BRIEF HISTORY OF SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION REVIEW IN CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85B00552R001000070019-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 30, 2007
• Sequence Number: 19
• Content Type: REPORT

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Brief History of
Systematic Classification Review'in CIA
1. The Agency was first introduced to systematic classification review by
Executive Order (E.O.) 11652, 1 June 1972, which called for the automatic
declassification of all national security classified documents over 30 years
old unless they were specifically certified by the head of the originating agency
or its successor as requiring continued protection. In response, the Directorate
of Operations (DO) established a unit of three OSS officers late in 1972 to
begin a review of the predecessor organization's records held at the National
Archives. E.O. 11905, 19 February 1976, which dealt primarily with U.S. foreign
intelligence (FI) activities, promulgated that the Director of Central Intelligence
"shall establish a vigorous program to downgrade and declassify FI information as
appropriate and consistent with E.O. 11652." The DO increased its effort, but as
a result of discussions within the Agency regarding the merits of a centralized
versus a decentralized program, the Executive Advisory Group decided on 1 March 1977
that there should be a centralized systematic classification review program under
the Information Systems Analysis Staff (ISAS) of the Directorate of Administration.
The Records Review Branch, consisting of 40 positions, was established within ISAS
for this purpose, and, as the program developed, evolved into the Classification
Review Group and the Classification Review Division (CRD) under ISAS' successor,
the Office of Information Services. E.O. 12065, which was signed on 28 June 1978,
to be effective 1 December 1978, called for the systematic classification review
of all permanent records 20 years old or older (except for foreign government
information -- 30 years. old). It stipulated that the "transition to systematic
review at 20 years shall be implemented as rapidly as practicable and shall be
completed no more than 10 years from the effective date of this order," i.e.,
by December 1988. The order established further that subsequent reviews of
documents enjoying an extension of classification shall be set at no more than
ten-year intervals, with extensions by waiver allowable for specific categories
of documents at the discretion of the Director of the Information Security Oversight
Office (ISOO). -Such extensions were soon established, primarily to 20 years.
2. Gradually, CRD's positions have been nibbled away. It has now a
table of organizatio he T/O provides for 25X1
20 Classification Review icers at the 66- level, supplemented by contract
annuitants of long experience, information control assistants, and clericals.
Four branches are established within the Division -- one for each directorate
-- with a senior, experienced GS-14 officer at the head of each branch. Additionally,
13 independent contractors concentrate on the continuing review of the permanent
OSS material.
3. It became apparent almost immediately that a force of this size would be
far from enough to meet the transition period target (December 1988) set by the
order. A study conducted for the General Accounting Office in January of 1980
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found that the Division, at production rates extant at that time, would require
officers at a budget cost of $80 million to meet the target. In 25X1
1981, wit production rates more than doubling without an increase in manpower,
it was still apparent that the Division would meet less than 30 percent of its
goal. Early in 1982, the problem was restudied, with a better "fix" on the amount
of material to be reviewed. Even with production rates having nearly tripled
without an increase in manpower, the study projected that the program would
accomplish only about a third of its goal. This assumed that the current, higher
production rates could be sustained, and the full staffing complement of 33 would
be maintained. It was projected that, at those levels, the transition goal could
not be reached until the year 2007; otherwise, an effort to meet the December 1988
target would require an infusion a cost 25X1
exceeding $19 million. Then by 1 , witn e target s i no naving been met,
and work on the backlog thus continuing, the program would be further burdened
by two additional requirements: documents originated in the late sixties would
become eligible for their initial review, and the ten-year re-review period would
commence for documents initially reviewed in 1978 and forward. By 1998, those
documents initially reviewed and marked for a 20-year re-review would be added to
the pile, and so on. Yet with all this effort, the January 1980 study indicated
that only something on the order of six percent of the material was declassified.
The 1982 study found that, in the six months preceding, about 30 percent of the
documents were being downgraded, with only two percent being declassified.
