THE MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R000903770004-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 35
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: REPORT

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The
Media
and
Government
Leaks
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A report on a conference cosponsored by the ABA Standing
Committee on Law and National Security and the Media Institute
of Washington, D.C., on March 23, 1984.
Courtesy of the Robert Maynard Hutchins Center for the Study of
Democratic Institutions; edited by Patricia Garvin Cathcart and
Deborah Fletcher.
The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the
American Bar Association or the Standing Committee on Law and
National Security.
Copyright ? 1984 American Bar Association
ii
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CONTENTS
Panel I
Official Leaks: Is the Media Responsible?
Leaks and the Media: Necessary or a Threat to
National Security? ....................................... 1
Panel II
The Grenada Experience: What Should Be the Role
of the Media During Periods of Conflict? .................. 11
Panel III
Democracy Versus Secrecy: Should the United
States Have an Official Secrets Act?
Suppressing Leaks: Is Polygraph Testing Acceptable
in a Democracy? ....................................... 23
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FOREWORD
The pages that follow contain the transcript of a panel discussion on
"The Media and Government Leaks." The panel discussion was joint-
ly sponsored by the Media Institute and the Standing Committee on
Law and National Security of the American Bar Association, as part
of an on-going series of public discussions devoted to the questions
that arise at the point of intersection of first amendment rights and na-
tional security considerations.
Few suggest that the first amendment should be treated as a
categorical imperative which overrides all national security considera-
tions. On the other hand, few would defend the view that national
security issues override all considerations of the first amendment.
Reasonable men agree that there is a line to be drawn somewhere-the
"somewhere" varying from situation to situation. Men who are
equally thoughtful and equally concerned about the preservation of
our constitutional freedoms may differ on where to draw the line. But
we can only benefit from a full public discussion of the issues in-
volved.
In the three panel discussions, we sought, through the participation
of those whose primary interest is both national security and the first
amendment, to throw light on a series of questions bearing on the
media and national security. The first question we sought to answer
was what is the responsibility of both the government and the media in
dealing with leaks. In the second panel, using the Grenada experience
as a case in point, we considered the matter of the role of the media
during periods of conflict. In the third and final panel, we looked into
policy questions more broadly, examining such issues as "Should the
United States Have an Official Secrets Act?" and "Is Polygraph
Testing Acceptable in a Democracy?" as a means of suppressing
leaks.
The Standing Committee on Law and National Security is grateful
to the distinguished panelists who participated in this discussion. It
hopes that such frank exchanges will serve to reduce differences and
point the way to a policy consensus.
John Norton Moore, Chairman
Standing Committee on Law and National Security
Washington, D.C., 1984
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Panel I
Official Leaks:
Is the Media Responsible?
Leaks and the Media:
Necessary or a Threat to
National Security?
Panelists
Robert Goralski
Writer
Former NBC News Correspondent
Jerry Berman
Legislative Counsel
American Civil Liberties Union
Floyd Abrams
Attorney-at-Law
Lecturer, Columbia University
School of Law
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ROBERT GORALSKI: Instead of framing the issues, I have decided
to be a provocateur, and to attempt to categorize news leaks as
authorized leaks, nonauthorized leaks, and Jack Anderson-type leaks.
The latter we can probably dismiss as irrelevant. Therefore, let us con-
centrate on authorized versus nonauthorized news leaks, and break
those down into the legal and the illegal. Public opinion polls show
that most people believe that a great deal of the material they see in the
news media is actually illegal to disseminate. Television may be the ex-
ception, because news leaks, unless they can be reduced to two or
three lines, are usually not of interest to the television medium.
The problem seems to be of greater significance today than in the
past. Yet history shows that beginning with the presidency of George
Washington every administration has been concerned about leaks. No
one has been able to eliminate them, no one particularly likes them,
but the press uses them. The first question today is, is the media
responsible for official leaks? That seems to me to be like blaming
floods on rivers and not on water.
The second question is, are leaks a threat to national security? One
reason for concern about that problem is that the media are now
under attack. Approximately eighty per cent of all libel and slander
cases in the courts today are-decided- against iie media, and public -
Z o imon generally is anti-media. In terms of national security, it may
be at t e t'irea is no-ST erious, and that often there are legitimate
reasons for leaks. I think most newsmen would argue that most news
leaks are self-serving. equestionis,.Yvhois being served?
JERRY BERMAN: Over the last couple of years, I have been dealing
with a range of initiatives by this administration to expand secrecy and
to plug leaks: attempts to rewrite the Classification Order, to pass a
broad version of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, to rewrite
the Freedom of Information Act, to implement a program of lie-
detector tests, to require prepublication review of material written by
government officials with access to sensitive information, to bar the
press in Grenada. This is an administration that believes that leaks are
everywhere and must be stopped.
The answer to the question of whether the press is responsible for
leaks is, nonsense! The question assumes that the obligation of the
press is to protect government information. It is quite the opposite:
the obligation o t C ~ssis _ .seek.~II BAS X11 .` h th e news. not
make au pent a out what is and what is not a government secret.
