INTERVIEW WITH JACK LANDAU

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100130002-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2007
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 22, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20015 656-4068
PROGRAM Panorama STATION W T T G TV
March 22, 1982 12:00 Noon
Washington, DC
ROSS CRYSTAL: On Thursday the Senate voted to make
it a felony to disclose the names of United States intelligence
operatives, which brought up and stirred a lot of debate. The
measure is seen as a necessary step in protecting our agents;
and as an invasion of the First Amendment rights, as many people
see that.
We're going to talk about that right now. Joining us
is Jack Maury, who's the President of the Association of Former
Intelligence Officers, and, understandably, quite happy, about
that vote. Jack Landau is the Executive Director of the Repor-
ters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, a group that dis-
agrees.
A Senate version of this bill, a House version of this
bill, which would make it, for the first time, a crime to publish
information derived solely from public records, which are some-
times enough, as we've seen in the past, to figure out the names
of CIA officers stationed abroad.
Why are we restricting, and what does seem to be a
harsh restriction on journalists in this country? Why are we
doing that?
JACK MAURY: I don't know why a legitimate journalist
working on a story that would be of interest to the public has
to get into the uncovering of agents under deep cover, with the
result that their careers are jeopardized, and indeed their
safety is also put in jeopardy sometimes. I think it'd be very
hard to visualize a situation where that would present a serious
problem to a responsible journalist.
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2
CRYSTAL: A responsible journalist should not have
their nose in that kind of stuff, is what you're saying.
MAURY: No. I think they certainly have a duty to
investigate mischief in the government. I think it's inevitable,
under our system, that they would carry on that kind of a mis-
sion with diligence and enthusiasm.
CRYSTAL: But if they find out...
MAURY: But I don't think that it is necessary for
them, in performing that function, to uncover agents who are --
whose effectiveness depends on their their anonymity.
CRYSTAL: All right.
Jack Landau, why is it necessary, indeed?
JACK LANDAU: Well, I think we ought to take Mr. Maury's
statement just sentence-by-sentence.
It isn't necessary to investigate deep-cover agents.
That strikes a patriotic thump in my heart. This bill is much
broader than that. It doesn't say anything about deep-cover
agents. This bill simply says "any intelligence agent."
So, the United States launches a covert action in Hon-
duras to try to overthrow the government of Guatemala, and there
is a CIA agent running it. And they say, "John Smith is running
it for the CIA."
In addition, the agent says -- the bill also says "in-
telligenceagents or their sources."
So, "Ernesto Sanchez is running it for Jack Smith."
Into the pokey you go for five years. You don't have to show
that it's a danger to the national security. As a matter of
fact, many people would argue that it's good for the national
security of this country to have some debate about those acti-
vities.
CRYSTAL: Too much leeway involved in this law.
MAURY: Well, let me reply to Jack's points.
First of all, it is not as simple as he says, that any
agent can be -- who's identified can give rise to prosecution.
That's not true. It's got to be an agent who has -- who is under-
cover. And there are, indeed, six hurdles that you have to get
over before you can start prosecution. And finally, you've got
to have reason to believe, you've got to prove that there was
reason to believe that this would impair the effectiveness of
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U.S. intelligence.
proving...
CRYSTAL: How do you do that? How do you go about
LANDAU: The question is asked just the opposite. Mr.
Maury is an editor. Right? And he discloses Jack Smith's name.
And they say to him in front of a jury, "Now, Mr. Maury, didn't
you reasonably believe that by disclosing this agent you would
in some way impede intelligence gathering?" What's he going to
say, no? His answer is, "Of course I thought I would impede it.
But it was more important for people to know about it."
CRYSTAL: So, what we're saying here is that we now
turn the burden of proof around in that court of law to say that
you are guilty until proven innocent.
MAURY: No, I don't think -- I think you've got to --
you have got to prove six things. You've got to prove that this
was done with the knowledge on the part of the defendant that
this identity was one that the government was protecting. You've
got to prove a pattern of activities designed to uncover people
under deep cover. And you've got to prove reason to believe that
it would impair the effectiveness of the U.S. intelligence estab-
lishment. So all of these things have to be added together.
And mind you, this bill was supported by both the Demo-
cratic and Republican Administrations. It's been reported out
by 15-to-I by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was voted
on in the House by a 6-to-I vote. It was voted in the Senate by
90-to-6, I believe it was.
...asking the right question, though.
CRYSTAL: Jack Landau is saying, "Wait a second" --
Jack Maury, rather, is saying, "You've got a long way to go be-
fore anybody's getting convicted."
LANDAU: Yeah, but look at -- I mean look at what he
said. A newspaper has to know that the guy is undercover. Well,
of course, if they say, "Jack Smith, whose name hasn't been pub-
licly disclosed as a CIA agent," of course he's undercover. I
mean that's almost by definition. You don't see people running
around the streets of Latin America with big signs on them, "I
am a CIA agent." Of course they don't do that.
The second thing is a pattern of disclosure. What does
that mean? You write one story that Jack Smith and then you
write another story he's being helped by Enresto Sanchez; and
boom, there's your pattern of disclosure.
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but that's not the question that should be asked of Mr. Maury.
The hard question is, and the question that concerns everybody,
including people in the press, is: Why is it so easy to find
this out? What's wrong with the agency? If we can find it out,
the Russians can find it out, the Latin American press can find
it out. What is wrong with the security over in Langley? That's
the issue that nobody's talking about, because these names wouldn't
get out if it was so easy [sic].
