NYT/AP: Nat'l Archives Vowed Silence on CIA Papers
Published: April 17, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Archives promised to avoid drawing ''unnecessary public attention'' to its efforts to remove declassified CIA documents from public view after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to a once-secret agreement with the spy agency.
The agreement was made public Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. It provided new details on the efforts of the nation's chief historical repository to hide the fact that U.S. intelligence was secretly trying to reclassify approximately 55,500 pages of previously public documents.
Documents released last week to AP showed the Archives had agreed to refuse to disclose that the Air Force, the CIA and another intelligence agency had made the original request to remove the documents. The CIA agreement released Monday was not included in the documents made public last week.
''It is in the interests of both the CIA and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to avoid the kind of public notice complaints that may arise from removing from the open shelves for extended periods of time records that had been publicly available.'' In addition, ''NARA will not attribute to CIA any part of the review or the withholding of documents from this exposed collection,'' the agreement said.
The agreement with the CIA was dated October 2001 and set the mold for a second similarly worded secret agreement with the Air Force just months later. The disclosure of the secret dealings between the archives and the spy agencies has prompted a public outcry, including from historians concerned that pieces of history were being secretly reclassified with no accountability....
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Archives-Secrecy.html