NOTE FROM THE NARA - May 2019
William Kelly:
This is in response to your April 17, 2019, request
for information about the records of the JFK Assassination Records Collection.
Specifically you are seeking information on the whereabouts of the Office of
Naval Intelligence (ONI) Defector File reviewed by the Assassination
Records Review Board (ARRB) and declared to Not Believed Relevant (NBR). We
received your request on April 18, 2019.
The ONI Defector file was
declared NBR as it did not mention Oswald and was exclusively about
eastern bloc persons who defected to the west. The ARRB also decided
to not include the file with the Assassination Records Collection because it
was NBR and thus it was not included in the 2017/2018 release. The
file is still here, it is just is not part of Collection.
The file is still restricted, so it would be
necessary to file a FOIA request for the file. In your request please
be sure to mention that you have already had the JFK Assassination Records
Collection searched and the records are not pert of the Collection.
We regret that we could not be of more assistance to
you. If you have any further questions, please feel free to respond by return
e-mail or by calling (301) 837-1993.
Gene Morris
Archives II Textual Reference Branch (RDT2)
Room 2400
BK NOTES: So after releasing thousands of really un-relevant records under the JFK Act - many on the race riots and anti-war protests of the 60s, as well as a relevant record labeled NBR - Not Believed Relevant - the Collins Radio record, they are now saying that the ONI Defector File, that was clearly labeled a JFK Assassination record by Navy Lt. Commander Terri Pike, was not considered relevant and not given a RIF number or released among the other NBR records.
According to the archivist this ONI Defector file does not include the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, and therefore is not believed relevant. Well since LHO did not kill the President and had very little to do with the Dealey Plaza operation, it is not significant that his name is not among those mentioned in these documents.
As we have seen, this record was given special priority treatment by the Office of Naval Intelligence, so much so that Lt. Commander Terri Pike was repremanded and relieved of her duties because of it.
How many other similar records are being illegally withheld in full that we aren't aware of ?
I intend to file an FOIA request and visit the NARA to review this record, as well as other records on my FOIA list (ie. Smithsonian NPIC records).
Please support JFKCountercoup and this research:
THE TORTURED TRAIL OF THE ONI DEFECTOR FILE
Today what is known as the “ONI Defector File” – .08
cubic feet of paper textural documents, are stored in two boxes that sit in on
a shelf a highly secure, dark, windowless, temperature controlled vault at the
Archives II in College Park, Maryland.
They were ostensibly to remain there until October 24,
2017 when the law required that it be open and made available to the public as
part of the JFK Records Collection. But that didn’t happen because the Office
of Naval Intelligence – ONI officially requested that the President continue to
withhold it indefinitely for reasons of national security, and President Trump,
after espousing conspiracy theories on the assassination and repeatedly
promising to release all of the records, reversed course and delayed the release of the records for a number of years.
While the JFK Act of 1992 has so far been successful
in releasing many millions of records, the law has also been intentionally
thwarted by a number of government agencies, including the Secret Service, the
CIA and the Office of Naval Intelligence; some would say especially the Office
of Naval Intelligence.
As Peter Dale Scott suggests, our attention should
not be totally focused on the millions of pages of documents that have been
released, but on the ones still being withheld.
They tell us that the number of records still being
withheld is less than 1 % of all the records released, but they can’t tell us
what that number is – how many records are still being withheld for reasons of
national security?
They should be able to tell us exactly how many
records have been released so far because they have given each one of those
records a number – a Record Identification File (RIF) number and form – the
form detailing the RIF, the title of the record, who created it, who it is from
and to, names of those mentioned and the number of pages.
It is difficult, if not impossible to request a
record from the JFK Collection at Archives II without a RIF number, and I think
it may be a requirement to provide a RIF number to obtain a document.
Since you can’t ask for a document from the JFK
Collection without a RIF number, I requested, via email, the RIF number
assigned to the ONI Defector File, which I thought was a straightforward enough
question, but it has proved as elusive as the number of records still being
withheld.
Both have finite answers – the number of government
assassination records still being withheld – less than 1% of four million, or
somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 records, quite big numbers, but the number
of documents already released should be very specific as each has been assigned
a RIF number unique and specific to the document, so we should know how many
there are.
Each RIF – number begins with an agency code – so we
know the ONI code is - so it must begin with those numbers, but I still can’t
request the record without knowing the RIF, and they won’t tell me what the RIF
number is, so it’s a Catch 22 quandary.