Many of the most famous news 0giTks inc Tiding theme tzl~~oa Papers.
case, were no ase on diligent investigative.,reporting, but.were the
ies t fgovernmen~offuaals, for one.reasonor another,iving infor
oration to ~irr~s I-tkink the responsibility- lies with _the,govern-
ment.
Wffio gh I would-not question theJact. that some leaks- may en-
danger national security, I would argue that they are necessary in this
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country, because in a democratic society the national security interest
musfbe balanced against the public's right to know. The present ad-
m lstration has tried to expand government secrecy for the first time
in four administrations. You have to go back to the Truman ad-
ministration to find an attempt to increase the amount of classified in-
formation. This administration has done so by changing the criteria
for classifiable information. Congress has been almost completely
condemnatory of administration policy, and has blocked almost every
one of the initiatives proposed. It has refused to permit rewriting of
the Freedom of Information Act or to give the Central Intelligence
Agency a broad exemption under that Act, will not appropriate
money for polygraph tests of persons in the Defense Department, and
has stopped the proposed prepublication review program for govern-
ment officials. I believe these actions were motivated by a sense that
without leaks this government .would grind to a halt, that Congress
could not do its job, and that-given the broad scope of classified in-
formation.-this country has become dependent on leaks in order to
-operate._.
here is a need for open debate on this issue. Most leaks are the
result of official acts. It is not the role of the press to help the govern-
ment protect information, but to publish it. ---
OYD ABRAMS: I shall read a paragraph from an old document,
and to keep your interest, I won't tell you what it is: "Practically
everything that our government does, plans, thinks, hears, and con-
templates in the realm of foreign policy is stamped and treated as
secret, and then unraveled by that same government, by the Congress,
and by the press, in one continuing round of professional and social
contacts and cooperative and competitive exchanges of information.
The governmental, political, and personal interests of the participants
are inseparable in this process. Presidents make secret decisions, only
to reveal them for the purpose of frightening an adversary nation,
fooling a friendly electorate, protecting their reputations. The military
services conduct secret research in weaponry, only to reveal it for the
purpose of enhancing their budgets, appearing superior or inferior to
a foreign army, gaining the vote of a congressman or the favor of a
contractor. The Navy uses secret information to run down the
weaponry of the Air Force. The Army passes on secret information to
prove its superiority to the Marine Corps. High officials of the
government reveal secrets in the search for support of their policy or
to help sabotage the plans and policies of rival departments. Middle-
rank officials of government reveal secrets so as to attract the atten-
tion of their superiors or to lobby against the orders of their superiors.
Though not the only vehicle for this traffic in secrets, the Congress is
always eager to provide a forum and the press is probably the most im-
portant."
Those words were written thirteen years ago by Max Frankel, then
STAT
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the bureau chief of The New York Times in Washington, during the
Pentagon Papers case. Mr. Frankel was describing his perception of
how Washington had worked for the fifteen years he had then been
there. As a modest prediction of the way people are likely to continue
to behave in Washington, Mr. Frankel, I think, says it well.
One of the things that Mr. Frankel says is that much of what is
worth knowing is classified as secret material bearing upon matters
crucial to the country. It has been said that these are matters for the
government to decide; that's why we have a government. I would
argue that it is not the way government should behave. As a legal mat-
ter, subject to the Freedom of Information Act, the government has
the right to try to keep its secrets, and the press has the right to publish
almost everything it gleans from that vast array of secrets. I believe the
press serves the public-not disserves it-when it publishes the sort of
material we are talking about here.
Let me give you one example of a Jack Anderson-type leak, one of
the few which people in this administration have been able to conjure
up as one which actually harmed national security. That was the
revelation made during the Nixon administration that the administra-
tion had decided to "tilt" toward Pakistan during the Pakistan-India
war. On one hand, that was a secret; on the other, it was a matter of ':
national policy inconsistent with what the public was being told our
policy was. We were being told then that this country was neutral in i
the Pakistan-India war. We were deliberately misled. I am not saying
that the government should never lean toward one country rather than
another, but I think that when we are being misled, the public should
ublic service was
ce a real
t
i
hi
p
ns
an
s
be told what the reality is. In t
,......done by revealing that information.
The trouble the press is in with the American public is sometimes
overstated. Harris poll figures of October 1983 indicate that nineteen
per cent of the American public expressed confidence in the press.
Other Harris polls for the same time period show that public con-
fidence in organized religion in the United States is only twenty-two
per cent; in business, eighteen per cent; and in the U.S. Congress,
seventeen per cent. Also, lawyers rate far worse than the press. The
press should be concerned that only nineteen per cent of the public has
confidence in it, but it is not the press alone in which the public lacks
confidence.
GORALSKI: I believe the only way to control leaks is by the action of
the government generally or by the individual department. When an
\
individual decides that a story, authorized or unauthorized, should be
leaked, it is going to be leaked. And it is incumbent upon the in-/~
dividual department or the government to control that.
