President Biden’s June 30, 2023 Declaration on JFK Act of 1992
Okay, let me get this straight.
In 1992, at the urging of their constituents, the Congress of the United States unanimously passed the JFK Act of 1992, requiring the release of all of the government records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by October 17, 2017, twenty-five years later. That Act was signed into law by President Bush, who added a rider retaining the authority of the President, and only the President, to continue withholding national security and law enforcement records beyond that date
Then the Archivist of the United States (AOTUS) David Ferrerio, who wrote a blog promoting government transparency, sent letters to Presidents Trump and Biden advising them to continue temporarily withholding records, letters that themselves were then classified.
Now, on May 1, 2023, less than two months ago, the Acting Archivist of the United States, Debra Steidel Wall, in a letter to President Biden, advised him that the Archives had concluded it’s review of the remaining sealed records, and those still being withheld should be eventually released by the National Declassification Center (NDC). The NDC is based at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Md., a new complex that was built with funds provided by Congress at the same time the JFK Act was passed.
The Acting Archivist, Debra Steidel Wall, whose name is not mentioned in Biden’s declaration, was then replaced by a new permanent Archivist, a younger, less experienced professional who was lower on the archivist todem pole than Debra Wall, so there was a reason Wall was not made permanent archivist, a reason that everyone at the Archives probably knows, but we don’t.
In addition, the NDC, understaffed and overwhelmed by their normal workload, that was halted for two years by COVID, will not use their normal declassification procedures to release the remaining records but will abide by the Transparency Plan that was put together by the very agencies and departments of government that want to keep these records sealed forever, with no deadline and an indefinite timeline.
Calling this procedure a “Transparency Plan” is an oxymoron – as Oxford defines it – “a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction .”
So the president’s authority to continue withholding records beyond the Oct. 17, 2017 deadline is delegated by President Biden to the temporary Acting Archivist, who has since left the position, but not before she defers the responsibility of continued withholding of sealed records to faceless, nameless bureaucratic censors and redactors who must utilize a unique plan, standards not normally used for declassification purposes. So much for transparancy and President Bush’s attempt to preserve presidential authority.
Now Biden has accepted the former Acting Archivist’s recommendations and “certification” that the Archives has ended it’s review of the remaining withheld JFK assassination records. That must mean that what is still being withheld is a finite number of documents, each with it’s own RIF – number Record Identification Form that tells us what agency originated the record, as well as the reason that it is being continually withheld.
Therefore, the NARA can now tell us exactly how many documents are still being withheld that are within the J.FK Collection at the Archives, and provide us with the RIFs and the reasons for their being continually withheld.
Among the records at various agencies and the NARA, but kept out of the JFK Collection is the ONI Defector File, that was clearly recognized as a JFK related record, sent to the Archives, but not given a RIF number. It was kept out of the JFK Collection because it was branded “NBR” – Not Believed Relevant, when at the same time they release hundreds of pages on race riots in 1968, clearly not relevant to the assassination and wasting our time. There are also the unedited Air Force One radio transmission tapes, and the recordings of the SS motorcade “Charlie” channel, both held by the White House Communications Agency (WHCA).
But, the continued withholding of records within the JFK Collection doesn’t address the more serious problem - the administration of the Archives refusal to abide by the Final Report of the ARRB that requires them to assume the duties of the ARRB to continue identifying, locating, securing, preserving and making government records related to the assassination available to the public. They just stopped doing that.
When I informed them that Secret Service Agent Gerald Blaine mentioned in his book that since he wrote the Tampa Advance report, he had a copy in a box under his bed, and while the SS intentionally destroyed their official copy and many other documents AFTER the passage of the JFK Act, he still had his copy of the Tampa Advance report, that the Archives then obtained and shared with me, that I publicly posted.
When I informed the Archives Richard Sprague kept his HSCA files they referred me to the records of computer scientist Richard Sprague. Corrected, they sent a letter to Sprague requesting his HSCA files but when he didn't respond, they didn't either.
