ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES

AND RESEARCH CENTER

An Important Announcement from Professor Joan Mellen

Dear Dan and friends at AARC,
 

Ralph Schoenman.

       I am writing to inform you of the death of my former husband and dearest friend, Ralph Schoenman, on July 3rd after a long bout with Parkinson’s. Ralph lived a principled and unselfish life. The author of “War Crimes in Vietnam” was not Bertrand Russell, but Ralph who believed the ideas would fare better coming from the philosopher, but it was Ralph who brought the issue of fragmentation bombs (“cluster” bombs of today) into the light at the war crimes tribunal.

Ever generous with his time and thoughts, Ralph never sought credit for his ideas, or the limelight, ever.

                     Shortly after the JFK assassination, Ralph organized the “Who Killed Kennedy? Committee, consisting of the best and brightest of British thinkers, among them Hugh Trevor-Roper, who spoke out on the issue without hesitation. Having trouble financing his research, Mark Lane stayed at Ralph’s London apartment to write “Rush to Judgment.” If someone was in trouble, Ralph never withheld his resources and his assistance. When my mother faced a brutal domestic situation, Ralph boarded the next flight to Florida ready to lend his service.  
 
                         I cannot summon enough superlatives to describe Ralph.
 
                                                                                    Best to all,
                                                                                        Joan Mellen
[Professor Joan Mellen is a prolific and distinguished author, historian, and educator; an authority on Jim Garrison and his investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination which caused ripples and reverberations within the federal government’s halls of power; she is the bestselling author of twenty-four books, including A Farewell to Justice, her biographical study of Jim Garrison’s New Orleans investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Faustian Bargains: Lyndon Johnson and Mac Wallace in the Robber Baron Culture of Texas, and her latest, Blood in the Water, an investigation into the sinking of the USS Liberty. She has written for innumerable publications, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Baltimore Sun. Mellen taught English and creative writing, and is a professor emerita at Temple University in Philadelphia. In 2004, she was awarded one of Temple University’s coveted “Great Teacher” awards for outstanding achievement. Visit Professor Mellen’s Author’s Page at Amazon.]
Ralph Schoenman (born 1935) was an American social and civil-rights activist who served as a personal secretary to Bertrand Russell and became general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. He was involved in a number of projects supported by Russell, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the Committee of 100 and an unofficial war crimes tribunal to try American leaders for their conduct in the Vietnam War.
His indefatigable work as an activist and commentator continued into the 21st Century.  Since 2002, Schoenman worked with his wife, documentary filmmaker, Mya Shone, providing commentary for radio stations in many parts of the United States and Canada, and produced the “Taking Aim” radio show, billed as “Uncompromising, fact intensive exposés of the hidden workings of a capitalist system addicted to permanent war.”  Around 2009 their program was moved from broadcasting over WBAI to an Internet webcast.
Click HERE to read his November 28, 1963 New York Review of Books response to a negative review by Malcolm Muggeridge of a book (Unarmed Victory) by Lord Russell.

Statement in Response to White House Announcement-

Statement in Response to White House Announcement-

“In a midnight Friday night announcement the White House has delivered the bad news that President Biden will be maintaining secrecy indefinitely on some JFK assassination related records.  This is unwelcome news for transparency advocates and concerned citizens of the country.  In 1992 the JFK Records Act was passed unanimously by Congress with the promise that all assassination related records would be released no later than October 2017, 25 years after enactment.  This promise has not been kept and in fact has been broken with this midnight announcement.  By far the best course of action for the government is to make full release of JFK assassination records to restore some public trust.  That opportunity is lost for now.”


Daniel S. Alcorn
President, Assassination Archives and Research Center

30 June, 2023

 

30 June, 2023: Memorandum on Certifications Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT:      Certifications Regarding Disclosure of
Information in Certain Records Related to the
Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Section 1.  Policy.  In the three decades since the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C. 2107 note) (the “Act”) was enacted, the United States Government has undertaken a comprehensive review of its records and has strived to make available to the public thousands of classified documents that provide a fuller understanding of the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  As I have reiterated throughout my Presidency, I fully support the Act’s aim to maximize transparency by disclosing all information in records concerning the assassination, except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.  Executive departments and agencies (agencies) have worked meticulously over thousands of hours of review to ensure that the American people have access to every single word that is appropriate for release under the standards of the Act.  With my final certification made in this memorandum -– the last required under the Act -– and definitive plans for future disclosures, my Administration is fulfilling the promise of transparency to the American people.

Sec. 2.  Background.  (a)  The Act permits the continued postponement of public disclosure of information in records concerning President Kennedy’s assassination only when postponement remains necessary to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.  Agencies have applied this statutory standard when proposing the continued postponement of public disclosure of specific information, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has reviewed each of these redactions to determine whether NARA agrees that these redactions continue to meet the statutory standard.  In the Presidential Memorandum of December 15, 2022 (Certifications Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy) (December 2022 Memorandum), I certified the temporary continued postponement of public disclosure of redacted information in a small number of records covered by the Act.  At the time, the Acting Archivist of the United States (Acting Archivist) advised that a limited number of records that were the subject of agency proposals for temporary continued postponement warranted further review to ensure that information from these records is disclosed to the maximum extent possible, consistent with the standards of the Act.  In the December 2022 Memorandum, consistent with that advice, I directed agencies to continue to work with NARA to review these records to determine if additional information proposed for redaction could be disclosed.

