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19 July 2012 Public Statement from the CIA’s Historical Review Panel
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:49:16 -0400 Date: Wed, July 18, 2012 8:52 am Public Statement from the CIA’s Historical Review Panel
Professor Robert Jervis (Chair)
Professor Melvyn Leffler
Professor Thomas Newcomb
Professor Jeffrey Taliaferro
Professor Ruth Wedgwood 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 12958 as amended. 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. The HRP met on June 4-5, 2012, with Robert Jervis, Melvyn Leffler, Thomas Newcomb, and Jeffrey Taliaferro being in attendance. As has often been the case, we spent much of our time discussing the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, including specific volumes at various stages of compilation and declassification and the general processes involved. We had a long session with the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee and the Historical Office staff. A great deal of progress has been made in reducing delays and coming to grips with difficult issues. We agreed on the value of continuing communication between the two advisory panels and of course in developing even further the working-level relations between CIA and the State Department, which will have to be expanded to include representatives of the National Security Council staff. We also discussed the projects of the Historical Collections Division (HCD) and how these can be developed to meet the needs of multiple audiences and to produce material of most interest to scholars, journalists, and members of the interested public. We continued our discussion of the 25-Year Program, the wider dissemination of material on the CREST system (the CIA Records Search Tool), and the need to get all agencies to devote attention to material from Presidential libraries. We also discussed options for reviewing Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs). We will meet again in December 2012 or January 2013.
Robert Jervis _______________________________________________
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