This post reviews the 2025 releases from CIA records in the ARC. The short version: Every CIA doc that was posted at NARA this month was released in full. No redactions are left in those docs.
Here is a summary of what is in this post:
- CIA records I missed in my redaction count
- CIA records that were not posted on NARA this time
- 600+ whole page redactions were released in full
- Everything else was released in full too
- Records where a lot of material was released
- The microfilm Oswald 201 file was NOT released
CIA records I missed in my redaction counts
At the end of February 2025, I wrote that 1482 CIA records still had redactions. (That note is here.) This was not 100% accurate. Based on NARA’s 3/18 and 3/20 releases, there were 1489. The seven records I missed are:
| record number | old NARA copy | new NARA copy | releases |
|---|---|---|---|
| 104-10105-10290 | 2023 link | 2025 link | 2 |
| 104-10172-10112 | 2023 link | 2025 link | 2 |
| 104-10173-10166 | 2023 link | 2025 link | 1 |
| 104-10194-10001 | 2022 link | 2025 link | 1 |
| 104-10224-10001 | 2023 link | 2025 link | 4 |
| 104-10245-10000 | 2023 link | 2025 link | 3 |
| 104-10302-10024 | 2022 link | 2025 link | 1 |
The “releases” column shows how many redactions in the old versions were released in the new versions. There were only 1-2 in each record, which is why I missed most of them. Long records plus just one single redaction = damn hard to catch.
I have to add a note about ARC 104-10105-10290. There are two very different versions of this document in the ARC, one 7 pages and one 8 pages, but both have the same record number. Both were redacted, both appeared in the 3/18 releases.
I listed one of these docs as redacted, but failed to list the other. My bad. If you care about such details, beware of these docs!
So seven records, plus the 1482 records on my list, equals 1489. This was all the redactions left in the CIA records, in February 2025.
Redacted CIA records NOT posted at NARA on 3/18-3/20
As I mentioned in my last note, not all of the CIA records on my list were reposted at NARA this time. How many? Five. As I said in that note: No repost = no text released. Here are the five records on my list that were not reposted:
| record number | latest copy | redactions |
|---|---|---|
| 104-10213-10058 | 2023 link | 67 |
| 104-10330-10088 | 2022 link | 10 |
| 104-10332-10024 | 2023 link | 88 |
| 104-10414-10124 | 2023 link | 127 |
| 104-10439-10115 | 2022 link | 67 |
As the links in the table show, redacted versions of all these records are available at NARA. These records were NOT reposted at NARA this time, so all of those redactions remain. Will the redacted material in these records be released later? Don’t know. Why wasn’t this material released this time? Don’t know.
No more whole page redactions
As I have written before, there were previously about 600 pages of CIA documents that were completely redacted. Except for the CIA five records not reposted this time, all of the whole page redactions in CIA documents are open in full. This is the largest amount of new CIA information released this time. I will have separate posts on some of these docs.
No more redactions in CIA docs period
Again, I am skipping the five records that were not reposted this time. Otherwise, Forget about the whole page redactions, there are NO redactions left in the CIA records PERIOD.
How do I know this so soon? I went through all the 2022-2023 releases page by page. I wrote down the number of every page that had a redaction box. I’ve looked at all those pages. There are no more blank boxes. All that text was restored.
Could I have missed some redaction boxes? Yes. In fact I did, but I missed less than one percent of the records that had redactions. Add up the redactions I missed. Fewer than 20 out of all the tens of thousands released. So I am very confident that if I missed some, it was just a handful. If YOU find any, write to NARA, and I will bet $100 bucks they will remove the redaction for you.
What types of records had big releases?
Three main types of CIA records had heavy redactions: project files, 201 files, and OP files.
Most of the CIA project files in the ARC are from Mexico, and involve teltaps and photographic surveillance of the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic facilities. There were three or four files that had big predactions. All are released in full, and worth a post, so watch this space.
201 files are sometimes very irrelevant to JFK matters. Yes a few had major redactions, but they weren’t redacted because of JFK matters. Some claimed they were, but they were wrong. Take a look at what was really there for yourself.
Other 201 files belong to JFK relevant people, but not every day of every asset’s life is interesting. Most of the stuff in the 201s with big redactions was utterly irrelevant to JFK. Some people are interested in other things besides JFK. These 201s might be more interesting for them.
OP files are “Office of Personnel” files, not operational files. The ARRB, the Federal Board that procesed all this stuff, decided that many of these were NBR, and put them in storage for 25 years. Now we know why. The unredacted OP files are full of the intricate details of State Department and military cover for CIA officers overseas. Their release represents a massive exposure of cover mechanisms.
CIA and State both believed that it would be a very bad thing to expose this kind of detail. Well, now they will find out if they were right. Will we find out if they were right? I think that’s harder to say. If all the CIA officers under diplomatic cover are expelled from Mexico, will we hear about it? I wonder.
The last unreleased doc set
The last unreleased set of ARC documents is the microfilm Oswald 201 file. There are two copies of the Oswald 201 file in the ARC: hard copy and microfilm. The hard copy file is now released in full, but it is scattered all over the place, and many documents from the file were never posted online.
Now that the hard copy version is completely released, I believe the microfilm version should be released as well. This would give us all the Oswald documents from the 201 in one fell swoop. It would make for some fascinating reading.
If you’re interested in that sort of stuff.
No two cents, have a good day!