One thing that should be discussed is the manner in which the press
reacts to leaks. The Pentagon Papers story in The New York Times
was available to every newsman in Washington. CBS, on "Face the
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Nation," had Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird as a panelist, on the
very day that that story was published, yet during that thirty-minute
program, Secretary Laird was not asked one question about the Pen-
tagon Papers. Why, I cannot imagine. Perhaps the participants on
that program didn't understand the importance of the story. ---,
one matter of great concern is the story which is taken out of con- 3
text and used merely because it titillates-as on television where a
brief excerpt from leaked material is displayed without any attempt at
explanation. More and more journalism is being criticized, and I think
justly so, for seizing upon the fact that any secret document should be
given a play in the press or shown on television. ?---
~'`""-'There are good leaks and bad leaks. Good leaks are those that pre-
sent reality in a proper perspective. We need this kind of information,
since the penchant of any administration, any government, at every
level, is to secrete from the public material which it thinks it is
undesirable to publicize.
Q. I'd be interested in any comments any of the panelists would like to
make about the attempt by the National Security Administration to
classify material in the Marshall Library post facto.
BERMAN: The ACLU is involved in that litigation. We believe that
material should not be reclassified, as it is already in the public do-
main. As a general rule, it is absurd to reclassify information that is
already public.
Q. Mr. Berman and Mr. Abrams, in their professional capacity, repre-
sent institutions that have a great impact on American society. I feel
that we all have to be concerned about the responsibility to protect the
existence and the effectiveness of a free society. I would like very
much to hear these panelists acknowledge their responsibility in the
world arena.
ABRAMS: There is considerable power in the press. Material published
in newspapers or appearing on television has impact. The question is,
what should the media do? How should they behave? I would put it to
you that the press has as often disserved the public by not printing in-
formation that it had, which it decided, for one reason or another, not
to publish, than by publishing. The media should-and I think does-
pass judgment on everything that is published or broadcast. Stories
have to be "newsworthy." We have seen, again and again, journalists
deciding to refrain from publishing certain materials. No one would
fault the decision made when American hostages were held in Iran not
to publish the information that some Americans were being hidden in
the Canadian Embassy in Tehran. That story was widely known in the
press corps, but was not published because of the sense of responsibil-
ity of members of the press.
But there are many cases in which journalists, importuned by
government officials not to publish material they had, were sorry that
they had not done so. One example is, of course, the Bay of Pigs. The
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New York Times had information prior to the invasion of Cuba,
which, at the request of the government, it did not publish. After the
failure of that mission, President John F. Kennedy was quoted as hav-
ing told the Times people that he was sorry that they had not pub-
lished their story. But if the invasion had succeeded, imagine what
President Kennedy would have said.
These are hard calls. They are frequently decided in favor of non-
publication, if the government makes a credible claim that national
security might be imperiled. I like the idea that high-level government_
officials feel free to go to journalists and editors and ask them not to
print certain nfortnation.I think that's the.way the system ought to
work, and I think it does work when.genuine secrets are involved.
BERMAN: The ACLU plays an adversarial role vis-a-vis the govern-
ment. I think that's our job. We are defense attorneys, and our client
is the Bill of Rights. Out of the testing and conflict between civil liber-
ties and national security a balanced approach can emerge. For too
long-and it was a disservice both to national security and to a
democratic society-claims of "national security" were unquestioned
by the press, the public, and the Congress, particularly during the
period from World War II through the cold war years. That began to
change in the 1960s, certainly with respect to Vietnam. The testing is
important, because it forces the government to make its case for
secrecy.
In the inherent tension between secrecy and a democratic society,
we must try to strike the narrowest balance possible. Better law has
resulted when we have made an effective case for civil liberties, argu-
ing that the government's secrecy policies are far too broad.
The case of prepublication review of writings of government of-
ficials having access to special information was an effort to stem
leaks. When the ACLU and the press opposed it, that opposition led
to serious questioning of the administration's position. Former
government officials were not the chief cause of leaks. Only two out
of 236 unauthorized leaks were traced to nfQrmation.w ch coin _
e r ormer government officals. Most leaks were anony-
mous an would have not afkcted by the directive.
r"`"I'lie government should recognize that there is a civil liberties in-
terest at stake, as well as a national security interest, and not simply
say, the public mood is on our side, so let's go for a broad spectrum of
secrecy initiatives. That attitude probably resulted in killing the com-
promise version of the Freedom of Information Act legislation this
year. Although that may be a civil liberties victory in the sense that the
Freedom of Information Act was preserved, there were some portions
of that compromise which probably should have been passed. But the
government has so poisoned the well in trying to "serve the national
security interest of this country" that it has undermined the civil liber-
ties interest without serving the national security.
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Q. My question relates to a security matter involving the United States
and Great Britain. A woman in the office of the Secretary of State for
Defence leaked to a British newspaper a memorandum from Secretary
Michael Heseltine to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, giving the
date of the deployment of U.S. cruise missiles in Great Britain. The
editor decided that this information would not harm national security
-either ours or theirs-and published it. He was requested to return
the memorandum; he refused. The case went to a British court, which
decided that the issue was not whether the editor acted inlc.public..in
eres to pu s ng a ocument; the issue was that a civil servant had
decoded to--disseminate classified information to _ the public._The
. be.published is.
iesponsibility for deciding what should or should n
t a o e overnnient, n25tofin~dual -civil t..servants or journalists.
e newspaper was ordered-to return the document. Certain material
in it indicated the identity of the leaker; she was identified and now
faces a jail term.
