The ARRB created a special form, which it called a “final determination form” (FDF), to record its decisions to release or postpone text in ARC documents. This form has recently become the subject of discussion among several assassination researchers, some of whom attach much importance to it.
I’m still looking at the arguments for this, so I don’t have anything general to say. I do, however, have a comment about one specific instance of the form which JFK researcher Andrew Iler cited in an article earlier this year.
Caveat lector! This is a messy, often dull discussion. I like trivia, however. In addition, Iler draws some very strong conclusions in his article, and these are certainly worth a closer look.
Iler’s articles
Andrew Iler is a Canadian attorney who has several articles/publications on the JFK assassination, and the JFK Assassination Records Collection (ARC) in particular. This is the main focus of this blog, so of course I have read these with interest. Iler has two articles discussing the FDFs on “Kennedys and King”, a blog run by JFK researcher Jim Di Eugenio. The articles are available here and here. (Iler calls the forms FDNs, “Final Determination Notices”.)
In his first article, Iler explains the format of the forms, then makes the argument that the FDFs were an essential part of the ARRB record review, and even play a part in the legal status of records in the collection.
In the second article, Iler explains how he found approximately 450 FDFs in the ARRB records at NARA which had been printed out but never attached to any documents. He asks a number of sharp questions about why this set of forms was “misplaced” at NARA, and why they were never attached to any ARC documents.
He also found an additional 301 FDFs in a printed version of the ARRB’s 1995 Annual Report to Congress, giving him a total of 751 forms.
The 450 unattached forms are an interesting discovery, and I am quite curious to see them. The total number of records I have found in the ARC with FDFs attached is less than a hundred. Almost all of them are from 1995 and 1996. For Iler’s finds, the FDFs in the 1995 report are of course from that year, and apparently all of the unattached forms Iler found are from 1996.
Record count problems
Both these sets of FDFs pose questions. For the 1995 report forms, I find the figure of 301 FDFs odd. The primary data we have on ARRB releasing comes from the notices they published in the Federal Register (FR). These ARRB notices list basic data about records reviewed (including record id numbers), postponements approved, and deadlines for release of postponed text, i.e. redactions. (See this note for a more detailed description of record notices.) The records noticed in the FR do not add up to 301. I would love to see the 1995 report appendix that provides these 301 FDFs, but as Iler notes, the complete report with appendices attached is hard to come by.
Release date problems
The unattached FDFs also raise questions, as Iler notes. Some of these give postponement release dates prior to October 2017, the date that the JFK Act sets for release of ARC material. According to Iler, however, “The associated assassination records clearly show that despite being ordered RELEASED IN FULL in January 2006 [on the FDNs], the records remained withheld from public disclosure beyond 2017, with a small number of records continuing to be withheld from public disclosure into 2025.”
Iler specifically cites the FDF on ARC 104-10016-10021: “An unambiguous example of such unlawful withholding of the release of an assassination record is demonstrated by assassination record RIF# 104-10016-10021. This CIA SECRET record, dated December 1963 from Melbourne and addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, was ordered to be fully released by January 2006 in the ARRB Final Determination dated April 18, 1996. … This assassination record was only just released in March 2025, a delay of almost 19 years.”
A closer look at 104-10016-10021
There are number of things worth saying about this specific record. First, this is a cable from the CIA Melbourne station to CIA HQ, dated 2 December 1963. I prefer referring to it by the cable number, MELB 2517, rather than the RIF number.
There are SIX versions of MELB 2517 available at in the MFF collection. Five of them can be found by looking up the RIF number. The sixth version is in the un-riffed Oswald boxes (here). These copies of docs in Oswald’s 201 file were released without RIFs in 1992.
Perhaps Iler is aware that all these versions were released, perhaps not. In any case, he does not inform his readers that there were five versions released, with redactions, before the last redaction was lifted in March 2025, instead writing that “this assassination record was only just released in March 2025, a delay of almost 19 years.”
This is a constant problem in discussions of ARC records, and leads to much misunderstanding. “Release” in the ARC context almost NEVER means “make public an entire record that was previously unavailable for public inspection.” What we are discussing in the FDF context is individual redactions. Some of these may be lengthy, but they are still just redactions in a record that the public has access to. In this case, the version of MELB 2517 which NARA posted online in March 2025 finally includes the last bit of redacted text.
It is not difficult to follow the progress of this record from redacted to released in full on the MFF website. Note that none of the versions of MELB 2517 in the MFF collection has an FDF attached.
Skipping the unriffed version, we begin with a version from 1996, close to the print date of the FDF Iler found. The 1996 version is here. The RIF sheet on this version has a print date of 11 April 1996. The FDF has a print date of 18 April 1996. So the FDF was printed about a week after the RIF, and for some reason was never attached. That is my reading.
