Report from CIA's Historical Review Panel
January 2014

The Director, Central Intelligence Agency's Historical Review Panel (HRP) was formed in 1995, replacing a panel that was less formally organized and that had met only episodically. Since then, the HRP has met twice a year, with the mandate to:

• Advise the Central Intelligence Agency on systematic and automatic declassification review under the provisions of Executive Order 13526.

• Assist in developing subjects of historical and scholarly interest for the Intelligence Community declassification review program.

• Advise CIA and the Intelligence Community on declassification issues in which the protection of intelligence sources and methods potentially conflicts with mandated declassification priorities.

• Provide guidance for the historical research and writing programs of the CIA History Staff, and when appropriate, review draft products.

• Advise Information Management Services on its mandatory and voluntary declassification review initiatives and the Center for the Study of Intelligence on its academic outreach programs.

• At the request of the Director of Central Intelligence Agency, advise on other matters of relevance to the intelligence and academic communities.

• Advise Information Management Services on archival and records management issues.

The HRP, like the other DCIA panels, is convened by the Director to provide him with confidential advice and assessments. Because the HRP's advice to the DCIA must be completely frank and candid, we are not reporting Panel recommendations. But because this panel's primary concern is the program of declassification and the release of information to the public, the DCIA and the Panel concluded that it should inform the interested public of the subjects and problems that the Panel is discussing.

At our meeting on December 11-12, 2013 we discussed progress and problems with CIA's contributions to the _Foreign Relations of the United States_ (FRUS) series, and for this were joined by the State Department's Chief Historian and members of the Historical Advisory Committee. We discussed the reorganization and the replacement of the Historical Collections Division with a Historical Program Coordinator who will be able to draw on declassification resources and expertise throughout the Office of Information Management Services. Plans for the release of President's Daily Briefs (PDBs) at least 40 years old were presented and analyzed, as were the guidelines for the release of documents 50 years old and older.

We also discussed issues of records retention and declassification plans for drafts of documents, which are not subject to requests under FOIA or DMDR. We met with Director Brennan to give him our impressions and recommendations.

We will meet again in June 2014.

Professor Robert Jervis (Chair)
Department of Political Science
Columbia University

Professor Melvyn Leffler
Department of History
University of Virginia

Professor Thomas Newcomb
Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice
Heidelberg College

Professor Jeffrey Taliaferro
Department of Political Science
Tufts University

Professor Ruth Wedgwood
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Johns Hopkins University