If this had happened in this country-if the memorandum had been
from George Shultz to President Reagan-would you advise a
newspaper to return the document?
ABRAMS: The first thing I would say is, thank heaven we have a writ-
ten Constitution with a Bill of Rights. That is one of the things which
distinguishes our country from theirs. As a matter of law, I would ad-
vise my client that the government could not get a prior restraint
against publication. No American court would say it is up to the
government to decide what is published.
Theri disagreement among lawyers and judges as to the degree of
protection"a 2 oDr to forior =urn stsT' confidential sources. That is
'part oTthe issue here. In this case there should belegal protection. In
terms of this country's law and tradition, I believe that if these were
missiles to be installed here, our courts would decide that the potential
for national security harm is so hypothetical it would not be a serious
legal problem.
Q. So you would advocate protecting the leaker?
ABRAMS: I would not disclose the leaker. If the leaker were found by
other means he or she could be discharged and perhaps imprisoned.
Journalists don't like to turn over documents to the government,
because hieroglyphics, handwritten notes, even the quality of the
paper or the quality of the Xerox may indicate who the informant is.
Such a person may be described as a leaker or a faithless employee, or
as a source of information to the public. I don't know if anybody
would argue that the press has the right to at m oimation, but once
that information comes into its nnd,[thi government does not have
l ie-ng prevenl'irs publ cation ofto punish i6e press for having
ub~S
Q. What is t tie moral difference between leaking classified informa-
tion to the press and leaking information from one party headquarters
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to another party headquarters?
ABRAMS: Every leak we have discussed here has involved the press in
its capacity as a passive recipient of information, an entity which
transmits it to the public. That is quite different morally from break-
ing or entering; it is quite different from transmitting documents from
one party headquarters to another. The notion of receiving informa-
tion and reporting it is nowhere near the immoral character of taking
in ormation from one.party_headquarters to another.
BERMAN: There is also the distinction that this concerns not the
government versus the press-which is being discussed here-but two
private entities which may be involved in stealing property.
Q. Suppose that instead of a debate briefing book appearing suddenly
in a rival party's headquarters, you, as a reporter, were to find such a
book on the street. Would you consider it your duty to print it? And if
not, why not? What is the difference?
GORALSKI: If a reporter finds a document on the street, I think he
can use it, without disclosing where he got it. But the point is that the
leaker and the leakee assume a responsibility for breaking_the lap. In
the case about tie memorandum on the cruise missiles deployment, in
the United States it is a violation of the Atomic Energy Act to reveal
where such missiles are based. Anyone who reveals that information is
in violation of the law, and must assume the responsibility for doing
so.
I think reporters have the, same responsibility to uphold the law as
any other citizen,.-But-in the hypothetical case of finding a briefing
-piper i1lie street, I should probably use it. That does not violate the___
law.
I believe there is far more responsibility among newsmen than they
are given credit for. The case of Vietnam provides a good example. Of
all the thousands of newsmen there, dealing with information, the
disclosure of which would possibly lead to loss of life, I think there
were only three or four reporters whose credentials were lifted. This
speaks very well for the journalistic community. Unlike World War II
and the Korean War, there was no censorship of any kind during the
Vietnam War. It was really a noble experiment. I believe there was far
more responsibility shown by the press in Vietnam than most military
men anticipated.
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Panel II
The Grenada Experience:
What Should Be the Role of the Media
During Periods of Conflict?
Panelists
Neil Livingstone
Senior Vice President
Gray and Company
President
Institute on Terrorism and
Subnational Conflict
Allan Williams Cameron
Executive Assistant to
U.S. Senator Jeremiah A. Denton
Stephen Rosenfeld
Columnist and Deputy Editorial
Page Editor, The Washington Post
Morton Halperin
Director
Center for National Security Studies
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NEIL LIVINGSTONE: In framing the issues today, in terms of our
over-all inquiry on press responsibility, we will consider a specific
case: the Grenada experience. What should be the role of the media
during periods of conflict? The controversy over the press exclusion
from the Grenada operation highlights this problem as has no other
recent event. Many in the press initially ridiculed the rationale for in-
tervention. That was in sharp contrast with the impression made by
the return of the American students from Grenada, who kissed the
ground when they reached the United States. One had the sense that III
the public was outraged by the press outrage over being excluded.
Many in the United States today seem_to Ielihat the press is too-big
for its britches. I think nk th tt s is a holdover of the debate about Viet-
nam an atergate. There is a feeling in some sectors of the U.S. [:;I
public that the war in Vietnam was not lost on the battlefield, but,
rather, was lost in the press. There is also a lingering question about
whether Nixon was hounded from office by The Washington Post.
Perhaps in a sophisticated seminar like ours today there are not many
who would share these opinions, but I suggest that if aou _rt s thy.,
Potomac you will find strong and lingering sus icioa-of ..thy, .pi s,,..
pro is m, aergate and ietnam.
In the last fifteen years, the press has increasingly been viewed as
adversary rather than partner of the government, particularly in times
of crisis or military operation.. This is in stark contrast to our adver-
saries in the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, and in many other
areas of the world, where press freedom is constantly diminishing.
