Washington
D.C., August 10,
2007 - The Central Intelligence
Agency has lost documents concerning its investigation of the
mysterious 1948 murder of CBS reporter George Polk, and destroyed
its file on FOIA requests for Polk documents, according to a
letter
from Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. In
June 2006, the Archive asked the CIA and the National Archives
to investigate the possibility that the CIA had lost or destroyed
records on the Polk case.
Polk, a CBS reporter based in Greece at the height of its left-right
civil war, was murdered by unknown assailants in 1948. At the
request of members of the Polk family, the National Security
Archive had asked the CIA to re-review CIA documents on the
Polk case that had been released during the 1990s. The CIA found
a number of documents for re-review but in December 2005 informed
the Archive that nine of the documents, including memoranda
to the Agency's director, had been destroyed. According to CIA
Information and Privacy Coordinator Scott Koch's letter, "The
original documents had been destroyed in accordance with approved
National Archives and Records Administration records schedules."
It was the CIA's response that prompted National Security Archive
director Thomas S. Blanton to write letters to the
Archivist of the United States and the Inspector
General of the Central Intelligence Agency asking them to
investigate the destruction of documents on the Polk case.
Last week, Dr. Weinstein informed the National Security Archive
that the CIA is "unable to locate the original documents
or information about their disposition." As the letter
explains, the CIA FOIA case file had been destroyed in accordance
with the records schedule; what has gone missing are the original
file copies of the Polk-related documents (and whatever collection
to which they belonged). That the CIA has determined that the
documents cannot be found (and may well have been destroyed)
raises troubling questions about CIA's historical records preservation
policies. Why is the CIA losing what should have been permanent
records? If the Polk documents were part of a larger system
of records that was destroyed, what other historically significant
records no longer exist? That the FOIA file which contained
copies of the now-missing documents had also been destroyed
also raises questions about this standard practice at federal
agencies.
The National Security Archive won
the George Polk Award in April 2000 for "piercing the
self-serving veils of government secrecy."
Electronic
Briefing Book
The George Polk Case
The Problematic Status of the CIA's Documentary Record
By William Burr
The Central Intelligence Agency has destroyed or otherwise
lost documents concerning the mysterious murder of CBS reporter
George Polk. According to a letter
from Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein, the
CIA is "unable to locate the original documents or information
about their disposition." Dr. Weinstein's letter responded
to a request
by the National Security Archive for in investigation of
a statement by CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator Scott
Koch, who wrote in a December
2005 letter that "The original documents had been destroyed
in accordance with approved National Archives and Records Administration
records schedules."
The murder of George Polk is one of the enduring mysteries
of the early Cold War. An enterprising journalist who dug deeply
into any story that he covered, George Polk's reporting on the
Greek civil war brought him into contact with partisans on all
sides, left and right, but also exposed him to political attacks
and death threats. On May 8, 1948, he disappeared from Salonika
where he was allegedly trying to establish contacts with the
leader of the Communist guerillas. Over a week later, on May
16, Polk's body was found in Salonika Bay. (Note
1)
George Polk's violent end produced dismay and outrage not least
among U.S. journalists who, doubtful about the Greek government's
impartiality, pressed the Truman administration to conduct an
investigation. When the State Department refused to sponsor
an inquiry, prominent journalists led by the famous columnist
Walter Lippmann organized a committee to monitor the Greek government's
investigation, bringing in former Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) director William Donovan to help. Determined to pin the
murders on the Communist left, the Greek government prosecuted
two Communists, Adam Mouzenides, who had been killed before
Polk's death (!), and Evangelos Vasvanas, who was in exile.
Two others were charged with complicity in the murder: Gregory
Staktopoulus, a Salonika journalist with a checkered past, and
his mother, Anna. For many the case was weak and the guilty
verdicts, reached in April 1949, dubious. The Lippmann Committee's
tacit endorsement of the judicial outcome led critics to argue
that it was hamstrung by its reliance on "official channels."
