Tom Blanton on 40 Years of Unearthing CIA Secrets with the National Security Archive

The National Security Archive's Mission

• 💡 The National Security Archive is a private research organization dedicated to exposing secrets and promoting transparency.
• 🎯 It was founded in the 1980s to serve as a repository for classified documents, utilizing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel government releases.
• 🔑 The organization's guiding ethos is transparency, pushing back against government secrecy that can lead to operations going "off the rails."

FOIA and Document Release

• 🚀 The Freedom of Information Act, particularly amendments passed in 1974, was crucial for accessing national security documents.
• ⏳ The period from 1975 to 1981 is considered a "golden age" for FOIA, with significant document releases and court enforcement.
• ⏳ It can take years, even 15 years, for efforts like obtaining the "family jewels" documents, a timeframe unfeasible for newsrooms on deadline.
• 📊 The Archive believes approximately 80% of classified information could be declassified within 5-10 years of its creation, with only a small fraction being true, long-term secrets.

The CIA's "Family Jewels"

• 🧠 The "family jewels" refer to a collection of memos detailing the CIA's worst actions, illegal activities, and charter violations, prompted by Director James Schlesinger in 1973.
• ⚠️ Some memos revealed serious wrongdoings like assassination plots and illegal domestic surveillance, while others claimed no illegal activities occurred.
• 📰 A portion of these "family jewels" was leaked to the New York Times in 1974 by an internal CIA source, leading to significant public reaction and investigations.
• 🔑 Ironically, the individual who confessed and briefed President Ford and the Justice Department, KBY, may have saved the agency from complete dismantling by Congress.

Challenges in Document Acquisition and Preservation

• 🗣️ The Archive uses FOIA requests extensively, filing over 75,000 targeted requests, and occasionally resorting to lawsuits.
• 🤝 Information is also obtained through other means, such as acquiring Russian verbatim transcripts of meetings between Gorbachev and US presidents, which highlighted discrepancies and the Soviets' superior note-taking.
• 🏛️ The Presidential Records Act governs the release of presidential documents, but unique situations, like a former president being the incumbent, create legal battles over access.
• 📱 The increasing use of digital communication like emails, texts, and WhatsApp presents new challenges for record preservation, though digital tools and legal actions are being employed to archive them.

Unearthing Historical Controversies

• 🔍 The Archive is pursuing documents related to Operation Mongoose, the post-Bay of Pigs effort to remove Castro, with potential key documents held at the Kennedy Library.
• 🎯 Documents revealed the CIA's view of assassinations as normal business in the 1950s, with internal studies on methods and target lists for operations in Guatemala and Iran.
• 🇨🇺 A striking example is the decision to escalate sabotage and assassination in Cuba on the same day missiles were discovered there in 1962.
• 📝 The Archive works to "fill in the gaps" of missing information, such as the Senate torture report, by cross-referencing declassified cables, IG reports, and confirmation details to reconstruct events and identify responsible parties.
• ⚖️ The Archive has filed lawsuits to stop the destruction of records, including saving White House email backup tapes and forcing the digital archiving of Jared Kushner's WhatsApp messages.