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.
It will ostensibly
remain there until October 24, 2017 when the law requires that it be open and
made available to the public as part of the JFK Records Collection, that is unless
the Office of Naval Intelligence – ONI officially requests the President to continue
to withhold it indefinitely for reasons of national security, and the
President, whoever wins the next election agrees to the request, which some
expect to happen.
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.
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.”
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 that indicated Admiral Taylor had been running undercover
ONI informants in Dallas who worked for Jack Ruby and 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.”
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
PikeI 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.”
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 ‘44 USC
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.
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.
