CIA RIFLER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100160003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 28, 1979
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100160003-3
STAT
LEVEL 1 - 3 OF 8 STORIES
The Associated Press
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
Associated Press.
June 28, 1979, Thursday, AM cycle
SECTION: Washington Dateline
LENGTH: 500 words
BYLINE: By JIM ADAMS, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
KEYWORD: CIA Rifler
BODY:
House assassinations committee staff investigators are not satisfied that a
CIA agent rifled their files out of mere curiosity, the committee's chairman
said Thursday night..
But the investigators don't know what the motive was and are satisfied CIA
headquarters did not order the agent to look through committee files, the
chairman, Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, told the House.
"The committee staff members are not satisfied that the motive has been
established," Stokes told the House. "They believe mere curiousity is not,
consistent with the fingerprint evidence."
He said the fingerprint evidence indicated the CIA agent opened a closed but
unlocked safe and ripped an autopsy photograph of President John F. Kennedy's
assassination head wounds out of a plastic cover in a notebook.
He said the CIA agent at first denied looking at the autopsy photographs. In
a second interview, Stokes said, the agent "did not admit any wrongdoing" and
refused to be interviewed any further.
The CIA conducted its own investigation and has publicly stated its
conclusion that the agent removed the photograph from the safe out of mere
curiosity. The agent was fired.
Stokes told the House his investigators "are satisfied that there was no
evidence uncovered that the agency directed the employee to obtain access to the
autopsy materials."
Stokes' report to the House confirmed a series of articles by Washington Post
reporter George Lardner Jr. disclosing the July incident.
The Post identified the agent as Regis T. Blahut. Blahut was quoted as
saying "there's other things that are involved that are detrimental to other
things" but refusing to elaborate.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100160003-3
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The Associated Press, June 28, 1979
The committee has concluded that Kennedy's assassination Nov. 22, 1963, in
Dallas was probably a conspiracy involving two gunmen.
A committee source who did not want to be named speculated that the CIA
agent, and possibly the CIA itself, was probably curious in July whether the
committee was making any conspiracy conclusions from the photographs.
In fact, the committee's experts concluded that autopsy material including
the photographs proved that the only bullets that hit Kennedy were fired from
above and behind by Lee Harvey Oswald.
But the committee concluded later that a police tape recording has the sound
of a shot fired by a second gunman that missed the president.
Stokes told the House the CIA agent was assigned to guard secret agency
material in a different room and that the safe had been left open by an artist
making medical drawings of Kennedy's wounds.
The artist opened the safe in the morning and when he returned in the
afternoon found the notebook and photograph out of the safe with the photograph
ripped out of its cover.
Stokes said the committee kept the photographs in a separate safe and used
elaborate access procedures to guard against their becoming public.
He said there is no evidence that they have been misued and "no evidence was
uncovered that anyone has profited from these acts."
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100160003-3