370. Editorial Note
On August 23, the Department of State established a special handling category for cables and memoranda concerning sensitive aspects of policy or operations relating to the Syrian situation. Telegram 540 to Ankara, August 23, instructed the Embassy that it should use the caption designating the special handling category only for messages containing sensitive information directly relating to special policy and operations and should not refer to such messages in other communications. In an August 23 memorandum to Newton and Arneson, Fisher Howe directed that the Executive Secretariat would make all necessary distribution of documents bearing this caption both inside and outside the Department. In a September 9 memorandum to Rountree, Howe cautioned that the caption did not designate an operation in the way that “Overlord” had been used to designate the 1944 invasion of Normandy but referred to the procedures which had been established to control the dissemination of information concerning particularly sensitive elements of U.S. policy in the Syrian crisis.
According to a list in Department of State files, a total of 226 persons had access to documents in the special handling category, including President Eisenhower, Secretary Dulles, Secretary Quarles, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of Central Intelligence Dulles, and other specified officials on the White House staff, at the Departments of State and Defense, at the Central Intelligence Agency, and at the Embassies in Amman, Ankara, Baghdad, Beirut, and London, and the Consulate General in Istanbul. (Department of State, S/S Files: Lot 66 D 123)