More ARC docs are up on the MFF website, straight from the vaults of the AARC. The latest additions: over 160 CIA records, including some very interesting docs on Cuban matters.
What’s in the docs?
The new docs at MFF are in two sets: 84 records from CIA’s Latin American Division (JFK-Work Files), and 85 miscellaneous records, mostly from the hard copy JFK records in the HSCA-CIA segregated collection, as well as three docs from the HSCA-CIA staff records, and a handful from the CIA microfilm docs. Total page count: about 500 pages. Pagewise, this is the smallest of the three recent releases from the AARC boxes.
Latin America and a JFK miscellany
For some reason, there are 17 LAD docs that have duplicates: for example, there are two copies of ARC 104-10315-10045: here and here. As a result, although there were 84 LAD records posted on the MFF website, there are actually only 67 unique new records available.
For those interested in any of these new records, note that I was unable to locate several of them using the MFF RIF search function. Apparently MFF has not yet integrated all of the new docs into its indexes.
Of the LAD records posted, about 50 were previously not available online. I have wanted to see these LA division docs for some time. These are working files from the CIA’s JFK Task Force on possible Cuban involvement in the JFK assassination. The Task Force’s lengthy report is available in a number of versions in the ARC (here is one), eventually I will do a post on that.
Of these newly added records, one that I particularly wanted to see was ARC 104-10315-10056: a draft paper by CIA historian Jack Pfeiffer, called “Separate tracks: Agency planning – Mafia plotting”. It turns out there is a second version of the article: ARC 104-10315-10066, titled “Targetting Fidel Castro.” I’ve now read the first version, but not yet the second. For those interested in the subject, both are definitely worth a look. Note that several of the newly added records are related to this article, including material such as excerpts of Pfeiffer’s interviews with Dick Drain and Richard Bissell. These are also quite interesting.
Miscellaneous JFK records
The remaining 82 CIA records (skipping 3 HSCA records) which MFF posted this time are also a mixture of new and old. About 25 of the records were previously unavailable online, including several docs on Cesar Diosdado, a U.S. Customs agent who helped CIA debrief Cuban refugees and spot potential agents and assets (e.g. 104-10070-10292, 104-10070-10293, and 104-10070-10294).
Another 35 records were previously available online, but in more redacted form, and/or in “old” versions which used the old NIA identification aids, making it difficult to identify the documents. The newly added versions of these old records were mostly released in 1999 (according to the RIF sheets attached to them), in many cases released in full.
One example: ARC 104-10082-10019, originally only available in a redacted form with an NIA iden aid (here). The newly added version (here) has a standard RIF iden aid and is released in full.
Two cents
The LAD records are the good stuff in this set of newly added docs; nice to have these available on line at last. However, the miscellaneous JFK hard copy records are also an excellent addition to MFF’s outstanding document collection, and I may have more to say about these in a future note. The only complaint I have is that RIF searches are not yet fully working; hopefully this will be fixed soon.