This raises the question of press responsibility with respect to
defense, security, and intelligence questions in general, and in
Grenada in particular. There are those who say that there should be
absolute press freedom. Chet Huntley used to say that journalists were
never intended to be cheerleaders for the government and the society.
One prominent reporter has stated without reservation that if ever
given fhe opportu nity, he would steal military secrets from the desk of
tfl-e socreitary of defense, and has indicated that he would, willingly
`publish the top secret plans for both the Normandy invasion and the
Manhattan Project. As to the types of methods the press might use in
pursuing'si `military or intelligence-related story, Robert Scheer has
said: that the journalist's job is to get_ the story by breaking into_ their
eir
o
offices, by bribing,* by seducing oPle by lying-, in- b an - lx Y Yl8~ Y ythin ese to
Br Llrogi irTie- palace guard: __
Does the public have the right to know everything, particularly with
respect to questions of national security, intelligence matters, and
military operations? Thomas Jefferson said he would rather live under
a regime of newspapers without government, than under a govern-
ment without newspapers.
On the other extreme, there are those, who perhaps motivated by
excessive paranoia or zeal, believe that the media should be excluded
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at all times. Those who subscribe to that view suggest that there
should be an Official Secrets Act, such as in the United Kingdom, and
that there should be criminal penalties for those who knowingly
publish classified material, or release to the public details of a forth-
coming military operation. They ask, since when is it unconstitutional
to refuse to share important military secrets with the media? And they
ask, what gives the media their privileges? Why should the media have
a special role in the society?
There are many good reasons for restricting media coverage of sen-
sitive military and intelligence operations. Foremost among those is
the element of surprise. Second, the press is an additional burden on
troops engaged in conflict and a potential security risk. Third, the
other side doesn't labor under the same restraints, as noted earlier,
and this gives our adversaries certain advantages. Finally, we are play-
ing for deadly stakes, and recent events in El Salvador and elsewhere
attest to the number of courageous journalists who have fallen in bat-
tle in pursuing stories which may or may not be vital to the national in-
terest. There is a trade-off between the necessity to risk life and limb
on one hand, and on the nature of fast-breaking stories and news
coverage on the other. It is issues such as these that my colleagues and
I will be exploring today, and we will look at the Grenada experience
in particular in framing our answers.
ALLAN WILLIAMS CAMERON: It is true that we live in a free
society, and, indeed, that one of the great supports of a free society is
a free press. A free press is allowed constitutionally by the First
Amendment: Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of
the press.
There is a relationship between the press and government, and that
is probably a healthy relationship, a healthy tension. it has been with
us a long time. If you go back and look at the press during the Civil
War, for example, you find much the same thing. There is absolutely
nothing unhealthy about that.
There isafundamental question regarding publicperception of the
press as an absolute, unbiased provider of news. I sense there is a feel-
ing among-many of our citizens that the press does not do that, or
--does not do it- as well as it should.
Be ore I came to work on Capitol Hill, where I was in a position to
know what the news was before it was reported, I assumed, as many
of our citizens do, that the press is always accurate. What I found is
that ?the-Pr-css..is not, .always__ accurate,_. and -what wrea - the-
newspapers or see on television may.bear little resemblance to what ac-
tually happened, or indeed to what reporters were told.
? U t me hasten to say I don't think that this represents an intentional
distortion. I would tend to ascribe it to carelessness or sloppiness in
the preparation of news. I think it is a general phenomenon. It has
created a doubt in many segments of the population about the degree
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to which the press is in fact providing accurate information rather
than becoming the maker of the news itself.
It strikes me that the chief characteristic of the dispute between the
press and the administration during the Grenada experience was the
behavior of the press rather than the behavior of the administration.
The reaction of several well-known representatives of the press was
shrill, petulant, childish, and inaccurate. The anchorman for a major
network, in showing government-taken film, referred to it-Lthink
ive mtaes=ascensored film . ,It was not censored film it a11. It was of
ficia.l film, but it was not censored. Had it been network film, and the
government had said, you may not show this part of it, it would have
been censored. That was inflammatory, and certain of the other com-
ments were inflammatory. And I think the press-some parts of the
press, not all of the press-made a tempest in a teapot in this par-
ticular (~I
case. it
There is something to be said on both sides in the dispute, and I
think that a healthy result of the Grenada experience is the under-
standing that has been reached between representatives of the press
and the Department of Defense.
One hopes that in future instances-if we are unfortunate enough to i;
have future instances-those understandings will provide a somewhat I i
smoother handling of the problem.
STEPHEN ROSENFELD: I am amazed to find myself in a forum
where the issue is framed in an erroneous way by Mr. Livingstone-
and
carried on in the same way by Dr. Cameron-as press responsibil-
ity. To me that is not the issue raised by Grenada. The framing of the
issue in those terms is a political calculation, part of a lager political
offensive which has been waged against the press, against the First
Amendment, against 1.he_put~lic s right to know, not just for tfe three
keagan years, but for many years, at least since the Vietnam,penod.
Ai'fafTa"s-'the press is' concerned, the issue is official responsibility. I.'
That is the only reason that the press in this country has any claim to
exercise freedom.
