CIA Reading Room 00505170: 30 MARCH 1979 LETTER FROM HSCA STAFF DIRECTOR

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iirtar rtlifernallstr 0 C RECORD Cony OLC/79-1192/2 4 April 1979 APPROVED FOR RELEASF.1993 MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM SUBJECT: 30 March 1979 Letter From HSCA Staff Director 1. The following brief comments are offered on subject letter: a. G. Robert Blakey has apparently forgotten the agreement that the HSCA draft reports and our written comments on them are to be destroyed. They were not to constitute records and as a result are not subject to FOIA proceedings. This procedure was agreed and, given the involvement of a congressional committee, one would assume that the arrangements protecting the papers from FOIA proceedings are reinforced. This consideration does not apply, of course, to the information that went into those comments on the HSCA drafts; where relevant and appropriate it can still be used in any final comments that the Agency may wish to make on the report. b. It is correct as shown on page 2 that I have understood that Shackley had not been interviewed. Such an interview was not arranged through our staff, as required, and when I last spoke with Shackley, he had not been approached by the Committee. However, I cited it when talking to Blakey as a "for instance" but not the ones that were truly relevant to the disagreement that we have on the central issue. In that case, knowledge concerning the so-called "AMLASH OperationP the Committee has been told that it has relied on testimony of the person not competent to speak on the operation while the two officers who still live who were aware of it at that time were not interviewed. c. The question of their reading all of the records that were made available to them may be somewhat esoteric at this point. When I assumed my role as Agency coordinator for the HSCA investigation in the second half of May 1978 there was considerable tension between the Committee and the Agency on responses by the Agency to HSCA requests. While I was getting new priorities in operation, I did state to the Committee people that they had failed to read, at that point about 50% of the material made available. I have continued to remind them about this when the question arose from time to time; they made good progress because the volume of unreviewed material dropped to 40%, to 30% and finally to about 20%, although the total volume of material made available increased. The only relevancy of that fact at this point has to do with gratuitous implications that the Agency may have withheld records that it knew it had; in response to that, we have stated to them that they were not in a position to make that statement until they have read everything that was made available to them. They only need remove the gratuitous insult to obviate my challenge to their right to make it. 2092 t � 4.4 t .1 d. I have challenged the staff. When I assumed my position in this matter, I learned that they had accused Agency employees of lying and of being incompetent. Some of the investigators were aggressiv