[NOTE: The NARA did not apply a RIF number to this file]
[NOTE: The NARA did not apply a RIF number to this file]
Going back to Square One and recount what has
occurred so far – on November 22, 1963 John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth president
of the United States, was shot and killed by a sniper while riding thought the
streets of Dallas, Texas. The assassination was investigated over the course of
decades by a number of official agencies of government, most of which concluded
that the President was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine Corps
defector to the Soviet Union.
While most of the official records of these
investigations were sealed, some for fifty, some for seventy-five years and
others indefinitely, in response to a public outcry created by Oliver Stone’s
film “JFK,” Congress passed the JFK Act of 1992 which states: “All Government
records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should carry
a presumption of immediate disclosure,” and that all assassination-related
materials be open to the public and housed in a single collection in the
National Archives and Records Administrations (NARA), where it is located at
the Archives II in College Park, Maryland and known as the JFK Assassinations
Records Collection.
The JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992
– 44 U.S.C. 2107 (S. Rep. 102-328, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (as amended – ARCA)
defines five categories of information for which disclosure may be postponed,
including national security, intelligence gathering, and privacy – provided
there is “clear and convincing evidence” of some harm which outweighs public
disclosure.
“The law requires all federal agencies to make an
initial assessment of whether they possess records related to the
assassination. The agencies themselves will conduct an initial review to
determine whether their records may be disclosed immediately or whether
disclosure should be postponed. The agencies must then give all records that
are not disclosed to the Review Board. The Review Board will then evaluate all
agencies recommendations for postponement, all records, including those that have
a postponed release date, will be transferred to NARA. The Act requires that
all assassination records must be released by 2017, with the exception of
records certified for continued postponement by the President.”
My first article on ONI and the assassination
was just deep background for what I received in the
mail from an anonymous source – Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)
correspondence with the ONI that led me to write about the Railroading of LCMR
Terri Pike.
Pike was a courageous ONI records officer who was
reprimanded for being so forthcoming with the ONI assassination records,
especially the ONI Defector File.
At first the ONI response to the JFK Act and the
Review Board request for all of its assassination records was to politely
inform the Review Board that ONI had no records related to the assassination at
all, period.
The ARRB then designated the Dallas ONI office
records for 1963 as official JFK Assassination Records, but ONI said that the
Dallas field office was a component of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service
(NCIS), which was no longer part of ONI. Indeed, the records of the Dallas
field office of the NCIS were located and turned over to the ARRB and are now
included in the JFK Collection that is open to the public.
But ONI also said it could find no assassination
records from among the files of former ONI Director Admiral Rufus Taylor,
though other agencies had no trouble finding such records, though wait, wait,
they did eventually come up with two relevant and responsive documents – one
from Admiral Taylor telling the Warren Commission at no time did ONI use Lee
Harvey Oswald as an informant, agent or operative, and then another document obtained from a different agency, indicated Admiral Taylor had been running undercover ONI informants in
Dallas who worked for Jack Ruby and believed they saw Oswald and Ruby together.
The Taylor Memo certainly indicates that ONI did at
one time have an extensive file and many records related to the assassination,
and began a back and forth battle between ONI and the ARRB and Review Board
staff, who began to take their jobs seriously when rebuffed by a senior staff
military officer.
In response to the ONI abstinence the ARRB
designated ONI as a separate component from the Navy in general, and required
an ONI officer to sign off on its request under penalty of perjury. Then ONI
officials assigned a small team of records officers to the task – over two
years after they were notified of the requirements of the law.
The team was led by LCDR Florence T. “Terri” Pike
(USNR-R) and assisted by LCDR Doolittle and LCDR Bateman.
Nov. 27 1995 – Director, ONI responds
to CNO (N09BL) by letter, stating that the Office of Naval
Intelligence holds no records responsive to the tasking of 14 Nov 1995…..
Two years later, on Feb.28 1997: “1. Executive
Summary: ....A total of one hundred twenty-three (123) cubic feet of material,
approximately 307,500 classified pages, were reviewed at the Washington
National Records Center located in Suitland, MD. Of that volume, less than [one
cubic foot of files] was identified ... written on the side: 123 boxes - rather
than 123 cubic feet and 1 box of relevant records rather than one cubic foot of
files.”
Mar. 11, 1997 Meeting Report. Christopher Barger/ARRB staff “met with the ONI team responsible for heading the search for records under the JFK Act. This team is directed by Lieut. Cmdr. Terri Pike; LCDR Doolittle works in the ONI FOIA office; Pike reports to Capt. Peiaec; LCRD Bastein is the JAG. …For reason not entirely clear to either the ONI team or ARRB, the tasking for this project only trickled down to them on Friday, March 7, 1997. They were a little confused as to why they were only being tasked with this now, but expressed a willingness to do everything they possibly could to achieve the objectives of the Act.”
