HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87M00539R002504130001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 17, 2009
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 13, 1985
• Content Type: MEMO

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ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
. Memorandum for Employees Concerning the Historical Review Program (Job #1124)
FROMHarry E. Fitzwater
Director for Administration
De
ut
EXTENSION
NO.
p
y
i
DATE
ng
7D24 Headquarters Build
TO: (Officer dt ignation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
1. Executive Director
Attached, for your signature, is
a memorandum informing all
employees that the Agency's
2? DDCI
Historical Review Program is
getting under way. It summarizes
your report on the Historical
3. DCI
Review Program previously sent to
Congress.
4.
This memorandum was prepared by
the Director of Information
Services and the Chief, History
S
Staff, and reviewed by the Chief,
Information Management Staff, DO;
Chief, Administrative Law
6.
Division, OGC; and the
DDA Registry
Information Review Officers for
the DDI and the DCI area.
7.
8. RPD
1105 Ames Building
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
i4.
15.
STAT
FORM 61 O USE PREVIOUS
I-79 EDITIONS /) //~
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Central Intelligence Agency
MEMORANDUM FOR ALL EMPLOYEES
SUBJECT: Historical Review Program
1. In October 1983, when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
took up a bill to permit the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). to
exempt certain CIA files from search under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA), Senator David Durenberger wrote to me about an issue highlighted by
the Agency's work with the Committee.. This issue was the need to make more
declassified Agency materials available to historians. 'As historians write
the definitive works on the post-World War II era,' Senator Durenberger
wrote, 'it is terribly important that their studies be based on as full a
record as possible, consistent with the need to protect our national
security." He therefore urged me to establish procedures for reviewing and
declassifying some of the material in files not covered by the bill's
exemptions. Recognizing that such a program would be a burden for the
Agency, he offered to lead the effort to provide budgetary support for new
positions to be devoted to this project.
2. I share Senator Durenberger's views on the need for an accurate
historical record, and on 4 October 1983 I wrote him stating, 'If Congress
is willing to provide the resources, I am prepared to institute a new
program of selective declassification review of those materials we believe
would be of greatest historical interest and most likely to result in
declassification of useful information.'
3. The agreement by this exchange of letters envisioned an Agency
Historical Review Program organized after the passage of the prospective
CIA Information Act and using additional resources Congress would provide
for this purpose. I had already asked the Chief of the History Staff,
however, to explore a program to release historical materials from the
World War II period. As a result of this initiative, the Agency took steps
to transfer to the National Archives its entire holdings of declassified
World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) permanent records, a large
collection of major historical importance. This transfer began a year ago
and up to now the National Archives has received and opened to public
research approximately 800 cubic feet of these declassified OSS records.
As I wrote to Senator Durenberger in June 1984, this transfer constitutes
"an important first step in implementing the selective declassification
program I promised to initiate last October."
4. In October 1984 Congress passed the CIA Information Act, which
relieves the Agency from the burden of searching certain designated files
in response to FOIA requests. The Agency's commitment to a Historical
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Review Program and its release of OSS records played an important role in
the passage of this new Act by reassuring Congress.and the public that, in
light of the Act's FOIA exemptions, the Agency will undertake new efforts
to declassify and transfer to the National Archives historically significant
CIA records. Continuing Congressional interest in historians having access
to CIA records is evident in the Act's requirement that the DCI, after
consulting with the Archivist of the United States, the Librarian of
Congress, and representative historians, submit a report to four
Congressional committees by 1 June 1985 on the feasibility of conducting a
program for the systematic review, declassification, and release to the
public of CIA information of historical value.
5. In my report to Congress of 29 May 1985 on the Historical Review
Program, I stated that this kind of review is feasible, and described the
program that we have established to carry it out. The Agency's consulta-
tions with those officials and historians specified by the CIA Information
Act proved extraordinarily helpful, and their findings are appended to my
report to Congress. Balancing the Agency's statutory duty to protect
intelligence sources and methods with legitimate public interest in CIA
records, this new program is designed to make significant historical
information available without risking damage to national security. As I
reported to Congress, this program has my strong support and we are
determined to make it succeed.
6. As Senator Durenberger promised, Congress has provided CIA with
ten additional positions to support the Historical Review Program which
will be described in a forthcoming headquarters regulation. I have assigned
principal responsibility for the program to the Office of Information
Services (OIS) in the Directorate of Administration, with advice and support
from the History Staff in the Office of the DCI. The Classification Review
Division of OIS will coordinate closely with Agency components in reviewing
documents of historical significance in order to declassify those that no
longer require protection. The program is beginning with the review of the
Agency's oldest records, which with the transfer of our declassified OSS
records are those of CIA's postwar predecessor organizations, namely, the
Strategic Services Unit (SSU) of 1945-1946 and the Central Intelligence
Group (CIG) of 1946-1947.
7. Although some time will be needed to find out how well the
Historical Review Program will work in practice, I believe that it has been
established on a sound footing. I am hopeful that this program will make
possible a more accurate record and fuller understanding of our Nation's
history since World War II.
William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
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Subject: Memorandum for Employees Concerning the Historical Review
Program (Job #1124)
Distribution:
Orig - DCI
1 - DDCI
1 - EXDIR
1 - ER
1 - DDA Subject
1 - DDA Chrono
1 - RPD Subject
1 - RPD Chrono
(13 June 85)
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