Case No. 1:17-cv-00588CRC
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DAVID TALBOT,
Plaintiff
v.
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE, and the CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY,
Defendants
DECLARATION OF WILLIAM SIMPICH
1. My name is William Simpich. I am over the age of eighteen years; I am
competent to testify in this matter; and I make this Declaration to the best of
my knowledge and memory.
2. I am an attorney admitted to practice in the state of California; the Northern
District of California, the Central District of California, the Ninth Circuit, and
the U.S. Supreme Court. I have been in the active practice of law for the
past 35 years.
3. I have been involved in research and investigation of the assassination of John
F. Kennedy for the past 15 years. I have authored various articles and often
speak at conferences on the subject. I am the author of State Secret, a book
on CIA and intelligence aspects of the assassination available at
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Features_Archive_-_2013.html.
4. The fact that CIA works through liaison with the United States Department of
State (“DOS”) to provide diplomatic cover to CIA officers stationed overseas
is a well-known and established fact known to the public from many
declassified records previously released by CIA. As examples of such I have
attached the following exhibits to this affidavit:
a. CIA Document, Comments on Phillips Manuscript, undated, RIF 104-
10105-10103 indicating that CIA’s “Central Cover Staff points out” that
Winston Scott, the CIA chief of station in Mexico City in 1963, “retired
under State Department Cover.” This document not only indicates the use
of State Department Cover by CIA employees and retirees, it identifies the
entity in CIA that dealt with such cover, the Central Cover Staff. The
document was reviewed and declassified in 1998 and is publicly available
on the National Archives and Record Center’s website at
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10105-
b. CIA Request for Security Certification from Personnel Security Division
from Official Cover and Liaison, 06/27/60, RIF 104-10130-10345 which
indicates that “security certification was provided by CIA to the
Department of State when a CIA officer was working under DOS cover.
The document also identifies two additional CIA offices involved in the
process, “Personnel Security Division” and “Official Cover & Liaison,”
and further indicates that the subject of the request was on a temporary
duty assignment (“TDY”). The document was declassified and released in
full in 1993 by CIA and is publicly available at
https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=12080&search=%22securit
c. CIA Request for Security Certification from Personnel Security Division
from Official Cover and Liaison, 07/07/61, RIF 104-10128-10295 which
was declassified and released in full by CIA in 1998 and is publicly
available at
https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=15570&search=%22securit
Many other, similar Requests for Security Certification have been declassified and are
publicly available.
d. CIA Memorandum to Official Cover Branch/CCS from Clearance
Division, Office of Security, 06/13/74, Record No.
1993.08.02.10:12:37:370060 indicates that these two branches were also
involved in the process of coordination between CIA and DOS in the use
of diplomatic cover for CIA employees. This document declassified and
released with redactions as part of the CIA Historical Review Program in
1993 and is publicly available at
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=102744&search=ccs_
e. CIA Memorandum to Security Advisor/HMAB from Honor and Merit
Awards Board, 11/15/68, RIF 104-10121-10236 indicates that the CIA
Central Cover Staff arranges “appropriate liaison channels to obtain the
State Department concurrence.” This document was declassified and
released with redactions by CIA in 1998 and is publicly available at
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=63737&search=%22c
5. A 16 March 1965 Memorandum indicates that CIA had an arrangement with
the Agency for International Development similar to that maintained directly
with DOS. CIA Memorandum for Personnel Security Division from
C/OCD/CCS, 3/16/65, RIF 104-10121-10287, available at
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=63751&search=%22central_cover%22+AND+%22security+certification%22#relPageId=2&tab=page
6. In 2011 the U.S. government officially acknowledged that Raymond Davis
who had been detained in Pakistan for shooting two men and held a U.S.
Diplomatic Passport was a CIA employee. Spencer Ackerman, “U.S. Admits:
Jailed Diplomat Actually Works for CIA,” Wired, 2/22/11, available at
https://www.wired.com/2011/02/u-s-admits-diplomat-in-pakistan-jailactually-
works-for-cia/.
7. CIA declassified documents have also revealed that the CIA uses commercial
cover as well. “Commercial cover” is when a CIA employee works overseas
posing as employees of private businesses. See, e.g., CIA Memorandum for
Deputy Director of Plans from Central Cover Staff, 10/14/70, in Record No.
1993.07.24.08:35:20:900310, CIA Security File on E. Howard Hunt available
at
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=103901&search=%22wil
This document was found by
searching for the previously disclosed name of the person serving in 1970 as
Chief of the Central Cover Staff, Willard F. Burke. In addition to illustrating
CIA’s use of commercial cover, the document being found by searching for a
disclosed name illustrates how disclosure of such names in ancient documents
can lead to the public gaining further understanding of how the government,
as manifested by agencies such as CIA and DOS, operate.
8. The use of diplomatic cover for CIA officers overseas has been broad public
knowledge since at least the 1970’s. In 1979, for example, it was reported,
“Though rarely proclaimed publicly, the use of diplomatic titles to protect
intelligence officers in foreign countries has long been standard practice for
the United States….The stationing of Central Intelligence Agency employees
with diplomatic titles in American embassies has been discussed openly for
years.” Robert G. Kaiser, “Diplomatic Titles Often Used to Protect
Intelligence Aides,” Washington Post, 12/5/79, available at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/12/05/diplomatictitles-
often-used-to-protect-intelligence-aides/e57eec6c-e41e-4e6d-b193-
1ebab1341dad/?utm_term=.91d68eddbe69. Kaiser goes on to explain that
John Marks’s explanation of how to identify CIA officers under DOS cover
from State Department directories in an article entitled “How to Spot a Spook”
published in the Washington Monthly in 1974 led to the DOS ceasing to
publish the directories.
9. Based on my understanding from my research and review of publicly
available declassified CIA documents overseas duty assignments for CIA
officers, whether long-term or TDY, would have generated documents in the
records of the Office of Security, the Central Cover Staff, the Personnel
Security Division, and Official Cover & Liaison CCD, or other similar or
renamed components, within CIA. While I have not been able to identify
the office or division in DOS handling liaison on these matters, the Kaiser
article discussed above suggests that DOS might fruitfully search records
relating to the Foreign Service Reserve Officers corps for records in the
relevant time period on relevant individuals. I believe it would be
reasonably likely that a search of records of these offices would find
documents relating to a specific CIA employee’s TDY assignments and their
assignments to any overseas station, post, base, unit or other CIA component.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed this 14th day of February, 2018.
____________________________________
William Simpich