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Ron Paul See other Ron Paul Articles Title: JFK’S WAR WITH THE NATIONAL SECURITY ESTABLISHMENT: WHY KENNEDY WAS ASSASSINATED, PART 1 Introduction I served on the staff of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) from August of 1995 through September of 1998, during the final three years of its limited four-year lifespan — and was promoted from a Senior Analyst position on the Military Records Team, to that of “Chief Analyst for Military Records,” halfway through my tenure at the ARRB.The ARRB was an independent federal agency created by the JFK Records Act of 1992; our mission was to locate any and all records that could “reasonably” be considered related to the assassination of the 35th President, and to ensure their declassification (to the maximum extent possible, as defined within our Congressional mandate), followed by their release and subsequent placement within a special open collection (the “JFK Records Collection”) at the National Archives. The JFK Act required all agencies and branches of the government to transfer assassination records directly to the National Archives (in an “open in full” status), unless there were portions of those records that an agency wanted to redact (or withhold) in part, or in full. It was the ARRB’s job to define what constituted an assassination record; to do all we could to ensure that agencies conducted full and honest searches for assassination records; and to review those records which agencies did NOT want released in full. At the end of the ARRB’s lifespan, we had reviewed about 60,000 records that government agencies wanted partially or fully redacted. Our five VIP Board Members, who served part time, voted on the disposition of these 60,000 records that were under dispute, after first receiving and considering the staff’s recommendations; and their votes essentially determined which portions of those disputed records would see the light of day. [Agencies had to comply with the formal decisions of the ARRB regarding document release, and act accordingly, or else appeal to the President. President Clinton never upheld any agency objection over any of the Review Board’s recommendations; some compromises were reached, at the suggestion of the President’s chief counsel, but no ARRB decision to release information was ever overturned by appeal.] It was a noteworthy exercise in “citizen review,” and the ARRB went into its task with all assassination records benefiting from the presumption of full and immediate disclosure, unless an allowable criterion for redaction (established by the JFK Records Act) was established. The five board members overwhelmingly and routinely voted to release disputed records, whenever presented with a choice, unless stringent conditions for exceptions to this policy, outlined in our legislative charter, were met. As a result of the JFK Records Act and the activities of the ARRB (the “search and enforcement arm” created by the Act), there are now about 6 million pages of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in the JFK Records Collection at the National Archives. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Ada (#0)
Excellent history lesson - thanks.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
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