Times Picayune, 3/15/96: Letter to the Editor

    David Marwell, Executive Director, ARRB

Washington DC

I read with interest David Snyder's article "Garrison:Documents reveal wild speculations" (March 10) and was surprised to learn that 
District Attorney Harry Connick has again made the Garrison-era investigative records under his control available to a 
representative of the media while continuing to deny them to the American public.

Last June, Connick told the Assassination Records Review Board, an independent federal agency with the mandate to complile as 
complete a record as possible of the assassination of President Kennedy, that he would give up the Garrison records so that they 
could be placed in the National Archives and be freely available to anyone who was interested.

Since then, Mr. Connick has not only refused to live up to this commitment, but has also acted as sole arbiter in decisions 
concerning access to the records. He has, in effect, substituted his judgement on who should have access to these records for that of 
Congress, which has mandated that they be available to all.

The Garrison investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy represents an important chapter in the history of the 
assassination and its aftermath. The law states that the records of this investigation should be part of the JFK Assassination 
Collection at the National Archives, where they will be catalogued, cared for and made accessible to all by professional archivists.

Instead, District Attorney Connick believes he should be the one to decide who should see them. His repeated refusal to discuss the 
matter has unfortunately resulted in the Review Board and the office of the district attorney devoting valuable resources to resolve 
the matter in court.

The Records Review Board faces a huge task and has limited resources. We hope District Attorney Connick will abandon his present 
course and join us in shedding light on the history surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy.

David Marwell

Executive Director, Assassinations Record Review Board

http://jfklancer.com/Garrison.html