President's Foreign Advisory Board (PFIAB) The newly released records relate to U.S. and Cuban exile operations against Cuba between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, said Prof. Anna Nelson, a historian at American University and a member of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. "These are records that will give you new insight into that period," she said. "What is unique [about the records] is PFIAB's take on the world and how they presented it to the President," said Steven Tilley, a specialist at the National Archives who reviewed each of the several hundred pages of newly accessioned PFIAB documents, which are now open to researchers at the JFK assassination records collection at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. As a larger consequence of President Clinton's action, it may now become easier to win public access to other historical records of the PFIAB, whose arrogance is remarkable even by prevailing intelligence community standards.
JFK News sent the following email regarding the release of more important documents in the JFK case: The ARRB Wins One. Yes, you read right. The defunct ARRB won one. The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has had to release files. Thanks to Peter Dale Scott and Joe Backes for passing this on. SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy March 19, 2001 ** PFIAB DOCUMENTS RELEASED BY CLINTON ** REVISITING THE BAY OF PIGS PFIAB DOCUMENTS RELEASED BY CLINTON In a last-minute good deed that has gone entirely unnoted, President Clinton on January 19 rejected an appeal by the secretive President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) and directed that hundreds of pages of historical PFIAB records loosely related to the assassination of President Kennedy be released to the National Archives. Several years ago, the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) had identified excerpts of 17 PFIAB documents dating from 1961 to 1963 as "assassination records" that were subject to a 1992 law requiring their release to the fullest extent possible. Despite the clear language of the statutory requirement, however, the PFIAB objected to the ARRB action. PFIAB chairman Sen. Warren Rudman challenged the ARRB's authority to designate its records as assassination records or to dictate their release. The PFIAB waited until late 1998 when the ARRB was about to be disbanded and then filed an appeal to the President seeking to block disclosure of the designated PFIAB records. Due to the lateness of the appeal, the Review Board was unable to reply. But in an unprecedented repudiation of the PFIAB's habitual secrecy, President Clinton rejected the appeal the day before his term ended. The decision was disclosed last Friday by Clinton's chief of staff John Podesta, who spoke at a Freedom of Information Day conference at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, VA. The President also turned down an appeal by the US Secret Service to withhold assassination records, Mr. Podesta revealed. The newly released records relate to U.S. and Cuban exile operations against Cuba between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, said Prof. Anna Nelson, a historian at American University and a member of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. "These are records that will give you new insight into that period," she said. "What is unique [about the records] is PFIAB's take on the world and how they presented it to the President," said Steven Tilley, a specialist at the National Archives who reviewed each of the several hundred pages of newly accessioned PFIAB documents, which are now open to researchers at the JFK assassination records collection at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. As a larger consequence of President Clinton's action, it may now become easier to win public access to other historical records of the PFIAB, whose arrogance is remarkable even by prevailing intelligence community standards. The PFIAB, possibly confusing the United States with some other country, has contended that it "owns" its records and that they are beyond the reach of the law. In a December 2000 report to the Secretary of State, the State Department's Historical Advisory Committee warned it was "gravely concerned about the efforts of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) to block access to and to delay declassification of its documents. PFIAB seeks a permanent exemption of its records from the declassification statute on the dubious grounds that it provides personal and private information to the President." The PFIAB claim conflicts with the State Department's legal obligation to publish a thorough, accurate and complete record of U.S. foreign policy. A PFIAB spokesman was not immediately available for comment. Information about the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives is available here: http://www.nara.gov/research/jfk/index.html These documents were being kept from the public *****not ****** by the Kennedy's btw. Release the documents! by all means..................... Peter --
