LETTER TO THE EDITOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003300030013-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 30, 2004
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: November 22, 1977
• Content Type: LETTER

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D R A F T
Letter to the Editor
THE NEW YORK TIMES
In your November 21st edition, Tom Wicker, under the., title,
"The CIA Security Blanket," writes from the assmiption that the
only reason the CIA would want to review a book to be published. by
a former employee is to,$ensor revelations of its own shortcomings.
What evidence Mr. Wicker has behind his bald assumption, it certainly
does not lie in the recent example of the CIA's voluntarily offering
to the Congress incriminating documents which it found with respect
to the MKULTRA drug testing program.
Much more is at stake, however, in the thrust behind this Wicker
piece than the motives of those of us in the CIA. There is a much
larger issue of whether the American public should work from the
presumption that its public servants all place covering up possible
criticism above the responsibilities of their positions and above the
law of the land. If such is to be the generally accepted presumption,
from it follows the logical conclusion that all. 210 million Americans
should be entitled to release to the public any information upon which
they stumble regardless of whether it happens to be classified by duly
constituted authority. Such clearly is Mr. Wicker's thesis; I would
suggest it could well result in chaos for our country and our Government.
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Secrecy is indeed a dangerous thing, but at the same time a
necessary one. Because it has in the past been abused to cover up
misdeeds does not mean that we must forever discard the principle of
secrecy. In fact, since Watergate there have been established new
checks and balances and a new set of government officials. If public
trust is ever to be restored in the governmental process, these officials
and these processes must be given some opportunity to prove themselves.
Throwing the baby out with the bath water is hardly a satisfactory
process..
We might even make it an accepted premise that an appointed
official such as myself would conform with law -- such as that which
specifically requires the Director of Central Intelligence to protect
the unauthorized release of information on how we obtain our intelligence.
The man who W. Wicker extols in his article has egregiously revealed
such information, possibly at the expense of a life of individuals
who trusted and worked for the United States in Vietnam because they
believed in our standards and our purposes. In short, as the Director
of Central Intelligence, I am today not taking recourse to the law with
respect to Mr. Frank Snepp in either retribution or an effort to cover
up but rather as a matter of duty under the law and as a matter of my
sense of the long-term welfare of our country.
In my view, "Sixty Minutes," Random House, and Wicker have all
fallen prey to nothing more than a sophistic argument as to why Mr. Snepp
felt authorized to release his book without prior check by the CIA on
whether its contents included classified material. That sophistry was
simply that the CIA had once released some information in an unauthorized
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manner (to the best of my knowledge untrue) and that therefore he,
Snepp, was now free to release not only that same information (which
I willingly provided to him myself on an unclassified basis) but a
wealth of other unrelated data. If our country does not reject this
type of shallow reasoning and reject the Wicker thesis that 210 million
Americans can determine what properly should remain secret, our future
indeed is to be handicapped unnecessarily and extensively.
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D R A F T (wl
Letter to the Editor
THE NEW YORK TIMES
additions)
In your November 21st edition, Tom Wicker, under the title,
The CIA Security Blanket," writes from the assumption that the
only reason the CIA would want to review a book to be published by
PAS-r'
a former employee is to,ensor revelations of its ewft shortcomings.
What evidence Mr. Wicker has behind his bald assumption, it certainly
does not lie in the recent example of the CIA's voluntarily offering
to the Congress incriminating documents which it found with respect
to the MKULTRA drug testing program 'and willingness to provide them
to the public under the Freedom of Information Act).
M ore is at stake, however, in the thrust behind this Wicker
piece than the motives of -those of us in the CIA. There is a much
larger issue of whether the American public should work from the
presumption that its public servants all place covering up possible
criticism above the responsibilities of their positions and above the
law of the land. If such is to be the generally accepted presumption,
from it follows the logical conclusion that all 210 million Americans
should be entitled to release to the public any information upon which
they stumble regardless of whether it happens to be classified by duly
constituted authority. Such clearly is Mr. Wicker's thesis; I would
suggest it could well result in chaos for our country and our government.
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Secrecy is indeed a dangerous thing, but at the same time a
necessary one. Because it has in the past been abused to cover up
misdeeds does not mean that we must forever discard the principle of
secrecy. In fact, since Watergate there have been established new
checks and. balances and a new set of government officials. If public
trust is ever to be restored in the governmental process, these officials
and these processes must be given some opportunity to prove themselves.
Unless they are we face a situation where any disclosure of classified
material, regardless of sensitivity and potential damage to the United
States, is justified if packaged as an "expose."
For those who are neither charged by law with protecting national.
secrets nor have responsibility for the consequences of disclosure and
completely lack the depth of knowledge to appreciate the damage of
publication to take it upon themselves to make the only judgment of
what should be protected and what should not is the height of Intel-
lectual arrogance and civic irresponsibility. But then I suppose it
does sell books.
The man who Mr. Wicker extols in his article has egregiously
revealed such information, possibly at the expense of a life of indi-
viduals who trusted and worked for the United States in Vietnam because
they believed in our standards and our purposes. In short, as the
Director of Central Intelligence, I am today not taking recourse to
the law with respect to Mr. Frank Snepp in either retribution or censor-
ship but rather as a matter of duty under the law and as a matter of
my sense of the long--term welfare of our country.
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 -3-
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I am disappointed that Mr. Wicker and Random House could fall
prey to Mr. Snepp's other poorly reasoned justification for non-
clearance. It is simple sophistry to argue that since the CIA had
once released some information in an unauthorized manner (to the best
of my knowledge untrue) therefore he, Snepp, was now free to release
not only that same information (which I willingly provided to him
myself on an unclassified basis) but a wealth of other unrelated data.
I'm afraid the whole thesis is so transparently self-serving as to cast
in doubt the entire intellectual basis of whatever case Mr. Snepp
develops in his book. Perhaps I can forgive Mr. Snepp for
a. youthful
s
over-exuberance which clouded his sense of integrity. But
sophisticated editorial writer and book publisher t.-be similarly
taken in(I am surprise4"7-"---,
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