INTERAGENCY CLASSIFICATION REVIEW COMMITTEE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: Library of Congress
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): LOC-HAK-24-3-8-3
• Release Decision: RIPLIM
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: January 11, 2017
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: June 16, 1972
• Content Type: MEMO

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,MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
NSS review
completed.
ACTION
June 16, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR GENERAL HAIG
FROM: TOM LATI MER
SUBJECT: Interagency Classification Review Committee
David Young has submitted the attached package to HAK and John
Ehrlichman on the first meeting of the new Interagency Classification
Review Committee chaired by John Eisenhower.
The only item which requires your attention is David's proposal on
page 2 of his memo that the NSC's own "departmental" classification
committee consist of Jeanne Davis, Dick Kennedy, David, and me and
that either Jeanne or Dick should chair the committee.
The NSC committee vo uld concern itself only with problems relating
to the proper classification of material produced by the NSC staff.
RECOMMENDATION : That you chose either Kennedy or Davis to
chair the NSC classification committee as indicated on page 2 of
David's memo.
MORI/CDF
C03234509
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June 15, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR: HENRY A. KISSINGER/
JOHN D. EHRLICHMAN
FROM: DAVID R. YOUNG V%\
WASHINGTON
FIRST MEETING OF INTERAGENCY
CLASSIFICATION REVIEW COMMITTEE
JUNE 7, 1972 STATUS REPORT
Ambassador Eisenhower came down to Washington last week, was
presented with his commission and chaired the first meeting of the
newly created Interagency Classification Review Committee (ICRC).
All Committee members as designated by the President were Are-
s ent; name ly
J. Fred Buzhardt, General Counsel, Defense
John R. Stevenson, Legal Adviser, State
Lawrence R. Houston, General Counsel, CIA
Ralph E. Erickson, Asst. Attorney General, Justice
John V. Vinciguerra, Asst. Manager, AEC
David R. Young, Special Assistant, NSC
(James O'Neill, Deputy Archivist, by special invitation)
The meeting was conducted along the* lines of the distributed agenda
(Tab A) and the complete minutes are attached (Tab B). Each de-
partment gave a full report on its departmental set up.for responding
to requests for declassification. The process in each case involves:
(i) an initi l determination by the officer assigned
action by the office designated to receive requests,
(ii) a right of appeal to a departmental committee in
the event of denial, and
(iii) the right of appeal to the ICRC in the event.of denial
by the departmental committee.
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Where the requester appeals to the departmental committee or
ICRC the individual officer most closely involved with the sub-
ject matter concerned and aware of the implications of declassi-
fication shall present the case for continued classification.
As for the NSC's own "departmental committee" I suggest that
it consist of Jeanne Davis, Dick Kennedy, Tom Latimer and
myself. I think that either Jeanne Davis or Dick Kennedy should
chair the committee and oversee the initial determinations by
officers given action on requests.
Kennedy to chair
. Davis to chair
In addition, the following actions were taken by the Committee:
(1)
Each department's implementing regulations are to
be circulated to the other departments for comments
by June 16th. After resolution of any inconsistencies,
Committee approval is to be taken by circulated
memorandum.
(2) A short statement on the operating procedures which
the Committee intends to follow is to" be drawn up and
circulated for comments.
(3) Lists of those persons by title that should have
authority to classify in each category are to be sub-
mitted by each department by July 1.
(4) Each department is to undertake to compile an es-
timate of the amount of classified material it pre-
sently has on hand.
With Ambassador Eisenhower's concurrence I have also established
a subcommittee of computer experts from each department in order
to coordinate the implementation of the data index system require-
ment under the NSC Directive.
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June 5, 1972
AGENDA FOR MEETING OF
INTERAGENCY CLASSIFICATION REVIEW COMMITTEE
Roosevelt Room, White House
June 7, 1972, 11:00 AM
Participants: Ambassador John S. D. Eisenhower, Chairman
J. Fred Buzhardt Defense
John R. Stevenson - State
Ralph E. Erickson - Justice
Lawrence R. Houston - CIA
John V. Vinciguerra - AEC
James B. Rhoads - GSA
David R. Young - NSC
1. Opening Remarks by Chairman
2. Discussion on how Committee might operate in light of
foregoing.
