At a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Judge John Tunheim, the former Head of Assassinations Records Review Board, delivered his opening statement.
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00:00I now recognize Judge Tunheim for an opening statement.
00:05Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.
00:10Appreciate this opportunity to speak today.
00:13My name is John Tunheim. I'm a federal district court judge for the District of Minnesota.
00:18I'm in my 30th year as a federal judge.
00:20I served as chief judge of our district from 2015 until 2022 and as a member of the U.S.
00:28Judicial Conference from 2020 to 2024.
00:32I was originally nominated by President Clinton in 1995 after serving 10 years as the Minnesota's
00:39chief deputy attorney general.
00:41I was chair of the Assassination Records Review Board during its entire existence from 1994
00:47through 1998.
00:48The Review Board was an independent federal agency.
00:52Its five board members were confirmed by the U.S.
00:56Senate after being nominated by President Clinton.
01:00Congress created the Review Board for the express purpose of reviewing all of the still-secret
01:07records of the tragic assassination of President John Kennedy and declassifying as much information
01:13as could be publicly released.
01:15The impetus for the law, which was enacted in October 1992, was Oliver Stone's movie, JFK.
01:23The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 provided for a five-member decision-making
01:34board, which would make decisions on agency-requested redactions from classified documents.
01:40We had declassification authority, the first time and maybe the only time an outside group had
01:47that authority.
01:49The board members were, by law, to be recommended for appointment by professional organizations
01:55to National Historical Associations, an Archivist Association, and the American Bar Association.
02:01Besides me, the members included a renowned provost from a major university, later university
02:08president, two distinguished history professors, and a senior archivist at Princeton.
02:14We were confirmed in 1994 and began our work with no appropriation or offices.
02:20We worked out of the National Archives for a time until I was able to secure some funding
02:26from the White House to get us started before Congress could provide an appropriation.
02:30The agency's presentation of records was seriously delayed because of the delay in the appointments.
02:38We were ready to begin review with our staff by early 1995.
02:44The statute did not require us to reach any conclusions about prior investigations or what
02:51happened on November 22nd.
02:53Rather, our task was to conduct a wide-ranging search for records to create the largest possible
03:00collection of assassination-related records as open to the public as possible.
03:06The goal was to allow the interested public to make up their own minds about what happened
03:11and based on an open and transparent and complete record.
03:16The congressional mandate, and this is important, it stated that the records relating to the assassination
03:22would, quote, carry a presumption of immediate disclosure.
03:27And, quote, only in the rarest of cases is there any legitimate need for continued protection.
03:34This is Congress in 1992.
03:37Congress defined the term assassination records broadly and indicated that the review board could
03:43further define the term assassination record, which we did.
03:48So, in June of 1995, our definition was that any record that was reasonably related to the assassination
03:56would be an assassination record subject to the board's jurisdiction.
04:01And we included all records collected by government agencies in conjunction with any investigation
04:07or analysis of or inquiry into the assassination of President Kennedy.
04:13We developed detailed guidelines for agencies to follow, and agencies did have the right to appeal our decisions
04:20directly to the president.
04:23We were authorized to redact words.
04:25We did not ever redact entire documents that the agency proved by clear and convincing evidence,
04:32that was a standard, that the harm of disclosure outweighed the public interest in the document
04:39in four categories, national security, intelligence gathering methods, personal privacy,
04:46or methods of protecting the president.
04:49That was it.
04:50We held many public hearings, experts' conferences around the country, in addition to our private meetings
04:56to discuss our decision-making.
04:59We also tried to clarify unclear evidence where we could, digitalizing autopsy materials
05:05and analyzing them, and deposing the autopsy physicians.
05:10We also gathered artifacts, including photographs and film, clothing, and other artifacts.
05:17We had limited time to do our work, which was not enough time.
05:24We were granted just one more year by Congress, so we had a total of three years.
05:28We began to lose staff as we approached the end of our mandate.
05:33In all, the board issued over 27,000 individual rulings.
05:38These were decisions on requests by agencies to protect information.
05:44Most redacted information had release dates attached to them.
05:49We made it easy for the researchers to determine whether a redacted name appeared in different
05:54locations so that they would know it was the same person.
05:57There were a further 33,000 consent releases, which essentially means that the agency saw
06:04the handwriting on the wall and released the documents directly since we were likely to
06:09order release.
06:10When we finished, there were nearly five million pages at the National Archives.
06:15We made the decision early that we would not protect any information directly related
06:20to the assassination because of the high level of public interest.
06:24By 2017, when the last records were to be released under the act, there were probably not more
06:31than 1,500 review board redactions that were remaining.
06:35The act was clear in stating that despite the review board wrapping up its work in 1998, the
06:41act was to continue in effect, which meant that agencies had the obligation to continue to present
06:47information.
