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Friday, November 02, 2007

Secrecy threatens historical record, State Dept is told

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 108
November 1, 2007

Secrecy News Blog: 
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Broad classification restrictions on the disclosure of historical
intelligence information are making it difficult or impossible to
accurately represent the record of U.S. foreign policy, an official
advisory committee warned the Secretary of State last summer.

By law, the Department of State is obliged to publish "a thorough,
accurate and reliable documentary record" of United States foreign
policy in its official Foreign Relations of the United States series.

But due to official secrecy, "the credibility of the series... remains
in the balance," according to the newly disclosed report of the State
Department's Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation.

For example, "The blanket denial by the CIA of the right to quote or
cite from the President's Daily Briefs of the Nixon years and beyond
will make it difficult to give a full and accurate rendering of the
effect of intelligence assessments on the foreign relations of the
United States.... [T]he continued exemption of the President's Daily
Briefs may cause serious harm to the intellectual integrity of the
Foreign Relations series."

Similarly, the Committee complained, the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board "has not allowed the historians of the
[Foreign Relations] series access to its records [which] need to become
accessible to the staff of the [State Department] Office of the
Historian and be made available for inclusion in appropriate volumes of
Foreign Relations of the United States."

In short, "Committee members believe that unless policies consistent
with respect for the right of the American people to be fully informed
about their government's conduct of foreign policy are adopted and
implemented by the Executive Branch, it may become impossible for The
Historian [of the State Department] to carry out his duties or for the
committee to carry out its Congressionally mandated obligations."

See "Report of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic
Documentation, January 1-December 31, 2006," transmitted to the
Secretary of State on June 19, 2007:

    
http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/hac2006.pdf

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