Mar. 11 1997 – ARRB staffers Wray, Barger and Masih met with CAPT Pelaec, LCDR Bastein and LCDR Pike of ONI and discuss JFK Records Act and its requirements. LCDR Pike identified ONI action taken and intended searchers….would begin at Suitland at the Federal Records Center, but would later include district offices within CONUS. “Pike then presented us a small written briefing package detailing what they had identified that they are required to do and the process they will use to go about the review. She noted that their first priority was to identify the records collections they need to search, then determining the physical location of the records. Most of these will be at Suitland, she said, but there will be others located in district offices round the country in locations like Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, New Orleans, St. Louis and Boston. They have also identified a need to determine standard subject identification codes which should cause a document to be searched, and she concluded by detailing the records disposition procedures within ONI.”
“Despite the fact that they had only learned of this tasking on Friday, they had located and designated approximately 125 cubic feet of documents that directly relate to subjects we mentioned in our letter to the Navy. These will be reviewed page by page. She anticipated being able to complete the review by the stated deadline set by the Navy and ARRB of April 30, 1997.”
“In addition, she said that ONI had identified about 950 cubic feet, or approximately 2.4 million pages of records which might be related to the topics we were interested in, but that we had not specifically mentioned…LCDR Pike stressed that she, and ONI, understood that all information, even negative result, is important to our process, and that they will be providing reports on everything they search, whether relevant documents are found within or not. Pike provided us with a ‘flow chart’ documenting the normal records disposition process within ONI, explaining what each step of the process is and where documents go during each phase of the process. The final page of her briefing package was a sample of the ‘clue sheets’ being provided to each reviewer for the April 30 documents. Approximately two dozen subject headings are listed along with ‘clues’ or keywords for each subject, and a time window for each subject….In closing, it should be reported that this team, and LCDR Pike in particular, are very impressive, they appear very much to have their act together on this project. They provided details and planning we have rarely seen from other agencies, yet they have had this project assigned to them for less than a week. They were extremely helpful, and have taken an aggressive and proactive approach to complying with the JFK Act. We can expect more impressive work from this team.”
Mar. 11, 1997 Meeting Report. Christopher Barger/ARRB staff “met with the ONI team responsible for heading the search for records under the JFK Act. This team is directed by Lieut. Cmdr. Terri Pike; LCDR Doolittle works in the ONI FOIA office; Pike reports to Capt. Peiaec; LCRD Bastein is the JAG. …For reason not entirely clear to either the ONI team or ARRB, the tasking for this project only trickled down to them on Friday, March 7, 1997. They were a little confused as to why they were only being tasked with this now, but expressed a willingness to do everything they possibly could to achieve the objectives of the Act.”
Mar. 11 1997 – ARRB staffers Wray, Barger and Masih met with CAPT Pelaec, LCDR Bastein and LCDR Pike of ONI and discuss JFK Records Act and its requirements. LCDR Pike identified ONI action taken and intended searchers….would begin at Suitland at the Federal Records Center, but would later include district offices within CONUS. “Pike then presented us a small written briefing package detailing what they had identified that they are required to do and the process they will use to go about the review. She noted that their first priority was to identify the records collections they need to search, then determining the physical location of the records. Most of these will be at Suitland, she said, but there will be others located in district offices round the country in locations like Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, New Orleans, St. Louis and Boston. They have also identified a need to determine standard subject identification codes which should cause a document to be searched, and she concluded by detailing the records disposition procedures within ONI.”
“Despite the fact that they had only learned of this tasking on Friday, they had located and designated approximately 125 cubic feet of documents that directly relate to subjects we mentioned in our letter to the Navy. These will be reviewed page by page. She anticipated being able to complete the review by the stated deadline set by the Navy and ARRB of April 30, 1997.”
“In addition, she said that ONI had identified about 950 cubic feet, or approximately 2.4 million pages of records which might be related to the topics we were interested in, but that we had not specifically mentioned…LCDR Pike stressed that she, and ONI, understood that all information, even negative result, is important to our process, and that they will be providing reports on everything they search, whether relevant documents are found within or not. Pike provided us with a ‘flow chart’ documenting the normal records disposition process within ONI, explaining what each step of the process is and where documents go during each phase of the process. The final page of her briefing package was a sample of the ‘clue sheets’ being provided to each reviewer for the April 30 documents. Approximately two dozen subject headings are listed along with ‘clues’ or keywords for each subject, and a time window for each subject….In closing, it should be reported that this team, and LCDR Pike in particular, are very impressive, they appear very much to have their act together on this project. They provided details and planning we have rarely seen from other agencies, yet they have had this project assigned to them for less than a week. They were extremely helpful, and have taken an aggressive and proactive approach to complying with the JFK Act. We can expect more impressive work from this team.”
