FACT SHEET ON SEQUENCE OF EVENTS LEADING TO THE PREIDENT'S DECISION ON 12 SEPTEMBER 1975 TO SUSPEND PROVISION OF CLASSIFIED MATERIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78B02992A000100020002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 2006
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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Fact Sheet on Sequence of Events Leading
to t e President's Decision on 12 September
:o Suspend Provision of lassified
Materials to the House Select Committee
on Intelligence
At an open hearing of the House Select Committee -
on Intelligence (HSC) on September 12, 1975, Assistant
Attorney General Rex E. Lee, speaking on behalf of the
entire Executive Branch, read a statement to the Chair-
man of the HSC, Representative Otis Pike, which con-
tained the following statement:
"...the President's responsibilities for
the national security and foreign relations of
the United States leave him no alternative but
to direct all departments and agencies of the
Executive Branch respectfully to decline to
provide the Select Committee with classified
materials, including testimony and interviews
.which disclose such materials, until the Com-
mittee satisfactorily alters its position."
As background, it should be noted that from the
moment of the establishment of the HSC, as well as
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, guidelines
for the transmittal, processing, utilization and storage
of classified materials provided the HSC by CIA and
other intelligence agencies have been in effect. Di-
rector Colby included these guidelines in a letter dated
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3 September 1975 to Chairman. Pike. The pertinent
portion of this letter reads as follows:
"'With respect to the documents to be made
available to the Committee, there are certain
sensitive materials that must be protected not
only from exposure but even the risk of exposure.
Included in this sensitive category are:
--identities of agents and sources-;
--identities of persons involved in-
Agency operations who would be sub-
ject to personal, physical danger,
to extreme harassment or to economic
or other reprisals if their names
were to be publicly identified;
--material provided confidentially
by cooperating foreign intelligence
services;
--details that would reveal the nature
of sensitive intelligence methods and
techniques of collection, by techni-
cal and human means;
--identities of cooperating Americans
and American organizations and con-
tacts to whom we have a confidential
relationship.
In making such deletions, our staff has, been
instructed to describe the deletion., e.g., as a
CIA officer or a source, in order to place the
material in context. Where your. staff believes
that a particular name or detail is critical to
their inquiry, this then should be brought to the
attention of our staff and the matter can be
negotiated. I believe this procedure is consis-
tent with your statement to me that the Committee
is not interested in our sources and methods, or
in the names of agents as such."
Other important reference points are House Resolu-
tion 591, July 11, 1975, which established the HSC and
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Rules and Security Regulations of the HSC itself. House
Resolution 591, Section 6.(a) states:
"The select committee shall institute and
carry out such rules and procedures as it may
deem necessar to prevent (1) the disclosure,
outside the select committee, of any informa-
tion relating to the activities of the Central
Intelligence Agency or any other department
or.agency of the Federal Government engaged 9n..
intelligence activities, obtained by the select
committee during the course of its study and
investigation, not authorized by the select
committee to be disclosed; and (2) the disclo-
sure, outside the select committee, of any in-
ormation which would adversely affect the in-
to fence activities of the Central Intelli-
gence enc in foreign countries or the inte='_li-
e9 nce activities in ores;n countries of any
other department or agency of the Federal Gov-
ernment." (Emphasis added.)
Rule 7 (Protection of Papers and Documents) of the
Rules and Security Regulations of the HSC states:
"7.3 Until such time as the committee has
submitted its final report to the House, classi-
fied or other sensitive information in.the com-
mittee records and files shall not be made avail-
able or disclosed to other than the committee
membership and the.committee staff, except as
may be otherwise determined by the committee."
(Emphasis added.)
The sequence of events that brought this issue to
a head is as follows:
a.. Late on Monday, 8 September, the CIA and
other members of the intelligence community were
advised by the HSC staff that the HSC would hold
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open sessions on the intelligence postmortems con-
cerning the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 and the
Greek/Cyprus/Turkish events of July 1974 on
Thursday, September 11, and Friday, September 12,
respectively. This countermanded previous advice
that these hearings would deal with a differeiit?---
subject. The Committee had requested and received
on 18 August, the key document, and the one from
which the HSC released excerpts: a postmortem of
the Arab-Israeli 1973 war conducted by the intel-
ligence community itself.
