An epiphany: more evidence that the FBI cherry-picks the records it releases to the public…and other observations!

In my August 27 post, I made a wild claim about the FBI. I had the gall to accuse them of cherry-picking the records they release to the public to try to mislead us. I knew I was putting myself out on a limb by saying it, but I felt confident, so I said it anyway. 

Well…thanks to you, my insightful readers, I’ve had an epiphany on this topic, which provides us with more supporting evidence that the FBI has been misleading the public for a long time with regard to its record releases.

I know that many of you are busy watching football tonight, so I’ll try to keep this brief. Also, while we may be rooting for different teams, I like to think that there’s one individual who unites us all, win or lose, through thick or thin, whether we beat the spread or fall short.

And that is Kirk Herbstreit’s dog, Peter. 🐕 ❤️

OK, let’s get down to it. There’s no other way to do this than a Q&A. 

When you say the FBI has been cherry-picking, are you talking about more than just Ron Tammen’s records?

I am. This is more than Ron’s records. I’m now talking about all, or at least most, of the records the FBI has released to the public—JFK, RFK, MLK, Watergate, etc., etc., etc., and so on, and so forth.

The reason that I think they’re cherry-picking their records is that they don’t want the public to figure out what the numbers in the upper righthand corners mean. 

How are they cherry-picking their records?

They want us to think that the numbers in the upper righthand corner represent some sort of alphabetical grouping based on the subject of the document. According to their made-up system, names beginning with an A are given a 1; some names beginning with B get a 1, while others get a 2. Some Cs get a 2, while others, along with the Ds and Es, get a 3. At the opposite end, some of the S’s, all of the T’s, and all of the U’s get a 10. The V’s are a virtual free-for-all—I’ll be showing you why later. The W’s through Z’s get an 11. It would be an insane system with no discernible purpose, which is why I don’t believe they used it. 

When I say they cherry-picked, I’m saying that they tried to make it appear as if it was an alphabetical system by only releasing the records of subjects from a certain part of the alphabet for each number while holding back the records for subjects representing the rest of the alphabet. They’re making it look like it’s an alphabetical system in order to hide the true meaning behind the numbers.

Why would they care if we found out about the true meaning of the numbers?

My hypothesis is that the numbers refer to important people who received one or more copies of that record. In previous posts, I’ve suggested that they’re the FBI liaisons to various federal agencies, but I’m not married to that idea. They could be other categories of people. The only qualifying factor is that they occupy an important office somewhere—be it inside or outside the FBI—and the FBI felt that they should be kept in the loop. But I don’t think the FBI wants us to know who was privy to their records. It might open up a can of worms or something. 

So while I may not understand the specifics of why they’re doing it, I do have additional evidence that they’re doing it, thanks to my recent epiphany.

You said that your readers helped you arrive at your epiphany. Who exactly are you referring to?

I hope I don’t embarrass anyone, but I’m referring to comments made by two readers. The first comment was made by someone who goes by the username Whereaboutsstillunknown. Shortly after I uploaded my August 27 post—and I’m talking maybe within 15 minutes—this person made an observation that completely upended the way I saw things. Then, a second commenter whose username is a long string of numbers and letters told me about the existence of a document that discusses FBI indexing, which I was able to find online. When I considered Whereabouts’ observation alongside the information in number-guy’s document while reviewing the original FBI missing person records—namely, the ones that are in color—it finally dawned on me who was writing the numbers in the righthand corner. All of the sudden, everything made sense.

Who was writing the numbers in the righthand corner?

Don’t you want to know what Whereabouts said in his or her comment first?

OK. What was Whereabouts’ comment?

It had to do with a scribbled notation I’d found on several missing person records: “o’d on yellow.” I thought the “o” represented an o, as in the letter o, and I thought it might have stood for the word “office” or “official.” That’s just how my brain works—it sees an o, it thinks of the vowel that comes after a, e, and i and precedes u, and that’s pretty much all it thinks of. I knew that the word yellow referred to a Message Relay sheet, which was a routing cover sheet printed on yellow paper that included a list of federal agencies with neighboring boxes to check. The FBI used them when they wanted to send copies of certain records to one or more other federal agencies. In my theory, there was no reason to write anything on those sheets other than its recipients. Also in my theory, “o’d on yellow” meant that they’d written a number in the upper righthand corner of a Message Relay sheet to represent an office or official who’d been cc’d.

