NARA Response to NPIC Records at Smithsonian

 NARA Responses to Requests

By William Kelly (billkelly3@gmail.com)

NPIC Records at Smithsonian

GeneMorris <eugene.morris@nara.gov>

This is in response to your April 8, 2019, request for information about the records of the JFK Assassination Records Collection. Specifically you are seeking information about Assassination Records Review Board records relating to the possible transfer of Naval Photographic Interpretation Center or the Naval Photographic Center (NPIC or NPC) assassination related records to the Smithsonian Institution in 1963 or 1964. We received your request on April 12, 2019.

We searched the finding aids to the records of the ARRB and identified several boxes as possibly being relevant  to your search. We found copies of the memo in question in both Series 4: Research and Analysis, Box 52, Folder 4.0.5 Depositions/Interviews Madonia, Vincent and the Files of T. Jeremy Gunn, Box 7, folder  RP/Madonia. We also found a file on Velma Vogler in Box 13 of the Files of Douglas P. Horne. None of those files contained any information indicating that the ARRB followed up on the implication that some assassination related material may have been sent to the Smithsonian. There are no files labeled as pertaining to the Smithsonian in either Gunn's or Horne's files, nor are there any such labeled files in the Series 4. In Series 4, we also searched the folders 4.0.2 Subject Files Photographic Issues in Box 30,  4.12.2 Navy in Box 86 and  4.12.3 Navy ARRB Correspondence & Contacts in Box 87, and still found nothing indicating that the ARRB either investigated or dismissed the possibility of records being moved to the Smithsonian in 1963/1964. Some of the files are fairly large and we did not do a page by page search of them. It may be that other documents within those files directly contradict the recollection of Mrs Reumann. A page by page search of the files is not a level of service we can provide.

We can make these records available to you at our College Park, Maryland, facility, should you wish to go through them yourself.

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

On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 2:07:56 PM UTC-4, Bill Kelly wrote:

In a ARRB Memo, it is noted that a secretary for the National Photo Int. Center (NPIC) Velma Reumann was interviewed and she reported that Robert F. Kennedy ordered NPIC assassination records boxed and delivered to the Smithsonian rather than to NARA. 

Can you tell me if the ARRB followed up on this report and checked with the Smithsonian for any NPIC assassination records, or if RFK had a storage area at the Smithsonian were he kept records? 

Thank you, 

William Kelly 

billkelly3@gmail.com 

The full memo is attached, this is the relevant portion: 

"She has a strong, independent recollection of NPC personnel boxing up all photographic materials (“everything we-the film department-had”) related to the assassination on the orders of Robert Kennedy and sending them to the Smithsonian Museum for permanent storage sometime within 6 months or so after the assassination."

 "She cannot remember whether the orders from Robert Kennedy were in writing, or oral, but she was guite firmly of the impression in 1996 that the direction had come from Robert Kennedy. In order to test the strength of her Smithsonian recollection, I asked her whether she may have been confusing the Smithsonian with the National Archives or some other government body; she replied emphatically that she knew the difference between the National Archives and the Smithsonian, and reiterated that the boxed material went to the Smithsonian. She said she was certain of this because she, herself, was required to call an official at the Smithsonian to discuss the imminent transfer, and recalls that the individual to whom she spoke was as surprised by the selection of the Smithsonian as she was. Unfortunately, she does not remember the official’s name or job description, nor does she remember the exact date of this transfer."