Iler hints that the FDF may have originally been attached to the record, then removed to obfuscate the date the record was to be released by. I doubt this.
Going back to the FDF Iler found, it describes the state of MELB 2517 as follows: “Status of document: postponed in part. Number of postponements: 5. Postponement #1 page 1 … Substitute language: Crypt. Postponement #2 page 1 … Substitute language: Crypt. Postponement #3 page 1 … Substitute language: Crypt. Postponement #4 page 2 … Substitute language: Crypt. Postponement #5 page 2 … Substitute language: Crypt.”
This is no doubt cryptic to those unfamiliar with the shorthand here. Postponement means holding back some text, a redaction in other words. A marker is supposed to be left to indicate where. Different versions of the record often use differ types of markers.
Substitute language crypt means that the type of info left out is a cryptonym. In place of the text, the ARRB instructed CIA to leave the numerical code “2” to indicate there is a crypt held back.
So the cable as reviewed by the ARRB in 1996 had five blank spaces each of which was a cryptonym, three on page one, two on page two. Now we can look at the 1996 version on MFF, available here.
On page 1 of the cable, we do indeed find three blanks, marked with handwritten square brackets. The numerical code 2 is sort of visible in two of the blanks, and invisible in the third. On page two, however, we find three blanks marked by brackets, not two. The first one clearly has a two, the second and third apparently don’t. Something is going on here, but I don’t know what it is. Go on to version two, which was released on 9 November 2017, available at MFF here.
Page one of the 2017 version has all the text released. The cryptonym concealed in the earlier version was “SQUARE”. This must be one of the Australian intelligence or security services, but it is not listed on the MFF cryptonym list. We see that in fact there is a numerical code “2” on the first two instances of SQUARE, but not on the last, so CIA messed up on that.
Page two of the 2017 version has two of the three blanks from 1996 released. They are also “SQUARE”, both marked with “2”. However, the second blank from 1996 has not been released at all. The sentence here reads “SQUARE has arranged with [ ] trace any further calls.”
On to the third release, from 26 April 2018. There is nothing to say here, it is identical to the 2017 version.
On to the fourth release, from 15 December 2022. One word has been released from that last redaction. The sentence it is from now reads “SQUARE HAS ARRANGED WITH [ ] OFFICER [ ] TO TRACE ANY FURTHER CALLS.”
The last release is released in full.The sentence now reads “SQUARE HAS ARRANGED WITH PMG LIAISON OFFICER TERRY GOLD TO TRACE ANY FURTHER CALLS.” I am not sure what PMG means. I found one source that says this may refer to the former Australian “Postmaster General Department”. How could they trace phone calls? Don’t know. Could refer to something else.
A couple of points here. First, it looks like the FDF missed a redaction. Without the “Terry Gold” redaction, there are indeed five redactions, all of them the word “SQUARE”.
Second, regardless of which part of the Australian government PMG is, “Terry Gold” is the name of an Australian intelligence or security officer. The CIA cares a great deal about releasing the names of other government’s officers and agents. So do the other governments. If Gold was still alive when his name was released this year, and it was released without the permission of the Australian government, this is not good for the U.S.-Australian intelligence relations. In any case, with or without permission, it is not surprising that this redaction was the last to be released.
Third, liaison names and security officers’ names are usually treated as numerical code 24, “operational details.” The Board withheld most references to “liaison” matters until October 2017. Yet no such redaction is specified in the FDF, and the number of redactions in the FDF does not add up to six, despite the actual 1996 record having six. As I said, I don’t understand. There may be an explanation somewhere in the ARC records.
The non-significance of MELB 2517
The cable we are looking at is interesting for a sense of how CIA handled inquiries into assassination-related issues overseas. It is not, however, relevant to the question of who killed President Kennedy, or whether there was a conspiracy. You need to know the story of the crank calls that were made in Australia after the assassination to understand it. MELB 2517 is not a central piece of that story.
The delay in the release of Terry Gold’s name may annoy researchers, but it is an easy call. The meaning behind the redaction was clear; someone in Australia was being asked to trace calls. It was also clear after the release of “SQUARE” that this person or organization must also be Australian. Release only when the Australians say OK. Did they? I hope so.
My two cents
I discovered just this week that Joe Backes has a post on Iler’s theory of the FDF’s on his Substack blog, “Justice for Kennedy”. The post is available here. Joe’s post makes some good points, it’s well worth a read for anyone interested in this technical issue.
If I may, I’d like to address a couple of minor points here. None of these comments should be misconstrued as detracting in any way from another excellent post on this site.
