While press coverage of the December 2021 ARC releases was mostly disappointing, NARA provided much useful information on the December releases for those who wanted to report it. This note takes a look at the good news side of the December releases, including important clarifications of the current status of the JFK Assassination Records Collection at NARA.…
Author Archives: Robert Reynolds
News coverage of the December 2021 releases
For those interested, I have another article up at Max Holland’s website, Washington Decoded. The article critiques news coverage of the December 2021 releases from the JFK ARC, which had problems, as usual.
Comments and corrections are welcome here or at WD.…
NBR files in the ARC, part 5: OP files
This is my fifth post on NBR records in the JFK Assassination Records Collection. (See here for a general introduction to records designated NBR “not believed relevant”). The “OP” files is the largest set of NBR files discussed so far, and received much attention immediately following the 2017-2018 ARC releases. As it turned out, this attention was based in part on a misunderstanding.…
The October cables
Lee Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy, traveled to Mexico City at the end of September, 1963. During his stay there, he visited both the Cuban and Soviet Union embassies. Prior to one of these visits, he called the Soviet Embassy, identifying himself as Lee Oswald. This call was monitored by a teltap center, jointly operated by the Mexican and United States governments, and became the subject of several cables between CIA headquarters and its Mexico City station in October 1963, a month before the assassination of President Kennedy.…
Redacted CIA docs, 1990-1999
Oswald docs in the December 2021 releases
This post reviews newly released redactions from documents related to Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO), as posted at the National Archives website last December. Oswald is a key figure in Kennedy assassination documents, and the release of redactions in Oswald-related docs is always worth a close look.
The review this time is limited to LHO docs from the CIA, since these are more readily identified than LHO docs from other agencies, as will be seen below.…
NARA 21, part 10: CIA mid-length docs
An earlier post on this blog counted redactions in a set of ARC docs which I dubbed CIA short docs. CIA short docs are one page CIA docs where NARA 21, the May 2021 update of the JFK database, lists a current status of “Redact” and a doc restriction of 5(g)(2)(D).…
More commentary on the December 2021 releases
My article on the December ARC releases for Max Holland’s website Washington Decoded has recently received some commentary that might interest those who are interested in the JFK ARC.
Part of my article criticized author Jeff Morley’s views on the remaining redactions in the ARC. Morley recently responded at his blog, JFK Facts.…
A note on “missing records” in the December releases
One of the more confusing parts of the December 2021 ARC releases at NARA is the status of the “missing records.” This note looks at which records belong to this set, how they got labeled “missing” and how they were “found”. This is an extremely boring note, feel free to skip it.…
Summary of December 2021 releases (updated)
I have not yet posted any notes on the December 15 releases. I may have an article on these elsewhere in the next few weeks, so I will hold off on extended discussion for now. Following is just a quick summary of the records posted on NARA’s website.
Agency totals
Totals of records released per agency (the number in parentheses is the agency prefix):
| # | agency | record count | percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CIA (104) | 958 | 64% |
| 2 | FBI (124) | 355 | 24% |
| 3 | HSCA (180) | 106 | 7% |
| 4 | SSCIA (157) | 24 | 2% |
| 5 | Ford Lib (178) | 15 | 1% |
| 6 | ACSI/IRR (194) | 11 | < 1% |
| 7 | OSA (198) | 5 | < 1% |
| 8 | JFK Lib (176) | 5 | < 1% |
| 9 | JCS (202) | 3 | < 1% |
| 10 | DOS (119) | 3 | < 1% |
| 11 | LBJ Lib (177) | 2 | < 1% |
| 12 | NARA/WC (179) | 2 | < 1% |
| 13 | NSC (145) | 1 | < 1% |
| 14 | NARA (181) | 1 | < 1% |
Newly released records
One surprise in the December releases was to see 70 78 records which were not previously released in 2017-2018.…