The two gentlemen whom we have heard so far maintain that the
role of the media in periods of conflict is to be obedient, to cringe to
authority, to take little tidbits that the Pentagon cares to hand out,
and to do nothing that will later lead it to be called childish or
petulant. I reject that view entirely. The role of the media during
periods of conflict is to tell the story.
We in the media have found ourselves enmeshed in a political argu-
ment, where it is said-in complete disregard of what I regard as the
faithful interpretation of the Constitution-that the issue is our
responsibility. The Constitution did not say that there should be a
pussycat of a press. The Constitution had an entirely different theory.
It startles me that I feel under some pressure to make a statement like
that.
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If you ask, is the press responsible, is it fully responsible, the answer
is, of course it's not, for many obvious reasons, not the least that we
are fallible creatures. But the recourse to the so-called irresponsibility
of the press has nothing to do with letting decisions be made at the
Pentagon as to what we can cover, how we can arrive, and on what
day of the operation. The recourse to press irresponsibility lies in the
general processes of the society-you can criticize us, you can decide
to buy another newspaper or to watch another network, you can write
letters to us. You can attempt to bring your view of the press to bear in
a forum like this. I don't object to that, except intellectually, in a
forum like this, but I object to it strenuously when it happens in an in-
vasion, where the government has the physical capacity to deny access
to the press. That denial I regard as an instance of official irresponsi-
bility, and that is what we ought to be discussing today.
MORTON HALPERIN: I had the opposite experience of one of the
other panelists. When I was in the government, and read official
government papers, I thought they were true. It was only when I got
out of the government and started reading the press again that I
discovered that often what one reads in official papers is not true.
I think all of us-not the press alone-suffered because it was not
allowed to cover the Grenada invasion. I think the press had the right
not to have the American government interfere with its being there,
and the American government did interfere. There were several
reporters who arrived on the island, who were held and prevented
from filing stories for some period of time. There can be no doubt that
that was lawless conduct.
The question of whether the press had a right to be on military
transport is debatable. My view is that the government did not have a
legal obligation to bring the press along on the invasion, but that it
ought to have done so, because of the principle behind the First
Amendment, namely, that we all benefit from a free exchange of in-
formation. I think the history of the American press indicates that
reporters invited to go along on the invasion would have accepted
whatever limitations the government placed on them. For example,
they would have agreed not to file stories until the element of surprise
was gone; they would have agreed to show the stories to the military to
make sure that tactical information that would endanger lives was not
revealed. What they would not and should not have done was to pro-
mise that they would not write later about their own views of what
happened.
There are some serious policy issues relating to the events in
Grenada that have not been and will not be fully discussed because the
press was not there. For example, there is the question of whether
American students were really in danger. We all saw the pictures of
the students kissing the ground when they reached the United States. I
am not prepared to say that that settles the question of whether they
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were in danger, or whether the danger came before or after the inva-
sion. I think there are reasons to believe that they were not in danger.
We all would have been better off if the press had been there to assess
that.
If the U.S. government had any objective other than to protect the
lives of the students, there was a clear violation of the War Powers
Resolution in the failure of the president to notify Congress that he
was engaging in military action, and to consult as soon as possible. If
the press had been there, it could have told us whether the military car-
rying out that invasion thought their orders were to get the students
out and leave, or if they had other instructions.
Another set of issues that has not been aired has to do with the ef-
fectiveness and efficiency of American combat forces, the degree to
which American military forces functioned in a coordinated manner.
The fact that the American military were able to defeat the army of
Grenada and the Cuban engineers there gives me very little comfort
about the effectiveness of American military forces.
There are many other questions about that operation. For example,
there was not, we learned much later, a single military commander on
the island. There were Marine units and Army units, commanded
separately. There have been persistent reports that they came close to
fighting with each other, apparently having nobody else to fight with.
If the press had been there, I suspect we would have had information
as to the effective functioning of the American military.
I think the fundamental mistake made in Grenada was reflected in
the statement of the secretary of defense that he had left the decision
as to whether to invite the press along up to the military. That is
wholly inappropriate in this society. It is not the responsibility of
military officers to make that decision, because clearly the military
would choose to keep everybody out. I think it is the obligation of a
military officer to tell the secretary of defense and the president that
from his point of view it would be better not to have the press there.
But I think it is the responsibility of the secretary of defense and the
president to tell the military that in our society these decisions are
made by civilians. They are not made to maximize military efficiency
but to balance military efficiency against other objectives of the soci-
ety, including the people's right to know. It was the obligation of the
secretary of defense in that circumstance to permit the press to be in
Grenada as long as its members were willing to abide by specific
ground rules. I think it is clear that the press would have done so.
CAMERON: Let me assure Mr. Rosenfeld that, after all, although I
am a political person by virture of whom I work for, I don't have the
hostility toward the press that he ascribes to me. Indeed, for anyone in
politics, the press is at the heart of what is to be done.
What I was trying to suggest was that there are two sides to the
story. One can accept that or not. Some will choose to accept it; some
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will not.
