Judge rejects effort to open CIA volume on Cuba

Judge rejects effort to open CIA volume on Cuba
By PETE YOST
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has ruled that a final volume of the CIA's
three-decade-old history on the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba can
remain shrouded in secrecy because it is a draft, not a finished product.

The CIA characterized the volume in court papers as "a polemic of
recriminations against CIA officers who later criticized the operation."

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler accepted the CIA's arguments that the
fifth volume entitled the "CIA's Internal Investigations of the Bay of
Pigs Operations" did not even pass through the first stage of a
multilayer review process. The volume represented a proposal by a
subordinate member of the history staff that was rejected by the chief
historian as containing significant deficiencies, the CIA argued.

The CIA said the volume is protected from disclosure under the
deliberative process privilege, an exemption in the Freedom of
Information Act.

The National Security Archive, a private group seeking transparency in
government, sued the CIA to declassify the volume.

The CIA had no problem declassifying an earlier volume of the history in
which the author attacked President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert
Kennedy, said Peter Kornbluh, who directs the National Security
Archive's Cuba documentation project.

"Apparently, the CIA sees no problem in the American public reading a
'polemic of recriminations' against the White House," Kornbluh said.

In her decision Thursday, the judge said a draft history would risk
public release of inaccurate historical information.

Kessler also cited the arguments of the CIA chief historian that
disclosure would have a chilling effect on the CIA's current historians.
They would henceforth be inhibited from trying out innovative,
unorthodox or unpopular interpretations in a draft manuscript, the
agency said.

Posted on Fri, May. 11, 2012 06:29 AM

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/11/3605867/judge-rejects-effort-to-open-cia.html