IN TOTO
The first mention of the ONI Defector File is in a
March 24, 1997 ARRB – Memo. Subject: Status Report in which a Review Board
staff member wrote: “I telephone Terri Pike. I asked her if she could give
me a brief status report on what they have done so far…..She said that they
have completed their review of about 40 cu. ft. of the 127 cu. ft. ONI has
committed to having reviewed for us by the April 30 deadline. She also
said that they have found one box based on our SF 135 requests. This box
has to do with defections, both Cuban and Soviet; they plan on turning this box
over to us “in toto.” She said that most of the records in that box
are CIA originated or have CIA equities, so they will need
to be coordinated with CIA. She ended the call by telling me that if we
want to come out there at any point and personally review any of their work, we
are welcome.”
[SF 135 Request Link: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/05/sf-135-request-forms.html]
Chronology of ONI Defector File –
I) - March 24, 1997 – ARRB Memo Status Report: “ LCDR Terri Pike…..said that they have found one box based on our SF 135 requests. This box has to do with defections, both Cuban and Soviet; they plan on turning this box over to us “in toto.”
II) - 21 April, 1997 Staff Report: “LCDR Pike stated that review of the first 123 cubic feet of ONI records had been completed, and that as a result .8 cubic feet of records (18 district files) on defectors had been identified as responsive to the CNO tasking; these records were presented to ARRB staffers at the meeting for cursory review. Completion of declassification review and delivery of the original records to the ARRB was tentatively promised within 2 – 4 weeks.”
III) - April 21 1997 Meeting Report ARRB
Military team met with…ONI records team. “Pike explained that most of the
relevant records they found were discovered ‘by accident;’ that is to say, they
were misfiled in boxes outside where they should have been. This is
important for two reasons. 1) If they had been filed where they ‘should’ have
been, they would have been routinely destroyed by this point, and 2) as they
continue their review of records they expect they might well continue to
discover records of interest to us…There are a total of 18 folders of material
which ONI has determined should go into the JFK collection and have earmarked for
delivery to us….Pike concluded her report by suggesting that we might find more
of the records we wanted in BG38 the records of the CNO.”
IV) - May 12 1997 – LCDR Pike Fax….
to the ARRB; “the cover sheet for her fax indicates that she had finished
declassification review of the .8 cubic feet of defector records, and had
prepared a page-by-page index of same. She indicated that transmittal of
these documents would occur in the near future.”
V) - May 14 1997 ARRB fax
explains the statutory requirement in the JFK Act to prepare RIFs (Record
Identification Forms) for each assassination record in accordance with a
standard software format prepared by NANA.
VI) - June 6 1997 ARRB mails RIF software
disks to LCDR Pike so that .8 cubic feet of defector files can be RIF-ed prior
to transmission to ARRB.
VII) - Aug. 19 1997 ARRB staff requested
that “ONI look for ‘119 Reports’ covering an alleged ONI investigation of Lee
Harvey Oswald’s October, 1959 defection to the Soviet Union. LCDR Pike accepted
the tasking, but ARRB never received any feedback on its results.”
VIII) - April 2 1998 Letter from ARRB to
LCDR R. D. Bastien – “The purpose of this letter is to memorialize for the
record our meeting…..You advised that although ONI had district offices in the
past, there are no longer any district offices within CONUS, subsequently to
the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) splitting away from ONI as a
separate entity. You further clarified that the only locations where you would
expect to find ONI records today would be at the Federal Records Center in
Suitland, at the Naval Historical Center, or at Archives II in College
park….you were confident that ONI had searched for and had not located any
files for the Director of ONI,…Although LCDR Pike had promised delivery of the
originals of those documents,….the Review Board was still not in receipt of
these documents….LCDR Pike had recently mentioned to our staff that she
had located Naval Attache Records responsive to the JFK Act during her
searches of RG 289, and had placed them in a box that she had labeled
‘44USC 2107.’ It was unclear from our conversation with her whether
this box was left at the FRC in Suitland, or whether it was located
at ONI headquarters…”
Shortly after Pike was notified that the ONI “119 Reports”
were created by ONI investigators in San Diego on two occasions – when Oswald
defected to the USSR and after the assassination, she was relieved of her
duties and given a preliminary JAG military court martial hearing on trumped up
charges of improperly traveling to search for JFK Assassination records. ARRB
Staff Director Jeremy Gunn began an investigation into the Pike affair and the
ONI records, but suddenly left the ARRB staff under a cloud, for reasons that
have never been made clear.