In addition, still missing are the Oval Office and JFK’s telephone tape recordings that Mrs. Lincoln willed to an celebrity autograph seeker, after she was not invited to Caroline’s wedding. They were purchased by a third party who now has them in his closet, when they should be in the JFK Collection.
Mrs. Lincoln also sent two trunks of documents from the Oval Office to her personal attorney in Nebraska, who stored them in the local sheriff’s evidence locker, and are now in a private residence in Nebraska. They too should be obtained by the Archives and placed in the JFK Collection.
Then again, a retired CIA National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) secretary told the ARRB that she was ordered by then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to pack up the NPIC records related to the assassination and send them to the Smithsonian Institute, rather than the NARA where they belonged. When I asked the NARA about this, they said the ARRB did not follow up and ask the Smithsonian if they had those records, and without saying so, they weren’t going to do it either.
What will it take to get the NARA to do their job? Congressional Oversight Hearings are definitely necessary, but there are also a number of civil suits active in court that should be moving along – including the federal cases involving the Nix film, and the Mary Ferrell-Bill Simpich-Larry Schnapf suit against Biden and the NARA, which addresses a number of the issues presented here.
And then there’s the recently introduced JFK Act of 2023 that could move forward if constituents pester their representatives like they did after seeing Oliver Stone’s movie JFK that called attention to the sealed government records. We will have to generate the same amount of public protests as got the original JFK Act passed.
This turn of events will definitely make the remaining sealed JFK records a presidential campaign issue that Biden will have to answer publicly, both to Republicans and to RFK, Jr., who will certainly bring up the subject in debates with the president.
In the end, we will have to continue Our Own "Review" of the government’s JFK Assassination records, even if the Archives refuse to do so. In any case, despite the President and the former Acting Archivists’ attempt to “certify” the end of the review process and put this whole thing behind them, they still have to deal with the JFK Act of 1992, that is still the law of land, and as they say, nobody is above the law, - that is unless you kill a president and get away with it and cover it up by sealing government records.
Section 12(b) of the JFK Act of 1992, as it was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George Bush, clearly says the Act “…shall continue in effect until such a time as the Archivist certifies to the President and the Congress that all assassination records have been made available to the public in accordance with this Act.”
And that cannot be done until all of the relevant government records on the assassination are in the JFK Collection at the NARA, and have been released to the public in full. That isn’t about to happen anytime soon.
COMMENTS:
Bill,
I think that 99% figure is a throwaway number that sounds impressive to some audience perhaps.
My best guess is that the number of records with redactions is more like 4,000 or so, based on a number NARA put out earlier. But you’re right that there’s no way of verifying, no list of record numbers, no metadata update to allow it to be computed. Not to mention things like records and whole agencies which don’t even appear in the master spreadsheets of metadata NARA has online. So it’s pretty mysterious where we’re at after what appears to be the “final drop”.
Rex Bradford (Mary Ferrell Archives)
BK NOTES: I am still going to try to get NARA to give out that finite number of still withheld records.
Bill, Thank you for your most recent article of July 2, 2023.
While I did not expect the full release of unredacted records, I was in hopes that a few more document dumps would be forthcoming like the recent ones. I am aware of the MFF lawsuit, but other than that, if was comforting to know there ARE things which can still be done.
I would also venture that with the recent revelations about the weaponization of the alphabet agencies and the disparate mockery of equal justice under the law, that unless something stirs the populace to finally get the records released, as long as the courts disregard cases being made as "not having standing", this stonewalling will continue.
Thanks to you and others, the details of things the general public have no knowledge of like records still not being gathered up or given to complete the records as "deed of gifts" aren't going to go away. Thank you for your diligence and in posting those instances I knew nothing about, even though I have been researching since "Rush to Judgement" came out.
Somehow the word must get out that the corruption and what is going on in our World today cannot simply be dismissed.
Have a great Independence Day!
Pat Daniel
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