3. Reports from Departments on where they stand in regard
to the following:
(a) issuance of regulations
(b) orientation of employees on new rules
(c)
requests for declassification and decisions
thereon to date
(d) submission of list identifying classifiers -
due July 1st
4. Status report on crises declassification projects.
5. Discussion of public relations aspects - if time available.
6. Setting of time for next meeting.
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MINUTES OF JUNE 7, 1972 MEETING
OF INTERAGENCY CLASSIFICATION
REVIEW COMMITTEE
Participants: Ambassador John S. D. Eisenhower, Chairman
J. Fred Buzhardt - Defense
John R. Stevenson'- State
Ralph E. Erickson - Justice
Lawrence R. Houston - CIA
John V. Vinciguerra - AEC
James O'Neill - GSA, Archives
David R. Young - NSC
Also attending: Charles N. Brower - State
Charles L. Marshall - AEC
Fredericka Paff - Justice (note taker)
Proceedings:
1. Chairman Eisenhower made an opening statement, a draft of
which was circulated afterwards. (Copy at Tab I). A number of
points relating to the operation of the Interagency Committee
were made:
(A)
Each Committee member should make every
effort to attend each meeting in person. On
the rare occasions when that is impossible,
a deputy should be designated to attend and
act in his place;
(B) An agenda will be made up for each meeting
by selecting from proposed agenda items sub-
mitted in advance by the Committee members;
(C)
When discussion of a particular problem with-
in an agency is contemplated, a knowledgeable
agency official may be included at the Committee
meeting;
(D) Meetings will be run informally. There will
be no formal votes; Chairman Eisenhower will
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determine the consensus, giving dissenters an
opportunity to set out their views;
(E) The Committee will not report regularly to the
White House, but only when there is a "snag";
(F)
Declassification requests will not be considered
by the Interagency Committee until they have
been processed by the appropriate agency.
2. Discussion of how the Committee might operate, points made:
(A) We will want something concrete planned in the
way of Interagency Committee operating proce-
dures, so that we can respond to inquiries about
the current and projected activities of. the Inter-
agency Committee with something concrete. Chair-
man Eisenhower said there would be no formal
regulations governing Interagency Committee
proceedings, at least at the outset, because we
were not aware of what the workload would be
etc.
(B) The Order requires the Interagency Committee
to take action on general complaints about the
administration of the Order from outside the
government without processing them through
the agencies first.
(C) The Interagency Committee approval of agency
regulations required by the Order will be handled
as follows. Each agency will provide David
Young with a sufficient number of copies of its
proposed regulations to permit circulation to
each Committee member. David Young will
circulate the draft regulations to. each Committee
member, as soon as they are received. Each
Committee member will have a week from the
date of receipt to make comments and/or sign
indicating his approval.
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(D) Each agency will decide what part of its regu-
lations affect the public and should be published
in the Federal Register in accordance with the
NSC Directive. There will be no publication
for purposes of soliciting public comment prior
to the issuance of agency regulations.
3. Reports from Departments.
(A) Justice
(a) A draft set of proposed regulations is ready for
circulation to the Interagency Committee members.
(b) Copies of the Order, the Directive, and the "Notice"
have been circulated to each division. The regula-
tions will be circulated when approved to each em-
ployee with a clearance. Briefings will be con-
ducted to the extent practicable. Attention is
being given to FBI practices with respect to
classification of investigative materials.
(c) Justice has only one declassification request under
the new Order, from the Department of the Army.
It involves 30-year old FBI records still in the
custody of the Department, which include material
relating to FBI informants.
(d) Justice anticipates no difficulty in providing the
lists of classifiers prior to July 1. The desig-
nations have already been made. A greater than
50% reduction in Top Secret classification authori-
ties has been accomplished.
(B) State
(a) Has submitted for circulation a draft of its pro-
posed regulations.
(b) A simplified explanation of the new rules has been
sent to all offices. Questions have come in and are
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being answered. The "Notice" has been sent
to individual classifiers, and stamps have been
distributed. New employees are being briefed.
A package is being prepared for security officers
worldwide. State is planning to use posters and
other visual aids. Outgoing matter is being
monitored, and a substantial reduction in
classification has already resulted.
(c) No decisions have yet been made on requests.
The New York Times has made a very exten-
sive request, which will result in substantial
search costs. There is a real problem with
identifiability, burdensomeness, and the ade-
quacy of fees chargeable by regulation for J
searches (now $3. 50 per hour). Harvard Law
Professor Charles R. Nesson, a defense
counsel for Ellsberg, has made an extensive
request in connection with his clients' case. A
subpoena is also involved.
(d)
State anticipates no problem in submitting the
list of classifiers by July 1. It expects to
have 300 officials with Top Secret authority.
Under 10501 all foreign service officers had
Top Secret classification authority. Now only
the Ambassador and one other official have
Top Secret authority at each post.
(C) AEC
(a) Draft regulations have been submitted.
(b) Have had an orientation meeting of field office
security officers and key officials in Washington.
(c) There have been 17 requests for declassification,
mostly routine. Only one request came from the
public, a contractor (KMS), and since that came
today no action has yet been taken.
