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rtment of History. Marquette University Chartes L. Coughlin Hall Milwaukee, WI 53233 (414) 224-7217, 224-7385 September 1, 1983 Mr. Steven Garfinkel, Director. Information Security Oversight Office. General Services Administration Washington, D.C. 20405 Dear Mr. Garfinkel:. the Organization of American Historian's Committee on Access to Documents and Open Information. Recently, Executive Secretary of. b6 b7C and of your Office's Annual Report to the President for Fy 1982.'She invited. Committee members to forward our comments directly to you. Our Committee is presently initiating a study of the varied research. problems confwonting historians (particularly those interested in aspects of national security policy, both foreign and defense policy and internal security.policy). Because at a preliminary stage, we cannot at present share our findings with you. We do hope to have'a coupleted report by the spring. of 1984'and, one reason for my writing to you today, was to establish channels and the opportunity to share our findings and concerns. A second, and more. immediate, reason was to respond to your invitation for comments on the 1982 Report. (lst 19105) of that decision underscores our profession's concerns about the onerous restrictions historians confront in their research deriving from often capricious "national security" claims. Indeed, our experiences suggest that the operative to a policy of maximum,openness--is questionable. We have found "national securityt! .restictions, even for historically dated documents, excessive, at times arbitrary and at times capricious. And, on yeading your report, I find myself coming to a radically different and more pessimistic conclusion. Umwilling to be sweepingly characterized as a "traditional" critic who reacted "as could be predicted, my personal experiences in obtaining FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Hhegoads ssat apgaoad 'aamgng aug ut *pue ansogerp e ugegsns ot adoy I *goy comments and more generalized examples. I shall. keep this letter brief, and thus will cite only a few examples. I assume that other respondents from our Committee will cite fofeign and defense policy decisions, or those involving the CIA; for that reason I shall comment only on FBI documents..