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Activities Which Require a Classification Review Function
in Liaison with other Government Agencies
1. At this writing, the Department of State and the National Archives
and Records Service (NABS) are commencing a review of the Department's 1950-54
holdings for eventual accessioning to NARS, which is expected to occupy 25 NARS
personnel and several experienced foreign service officers for the next four
years. The Classification Review Division (CRD) of the Office of Information
Services will be supplying alternating two-man teams of officers who will
participate in the review, initially full-time.
2. The 1955-57 series of the Department of State's Foreign Relations of
the United States (FRUS) will comprise an estimated 28,000 pages which the
Division will review in its entirety. The Department is also in the process of
reviewing information which will be released as a supplement to the FRUS
collection. This may amount to some 124,000 pages which the Division will review
on a selected basis. The 1958-60 series of FRUS will require a complete review
of some 33,000 pages.
3. CRD is coordinating with the Presidential Libraries in the review
of material in their possession. The Truman Library, for example, has requested
our assistance in the review of approximately 50,000 pages of material concerning
national security topics, and the Eisenhower Library holds approximately 138,000
pages of similar material. The Johnson and Kennedy Libraries are still cataloging
their holdings, but it can be assured that their collections of documents relating
to national security will be even larger and more sensitive. The Carter collection
is estimated to hold nearly 1000 cubic feet or approximately 2,000,000 pages of
national security paper.
4. Each week the Department of Defense (DoD) submits several documents
to the Agency which it has turned up in the course of its continuing systematic
classification review program. In addition, the Department's several historical
organizations are moving ahead vigorously with their writing of histories,
especially in covering the conflict in Southeast Asia. The Army Center for
Military History is preparing 23 volumes on Vietnam, of which CRD has so far
reviewed three. Contracts have been drawn up with several former Republic of
Vietnam generals now in this country to prepare additional volumes written
from their points of view. The other services are also busily writing: at this
moment CRD is reviewing 600 pages of an Air Force history on interdiction in Laos.
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Toward a Limited Customized
Systematic Review Program
1. Records housekeeping; relief to the Freedom of Information Act,
Privacy Act, and Mandatory Review programs; and demonstration of a good-faith
effort to release information to the public provide the rationale for main-
taining a systematic classification review program within the Agency, but on a
very modest scale. The problem with the present Executive order is that it
guarantees inefficiency in that its arbitrary review periods apply to all
materials with little cognizance of their widely varying degrees of sensitivity.
A tailored systematic classification review program, on the other hand, can
recognize these variances and thus respond to the spirit of the new order by
releasing non-sensitive material while protecting the truly sensitive information,
and can make more efficient use of resources in the process. It makes little
sense to spend man-years in the review and periodic re-review of most DO and
DDSF,T material that is so sensitive that less than one percent will be declassified
for many years to come. Review should concentrate instead on --.for example --
FBIS holdings and certain DDI finished intelligence which offer some relatively
early potential for declassification of material that is sought by scholars and
researchers, and thus produces some reasonable results for the effort expended.
2. To implement this modest program CRD reviewers would work through the
Records Management Division and Directorate RMOs to expand their program by
including the categorizing of permanent Agency records according to their
releasability and interest to the public. The objective would be, as a part of
management planning, to identify collections to which reviewing manpower would
be most effectively applied. This activity would focus on the records of the
DDI and the DDA with very limited effort expended on DO and DDS$T records since
declassifiable information in the latter two is so negligible.
3. There is further rationale for "keeping our hand in" and maintaining
some continuity and expertise within CIA in the business of systematic
classification review. Should a change of administration result in one that is
desirous of returning to a stronger effort to declassify information, we could
find ourselves in short order having to gear up from scratch to reinvent the
wheel. Also, having a program which provides evidence that we have been
maintaining a good-faith position with regard to declassification and release
might save us from the worst of a reimposed and intolerable new "12065."
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