Deconstructing a Secrecy Blunder:

A Study in Dysfunction

THE LAST NSAM STANDING

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 342 Posted - April 21, 2011

President John F. Kennedy discussing Laos during a press conference at the State Department Auditorium, 23 March 1961, a few weeks after he signed off on NSAM 29. (Photo from John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Web site; accession number AR6454-B)

Washington, D.C., April 21, 2011 - The United States Government’s system for the release of classified material into the public domain continues to be riddled with error, ignorance, arbitrary actions, and simple inaction, while often impaired by parochial agency interests that have nothing to do with the protection of national security secrets, an analysis of a recently declassified document plus associated materials shows. The Obama administration’s efforts to cope with a backlog of more than 400 million pages of documents that have long been queued up for declassification review (see the Archive’s new 2011 FOIA Audit) will remain hamstrung as long as the underlying system rewards inaction amid mounting—and significant—costs both to the American taxpayer and to genuine national security interests.

The National Security Archive here posts a case study of sorts—a selection of documents which are analyzed not so much for their historical value as for what the materials show about operation of the declassification system. This inquiry has its origins in a quest by Archive senior fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson to obtain the declassification of presidential national security directives issued since President Harry S. Truman (The Archive has published two sets of them in collaboration with ProQuest). During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the highest level directives that flowed from the White House were called National Security Action Memoranda (NSAMs). President John F. Kennedy issued 173 NSAMs during his time in office. Reaching the point where only NSAM-29, on Laos, dated March 9, 1961, remained secret, Richelson finally obtained the declassification of this directive on October 29, 2010, almost fifty years after it was issued. {continued}