Declassifying CIA Documents

* Jim Mann misses the mark in his Aug. 5 article criticizing the CIA for, in his words, “resisting and delaying the attempts of independent historians--and sometimes even the State Department’s own government historians--to describe and analyze intelligence operations during the Cold War.” The CIA has done a great deal and will do more without compromising its statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods.

This agency has doubled the resources devoted to declassifying historically important records. Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch has formed a staff that is now implementing the automatic declassification requirements of President Clinton’s Executive Order 12958. Under this program, we intend to review for declassification over 40 million documents 25 years old or older.

In the past several years, the CIA has delivered unprecedented numbers of intelligence documents to the National Archives. For example, scholars can now research more than 450 national intelligence estimates on the former Soviet Union. Just under 2,500 cubic feet (2,400 archival boxes) of photographs and approximately 240 boxes of accompanying records from the CORONA satellite reconnaissance program are also available. More than 200,000 pages related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are in the National Archives. We are making a major effort to declassify records relating to Persian Gulf War illnesses.

In keeping with the promises of former directors, we are also in the process of reviewing for declassification operational records related to the Bay of Pigs and the 1954 covert operation in Guatemala. We plan to release many of these records this year.

The CIA is strongly committed to its program of openness. No other service has released as much formerly classified material as has the CIA. Our record in letting the American people know the history of their premier intelligence organization is far better than Mann asserts.

DENNIS R. BOXX

Director of Public Affairs

CIA, Washington