Who wrote the 1989 legal memo on military force, and was it ever made public?
Research question: Who issued the 1989 legal memorandum on EO 12333 and military force, and has it been declassified or released through FOIA?
Sources conflict on who issued the 1989 memorandum. One attributes a memorandum on Executive Order 12333 and assassination to W. H. Parks, dated December 1989 8, while another describes a July 1989 Office of Legal Counsel memorandum on EO 12333 and related military or law-enforcement actions 9. The records show it was prepared while the Army was rewriting Field Manual 27-10 to explain 'assassination' 1. None of the facts says this 1989 memorandum has been declassified or released under FOIA; the closest released document is a 2001 OLC memo that the government reprocessed in a less-redacted version during an ACLU appeal 2, and only one contested memorandum was released while others remain in litigation 7. FOIA's national-defense exemptions 6 and a 2017 court ruling that let the government keep key EO 12333 analysis secret 5 suggest release is not assured. The newest dated fact is from 2019 2, about seven years before October 2026, so the current status is unknown.
Sources
"In the process of rewriting U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, The Law of War, the following memorandum was prepared to explain the term in the context of military operations across the conflict spectrum."Memorandum of Law: Executive Order 12333 and-Assassination
"Finally, while this appeal was pending, the Government reprocessed and released a less-redacted version of an additional document, “OLC 8.” This document, a November 2, 2001 memorandum written by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Yoo, explains, inter alia, “legal issues pertaining to surveillance under E.O 12333.”"AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION v. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (2019)
"Yet, OLC opinions concerning intelligence law and national security are rarely released, and only persistent FOIA litigation has begun to pry some of them into public view."Schrödinger’s Executive Order: Could Executive-Made Intelligence Law Be Secretly Rescinded?, by Tal Feldman - Yale Journal on Regulation
"The first public glimpse of this issue came in 2007, when Senator Sheldon Whitehouse revealed a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion on the Senate floor"Schrödinger’s Executive Order: Could Executive-Made Intelligence Law Be Secretly Rescinded?, by Tal Feldman - Yale Journal on Regulation
"In 2017, the district court in the case agreed that the government could keep those documents secret."Executive Order 12,333
"the statute contains broad exemptions—including for internal agency practices and for matters “specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.”"Schrödinger’s Executive Order: Could Executive-Made Intelligence Law Be Secretly Rescinded?, by Tal Feldman - Yale Journal on Regulation
"After the ACLU appealed, the government released one of the memoranda. The ACLU is continuing to seek the remainder, and the case is pending in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit."Executive Order 12,333
"Parks, W. H. December 1989. “Memorandum of Law: Executive Order 12333 and-Assassinadon.”"Book, page 234
"a July 1989 memorandum by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel advises that"Cyberwarfare, page 94