the
            Act  did not take into account the start-up tim(e and costs
            (searches,  inventorying and indexing) of a project of this
            magnitude,  nor the time it would then take for a page-by-
            page  review and- sanitization of classified documents. For
            example,  initial indexing of the collection was done o( a
            crash  basis using overtime employees and resulted in a
            flawed  database.  The revising, re-indexing and updating of
            that  database took several thousand man-hours and continues
            today.

                 Mandated  Procedures:   NARA's and ARRB's interpretation
            of the  law created a time-consuming, labor-intensive review
            process  that meant an inordinate amount of time was spent by
            both  the Agency and Board staff on issues which were
            marginal  to the story and to processing decisions by the
            Board.   For example:

                 a.  Under  the JFK Act every piece of paper in the
            collection  was considered a unique assassination record.
            The result  is a staggering amount of chaff and duplication.

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