DAMAGE ASSESSMENT' ON THE 'PENTAGON PAPERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78B02992A000100060010-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 16, 2006
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 3, 1975
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM FOR: Mr. E. H. Knoche
Assistant to the Director
SUBJECT . "Damage Assessment" on the "Pentagon Papers"
1. The Acting Inspector General, on your behalf, has
asked me to provide you (presumably for the Rockefeller
Commission) a copy of the Agency's "damage assessment" on
the "Pentagon Papers." I am not entirely clear what
prompted this request or precisely what it is you want.
In a sense, there is no such document and to understand what
it is we do have, you need to know a little background.
2. The "Pentagon Papers" story broke in the Sunday
edition of the New York Times on 13 June 1971. At that
time, no one in the Agency had ever seen a full set of
these documents. Consequently, we did not know the magni-
tude or precise nature of the leak involved. In the
ensuing three weeks, the following events took place:
a. On Thursday, 24 June - at the oral direction
of the then DCI (Mr. Helms) -- I organized a small
group of Agency officers who went to the State
Department to look at the Pentagon Papers (State,
by then, having been given a set) to assist in
preparing an "exclusion list"' for use by lawyers in
.the Justice Department in support of their request
for a permanent injunction to follow a restraining
order issued on 15 June. The hearings on the
permanent injunction were to begin on Friday,
25 June. This Ag
(then on the SAVA
staff, now my Executive Assistant) and one or two
others whose names I do not now remember. The
State exercise -- more or less supervised by Mr.
William Macomber (then Assistant Secretary for
Administration, now Ambassador to Turkey) -- was
quite disorganized and, indeed, very much of a
Chinese fire drill. The exclusion lists were
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not particularly well prepared and the lists that
were prepared were not particularly well handled
by Mr. Macomber.. On Saturday, 19 June, the U.S.
District Judge had refused to enjoin the Times but
the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals immediately issued a
restraining order to allow the government to appeal..
b. A day or two before (I am not precisely
sure when) I had attended a meeting in the Pentagon
chaired (to the best of my recollection) by Mr.
Daniel Henkin, then Assistant Secretary for Public
Affairs. At that interagency meeting, each agency
in the national security community was asked to
review the entire collection of 46 volumes to
determine what material therein was classified and
would have an adverse impact if put into the public
domain.
c. At the same time, there was a separate
exercise going on in the Pentagon under the direction
of J. Fred Buzhardt, then the Defense Department's
General Counsel. I talked with Mr. Buzhardt, but
to the best of my recollection we did not actively
participate in that review, although Mr. Coffey, then
Deputy Director for Support, attended several meetings.
.d. On 30 June we (the Agency) received a complete
set of the Pentagon Papers from the Defense Department.
I assembled a task force of Agency officers who began
reviewing them -- a process which involved having
every volume read by at least two officers. This
task was completed on or about.6 July and resulted
in a looseleaf notebook, the original (and only
copy) of which is in my possession. By the time this
exercise was completed, the project of a consolidated.,
interagency damage assessment had been abandoned.
e. On 6 July (Tuesday), drafted a
summary of the findings reflected in the notebook
described above. On 7- July (Wn nesday-
Thursday), I reworked draft and expanded
.it somewhat. My efforts resu e :.:in an.. 8. July
blind memorandum (i.e., not addressed to any
recipient) whose subject was "The 'Pentagon Papers.'"
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(We cannot locate a copy ofi I initial
draft, which we think was destroyed.)
f. I wrote this somewhat expanded memorandum,
at Mr. Helms' request because he wanted a document
surveying the problem which he could give to the
chairmen (and possibly the members) of our
Congressional oversight committees. He gave a
copy to Congressman Mahon, the Chairman of the
House Appropriations Committee (and-of its CIA
subcommittee) on Friday, 9 July. Our records do
not reflect Mr. Helms having given it to any other
members of Congress and I am not aware of his having
done so.
3. What is attached is that 8 July memorandum,
together with two transmittal notes: one to the General
Colrosel indicating that he also received a copy, the other
to then D/PPB). The latter transmittal
note states that in passing the document to Chairman
Mahon, Mr. Helms agreed that it could be read by other
members of his CIA subcommittee and by the senior staff
members thereof. The 13 August note tol also
indicates that a copy was given to the PFIAB.