As a corroborating example, I’d pointed out a different notation that said “7 circled on yellow.” They were explicitly saying that they’d written the number 7 on a Message Relay sheet and circled it. In my theory, adding a number to the top right corner of a Message Relay sheet confirmed that a person represented by the number 7 received a copy.

In my closer, to get reader input, I asked for other suggestions of what the o might have stood for.

Shortly after I hit the “post” button, Whereabouts asked this amazing question: 

“…since someone had written ‘circled on yellow,’ my initial guess is that those might be drawn circles and not o’s?”

That’s brilliant, thought I. Seriously, seriously brilliant.

“That’s a great guess!”, I stated in an understated way.

Still, I had questions. Notations on other Message Relay sheets, whenever I was lucky enough to find one, didn’t seem to fit the “number circled on yellow” scenario. Namely, I wasn’t seeing any circled numbers on Message Relay sheets. I’d found an “o’d 2” on Lady Bird Johnson’s Message Relay and a few “op2” on other people’s Message Relays. Then I read the detailed document about how the indexing system worked plus a few other helpful documents and the fog lifted.

What did you learn when you put everything together?

I learned how important the Files and Communications Division was in the grand scheme of FBI operations. The Files and Communications Division, which was later renamed the Records Management Division, took in all mail, no matter the source, and routed it to the most appropriate recipient(s) while saving copies in its enormous Central Records filing system. Files and Communications were the eyes, ears, noses, and tastebuds of the FBI—the ones who, after being presented with totally new information, determined who all needed to see it.

Seriously, try to imagine all of the mail that FBI Headquarters receives in a day covering a range of wildly different topics. A college student from Cleveland goes missing from his dorm; several men are caught in the wee hours at DNC headquarters, one of whom used to work for the FBI and CIA; a wiretap is found in Dan Rowan’s Las Vegas hotel room; a U.S. president has been assassinated in Dallas. Who should they forward it to? Who needs to know? 

In addition, Files and Communications staff were the ones who typed the index cards that made up the General Index—the colossal indexing system (at one time totaling 65 million cards!) that was the starting point when an agent wanted to access a particular case file. They were also the people who assigned a classification number and case number to every single FBI case, which also numbered in the millions. Not only were they the eyes, ears, noses, and tastebuds of the FBI, I guess you could say they were the prefrontal cortex too. 

Most significantly to you and me, they were the people who wrote on the FBI records in blue pencil.

Are you saying that they were the ones who wrote the numbers in the upper righthand corner?

Indeed, I am. I’m also saying that they likely wrote the other phrases that were typically found in blue on an original FBI record, including “see index,” “FD-217,” and “o’d on yellow.”

What was with those ridiculous little circles?

Please don’t disparage the little circles. Those little circles had purpose. They were what helped me figure everything out. 

One of the first things a Files and Communications employee would do when they were handed a piece of mail was to locate the name or names that would require an index card. Sometimes the index card had already been made, such as for longstanding ruffians Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante. Other times they’d need to create a new one. It didn’t matter. On every incoming piece of mail, the Files and Communications folks would always, always, always draw a circle in front of the person’s last name (if we’re talking about a person) or another important reference word. And those circles were always, always, always written in blue.

You know what else was always written in blue? The classification and case numbers. 

What about the notes written in blue? How and why would the Files and Communications Division write those notes?

Keep in mind that the Files and Communications Division was massive. One unit was doing the indexing, another unit doing the classifying, another assigning case numbers, another assigning the serial numbers at the end of case numbers, and so on. (I’m not saying that the jobs were exhilarating. I’m just saying that there was a lot to be done.) You also had a unit doing routing. Separate from all of that, another unit was conducting background checks for other federal agencies. Plus you had unit supervisors, section supervisors and, ultimately, a division head.

Here’s a nice flow chart to help you picture the operation. (As far as I can tell, it was called the Records Branch before it was Files and Communications.)