b. On Tuesday, 9 September, a letter was
received by CIA asking for other CIA documents per-
taining to the Middle East war and Cyprus. This
letter was responded to by CIA on that same day and
a substantial number of documents were delivered to
the HSC that evening. Additional materials were
promised for the following day, Wednesday, 10 Sep-
tember.
c. A subpoena from the HSC Chairman was de-
livered to CIA during the afternoon of Wednesday,
10 September, requesting additional material,
some of it duplicative of the materials already
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intended for delivery that day to the HSC. This
material and the documents requested in the sub-
poena were hurriedly assembled and delivered to
the HSC staff late that night.
d. On Wednesday, 10 September, the
HSC Staff Director urgently requested that...six
pages containing the principal conclusions and
.recommendations of the Middle East postmortem
be declassified so that they could be read into
the record during the open heari-ag the following
day. The Director of Central Intelligence acceded
to this request with the understanding on the
part of the HSC Staff Director that certain de-
letions would be made to protect sources and
methods. Nothing.was said or implied by the HSC
Staff Director at that time or by the Chairman
of the HSC in a telephone conversation with
Director Colby late Wednesday afternoon that
indicated an intention by the HSC to vote to
declassify and publish any material over the
Director's objections.
e. Prior to the opening of the hearing on
the morning of Thursday, 11 September, the HSC
Staff Director asked that the CIA area specialist
read the declassified portion of approximately
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six pages of the Middle East postmortem into the
record.. When this was completed, Chairman Pike
insisted on the reinstatement of five deleted
passages and indicated that the Committee would.
vote in Executive Session on their declassifica-
tion.
f. Director Colby was reached on the phone,
and, to accommodate the.Chairman, he reluctantly
agreed to reinstate these passages subject to the
continued deletion of four short phrases which he
regarded as being of continuing high sensitivity
because of the impact abroad should these items
be published. During the ensuing executive session,
the Chairman rejected repeated requests by the
Director's Special Counsel. to postpone the Com-
mittee vote until experts in the field of communi-
cations intelligence could be consulted or could
appear to testify before the Committee. In the
votes that followed, the Committee did agree to
the deletion of three of the?four phrases, but in-
sisted on retaining the one that all intelligence
community representatives at the hearing stressed
was the most important and most sensitive of the
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four. The passage which 'contained the phrase reads
as follows:
"Egypt - The current large-scale
mobilization exercise may be an effort
to soothe internal problems as much as
to improve military capabilities. Mobili-
zation of some personnel, increased
readiness of isolated units, and greater
communications security are all assessed-'as'
parts of the exercise routine....there are
still not military or political indicators
of Egyptian intentions or preparations to
resume hostilities with Israel." (DIA Intel-
ligence Summary, 6 October 1973.).
The intelligence representatives argue that the context
of. the passage would indicate to other nations an
American capability to monitor and analyze foreign
communications.and derive information from them.
This specific knowledge of time and location would
alert other nations to reexamine and tighten
their communications security procedures and thereby
impair the ability of the U.S. to obtain communi-
cations intelligence. Despite these entreaties and
over the strenuous objections of the intelligence
representatives present, the HSC voted to declassify
the phrase and Chairman Pike, immediately follow-
ing the executive session, held
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a press conference at which he described what had
transpired.
g. On the following morning, Friday, 12
.September, after Assistant Attorney General Lee
had read the Presidential message to the HSC,_ the
Chairman, still in open hearing,',had the Staft.?-?
Director read into the public record the five
passages referred to above, including the dis-
puted phrase which the HSC had voted to declassify.
In Summary:
a. This incident does not question Congress'
access to classified material, large quantities
of which were provided to the Committee.
b. It does question the unilateral action
of one committee to release such material over
the. objections of the Executive representatives
present, without hearing the views of those
technically' qualified to describe the signi.fi-
cance of the material and without due consulta-
tion with responsible senior officials of the
Executive.
c. If the Committee's position were to
remain unchanged, large amounts of sensitive in-
telligence and other types of material would be
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subject to release without notice, which would
require a responsible Executive to restrict the
provision of such information to the. Committee.
el. A resolution of the problem can be ob-
tained by a return to the previous understanding
that the classification of material provided
will be respected pending full consultation-,and
negotiation in good faith with respect to the
form of its possible public release.
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STAT
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