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(d) AEC has a list of classification authorities.
There will be 25 officials with Top Secret
classification authority.
In AEC almost all classified material is
"Restricted Data" or "Formerly Restricted
Data" under the Atomic Energy Act. It can
be downgraded or declassified only pursuant
to the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act.
AEC has had a document declassification
project underway for the past 8 months, during
which 660, 000 documents have been declassi-
fied.
(D) CIA
(a) Have had difficulty with regulations because
of differences between components. Hope to
have regulations out by June 8.
(b) Employees have been notified that the regula-
tions are on the way. Orientation will start
soon. A document management system is
being instituted.
25X1
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(E
(d) Will have list by July 1; have Top Secret
already.
GSA -Archives
(a) A draft of proposed regulations for handling re-
quests for declassificat ion of records origina-
ting in other agencies was circulated. GSA's
regulations for its own records pursuant to
the Order will be forwarded shortly.
(b)
The procedures for handling requests for
material in Presidential libraries have not
yet been established.
There was a brief discussion of the availa-
bility of WWII material. State material is not
a major problem because their material is open
through 1945. The bulk of still-classified WWII
documents is Department of the Army material.
DOD has sent guidelines to the GSA for WWII
material which it is expected will make possible
"bulk declassification" of approximately 95%6
of it. The British have loosened up on diploma-
tic materials, but have made a caveat with respect
to military and intelligence materials.
[Not applicable]
(c) There have been no formal declassification
requests, but there have been several inquiries
from journalists who are testing the ground.
(d) [Not applicable]
(F) DoD
(a) A draft of proposed regulations has been submitted
for circulation.
(b) A training program by the services is well under-
way. DoD personnel are operating under the pro-
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posed regulations pending their approval by
the Committee.
(c) There is no apparent increase in requests for
declassification. DoD also has the Neeson-
Ellberg subpoena. To date DoD has been able
to locate only 5 of the 37 categories of docu-
ments requested. They believe 22 of them are
in the Johnson library. Apparently departing
Johnson administration officials stripped DoD's
files--not only of White House correspondence,
but also of internal DoD documents. While
copies may exist somewhere in DoD, the main
file copies are gone.
4. Status report on crises declassification projects.
David Young reported on the progress to date on govern-
ment initiated declassification of materials relating to certain
postwar crises. Lebanon was selected as a pilot project. DoD,
State and CIA have coordinated to collect and sort all the material
The outcome now awaits a State decision on the international poli-
tical impact of release. It was agreed this would be handled
separately from the Foreign Relations series, and that it would
be made available sanitized in accordance with the assessment of
its international impact.
In various agencies there may be crises materials that can
be collected and declassified without difficulty. Committee members
should think about possible crises, so that a list can be made up
for the President. Cuba is a possibility.
5. Discussion of public relations aspects.
(A) There is a possible problem of favoring certain news-
papers by giving them scoops in response to declassi-
fication requests. Yet if we make simultaneously
available to all what we make available to any, there will
be a problem in allocating search fees. It was suggested
that a policy of first come and pay, first served be
followed, but that copies be made available to all on
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request once the first copy is made available to the
first requester. This would ordinarily give the
first the scoop he paid the search fees for.
(B) Chairman Eisenhower said some temporary operating
procedures for the Committee should be developed,
which would not be volunteered but which would be
available if necessary for publicity purposes.
6. The next meeting is scheduled for July 6, 1972, at 10:00AM.
Chairman Eisenhower asked the agencies represented to do three
things:
(A) Finish drafts of their proposed regulations for
interagency Committee approval immediately;
(B) Supply by July 1 lists by title of classification authorities
at each level, together with comparative statistics on
the number of classifying authorities under E. 0. 10501
and E. 0. 11652; and
(C) Prepare an estimate of the number of classified documents
each agency now has at each of the three classification
levels before the next meeting.
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OVENINC REMARKS - INTERAGENCY CLA53TFICATXON REVIEW COr4MITTP:!8
11:00 A.M., June 7,1972
Good morning. I would like to welcome you to the first l
meeting of the Interagency Classification Review Co~muittee, which became an
official body as you all know, this last Thursday, June let. Most of you,
I realize, have worked on the problem of shaking loose the amount of classified
material in the Government's vaults for some time and that task involved the
concept of this Committee. Therefore, I will not waste your time and mine in
reviewing contents of Executive Order #11652 of March 8th or the imploaenting
instructions issued this last May 17th. Neither is it necessary for me to
emphasize to you the importance of the chores we have been given and of the
President's personal interest in the success of our mission.