If, as I believe, the Files and Communications Division was writing the additional notes in blue, that would explain:

• The numbers in the righthand corner  – someone high up in routing might add one or more numbers from 1 through 11 to indicate the important people or office who should receive a copy of the record. Sometimes they’d follow the number with a hyphen and the number 1 or 2 to indicate how many copies they should receive.
  
• See index – Someone high up would write this on some records to notify the agent assigned to the case that the subject was on the Security Index. 
  
• FD-217 – When a field office didn’t know the case number, they’d include this form with their report, which, I believe, also provided information about what number to put in the upper righthand corner. Someone high up in routing would sometimes reference the FD-217 form when they added the number in the upper right.
  
• o’d on yellow – This one is a little trickier.

How is “o’d on yellow” trickier? And what about the unresolved issue you had with the phrase “o’d on yellow” when there weren’t any numbers circled on Message Relay sheets?

Wow. You really do love frolicking in the weeds, don’t you? OK, so my unresolved issue had to do with the Message Relay sheets that said “o’d 2” or “op2” but that didn’t have any numbers circled. As it turns out, those notations weren’t referring to the numbers in the upper righthand corner. They were in reference to the circle placed in front of a last name, which happened to be on page 2 of the record that was being relayed.

Remember Lady Bird Johnson’s o’d 2 from my blog post? On page 2 of that transmission, they’d placed a circle in front of the name Johnson, probably in blue, but, unfortunately, I don’t have the original so I can’t confirm that. Likewise, the op2 people also had circles in front of their last names on page 2, also probably in blue. (The p stands for page.)

Here’s the op2 for Sam Giancana:

As for the “o’d on yellow” folks, the Files and Communications Division would sometimes write the subject’s name on the Message Relay sheet and add the circle in front of the person’s last name. That’s what I believe they’d done in several designated missing person files. (Unfortunately, they neglected to include the Message Relay sheets in their files so I can’t confirm.) Nevertheless, here’s an example of our old friend James McCord’s Message Relay with the circle in front of his last name:

The take-home here is that “o’d on yellow” referred to the circles in front of last names corresponding to the alphabetized index cards in the General Index. Those were different from the “7 circled on yellow” example, which I believe was referring to a 7 that had been written in the righthand corner of a Message Relay sheet. In both examples, the notation for circle was the same, but the reason for the circles differed. 

OK, enough shop talk. Let’s talk about the most important reason for this blog post.

What about the additional evidence you have that the numbers refer to actual people and that the FBI has been cherry-picking the records it releases to the public?

First and foremost, if the Files and Communications Division was responsible for the numbers in the upper righthand corner, there’s no way that those numbers had anything to do with some internal, arbitrarily subdivided alphabetical system that would benefit no one. Those staff members were working too hard at maintaining the General Index system, which was 100 percent alphabetical, as well as the case filing system, which was purely numerical. An FBI staffer would look up a name in the General Index, which supplied them with one or more case numbers in the Central Records System, prefaced by its classification group, which was also numerical. It was a perfectly logical system and the Files and Communications Division was married to it. There was no reason for them to add arbitrarily subdivided categories within a classification group to the betterment of no one.

OK, so hear me out. What if there was some internal operational reason for the numbers? For example, what if they were written to help the people who were responsible for filing the records in the Central Records System? You’ve said yourself that it was a huge filing system. What if those numbers referred to room numbers to help them know where to go?

That’s sweet. But there’s no way they would do that. Files and Communications staff would draw the circles, they’d write the classification and case numbers, and they’d write the special notes, all of which were helpful to the agents reading the records. And let’s focus solely on the Message Relay sheets. The recipients represented the White House, the CIA, the Attorney General’s office, and the like. There’s no way that someone from the Files and Communications staff would write helpful little notes to their colleagues who filed the records, and, what’s more, to do so only on occasion, if they were feeling big-hearted. It was the filers’ job to know where to go. 

Do you have other evidence that the numbers refer to actual people and that the FBI has been cherry-picking the records it releases to the public?

Absolutely. Just for fun, I created an Excel sheet of all of the missing person records I recently obtained from the National Archives. Next to each person’s name, I placed the number or numbers that were in the upper righthand corners in their own box or cell. Then I added other well-known subjects to the list—such as Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante—with their respective numbered boxes to find out if anyone fell outside of the made-up, arbitrarily subdivided system. 