A year after Polk's death Long Island University memorialized
Polk by establishing the George
Polk Awards in Journalism, one of the most esteemed prizes
in the profession. The Awards helped keep the Polk case in the
public eye but it remained a mystery. During the decades that
followed, historians and journalists reviewed old and new theories
of the case: that Polk's murderers were communists, rightists,
the British, the CIA, or, in a more recent view, smugglers and
black marketers. By the late 1970s, after the Freedom of Information
Act acquired stronger teeth, it became possible to go after
U.S. government documents. The Central Intelligence Agency released
some material and so did the State Department. Later the Department
released to the National Archives the dossier on the Polk case
compiled by the U.S. consul at Salonika. During the late 1980s
and the years that followed, major books on the Polk case drew
upon the newly declassified information. The documents, however,
contained no smoking guns and the murder remains unsolved.
One persistent investigator has been motivated by a deeply
personal interest. George Polk's younger brother, William R.
Polk, who later became an historian and State Department official,
attended the trial, was dissatisfied with its outcome, and has
tried to unearth information on the case ever since. During
the early 1990s, Mr. Polk filed, with the assistance of the
law firm White & Case, a FOIA request with the Central Intelligence
Agency. The CIA responded with a "no records" determination
which the law firm White & Case appealed, but to no avail.
In the meantime, Ms. Kati Marton, who wrote a book on the Polk
case provided William R. Polk with CIA documents that she obtained.
Mr. Polk, seeking to do a book on his brother's life, sought
further review of the documents, many of which were heavily
excised. To assist him, in February 2003, the National Security
Archive filed a FOIA request asking the Agency to re-review
the documents that it had produced during the 1990s. Archive
staffers assumed that with the passage of even more time since
George Polk's murder it might be possible for the CIA to release
more information on the case.
In December 2005, the CIA responded with a
letter from Information and Privacy Coordinator Scott Koch announcing
its decision. It released no additional information despite
the passage of time. The Archive filed an administrative appeal
in January 2006, so it is conceivable that more information
may be released. What was especially troubling about Koch's
letter was not so much the reaffirmation of the denials from
the 1990s, but the revelation that some of the original records
that had been reviewed for Marton's FOIA case had been destroyed
in "accordance with approved [NARA] records schedules."
The Archive found this startling because, despite their heavy
excisions, most of the documents appear to have been substantive
and worthy candidates for permanent record status. They include
memoranda to the Director of Central Intelligence about the
Polk case and documents concerning James L. Kellis, an intelligence
officer who worked for the Lippman Committee [see
part A below for the remnants of the missing/destroyed items].
After the Archive filed its appeal, Archive director Thomas
S. Blanton Archive took
another step in June 2006 and asked the Archivist of the United
States and the CIA's inspector general to investigate the missing
documents. This week, Archivist
of the United States Allen Weinstein reported the investigation's
conclusions: the CIA FOIA case file had been destroyed under
routine records disposition schedules. Moreover, the Agency
could not locate the original file copies of the documents that
had been used for the FOIA case or find information "about
their disposition."
The possibility that Agency documents about the Polk case cannot
be found and may no longer exist raises troubling questions
about CIA's historical records preservation policies. Why has
the CIA lost, presumably destroyed, documents that presumably
would be prime candidates for permanent record status? Why is
the Agency unable to find information about the disposition
of these documents? Why were some records on Polk lost and others
preserved? If the missing Polk documents were part of a larger
system of records that also has been lost, what other historically
significant records on CIA history no longer exist?
The records
schedule that Archivist Weinstein mentions-- GRS 14 --concerns,
in part, "files created in response to requests for information
under the FOIA, consisting of the original request, a copy of
the reply thereto, and all related supporting files which may
include the official file copy of requested record or copy thereof."
