PRESENTATION AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
BY BRIAN LATELL
TO THE
SOCIETY FOR HISTORIANS OF
AMERICAN FOREIGN RELATIONS
20 June 1997
Over the last few years there has been a revolution in the way intelligence
records are researched and declassified for publication in Foreign
Relations volumes. The Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) at CIA
has put in place new policies and procedures that are working, and that
already are evident in published and soon-to-be published Foreign Relations
volumes.
Most importantly, CIA is now meeting all of the research and
declassification requirements and deadlines of the 1991 legislation.
- The first of them, as you know, is that we provided full and complete
access to our records. The distinguished CIA History Staff, which is a
component of the CSI, takes the lead with this responsibility by
providing vigorous and expert archival and research assistance to
State historians who compile the volumes. Our historians, all of whom
are specialists in intelligence history, often identify records and
themes for inclusion in volumes. One of the recent volumes on Cuba,
for example, was already in the queue for publication when two of our
historians advised a State colleague of important materials that they
thought should be included. I understand they were included, and that
the volume was better for the creative involvement of CIA historians.
Our Center works closely with the State historian and with other officials
there to assist in the publication of thorough and accurate documentary
diplomatic histories. We also have been highly responsive to the many
recommendations of the statutory Advisory Committee and its chairman, and
we welcome the suggestions and views of all concerned. It was the 1991
legislation, of course, that impelled most of these changes. But the
initiatives we have taken are ones that many in CIA--we historians in
particular--have advocated in principle for many years.
I'd like to tell you more specifically about the new policies and
procedures we have put in place since 1994, all of them in the spirit of
greater openness promised by a succession of CIA directors.
- First, we have taken steps to be certain that State researchers have
access to CIA finding aids. This has been a significant step forward
in being certain that we are providing the required full and complete
access to our records.
- Secondly, we have approved the use of CIA archival citations in
Foreign Relations volumes, and if you have looked closely at some
recent ones you will have noticed them. We advocated this
innovation--and it was a controversial one in the Agency--at the
urging of the Advisory Committee.
- In 1995, working with the most senior CIA officials, we established a
new high-level board to rule on contentious historical
declassification issues. It is called the Historical Records Policy
Board, and is chaired by the CIA Executive Director with participation
by nearly all of the Agency's top operating officials. I sit on this
Board and can assure you that the desires of the scholarly community
for greater CIA openness and accelerated declassification are
forcefully articulated there.
- A fourth innovation is that we have devoted substantially greater
resources to supporting Foreign Relations at all stages in the
process. Earlier this year the Center for the Study of Intelligence
appointed one of our senior officers as the Agency's Foreign Relations
coordinator. He spends between half and three fourths of his time
coordinating Foreign Relations issues and working with the State
Historian. Many other Center and CIA staff and contract officers are
also devoting greater time and effort to Foreign Relations. I guess I
have been spending, on average, a quarter to a third of my time on
these issues.
- Also, given the keen interest of State's Advisory Committee in
historical covert actions, CIA concurred with the Department of State
in the articulation of three principles that help shape the
declassification review of such records. The first of these principles
states that "The Department of State and CIA will be guided by the
general presumption that volumes . . . will disclose for the
historical record major covert actions undertaken as a matter of US
foreign policy." The second states that "Declassification review of
records of such covert actions will proceed on a case by case basis.
Negative determinations will be made only if there is reason to
believe that disclosure would cause damage to current national
security interests or reveal intelligence sources and methods or
otherwise reveal information protected by law." These were suggested
by the Advisory Committee. We worked initially to have them approve at
CIA, and since then have endeavored to be certain they are respected.
They have been.
- The third principle recognizes an important step that the Center for
the Study of Intelligence undertook in early 1995, when a high-level
inter-agency process was established to act as a final review of
declassification controversies. A panel chaired by the National
Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for Intelligence, and including
high-level CIA and State Department officials, convenes from time to
time to consider cases where broad US policy interests could be
affected by declassification decisions. This process has worked well.
- And finally, the seventh major initiative we are taking is that the
Foreign Relations Coordinator at our Center is now working with State
and NSC counterparts in an effort to develop new procedures at the
front end of the declassification review process for determining
whether historical covert actions should be acknowledged by the US
Government. This is also an innovation that has been recommended by
the Advisory Committee and one that we, quite independently, have also
advocated. After all, since the Kennedy administration covert actions
have been approved and directed at the White House. They are
national-level initiatives. Their potential acknowledgment and
declassification logically should be coordinated by the NSC with
attention both to impact on continuing intelligence interests and
current diplomatic relations with countries either involved or
affected.
Thus, as I've said, over the last few years there has been a revolution in
the way CIA supports Foreign Relations. The new policies and procedures I
have cited have resulted in much closer collaboration between CIA and State
and its Advisory Committee. Foreign Relations volumes are more
comprehensive. Important intelligence contributions to foreign policy are
now much more likely to be included in volumes. Research in intelligence
records and declassification review have been greatly expedited. Denials
and redaction of documents have been reduced as the Agency's new standards
of greater openness have been applied over the last few years. Very
high-level review bodies have been established and are functioning well.
There is no longer a possibility, in my view, that arbitrary,
uncoordinated, or unreviewed denials or records will be made by CIA. And
all this is the way it should be.
But, of course, we recognize another dimension of all this: the US
Government will not be able to release every line of every document that
State historians are likely to request for inclusion in Foreign Relations
volumes. And thus there likely will continue to be controversies that all
of us should discuss openly and constructively, and understand, in order to
minimize or even eliminate contention.
Generally, information is withheld because of both intelligence and current
policy concerns. My experience has been that at the appeals stages of
declassification review it is just as likely to be one as the other.
- For example, a sitting US ambassador may object to release of 30 year
old information, concerning perhaps a covert action in the country
where accredited, arguing that declassification would do great damage
to current diplomatic relations. There may be instances where the
timing of publication of a volume is particularly unfortunate in this
regard.
- Acknowledging a long-past covert action or intelligence collection
activity, and then publishing details of its implementation and
objectives, might do damage to important current US interests in one
or more countries. These might be diplomatic, intelligence, legal or
other interests.
- Details that could compromise still sensitive intelligence sources or
methods cannot be revealed as long as doing so could reasonably be
expected to endanger individuals who covertly cooperated with the US
Government, or endanger their families. People in their 70s, 80s or
90s today, who may have cooperated with the United States three or
four decades ago, cannot be abandoned or endangered.
- And, of course, we are not at liberty unilaterally to declassify
records that might impact on the cooperative activities of third
countries.
So, despite all of the constructive initiatives that have been taken over
the last few years in support of thorough and accurate Foreign Relations
volumes, new declassification controversies perhaps cannot be avoided. My
personal hope, as a professional historian, a university professor, and a
long-time foreign intelligence officer, is that these controversies can be
discussed openly and constructively and that understanding by all of us of
each others interests and constraints will sustain a scholarly dialogue.