Granted, there weren’t a ton of people who fell outside. I imagine someone’s job was (and maybe still is?) to pull only the records that match the arbitrarily subdivided system, and they’ve gotten good at it. Thankfully, nobody’s perfect and everyone can have an off day now and again. Listed below is a sampling of the more well-known people and organizations who have one or more records that fall outside of the FBI’s made-up system. 

For your assistance, I included a circle in front of the names that had been indexed. Also, note that I believe the numbers after the hyphens are the numbers of copies that the designated official received. A 3-1 versus a 3-2 tells me that official 3 received 1 copy in the first example and two copies in the second. If only the number is listed or a number plus a hyphen, I believe they received 1 copy.

Bella ^oAbzug

Should have had a 1, but was assigned a 3-1 instead.

Spiro ^oAgnew

Should have had a 1, but received a 10 instead after a possible assassination attempt.

Princess ^oDiana and Prince ^oCharles

Although the 2-2 and 3-2 would fit the made-up system for Charles’ and Diana’s names, their Message Relay sheet, which preceded a report for a potential bomb plot, had an added 10-2 as well.

^oCentral Intelligence Agency’s Intentions to Send Hoodlums to Cuba to Assassinate Castro

Should have had a 2 but was given an 8- instead.

Judith ^oCoplon, Soviet spy and DOJ employee

Should have had a 3, but got a 7-1 instead.

John ^oDenver

Was given a 10-2 and 11-2 in addition to his 3-2 for threats against his life

Meyer ^oLansky

Should have had 6’s, but received a 9 on two records and a 10-, and 11 on one.

Carlos ^oMarcello

Should have received 7’s but received 8’s on two records.

Santo ^oTrafficante

Should have received a 10 but got a 9 instead.

Werner ^oVon Braun

Should have received an 11, but received on several records: 2-1; 3-1; 4; 7 and 7-1; 8; 9, 9-, and 9-1’s; and, OK, a couple 11s and an 11-1. (This is what I mean when I say that the only V example I have is a free-for-all.) Here are a few examples:

Illinois Governor Dan ^oWalker

Should have received an 11, but got a 2 instead.

I also need to tell you about one interesting missing person document.

What’s that?

This was a tragic case involving a 13-year-old African-American girl named Dorothy Sampson. Dorothy had gone missing in Fayette, Mississippi, on December 8, 1970, after running an errand for her neighbor. She was subsequently found in an oil field on Christmas day of that same year, sexually assaulted and murdered. The story is too grim to include here, however the reason I bring it up is that civil rights leader Charles Evers, the mayor of Fayette and older brother to famed civil rights leader Medgar Evers (who was assassinated on June 12, 1963), had been implicated by informants as having been involved in the murder. Although Charles was no angel, I don’t believe it for one minute. He was never charged. The racism in this case was off the charts, and Dorothy’s file makes me sick to my stomach.

What I want to share with you is a record dated 9/13/72. You can see the circle in front of the name ^oSampson. You can also see a circle in front of a name that has been redacted, which I believe to be Evers. There are two blue numbers in the upper righthand corner—a 6 and a 9. Because Dorothy’s last name is at the front end of the S’s, her 9 is consistent with the FBI’s made-up system, even though later S’s received 10’s. (See what I mean about their arbitrary subdivisions?) But Charles Evers should have gotten a 3, not a 6. Now look more closely at those numbers in the righthand corner. Can you see where the numbers 3-1, 10-1, 11-1, and 5-1 were once there, but were subsequently erased? The 10, 11, and 5 don’t fit the FBI’s made-up system. Other writing was erased too.

Now look at the bottom of the page, under LEADS, written in regular pencil. It reads (to the best that I can tell): “No dissemination to White House as no pertinent info developed on Evers.”

Did someone overrule several of the numbers in the righthand corner and is that why some of them were erased? Does that notation confirm that the numbers are in reference to the FBI’s secret dissemination list? Could one of the erased numbers be in reference to the White House? I could be wrong due to the placement of the note on the record and the fact that a similar note had been written on several other records, but I thought I should let you know.

OK, I think I’ve said enough today. Have a great weekend, and, as always, if you spot anything I’ve missed, please feel free to weigh in!