I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal dealing with
why all the political pundits erred in their advance reporting about the
primary elections. David Broder, a man of some considerable stature
in the profession, said, "I don't think it does a damn bit of harm if
reporters look like horses asses the day after a primary election. It just
proves we're fallible. After all, we aren't priests or something." I
thought that was a useful thing for a press man of stature to say in the
context of this discussion. People who work for the government aren't
priests or something, either. They make mistakes too, and I would
argue that in debating this issue one has to recognize that it is not
black on one side and white on the other side. It is not always the press
that is right and the government that is wrong, or the government that
is right and the press that is wrong. It is a world of grays.
On the specifics of the Grenada situation, it must be observed that
the operation, which involved the risk of loss of life, was put together
in something less than seventy-two hours. One can expect our military
officers to do a pretty good job-or we should demand that they do a
pretty good job-but I am inclined to give them at least the benefit of
the doubt, given that allowable time to plan and execute this opera-
tion, for not making the kind of fine arrangements we all would have
liked to have seen to have the press along, to have them certify the
kinds of things that Mr. Halperin suggested they certify. Feel assured
that there were lives to be protected, and all of the rest of that, and
you can only do so much.
ROSENFELD: The question of the relative fallibility of journalists
and public officials is a question that concerns many of us, but it has
nothing to do with the fundamental issue that we are here to discuss.
The question is not about the relative fallibility of these two groups of
self-important people; the question is the relative roles they play in our
society according to our Constitution and our tradition. On this basis
there is a very great difference. Officials have the power to remove the
press physically, and thereby to prevent the press from playing its role,
which is to observe, to comment on, and to argue about the use of
power in our society. The government has not merely the power to
decide who is on the boats, but it is the creator of the power in our
society-information-which, when created by a government, is
called "secrets." The proper role of the press lies in the natural ten-
sion, the interplay, the argument, the disclosure, the rebuttal, the con-
fession, the determination to do it better the next time.
LIVINGSTONE: I find myself in substantial agreement with Mr.
Halperin, which is an unusual position; we really have few
disagreements. We both want a standard of reasonableness. I
vociferously disagree with Mr. Rosenfeld, because I think that the
press is at the center of this argument, and that it isn't just government
responsibility that we are looking at today, but press responsibility. I
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am reminded that A.J. Liebling once observed that freedom of the
press is limited to tTiose who own one. Most of t -Fe r~est`of us vie to
carry our op ruons`fo_ffemass of Americans through those who con-
trol the great newspapers, the magazines, the journals, and the tele-
vision networks in this country. Because that puts the media in a
unique position, we have to monitor their behavior constantly, and we
can indeed put some restrictions on it. Those restrictions relate direct-
ly to Grenada. The problem is not reflective journalism once allthe_
acts are in; the-problem is instantaneous journalism, the rush to be
~t a us o publish, even wiihoui all the facts.
We saw many journalists who rushed to judgment on the Grenada
issue. I don't think that's healthy journalism.
I prefer print journalism because of its more reflective nature. In
covering terrorist acts, there have been many journalistic abuses in the
rush to report fast-breaking news. Such an incident is always better
covered by newspapers when they take time to investigate it
thoroughly.
I do not believe there is any need to let the public in on every aspect
of every military operation. This has become an issue today in our
world of instantaneous electronic communications. Even those who
are not broadcasting live from the scene can have their stories from a
combat locale on their editors' desks within a matter of minutes-or
hours at the most. That puts a special responsibility on the press not to
leap to conclusions, but rather to do thoughtful, incisive pieces.
It is wrong to say that we can assess press coverage after an event.
During a military operation people's lives are at stake. I see no need
for the press to report live on military operations. I agree with Mr.
Halperin that it is not unreasonable that journalists be invited along.
If their stories are embargoed for a reasonable period, journalists can
still be the watchdogs of the American public in reporting a military
operation. But there are new standards of reasonableness in our
modern, high-paced, electronically configured world, and I think
journalism must accommodate those.
I have no disagreement with almost everything that Mr. Halperin
said today on the specifics of Grenada or in terms of military opera-
tions in general, but I do think that the press must be accountable.
There are relevant and pressing arguments why the press need not be
involved in every aspect of every military operation, instantaneous
and live and in full living color.
Q: I served in World War II in submarines at a time in which we suf-
fered the greatest operational losses of any force-twenty-five per
cent. Had we had the kind of coverage Mr. Rosenfeld thinks is
necessary to tell the story, our losses would have been seventy-five per
cent. I think that the kind of operation that we had in Grenada should
be extended in the future, that decisions about press coverage belong
to the people responsible for carrying out military exercises in the
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field.
Mr. Halperin, why do you (and I suspect you do) accept a double
standard? For example, the equipment that the Israelis use is paid for
largely by U.S. taxpayers. Have you ever objected to the fact that
American reporters do not have access to Israeli war plans?
HALPERIN: Nobody is suggesting that American reporters have ac-
cess to war plansNobody- is suggesting that American reporters be al-
lowed J. re?Qort on the military operations of the American govern-
ment,,, the doran =theesire-bf , or any other government. What we
-are talking about here ~cerfa~n port 'io'ns oT t ie govern-
ment to be free of criticism from an informed American public. There
were very few instances in Vietnam, if any, where members of the
press violated the confidence placed in them by the American military
by reporting tactical operations in a way that placed lives in jeopardy.