This all can be summarized by stating that this is now an official
standing Committee and our chores in this regard command top priority of all
our time and efforts.
We all realize that we are in the process of a task of pioneering.
We are going into unknown territory and it is as yet undetermined as to the
volume of effort that is going to be required of us. We do not know, for
example, the size or composition of the permanent staff necessary to keep the
records straight and to channel requests in the proper direction..
But this very unknown quantity is part of what makes this job so exciting.
Based on my study of the background documents, I am impressed by
the wide range of responsibilities that this Committee is going to be faced
with. In the light of these, it is quite obvious that this Caeanittee is going
to have to remain as high level and broad in its activities as possible. We
are going to have to act in a supervisory capacity -- watchdog is the word one
newspaper used -- and not as an operating group. If we tried to perform all
our tasks without decentralization, we would have to build a permanent staff
almost comparable to a separate agency. Thus the only way in which we can do
what is expected of us without building our own bureaucracy is to depend on
the departments and agencies that you all represent. The people in your
organizations are going to have to cla the vast bulk of the spade work under
this Commtttee'a supervision and monitoring.
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Based on my evaluation of this problem, I propose that we follow
certain basic procedures until experience shows us otherwise.
First of all, I cannot emphasize strongly enough the necessity for
continuity in personal attendance. On a completely arbitrary basis I have
selected the first Wednesday of every month for us to meet, and I ask that you
mark your own personal calendars accordingly so that the people in this room
can attend as close to 1007. of the regular meetings as possible. Of course
attendance on the part of an individual will sometimes be simply impossible;
therefore I presume that each of you will select a deputy to attend when it is
physically impossible for you personally to be here. This presumption is not
meant to de-emphasize the necessity for those of you whom the President has
specified by name to be here.
It is probably overly optimistic to estimate that we can do our job
on the basis of one meeting a month. As I visualize the way things will goy
the activity may be rather slight at first because of the internal work which
will be in progress in each of your organizations. Then, after certain cases
have been duly processed -- a maximum of sixty days from the time of a request
for access -- the work load may involve two or three or more additional
meetings per month. After that I would expect the pace to taper off to a
routine. Our schedule will have to be paced in accordance with the way things
unfold.
Secondly, for each meeting we will make every effort to issue to.
each of you an agenda several days in advance, hopefully a week. This agenda
should include specific cases that we are to consider, along with some
background provided by the organization concerned, to give you a chance to
give it some thought ahead of time.
Third, we will not conduct these meetings on a formal basis, with
recorded votes as does a Congressional committee. While I may occassionally
ask for a show of hands to indicate a consensus, I do not visualize reporting
to the White House the position taken by any single organization. We should
realize, of course, that this Committee as such has no final authority; it is
advisory to the President only. Therefore, If the Committee cannot reach an
agreement, I will summarize the situation in a report to the Presi4ent and any
of you who dissent from what I consider the consensus have the right to submit
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xr independent views. I trugt that this type of situation will occur
rarely, if ever.
Fourth, I do not visualize submitting weekly or even periodic
reports to the White House. We should impose on the time of the President
and his staff only when necessary --,that is, when we come up with specific
recommendations for amendmenta'to the directives under which we work, or when
the Committee as a whole disagrees with the position of a Department concerned
in a given case and the Department wants to stand its ground.
Finally, I would like to outline the priorities of our efforts.
First of all is the matter of each organization's internal
instructions for implementing the President's directive. I ask that you get
about this as soon as possible for a study by Dave Young and myself and
anyone else on the Committee interested.
Second, I would appreciate your making as thorough an estimate as
possible of the numbers of TOP SECRET, SECRET, and CONFIDENTIAL documents on
hand in each of your organizations. For some.thi.s chore will be easy. However,
in the Department of Defense, I would visualize it as being rather difficult.
Nevertheless, if the Archives can estimate some 760 million papers on hand in
their files, the rest of you should be able to come up with somewhat of a
reasonable ballpark estimate. The reason for this request is to afford us a
guage by which we can evaluate our efforts after a period of say a year or so.
Finally our routine activities in this Comm~ittee should include
monthly progress reports if such can be reasonably ascertained and, of course,
consideration of any appeals for declassification that have been duly processed.
In closing I would like to emphasize once again that this Committee
is a monitoring organization and -- bureaucratic as it may seem
that All cases brought before this body will first have gone through the mill,
through one of your organizations.
And one final plea: during our meetings let us try to hold extraneous
discussion to a minimums. There is a natural tendency to haggle interminably
over one detailed point. If we do. not keep our comments fairly concisr, we can
find ourselves all here with a full-time job.
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I would na, like to open the meeting to a discussion and would
welcome any comonts on what I have acid.
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