CONVERSATION WITH MR. JOHN D. EHRLICHMAN, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 01482289
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: August 7, 2017
• Case Number: F-2007-00094
• Publication Date: November 17, 1971

Approved for Release: 2017/01/18 C01482289
1
(b)(3)
17 November 1971
MEMORANDUM FOR T71E:RECORD
SUBJECT: Conversation with Mr. John D. EhrlichmArt., Assistant
to the President for Domestic Affairs
1. On 16 November 1971 I lunched with Jcihm Ehr.lichm.an at
the White House. The bulk of our conversation was devoted to a :re-
viev of our eerien.ca in Vietnam, with special focus on the fall of
Diem and the problems of organizing the United States Government
to fight the revolnUonary vrai with which it was faced in Viet-n-4m.
Z. The main point of the lunch came in our discussion of Mr.
Ehrlithman's charge from the President to examine the problem of
declassii.ying Grernment documents. he reiterated the Pr6sident'S
resolve to do nothing which would cause problems to CIA and its in-
ternal documents. At the same time, he pointed out the. real problem
of how to handle major events, such as the Dominican Republic, the
Lebe-ton landings, the Bay of Pigs, and the fall of Diem, from the
of view of history and the academic insistance upon the declassi-
fication of raw information. I suggested two possible vehicles. for
approaching the problem and promised to submit some follow-up
material on them:
a. . Deve.lopment of an internal classified history of
the event during it general time frame, wira an. effort to. be
as objective as possible. ..This history would be accompanied
by the key documents and could be declassified as a whole in
order to place the event in full perspective and not take the
chance of individual documents leaking and possibly being -
considered out of context.
b. There are different levels of sensitivity of interiL-
genz-C.v documents. For instance, finished intelligence is
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frequently not ter�b1y s;ar_sitive a1te7... some., time has passeti.
Thz am can be said 01: a number of intf...liig?.ncel
'which disa.eminated to c-astomers but which. conceal the
SC:t. eva.s. -during fais dissemination_ LI the last extr,.
the.re. are inte.----ts.1 intelligence documents which
ahriost 1iraliy canpot be, de.cla.sailied, since they involvf.,--.
cryptanyms and i e.no.-1-3.-.nous the- declassilicaUon
oi which would probably be pr ohibitive from a point of viev. of
3.
We �
left it tvt I shall send him a _few thoughts along the above
lin withch hemiglit.412344 daring his fur. ther conside-rs4on. of the basic. -
Approved for Release: 2017/01/18 C01482289