A Response to Matt Douthit

Two days ago, I posted the first episode of my new podcast series, On the Trail of Delusion., featuring Robert Reynolds, an expert on the JFK assassination files.

On Facebook, Matt Douthit had this to say about our video:

Of course, we never said that all the files were online. In fact, towards the end of our interview we talked about NARA's project of putting the entire JFK assassination collection online -- they seem to be way behind schedule.

You have to love some of the Facebook comments:

Matt also left this comment on our YouTube interview:

Here is Robert's excellent reply:

First, I find Douthit’s description of the records unclear. What does it mean to say “XX pages still classified”? Three possible meanings one might infer:

1) “The whole record is XX pages long and no text from it is available for public inspection.” This is certainly wrong. As I said in the interview, and elsewhere on this blog, there are no “withheld in full” CIA records left in the ARC.

2) “There are XX pages from a record, or records, concerning this person, in which the whole page is redacted.” I can’t find any records about these people which have that many whole page redactions, so again this is wrong. If Douthit has references for records which do have that many whole page redactions, I would like very much to see them.

3) “There are records on these people that are XX pages long, and within those pages there are still some redactions.” If this is what Douthit means, it’s a very misleading description. If he is referring to a 61 page doc on Dave Morales where only one or two words are redacted, he should not write that “61 pages” are “still classified.”

There's more to Robert's reply at his website.

I should add that I have posted repeatedly that the ARRB had gone through the Joannides personnel file, knowing full well exactly who he was, and they declassified the pages that they thought were relevant.