(2006-1012-F) Sidney Drell - PFIAB

The materials in FOIA 2006-1012-F are a selective body of documents responsive to the topic of the FOIA. Researchers should consult the archivist about related materials. These records consist of correspondence, memoranda, news articles, and email. The majority of the collection consists of news articles. Records responsive to this FOIA request from the White House Counsel’s Office included a list of published works by Dr. Sidney D. Drell, his professional biography, and a list of testimonies before various congressional committees between 1970 and 1992. Dr. Drell was appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton to serve on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) on September 30, 1993. He served on the board until 2001. Sidney Drell is an emeritus Professor of theoretical physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University. He was the Deputy Director of the Accelerator Center until 1998 when he retired and became a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution. While teaching at Stanford he founded and codirected Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control. Drell, born in 1926, earned his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois. Drell has spent his career in high energy physics and weapons security control. His work in the theories of quantum electrodynamics and his work in long-range planning of national accelerator laboratories won him high praise and regard among his peers. Much of Drell’s work related directly to nuclear and high explosive weaponry. For over forty years, Drell has advised the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and the President on issues of science policy and national security. Along with serving on the PFIAB, his work for the government included being Chair of the Panel on Nuclear Weapons Safety of the House Armed Services Committee, the Technology Review Panel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Senior Review Board of the Intelligence Community’s Technology Innovation Center. In the late 1990s he became known for his support of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or CTBT. Drell is the author of a numerous publications including, but not limited to: Facing the Threat of Nuclear Weapons (1983), The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: A Technical, Political, and Arms Control Assessment (with Farley and Holloway, 1984), Sidney Drell on Arms Control (1988), Sakharov Remembered: A tribute by Friends and Colleagues (1991), In the Shadow of the Bomb: Physics and Arms Control (1993), Reducing Nuclear Danger (with McGeorge Bundy and William J. Crowe, Jr., 1993), Explosion Aboard the Iowa (with Richard L. Schwoebel, 2001), The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons (with James E. Goodby, 2003). In 1999, Drell assisted with the research and publication of the PFIAB report on security at Department of Energy weapons labs, Science at its Best, Security at its Worst. Drell, along with Dr. Sheldon Datz and Dr. Herbert York, was awarded the Enrico Fermi award, the nations’ oldest and highest science award, by President Clinton on November 9, 2000. He was also awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal in 2001. The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Executive Order 10656, signed February 6, 1956, created the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities. Eisenhower believed that this board of respected and knowledgeable citizens could provide him with unbiased and candid appraisals of United States’ intelligence activities. President John Kennedy, by the signing of Executive Order 10938 on May 4, 1961, renamed the Board of Consultants, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Though the name was changed, the board continued to operate in much the same fashion. Executive Order 11460, signed by President Richard Nixon on March 20, 1969, again changed the name of the PFIAB to the President’s Advisory Intelligence Board. President Jimmy Carter abolished the board in March of 1977. Carter did however, retain the Intelligence Oversight Board. The IOB was created by President Gerald Ford in 1976 following a post Watergate investigation by Congress into potential illegal activities of the intelligence agencies. The IOB was tasked with reporting potential illegal activities to the Department of Justice for review. As Ford told Congress in 1976, “I believe [the changes] will eliminate abuses and questionable activities on the part of the foreign intelligence agencies while at the same time allowing them to get on with their vital work of gathering and assessing information.” President Ronald Reagan modified the role of the IOB in 1981 and re-established the PFIAB in 1985 by signing Executive Order 12537. President William Jefferson Clinton combined the IOB and the PFIAB, making the IOB a committee rather than an independent organization. President George W. Bush radically modified the role of both the IOB and the PFIAB following the creation of a Director of National Intelligence. The newly named President’s Intelligence Advisory Board was designated to oversee the intelligence collection activities of any Federal agency engaged in the collection of intelligence or the production of intelligence policy. President Barak Obama more clearly defined the role of the PIAB and strengthened the IOB with the passage of Executive Order 13516. Under President Clinton the PFIAB had between eleven and twelve members, by law it could be no more than sixteen, whose terms were established by the President. Members were chosen for their independence, knowledge, and experience. The members of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board serve as unpaid observers of United States intelligence community. Much of their work is highly secret in nature though Presidents have chosen on occasion to make the Board’s reports, or portions thereof, public. The members of the Board are appointed by the President and the Director serves at the leisure of the President. Automated Records Management System [Email] (ARMS) and Tape Restoration Project [Email] (TRP) e-mail records responsive to this FOIA originate in the following agencies: Office of Policy Development (OPD), Office of the White House (WHO), and Default e-mails belonging to no specific agency. These e-mails are primarily administrative in nature relating to Dr. Drell’s appointment and service on the PFIAB. Though there are also administrative e-mails relating to his receipt of the Enrico Fermi Award in 2000.