06:48Most of the redactions now in the documents are within documents never shown to the review
06:55board, but were transferred to NARA at a later time.
07:00Agencies largely complied with the mandate to present records to the review board.
07:05However, there are many delays and denials with records that we specifically requested,
07:09and there were many skirmishes along the way.
07:12It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that agencies were awaiting the end of our three-year
07:18mandate.
07:19The first 500 or so adverse disclosure decisions we made in FBI records were appealed to the
07:26president, and the appeals were dropped when White House counsel, former judge, and
07:30Representative Abner Mikva told the FBI to drop the appeals because President Clinton
07:36would deny all of them.
07:38FBI staff was helpful to us, but I'm now seeing records in the new releases that were not
07:43disclosed to the review board.
07:46The CIA was cooperative and processed many documents with us, but we never received much of what
07:53we specifically asked for.
07:55When asked, for example, for documents involving James Angleton that we had not seen, I was told
08:02the documents were no longer maintained as a collection.
08:06We received only three memoranda that incorporated the agency's review of Angleton's counterintelligence
08:12files, not the files themselves, just a review by someone else of the files.
08:17We were told that all the other documents had been destroyed.
08:20I'm now seeing a flood of documents that clearly meet the definition of assassination records involving
08:26Angleton and others that were not submitted to us for review.
08:29When CIA analysts would not tell us the details of their secret operations, our response was,
08:36OK, we'll release the record in 10 days.
08:38We then heard the details and could make a reasonable decision.
08:43We had in our hands a small file on George Joannidis that was disclosed.
08:48It disclosed nothing, really, so it was returned.
08:51We didn't know the details of his work at the time.
08:54We now know much more about Joannidis and his files should be immediately disclosed.
09:00There's no reason anymore for protecting those files.
09:03Clearly, we were misled.
09:05I actually wrote to President Biden asking that he order the CIA to release the Joannidis file,
09:10and I never received a response.
09:13The Secret Service was very difficult.
09:15They were the only agency that we were aware of that tried to reclassify assassination records
09:21after we were in office.
09:22They attempted to classify documents that had already been released publicly
09:27and fought us over 1963 threat sheets that were still in process when we left office.
09:34The Department of State was less than helpful, although they released records in their possession.
09:40When we negotiated with Russian officials over the Oswald files in Moscow,
09:44they did not lift a finger to help us, not even allowing us access to the United States Embassy.
09:50When we tried to get access to Belarusian records on Oswald, they did not help.
09:56When we planned meetings with Mexican and Cuban officials, they stopped us from direct contacts.
10:02The act specifically required the Department of State to help us find foreign records.
10:08The National Archives was very helpful to us when we did our work.
10:12A very dedicated staff member, Stephen Tilly, was instrumental in getting our work done.
10:17But since we left office, I've been disappointed the Archives has not devoted more personnel to the records.
10:24We had planned that the Archives would continue our work to the extent possible.
10:28For the most part, that has not happened, and the agency has never been in contact with me.
10:32So, there are other files that should be released.
10:36We came close to an agreement to copy the entire KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald that is maintained in Minsk, Belarus.
10:43Last-minute disputes prevented the agreement from moving forward.
10:48Copies of the files are in Moscow.
10:51I just have a little bit more here.
10:53We were particularly interested in the files of Walter Sheridan, an investigator for Robert Kennedy.
10:59When we took office, he removed the files from the Kennedy Library, where we had access to them, and gave them to NBC for safekeeping.
11:07I don't think those files have been released.
11:09The William Manchester taped interviews of Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy are protected by a 1967 legal agreement, now controlled by Caroline Kennedy.
11:18We encouraged her to release the files, and she finally responded in August 1998 that she would not agree to their release or even let us listen to the recordings.
11:29And out there somewhere are files on Jack Ruby.
11:32We could not find them other than the files maintained by the earlier investigations.
11:38In the final report of the board, a copy of which I will give to Madam Chair today, we made 10 recommendations that are relevant today still.
11:46I won't go through them all, but they deal with the problems of excessive government secrecy, which has plagued the public's understanding of the Kennedy assassination for decades.
11:59We strongly endorsed the method selected for independent declassification of executive branch records that was used in our case, but also detailed the problems inherent in the review board's legislation.
12:11Most important, to deal with massive overclassification, we recommended a federal classification policy be developed that substantially, one, limits the number of those in government who can actually classify federal documents, two, restricts the number of categories by which documents might be classified, three, reduces the time period for which documents might be classified,
12:41material that might otherwise be classified, and five, increases the resources available to agencies and NARA for declassifying federal records.
12:51Thank you, Madam Chair.
12:53Thank you very much.
12:55And just so everyone knows, we are going to be following up on getting that file, the KGB file in Minsk.
13:00I'm interested in seeing that, and I think that with peace talks right now, it might be prime time for that, so we will be following up on that.
13:05It stands about five feet.