Jack Pfeiffer | intelNews.org

Court allows CIA to keep Cuba invasion document secret

May 21, 2014 by Ian Allen Leave a comment

Court documents By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
The United States Central Intelligence Agency has successfully defended itself against a lawsuit that sought the release of a secret document detailing the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. On April 17, 1961, a brigade of 1,300 CIA-funded and -trained anticommunist Cubans mounted a surprise assault on the Caribbean island. The failure of the operation prompted the CIA to produce a multi-volume report, whose fifth and final part was authored in the early 1980s by CIA resident-historian Jack Pfeiffer. The first four volumes of the history of the Invasion have been released to the public, one voluntarily by the CIA and three through Freedom of Information Act requests. George Washington University’s National Security Archive sued the CIA in 2011, eventually forcing the Agency to declassify Volumes I, II and IV of the report. This left Volume V, which is the subject of an ongoing dispute between historians and the CIA, going back to 2005. On Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Circuit of the District of Columbia ruled in a split 2-1 decision that the CIA had the right to maintain the secrecy of the entire fifth volume of the report. The two judges that ruled in favor of the CIA’s position, Brett Kavanaugh and Stephen Williams, argued that the volume in question had been “rejected for inclusion in the final publication” of the CIA report. As such, it was not a finished product, but rather a draft manuscript and was therefore not subject to US declassification rules under the Freedom of Information Act. The judges added that, since the document was “predecisional and deliberative” in character, it should be granted the so-called “deliberative process privilege”. This clause stipulates that the authors of deliberative documents are entitled to concrete and long-lasting assurances that the draft documents they are producing will remain secret. This, said the two judges, would allow the authors to advise those who commission their work freely and candidly. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with Bay of Pigs Invasion, CIA, Cold War, Cuba, declassification, history, Jack Pfeiffer, National Security Archive, News

US judge denies release of CIA report on Bay of Pigs invasion

May 14, 2012 by intelNews Leave a comment

Court documents By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On April 17, 1961, a brigade of 1,300 CIA-funded and -trained anticommunist Cubans mounted a surprise assault on the Caribbean island. But prior intelligence collected by spies working for Havana, and stiff resistance by pro-Castro troops, resulted in the CIA’s biggest known covert action failure. Approximately 1,200 surviving members of the CIA’s army were captured by pro-Castro forces, many of whom were severely interrogated or executed in subsequent years. The intelligence fiasco led to a five-volume CIA report, whose final volume was authored in the early 1980s by CIA resident historian Jack Pfeiffer. It essentially contains the CIA’s counterargument to a previous report, authored by the Agency’s Inspector General, which placed the blame for the failure on the invasion squarely on the shoulders of the CIA. Volume III of the report was voluntarily released by the CIA in 1998, but was not discovered by researchers until 2005, when an academic found it among the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the US National Archives. Following an unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act request, George Washington University’s National Security Archive sued the CIA in 2011, eventually forcing the Agency to declassify Volumes I, II and IV last April. This left Volume V, which is the subject of an ongoing dispute between historians and the CIA. But in a decision aired late last week, US District Court judge Gladys Kessler agreed with the Agency that the volume was not subject to US declassification rules because it had been “rejected for inclusion in the final publication” of the report. According to judge Kessler, the volume written by Dr. Pfeiffer, the CIA historian, was not a finished product, but rather a draft manuscript, and was therefore exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Read more of this post