MAURY: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, Jack. We
don't have a police state in this country. If that's what you
want, then maybe we can protect these secrets. But in a free
society, it is absolutely impossible, when we've got an organi-
zation of thousands of people, that there might be, sooner or
later, soem blabbermouth, some bad egg somewhere along the line,
and so on. So it is possible for people on the outside to find
out things that they've got no business knowing, and they're
damaging national security.
CRYSTAL: You're saying they've got something wrong
there. And if you can find it out, so be it.
LANDAU: Well, I'm saying if the point of the bill is
to stop the Russians from finding out who our agents are, cer-
tainly if some little storefront magazine, Covert Action Infor-
mation Bulletin, can find it out, then the Russians can damn well
find it out.
And furthermore -- furthermore, if somebody is deter-
mined -- this information doesn't come from the press. The press
is not in the agency. If a person is determined to get this in-
formation out, all he has to do is go to a pay phone and call the
Russian Embassy and say, "Hey, you know, Jack Smith is organizing
all -- so it's not going to stop the Russians from finding it out.
Secondly, if the object of it is to stop it from being
published, if a person is determined to have it published, all
he has to do is call up Tass or Prensa Latino (?) or any of the
Communist news services here. It'll be spread all over the place.
It is an emotional reaction against -- they're clawing
at the press because they're frustrated by their own poor secur-
ity.
MAURY: The Russians probably can find out quite a few
of these identities. But, as a matter of fact, I have every
reason to believe that things like Covert Action Information
Bulletin are being provided information by the Russians and their
allies.
But the point is that once you start the process of
disclosing these identities, you have created an atmosphere in
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which it is impossible to recruit the people you need to do these
jobs. It is impossible to protect those that are already on
board. A lot of them get cold feet and back off of their cooper-
ation with us, and so on.
If the U.S. Government allows a magazine like Covert
Action Information Bulletin to be published right in the nation's
capital and disclose the identities, destroy the careers and jeo-
pardize the lives of people that are doing a job for the U.S.
Government, then I think we look pretty sick, and I think it's
going to be pretty hard to get people to cooperate with us.
CRYSTAL: But is that the root of the problem?
LANDAU: It's a question of embarrassment.
CRYSTAL: Is that the root...
MAURY: It's not -- it's not embarrassment. It has
a paralyzing effect on the effectiveness of a lot of people
undercover to be threatened with this continued possibility of
disclosure.
CRYSTAL: But at the same time, if that publication
isn't doing it and if that publication ceases, somebody else
is going to come along and do it. And why don't we get to the
source and...
MAURY: If -- well, if they do it as part of a pattern
of activities of exposing people under deep cover, knowing the
damage it will do, with reason to believe that it will impair
our intelligence operation, then...
LANDAU: Well, I think you have to stop there.
CRYSTAL: Who's going to decide that?
MAURY: A jury will decide that.
LANDAU: That's a very important question, because this
is the first time that we have ever had a law which would send
third parties -- I'm not talking about government and former gov-
ernment employees -- third parties to jail for publishing infor-
mation involving the national security without the government
having to show that the information is a clear and present danger.
Let's take our example. Right? John Smith is disclosed.
Right? Big deal. They could put him on an airplane and send ano-
ther agent in his place. They do it all the time. Suppose he
got pneumonia. Suppose he broke a leg. I mean that's not a rea-
son to throw a newspaper reporter or publisher in jail, the fact
that one agent's effectiveness is going to be -- is limited.
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Agents' effectivenesses, I assume, are limited all the
time, and the agency knows how to take care of it. They take him
back, put him out of circulation for a while, and then later on
send him someplace else.
MAURY: Well, you've got to remember...
LANDAU: That's not a clear and present danger to
national security.
MAIJRY: Well, obviously, any law can be abused if it's
administred by irresponsible people. But you seem to be assuming
that the jury and the courts and the Executive Branch, the Justice
Department, all of whom would be a party to this operation of
prosecution, all are going to be bent on violating people's con-
stitutional rights. I don't think that's...
LANDAU: ...law. I mean that's what we argued, Jack.
We argued, put into the law a requirement that the disclosure be
a clear and present danger to the national security, force the
government to prove some really identifiable harm. And you fel-
lows opposed it; and the Administration opposed it, the very
people who we should trust in the prosecution opposed it.
MAURY: Look, we've got in the law a reason to believe
that it will impair our intelligence.
CRYSTAL: Okay. What happens -- what happens if -- we
haven't had a case to test this yet. What happens if, in fact,...
LANDAU: Well, we had a case. The Washington Post
actually published a story two weeks ago about this covert-action
operation in Latin America.
CRYSTAL: But not at the highest -- but not at the
highest -- in other words, they published, it's unconstitutional,
is what I'm getting at here. If we prove that, where do you go
from there? is what I'm driving toward.
MAURY: Well, all I can tell you is that two committees
of the Congress and the great majority of the membership of the
Congress and the Justice Departments of both Administrations have
judged that this constitutional.
CRYSTAL: But if the High Court says uh-uh, then you
go back to the drawing board.
MAURY: Then we go back to the drawing board and...
CRYSTAL: And then your six criteria are out the win-
dow, and where do you start from?
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LANDAU: You know where you start? Right back where
we said. You start over in Langley. That's where you start.
IIAURY: WeII, that's sort of passing the buck, Jack.
You know perfectly well that it's impossible to get 10 or 15
thousand people without getting some bad eggs occasionally. And
you know also that this town is -- has a ready market for secrets
and makes an instant celebrity out of the whistle-blowers that
leak secrets. And as long as that's the case, as long as any of
them can find fame and fortune by betraying their trust and going
public with their secrets, why, there's going to be a danger that
some of them will.
CRYSTAL: All right, gentlemen. With that I must end.
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