5 October 2011

Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 09:06:08 -0400
To: intelforum[at]lists101.his.com
From: IntelForum Mailing List <intelforum[at]lists101.his.com>
Subject: [Intelforum] Historical Review Panel (HRP) Public Statement

From: Robert Jervis <rlj1[at]columbia.edu>
Date: Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 12:56 PM

HRP PUBLIC STATEMENT

Professor Robert Jervis (Chair)
Department of Political Science and School of Public and International Affairs
Columbia University

Professor Melvyn Leffler
Department of History
University of Virginia

Professor Thomas Newcomb
Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice
Heidelberg College

Professor Robert Schulzinger
Department of History
University of Colorado at Boulder

Professor Jeffrey Taliaferro
Department of Political Science
Tufts University

Professor Ruth Wedgwood
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Johns Hopkins University

The Director, Central Intelligence Agency's Historical Review Panel (HRP) was formed in 1995, replacing a panel that was less formally organized and that had met only episodically.  Since then, the HRP has met twice a year, with the mandate to:

Advise the Central Intelligence Agency on systematic and automatic declassification review under the provisions of Executive Order 13526.

Assist in developing subjects of historical and scholarly interest for the Intelligence Community declassification review program.

Advise CIA and the Intelligence Community on declassification issues in which the protection of intelligence sources and methods potentially conflicts with mandated declassification priorities.

Provide guidance for the historical research and writing programs of the CIA History Staff, and when appropriate, review draft products.

Advise Information Management Services on its mandatory and voluntary declassification review initiatives and the Center for the Study of Intelligence on its academic outreach programs.

At the request of the Director of Central Intelligence Agency, advise on other matters of relevance to the intelligence and academic communities.

Advise Information Management Services on archival and records management issues.

The HRP, like the other DCIA panels, is convened by the Director to provide him with confidential advice and assessments.  Because the HRP's advice to the DCIA must be completely frank and candid, we are not reporting Panel recommendations.  But because this panel's primary concern is the program of declassification and the release of information to the public, the DCIA and the Panel concluded that it should inform the interested public of the subjects and problems that the Panel is discussing.

At our meeting on July 11-12, 2011, we continued our discussion of the *Foreign Relations of the United States* (*FRUS*) series, including the next steps in the Iran retrospective volume and ways in which delays in even less difficult collections could be reduced, which will require joint efforts by CIA and the State Department.  The workload for declassification is increasing, and will continue to do.  We discussed both short- and long-terms changes that are needed to cope and to increase the flow of material to the public.  We were briefed on the plans for moving significant portions of declassified material now available on the CREST system at the National Archives to the internet, which should greatly increase access.  We discussed the progress in releasing documents in the Presidential libraries and delays caused by backlogs at other agencies. 

We returned to the status of Presidential Daily Briefs in light of the Presidential decision to release one that had been subject to appeal through the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP).  We discussed the projects of the Historical Collections Divisions, especially the Warsaw Pact project and the planned conference and release of the documents on Reagan’s use of intelligence in setting policy at the end of the Cold War.

Chairman Jervis met with Acting Director Morell to present our recommendations, and the panel will meet again in December 2011.

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