4. I believe the 8 July memorandum is the document
you want, but three points should be borne in mind regard.i.ng
this whole exercise:
a. It was done in considerable haste and. what
resulted was really a "first cut." As events developed
Mr. Helms did not feel there was any need for further
work on this project. Consequently, these rough
initial assessments were never refined.
b. The notebook, which certainly can be repro-
duced for the Commission if the latter so desires,
is an inherently misleading document, or at least
one that readily lends itself to misinterpretation
by being taken out of context. The officers on
the crash task force were told to comb through the
46 "Pentagon Papers" volumes, note any reference to
CIA and make a rough assessment of damage that
might result from the disclosure of that particular
item. They were told, in effect, to use a vacuum
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cleaner approach on this first cut. Consequently,
many of the points they picked up are relatively
trivial or relate to items where the damage is not
particularly significant. No attempt was made in
the preparation of the notebook to look at the
damage possibly done by the work as a whole. It
would, therefore, be misleading to consider the
total damage as being nothing more than the sum of
the individual items picked up from the notebook..
c. My 8 July memorandum is a little broader but
it too was a quick cut at a preliminary assessment
and not a final, considered, coordinated appraisal.
It should, therefore, be read for what it was (and
nothing more). In particular, it should not be
regarded as a definitive "damage assessment."
George A. Carver, Jr.
Deputy for National Intelligence Officers
Attachment
0/D/DCI/NIO:GACarver/mee
Distribution
Orig - Addressee
1 - General Counsel
1 Legislative Counsel
1 - A/IG
1 - AD/DCI/IC
1 Rockefeller Commission file w/att
1 - D/NI0 Chrono w/att
1 -- NI0/RI w/att
-,Ig dP
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13 Aug 7h
GACarver, Jr.
ID/PPB
1. Per our lunchtime conversation in July,
attached for your information and use is a copy
of a memorandums on the Pentagon papers pre-
tared at the ]Director's behest. This memoran-
da= was originally drafted for use with Congress.
man Mahon and a copes given to him for
perusal by the CLA Suhcc smitte of the T otxs
A riations "_ an th~senior staf. . _
members ereof. A copy was also given to the
.PFIAB.
1 2. The mexaorand was fairly carefully
drafted. The intent was to cover those points'
which ou.ht to be treated but, at the same time,
to present them in such as way that no damage
would be done if this paper should fall into
unfriendly hands. This double objective accounts
for the rather elliptical or allusive way in which
some of the topics are treated.
. George A.. Carver, Jr.
Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs
Attachment
UThe 'Pentagon Papers'"!' - 8 July 1971
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13 July 1971
The General Conns sl
GACarver, Jr.
Attached is the memorandum of which
I spoke at our lunch on 13 July. It was
drafted for the Director's use with our
Congressional cautmittee s and a copy
of it was in fact given to Chairman
Mahon on Prid.y, 9 July.
George A. Carver, Jr..
Special Assistant for Vielese Affairs
Attachment
"The 'Pentagon Papers"'
I - Pentagon Papers file
I - GAG Chrono L
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SENDER CLASSIFICATION 1O AND BO
E..
ET
CONFIDENTIAL
U~fCLAS IFIED
SLIP
OFFICIAL ROUTING
TO
NAME AND ADDRESS
DATE
INITIAL''
General Counsel
a
3
4
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6
ACTION
DIRECT REPLY
PREPARE RE LY
APPROVAL
DISPATCH
RECOMMENDATION
COMMENT
FILE
RETURN _
COMClRRE$CE
INFORMATION
SIGNATURE
Re~herlcaa a
Attached is a package sent to -
Mr. Knoche on the "Pentagon Papers" pre-
pared at his request.
George A. Carver, Jr.
D/DCI/NIO
cc". OLC
:[G
AD/DCI/IC
FOLD HERE TO RETURN TO SENDER
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OATS
r. 7E47
George A. .Carver, J
3/3
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UNCLASSIFIED
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