(b)  On May 1, 2023, the Acting Archivist informed me that the review process was complete and recommended that I postpone the public release of certain redacted information in the records certified for temporary postponement of public release in the December 2022 Memorandum.

Sec. 3.  Certification.  In light of the recommendation for continued postponement of public release of information in the records identified in section 2(b) of this memorandum under the statutory standard, I hereby certify, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act, that continued postponement of public disclosure of that information is necessary to protect against identifiable harms to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, and the conduct of foreign relations that are of such gravity that they outweigh the public interest in disclosure.  All information within these records that has been proposed for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act shall accordingly be withheld from public disclosure.  Future release of the information in these records shall occur in a manner consistent with the Transparency Plans described in section 5 of this memorandum.

Sec. 4.  Release.  Any information currently withheld from public disclosure under section 4 of the December 2022 Memorandum that is not subject to the certification in section 3 of this memorandum shall be released to the public by June 30, 2023.

Sec. 5.  Transparency Plans.  As part of their review, each agency prepared a plan for the eventual release of information (Transparency Plan) to ensure that information would continue to be disclosed over time as the identified harm associated with release of the information dissipates.  Each Transparency Plan details the event-based or circumstance-based conditions that will trigger the public disclosure of currently postponed information by the National Declassification Center (NDC) at NARA.  These Transparency Plans were reviewed by NARA, and the Acting Archivist previously advised me that use of the Transparency Plans by the NDC will ensure appropriate continued release of information covered by the Act.  In the December 2022 Memorandum, I directed that the Transparency Plans submitted by agencies be used by the NDC to conduct future reviews of any information that has been postponed from public disclosure.  On May 1, 2023, the Acting Archivist recommended continued use of agencies’ Transparency Plans to release information covered by the Act.  Therefore, I direct the NDC to continue to use the Transparency Plans to conduct future reviews of any information covered by the Act that has been postponed from public disclosure.  The Transparency Plans will ensure that the public will have access to the maximum amount of information while continuing to protect against identifiable harms to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, and the conduct of foreign relations under the standards of the Act.

Sec. 6.  Publication.  The Archivist of the United States is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

                               JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

8 June, 2023 UPDATE: JFK Records Lawsuit

Courtesy of Bill Simpich and the Mary Ferrell Foundation:

On October 19, 2022, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a non-profit archive with the internet’s largest collection of searchable JFK records, filed a lawsuit against President Biden and the National Archives for failing to implement the 1992 JFK Records Act. These failures have resulted in confusion, gaps in the records, over-classification, and outright denial of thousands of assassination-related files, five years after the law’s deadline for full disclosure.

On April 10, 2023, the MFF filed an amended complaint. The amended complaint highlights the Biden “Transparency Plans” and emphasizes that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) should not be the main avenue for the release of additional assassination records. The JFK Records Act states at Section 2(a)(5) that the Act is “necessary” because FOIA “prevented the timely public disclosure” of JFK records.” Similarly, Section 2(a)(6) states that the Act is necessary because other procedures to declassify “national security information” has prevented the timely public disclosure of JFK records. The National Archives should be enforcing the JFK Records Act by forwarding well-founded public requests for additional records to the agencies that have them in their possession.

As of 8 June, 2023, a motion for injunctive relief has been filed.

Plaintiff asks the court to stay the enforcement of President Biden’s Transparency Plans –  arguing that these plans would lock up some of the unreleased documents for decades to come.
Plaintiff asks the court to declare that NARA is the successor in function to ARRB, and that it has a duty to supplement the assassination records. (This was stated in a regulation issued by NARA in 2000 – now the agency is trying to say that the reg, “doesn’t say what it says.”)
Plaintiff asks the court to enforce the memorandum of understanding signed by the CIA, NARA and ARRB in 1998 to obtain additional assassination records from the CIA.

It is requested that NARA be required to enforce the JFK Act when seeking records from agencies, rather than referring researchers to use FOIA – described in the Act as an ineffective way to obtain assassination records.

As things stand – and things could change – the July 13 hearing in SF will address both the motion for relief and DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case.
Download the motion brief by clicking here: mffvbiden-motionforinjunctionetcfiled

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Bill Simpich serves on the Board of the AARC. He is a Civil Rights attorney, author of ground-breaking articles focusing on the hidden intricacies of the CIA, and a leading and insightful analyst of the intelligence files associated with Lee Harvey Oswald’s enigmatic episode in Mexico City seven weeks prior to President Kennedy’s assassination. Between August 2010 and January 2015 Bill produced 12 articles on the JFK case which became the backstory to his invaluable work, STATE SECRET: WIRETAPPING IN MEXICO CITY, DOUBLE AGENTS, AND THE FRAMING OF LEE OSWALD. 

Read The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend by clicking HERE.