During the Cold War, the government funded human radiation experiments, some of which were secret. It is imperative that the public have access to the record of the government's activities. The Administration has opened the record, as discussed below, and has changed rules that kept documents secret for many years after it was necessary. These changes, along with other safeguards in place already, will help to ensure that the government does not repeat the wrongs of the human radiation experiments.

The Administration has changed rules that kept documents secret for many years after it was necessary.

A large and growing body of documents collected by the Federal agencies is available for online searching through the Internet at the Human Radiation Experiments Interagency Web Site. This site currently allows citizens to examine nearly 300,000 pages of material and will contain approximately half a million pages when completed later this year. The database provides both document images and sophisticated full text searching capabilities. Many of these documents were originally unclassi-fied, but approximately 7,000 were specifically declassified for this project.

The general availability of information about human radiation experiments has caused citizens to wonder about their own role in this history. As a result, thousands have sought information about their possible participation in human radiation experiments. To protect individual privacy, personal information is not publicly available. However, individuals can request information related to their possible personal involvement through the Helpline at (202) 586- 8439.

The Advisory Committee recommended that the government take the following steps to organize the historical records of human radiation experiments and to give access to the public, and to the government itself.

• The most important historical collections should be entrusted to the National Archives.
• Agencies should make readily available all existing inventories, indexes, folder listings, and other finding aids to record collections now under agency control.
• Classified finding aids should undergo declassification review, and declassified versions of these finding aids should also be made available.
• The government should ensure the development of policies to improve public access to records held by agencies or deposited in Federal records centers.
• Agencies should maintain complete records, available to the public, of document destruction. ° The government should review and develop policies concerning public access to records generated or being held by private contrac-tors and institutions receiving Federal funding.

The Advisory Committee also recommended that the CIA's recordkeeping system be reviewed to ensure that records are accessible upon legitimate request from the public or governmental sources. The Advisory Committee further recommended that all records of the CIA bearing on programs of secret human research from the late 1940s through the early 1970s be reviewed for declassification. ACHRE expressed the expectation that most, if not all, of these CIA documents would be declassified and made public. (Recommendations 17 and 18)

ACHRE identified the National Archives as the appropriate reposi-tory for many of the documents related to human radiation experiments. The Administration agrees. All of the Advisory Committee's records have been transferred to the Archives. The principal Departments and agencies are transferring large volumes of records there as well.

ACHRE recommended that the government take steps to improve public access to records that remain in the Departments' custody. Part of ACHRE's concern focuses on those records that needlessly remain classified and that would be of significant interest to the public. President Clinton's Executive Order 12958 of April 17, 1995, addresses this concern. The Order requires that most older records that are determined to be of permanent historical value be automati-cally declassified 5 years from the date of the Order. The Order applies to all records, not just those relating to human radiation experiments. Agencies are actively reviewing their records and releasing those that are not exempt to comply with the Order. Although the Executive Order does not include Restricted Data (atomic energy information), DOE is actively reviewing this mate-rial as well. DOE is also reviewing and updating its classification authorities and guidelines.

ACHRE recommended that a citizen's right to know about the activities undertaken by the government should not depend on whether the work was carried out by government employees or contractors. Thus, ACHRE recommended reviewing policies governing access to records of grantees and contractors. Federal records regulations (36 CFR 1222.48) already specify that data created for Federal government use by contractors are Federal records if they are delivered to, or fall under the legal control of, the government. All Federal records must be managed according to rules that provide for appropriate access. Administration policy requires each agencyto use contract provisions or other mechanisms to assert ownership of, or appropriate access to, contractor records.

The Department of Energy

Making records available: DOE has posted over 250,000 pages of historical documents on the Internet- making the documents available in libraries, community centers, and schools in this country and around the world. These documents are now available through the Interagency Database (hrex.dis.anl.gov) which will eventually contain more than 500,000 pages of documents from all the agencies involved in this effort. Paper copies of all DOE and DOD documents are at the Coordination and Information Center (CIC) in Nevada. Additional related series of records of historical interest have been transferred to the National Archives.

Understanding the record: DOE staff interviewed researchers and others possessing first- hand knowledge of the human radiation experimentation and therapy that occurred during World War II and the Cold War. The result is, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years. This 29-part series comprises some 1,350 pages of transcripts. This series offers scholars and interested lay persons a vivid glimpse inside one of the most controversial chapters in our nation's postwar history.

The Department is currently developing a plan to fund an oral history project, conducted by a non-Federal institution, which will allow the subjects and their families to tell the story from a different perspective. This project will provide a reminder of the importance of protecting individual rights, even in times of national security crisis.

Making records accessible: DOD has prepared a guide, similar to the DOE Roadmap, that describes the search process for the records of human radiation experiments, and provides the result of the search. This guide is entitled, The Department of Defense Report on the Search for Human Radiation Experiments Records, 1944-1994.