Firstly, I think you are correct in theorizing that PMG refers to the Postmaster-General’s Department. The name might initially suggest otherwise, but the PMG was in fact established in 1901 to oversee the “the provision of postal and telegraphic services throughout Australia.” A brief overview can be found on Wikipedia. Their involvement seems natural given the nature of the enquiries.
On the other hand, the wording “PMG Liaison Officer” suggests to me that “Terry Gold” worked for the PMG and he was their liaison point with SQUARE. I don’t think there is enough information here to assume that “Gold” was necessarily an intelligence officer. The following sentence refers to a “SQUARE REP CNBR.” This seems most likely to be the CIA’s direct point of contact with SQUARE in Canberra.
SQUARE is presumably the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO, “the domestic intelligence and national security agency of the Australian Government”). The content of the document itself – discussing license plate checks, recorded conversations, and domestic surveillance – all sounds like it would have fallen within their purview at the time.
Thanks for all your work on this website and the regular posts on the new document releases.
Thanks for the comments Steve!
Both your points make sense to me. I am still a little “fuzzy” on the PMG role if they were trying to trace telephone calls, unless that would fall under the category of “telegraphic services”. I agree that ASIO seems the most likely identity of “SQUARE”, though the domestic content might also fit ASIS.
As I said, there are a number of cables about this guy, who everyone seems to agree was a crank, but who HAD to be followed up. The most interesting cables were from Canberra (IMO). One of these cables mentioned ASIS, and when DCI Helms wrote to DGS Sir Charles Spry about the possibility of releasing the cable, Sir Charles had to tell him that its existence was still secret.
If matters are as you say, this now strikes me as somewhat analogous to the release of PMG in MELB 2517. Has PMG’s liaison relationship with Australian security services in 1963 been acknowledged by the Australians? And MELB 2517 has the extra zing of telling us who the guy was.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your reply. Sorry if my initial comments were unclear, but PMG was indeed the sole regulatory and administrative body responsible for the Australian telephone network in this era (and up until 1975 when it was broken up into the organisations Australia Post and Telecom).
I’d suggest the domestic content here likely rules out ASIS, which, to my understanding, has always been designated as the Australian foreign intelligence services and was designed to operate outside the country. The domestic focus here fits within ASIO’s sphere of interests and operations.
On the topic of PMG’s relationship with ASIO, this has been written about before, e.g.,
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1037969X231205769
See the section: “ASIO’s power to intercept telecommunications” for a brief summary of the relationship between the two organisations after ASIO was founded in 1949. As noted a little further on in the paper, “Between May 1960 and May 1974, ASIO intercepted an average of around 13 phones per year.” This would have all taken place with the involvement of PMG.
I do agree, however, that the correspondence between Sir Charles Spry and Richard Helms in October/November 1968 is actually a far more interesting exchange than this one. More specifically, Spry’s request to the CIA not to declassify WC exhibit CD.971 and his reasoning.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=234227
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=238166
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2023/08/104-10408-10416.pdf
(Sidenote: This is yet another instance where a series of reclassifications over the years gradually revealed the full content of Spry’s letter. The slow unveiling process was, of course, mostly overlooked or misconstrued in the coverage by the Australia media last year, which presented these letters as a wild new revelation concerning a “Shock Australian connection” to the assassination—or something equally ridiculous to that effect.)
Spry does indeed mention ASIS in his letter—point (II)(d)—the existence of which was not officially disclosed until 1972. But his primary reasons—points (I) and (II)—for requesting non-disclosure was to avoid a firestorm of media coverage and parliamentary questioning that would most likely ensue if it was disclosed that the CIA had an active station in Canberra. This would have been an extremely controversial revelation in Australian domestic politics at the time. I suspect that no one in government—perhaps least of all Spry himself—fancied answering a barrage of questions from journalists or elected officials about what an active CIA station was actually up to in Canberra and how it got there. Spry’s reasoning is entirely understandable from that point of view.
I find these sorts of cables very interesting from a historical perspective, but as you have noted, they add absolutely nothing whatsoever to the story of the assassination itself. What do they add to the historical record is a deeper understanding of the relationships between these agencies, the domestic political considerations that informed their interactions, and the relationships between the personnel involved. All good stuff.
The decision, if there was one, to reveal the name of the PMG liaison officer remains puzzling. I’m tempted to put that revelation down to the belligerent incompetence of the current US administration and their mad rush to release all the documents last year. But why was he named in the original cable? Perhaps he was known to the CIA for simply having operated in that role for a period of time.
Steve,
many, many thanks for the references and comments! Much here for me to think about. Thanks for the correction on ASIS, and I will definitely have to read the article on ASIO and PMG. The Australian press reaction is especially interesting!