Was an ONI records officer reprimanded for locating
the ONI Defector File and did the ARRB staff director lose his job because of
the troubling turmoil created by the very existence of the ONI Defector File?
IX) - May 18 1998 -…..LCDR R.D. BASTIEN -
Designated Compliance Official for ONI, swears under oath under penalty of
perjury that: “all Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Directories were tasked
for search of any information or documents relating to the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. On May 3, 1998, Record Identification
Forms were created for approximately .8 cubic feet of records on military
defectors. These responsive records were obtained from the permanent documents
location at the Washington National Records Center and will be submitted to the
Assassination Records Review Board (Review Board) on May 21, 1998. …This
submission completes our internal search requirements…known responsive items
under the control of ONI have been assembled and submitted to the Review
Board…I certify that...I have no knowledge of any JFK assassination-related
records which may have been destroyed by this command....this completes our
internal search requirements. However, under the Executive Order 12958
declassification mandate, we remain committed to searching the approximately
25,000 archival boxes at the Washington National Records Center and Naval
Historical Center which have identified in RG 289 as having possible ONI
equities...”
X) – September 9, 1998 - Doug Horne memo: “RIFs
should not have been created by ONI unless the documents were assassination
records.”
XI) – September 14, 1998 – ONI Defector files
transferred to NARA in two boxes.
XII) –At some point the ONI Defector records are
marked NBR – Not Believed Relevant and postponed in full by the ARRB, an “Annotated
RIF” written on the document, but RIF sheets not created and the records not
included in the JFK Collection data base. This despite the fact that on ONI had
previously signed off on a sworn statement on May 18, 1998 that “Record
Identification Forms were created for approximately .8 cubic feet of
records on military defectors” and they acknowledged these records to be
“responsive” to the law.
XIII) – ONI Defector files transferred to NARA
on September 14, 1998. These files, totaling 2 boxes, are currently postponed
in full. At this point, those are the only records we can confirm were received
after May 1998.
XIV) - September 31, 1998 – ARRB disbands, issues
Final Report.
[Final Report ARRB on ONI Records: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/05/arrb-final-report-on-oni-docs.html
]
XV) - April 8, 2014. In response to my request for
the RIF number of the ONI Defector File I received the following response from
NARA which reads in part:
“We have located two boxes (.8 cubic feet) and one
folder of disks labeled ONI Defector records. Binder one includes a subject
name index to the files. These records are marked Not Believed Relevant (NBR)
and postponed in full. There was a Board decision that declared all of the ONI
defector records ‘NBR’ for release in 2017.
“It is important to note that the defector files do
not include RIF sheets but do include annotated RIF numbers. If you are looking
for a specific file, you will need to know the RIF number.”
“Per an annotated recommendation memo from Doug
Horne on September 9, 1998, ‘RIFs should not have been created by ONI unless
the documents were assassination records.’"
“If you would like to request these materials, you
must submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to our office.”
“We can not confirm that any ONI records are in fact
missing from the collection. However, a review of the correspondence
files of ARRB regarding transfer of the ONI records indicate that the ARRB
communicated with several ONI officials consistently during 1997-1998 to ensure
the transfer of all responsive records…..It has been our practice to search for
records that are believed to be missing on a case-by-case basis. We will continue
do our best to local the Review Board until the last two weeks of their
existence, apparently hoping to outlast them, and refused to give these records
RIF numbers, or create description forms for these documents despite the final
statement that says, under penalty of perjury they did.
And then using the lame excuse that Doug Horne, the
Chief Analyst for Military Records of the ARRB Staff said that non-JFK
Assassination records should not be given RIF numbers, even though the ONI
Defector File was immediately recognized as a relevant record that clearly fit
the definition of a JFK Assassination Record, and were in a box(s) that an ONI
Records Officer (Terri Pike) labeled with the JFK Act law – 44 U.S.C. 2017,
reviewed and indexed. Pike’s index, that I also requested, is also classified
and withheld in full.
So today, the ONI Defector File is safely secured in
the hands of the NARA and locked away in a sealed vault at the Archives II,
awaiting their fate that will be determined on October 24, 2017, when according
to the law, it will either be released to the public in full or continually
withheld at the order of whoever is elected President of the United States in
the next election.
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