This note is really for my own reference, but may be helpful for one or two other people, somewhere, somehow.

Ever see a peanut M&M with two peanuts? If you have, that is what a siamese twin record is. The case I am looking at in this note is the 2023-06-28 release of record 124-10328-10029, with 31 pages (available here). As I was going through non-CIA records yesterday, this one stood out, because the 2022 release of record 124-10328-10029 (available here) had only 6 pages.

The RIF sheet for the 2023 release also says 6 pages, but as noted it has 31. Going through it page by page, it turns out that the extra pages are not from 124-10328-10029 but from 124-10328-10030. The record 124-10328-10030 was posted at NARA in 2022 (available here), apparently with no redactions left in it. This released in full record was somehow attached to 124-10328-10029, and the two were released again, as a double peanut file, on 2023-06-28.

This later release of 124-10328-10030 is a 100% copy of the 2022 version. On the other hand, the 2022 version of 124-10328-10029 had two redactions in it, while the 2023 version in the two peanut record is now released in full.¹A variant of such “siamese twin” records can be found in the 2018 and 2022 releases of record number 180-10143-10099, which includes two copies of the record, one releasing most of the redactions and the other retaining them.

FYI!

[6.29.2024 post script]
Another variation of this problem can be found in record number 104-10151-10044, where there are two copies of the same record in one pdf. Although the records are identical, the ad-hoc numbering at the bottom of the records is different; the first copy has “page” 163-165, and the other has “page” 190-192. This lengthy ad-hoc numbered collection of docs (numbered as pages 1-319) thus has two copies of this document in it.

Can we find a real copy of this second copy which is accidentally included with the first copy in the double peanut record? Why yes, we can! There is another copy of this second copy, also numbered page 190, page 191, page 192, available here. This is one of the pre 1995 CIA releases, so it uses a different RIF sheet to identify it, but it seems to be an early release of RIF number 104-10151-10052.

So there is one copy of the first copy of the record in the sequence, contained in the double peanut record, and there are two copies of the second copy of the record, one in the double peanut record and the other in a totally different record. Confusing stuff!

Can this mess be fixed? Yes, just chop off the extraneous copy in the double peanut record, and everything is back to normal. Not holding my breath for this, though NARA has corrected scrambled records in the past.