COURT TELLS FBI TO REVIEW DATA ON ROSENBERGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210009-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

y Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210009-4
F APP! 1b
On Rosenbergs
WASHINGTON POST
21 May 1986
Court Tells FBI
Tb-Review Data
A federal appeals court panel
here ruled yesterday that the FBI
had for the most part adequately
complied with a Freedom of Infor-
mation Act request filed by the chil-
dren of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
t ' espionage case.
But the three-judge panel of the
U.S. Court of Appeals said records
ofJiq case examined by the FBI in
1975 through 1978 should be re-
viewed again for possible release
b% use of indications that "many of
thk documents ... were improperly
withheld."
Freddi Lipstein, a Justice Depart-
ment lawyer who handled the case,
said the reconsideration would in-
volve about 70,000 pages of doc-
uments out of more than 500,000
involved in the case.
Ruling in what it said "may well be
the most demanding FOIA request
ever filed," the panel upheld lower
court findings that the FBI had ad-
equately searched its files to retrieve
information and properly refused to
release some of the documents.
The Rosenbergs' sons, Michael
and Robert Meeropol, filed t eir
FOIA request in 1975, seeking
from the FBI, Justice Department,
CIA and other government agen-
cies "all of the records relatin di-
rectly or indirectly to investigation
an rosecution o our parents."
By Ruth Marcus The BI at one time assigne
Washington Post Staff Writer fume and 21 part-time employes
to process the request; the agencies
eventually released about 200,000
pages of documents.
In a 38-page opinion, judge Robert
H. Bork said "a search is not unrea-
sonable simply because it fails to pro-
duce all relevant material," and up-
held the lower court's procedure of
testing the validity of the FBI's rea-
. fin;, for withholding some of the doc-
uments by examining a 1 percent
sample of randomly chosen pages.
Bork was joined in the opinion by
Judge Antonin Scalia and Senior
Judge. George E. MacKinnon.
"We do not consider it a loss,"
Lipstein said. "We realized there
were some flaws" in the FBI's early
r .?Iew of the documents.
t"it's a partial victory," said the
M&-rapols' lawyer, Marshall Perlin.
The Rosenbergs were executed
in 1953 after being convicted of
delivering atomic secrets to the
Union.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210009-4