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.