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IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 1999

CIA RELEASES 3 MILLION PAGES OF HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

Exceeds 1998 Total by 2 Million

McLean, VA - The CIA announced today that it has shipped 3 million pages of historically valuable records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) this year. The Agency released 1 million pages to NARA in 1998.

These releases are part of CIA's efforts to review all historically valuable records that are 25 years old or older as required by Executive Order 12958.

During the last week of September, 2,000 boxes containing the 3 million pages of releasable documents (in part or in full) were transferred in three tractor-trailer trucks to NARA in College Park, Md.

CIA's 1999 review included substantial collections of foreign document translations and original negatives from CIA's holdings of worldwide ground photography with associated reference materials. Also included were finished intelligence reports and memoranda, and early Directorate of Operations intelligence reports. In addition, the CIA reviewed substantial quantities of intelligence records from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Presidential Libraries.

Much of the material required manual, page-by-page review by CIA's Office of Information Management Declassification Center, which assigned several hundred people to the effort.

The material transferred to the National Archives will be available to the public after the Archives completes its review and processing.




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