Item 11 (a) (3) (a) of the schedule relates to FOIA cases where
information was denied but the decision was not appealed. Under
the rules, agencies may destroy the files 6 years after the
date of the reply. The destruction of FOIA files is routine
practice at federal agencies, but the practice is questionable;
in this instance, destruction of the file meant that copies
of the now-missing original documents and, presumably, information
about their original file location, were destroyed. Now that
electronic record keeping enables Agency to preserve records
in ways that takes up far less space, such FOIA files should
be preserved.
The
CIA Documents
Note:
The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
The
following are the documents that were at issue in the Archive's
original FOIA request to CIA. It should be kept in mind that
these are only a small portion of the universe of U.S. government
documents on the Polk case, many of which are cited in the various
books on the subject (e.g., Marton and Vlanton).
A.
Excised Releases of Documents That the CIA Cannot Find
Document 1:
Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence [Roscoe
H. Hillenkoetter] from Assistant Director, "Further Information
on Polk," 26 May 1948
Document
2: Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence
from Deputy Assistant Director, subject excised, 1 June 1948
Document
3: Extract and Cross Reference Sheet, 7 June 1948
Document
4: Incoming Message, 5 July 1948
Document
5: Statement by James G. L. Kellis, 3 December
1952
Document
6: Letter, 9 June 1953
Document
7: Official Dispatch, 16 April 1954
Document
8: Memorandum for the Record, "James G. L.
Kellis," 6 June 1955
Document
9: Response for Information Concerning the Inquiry
by Rep [Excised], 22 August 1977
B. Those Documents Located and Re-reviewed by CIA
Document
1: Cable to [Athens Station], 21 May 1948
Document
2: Cable [from Athens Station], 24 May 1948
Document
3: Cable [from Athens Station], 25 May 1948
Document
4: Cable, 28 May 1948
Document
5: Memorandum for the Director of General Intelligence
from Assistant Director, "George Polk," 1 June 1948
Document
6: Cable [from Athens Station], 3 June 1948
Document
7: Cable [from Athens Station], 4 June 1948
Document
8: Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence
from Assistant Director, "George Polk Murder," 7 June
1948
Document
9: Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence
from Assistant Director, "George Polk Murder," 8 June
1948
Document
10: CIA Information Report, "Anti-Leftist
Activities of [Excised]," 9 June 1948
Document
11: Cable from [Athens Station], 12 June 1948
Document
12: Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence
from Assistant Director, "George Polk Murder," 14
June 1948
Document
13: Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence
from Assistant Director, "George Polk Murder," 16
June 1948
Document
14: Cable from [Athens Station], 17 June 1948
Document
15: Cable from [Athens Station], 20 June 1948
Document
16: Cable from [Athens Station], 28 June 1948
Document
17: Cable, 15 (?) August 1948
Document
18: Cable from [Athens Station], 24 August 1948
Document
19: Cable from Headquarters, 30 August 1948
Document
20: Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence
from Assistant Director, "The Polk Murder Case," 9
September 1948
Document
21: Cable, September 1948?
Document
22: Cable from [Athens Station], 4 October 1948
Document
23: Cable from Headquarters (?), 26 October 1948
Document
24: Cable from [Athens Station], 2 December 1948
Document
25: Memorandum, "Polk Case Series," 2
May 1953
Document
26: Information Note, 4 October 1953
Document
27: Memorandum, 12 March 1954
Document
28: Cable, 24 August 1955
Document
29: Cable from Director, CIA [Allen W. Dulles],
26 September 1956
Document
30: Memorandum to Ambassador [to Greece James]
Riddleberger, "Possible Re-emergence of Polk Case,"
21 March 1958, with memorandum attached, "The George Polk
Murder Case," 21 March 1958
Note
1. For Polk's life and the mystery around his murder, see Kati
Marton, The Polk Conspiracy: Murder and Cover-up in the
Case of CBS News correspondent George Polk (New York: Times
Books, 1992); Edmund Keeley, The Salonika Bay murder: cold
war politics and the Polk affair (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton
University Press, 1989); Elias Vlanton, with Zak Mettger, Who
killed George Polk?: The Press Covers Up a Death in the Family
(Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1996) (quotation at
p. 5).
