ARRB vs. FRUS Part 3

      The examples given in the first two posts on this subject are not the only instances of where the CIA gave State Department historians access to secret documents for the FRUS that apparently were not given the ARRB. 

       But while FRUS may be a supplement to the JFK documents at the National Archives, it is not a substitute for them. As the examples of the McCone memoranda demonstrate, FRUS may contain only snippets from the underlying document. Another problem is that while the FRUS may mention a document, the document itself may be omitted as classified, and there is no process for later reviews. There are glaring omission as well. President Kennedy's November 18, 1963, speech to the Inter-American Press Association in Miami was a major foreign policy pronouncement.  He called the Castro government a barrier that had to be removed.  Desmond FitzGerald wrote key parts which were intended by the CIA as message to Cubela and cohorts that the President supported them.  But the speech isn't mentioned in FRUS. And finally, the FRUS suffers from the same flaws as the ARRB. Unless historians at State are given access to material, they can't include it in FRUS.  The best example of this is the audio tape at the Kennedy library in Boston of the August 15, 1963, meeting with President Kennedy at the White House.  In attendance from the CIA were McCone, Helms, Bruce Cheever, and William Colby, who was responsible for CIA operations in Vietnam. Eighteen minutes are deleted from the tape as secret.  The library's listing says the subject was "British Guiana." That seems unlikely.  British Guiana hardly commanded the attention of so many high level CIA officers.  But this underscores the problem.

       

      The FRUS is published under statutory authority of 22 USC 4351 et seq. That law requires the Secretary of State to insure publication not later than 30 years after the event. Hence, FRUS on the Kennedy administration were completed in the 1961-1963 time frame, overlapping the ARRB's existence. Interestingly enough, the FRUS law contains an injunction on the historians that is not found in the JFK records act:  "Editing principles.  The editing of records for preparation of the FRUS series shall be guided by the principles of historical objectivity and accuracy. Records shall not be altered and deletions shall not be made without indicating in the published text that a deletion has been made. The published record shall omit no facts which were of major importance in reaching a decision, and nothing shall be omitted for the purpose of concealing a defect of policy. 22 USC 4351(b), emphasis added.