In Vietnam, objections to press coverage stemmed from the fear that
if American people knew the truth about what was going on, they
might not support the operation. The First Amendment requires that
the government do nothing to keep the truth from the American peo-
ple in situations where there is no jeopardy to tactical operations.
What many objected to is that the American press stopped supporting
the Vietnam war,. editorialized_.against.it.-and showed pictures.,i ich-
reflected its-animosity to the war, The American press has the n ht to
do that. And if !ou try to tinker with that-you are tinkexing with the
very heart of the First Amendment.
The issue is not reporters being informed about war plans; the issue
is preventing reporting of tactical operations in ways that threaten the
lives of servicemen. What we are talking about is whether the govern-
ment has the right to censor information which does not threaten tac-
tical military operations because it fears that if the American public
sees what is happening, it will object to what is being done in its name.
There is no right in the Constitution to attempt that kind of censor-
ship.
Q: Reporters, just like nature, abhor a vacuum. If they do not get the
information in one way, they will try to get it in another. You can keep
them out of a combat zone, but you cannot put them out of business.
Four news sources developed during the Grenada invasion: Radio
Havana; ham radio operators; reporters in the pressrooms in
Bridgetown; and congressional critics. The government thus created a
vacuum situaflOn`in hich the press used these sources.
LIVINGSTONE: I spent much of last night going over some of the
press coverage of that period. You say the' press abhors a vacuum. I
think that's where we go astray. I am not sure that there is a need for
the press to report during an operation. I would rather see reflective
stories written by those who were on location after they have a little
time to put it into perspective. I agree with Mr. Halperin that the
military should have invited a pool of reporters to' observe the
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Grenada action and to air any valid criticisms. But I do not think it
good policy to take advantage of this electronic world and report on
events, such as military and counter-terrorist operations, without
thought or reflection. I don't see what would be lost with a seventy-
two hour breathing period, so that the media could have a better sense
of perspective. Let the press try to get all the facts before they report,
Although m people have the ability to report immediately, I am
arguing for a longer period of investigation by the press before airing
certain material.
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Panel III
Democracy Versus Secrecy:
Should the United States Have
an Official Secrets Act?
Suppressing Leaks:
Is Polygraph Testing Acceptable
in a Democracy?
Panelists
Richard K. Willard
Acting Assistant Attorney General
Civil Division, Department of Justice
Daniel Rapoport
Contributing Editor
National Journal and Washingtonian Magazine
Ford Rowan
Host, "International Edition"
Public Broadcasting Service
Allen Weinstein
President
The Center for the Study
of Democratic Institutions
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RICHARD K. WILLARD: Our questions here are: What should be
done about leaks? Should we have an Official Secrets Act? Should we
use polygraph testing? viou iy g,.leaks_do. not damage national
securitYlherus.no reason to do anything about them. Some commen-
tators have suggested that we should be unconcerned about leaks of
blame a with oy_ernm_ent employees who violate the law b disclos-
ing classified mformat n w thout proper authority.
`"This is "damaging to national security. We have presented testimony
Some secrets are apparently innocuous, but if you know all the facts .
you realize what,damage might-result from publication.
recognize that very few journalists traffic in top secret documents.
Most are not that irresponsible;, they report what they believe the
public should know. I have concluded that the pressjsJLot to blame
for leaks of classified in ormatiQn,,and that bQtlt the solution-and the
national security information. In recent congressional testimony,
George Reedy suggested there was no such thing as a secret, that even
in time of war nothing should be kept from the American people. I
don't know that there is anyone here who is that extreme on the issue,
but it is_important to_know J ow serious the situation is before we
know how strong a medicine we need to deal with it.
I do not think the media is responsible for leaks. I do not blame the
press for leaks of classified information. I blame government
employees who disclose information to the press. In the Pentagon
Papers case the Supreme Court said it was acceptable for the govern-
ment to take measures to make sure that government employees did
not disclose secrets, but that once information got to the press, prior
restraint was difficult.
It would be impossible for the government to police all publications
in the United States. And even if a court were to order prior restraint,
enforcing it would be difficult.
Members of the press are not normally in a position to know what is
damaging to national security and what is not. Floyd Abrams said
earlier that if government officials convince reporters that the release
of certain information would damage national security, they will
refrain from publishing. Perhaps they would, but you can't disclose
all your secrets to the press and hope that they will not publish them.
who has said that leaks never damage national security. They do.
The two proposed solutions presented for discussion are an Official
Secrets Act and the use of polygraph testing. I do not believe that we
should have an Official Secrets Act. I think it is contrary to our con-
stitutional tradition of accepting prior restraint on the press only
where absolutely necessary.
to congressionai committees aocumenung serious damage causes Dy
leaks of classified information. We have made our case to members of
Congress, many of whom originally were skeptical, and I am not
aware of a single member of Congress who has heard this testimony
ILLEGIB
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I would give a qualified yes to use of polygraph testing for govern-
ment employees. If you read an article in the newspaper containing a
serious leak of national security information, and if you weren't con-
cerned about the First Amendment, you might call the journalist to
-front oofa grand ry, compe -him to disclose his sources oc t ~n
undercover agelff in his o ice. owever, all of these options would be
inconsistent with our view of the First Amendment. As Floyd Abrams
has said, it is important to the press that it be able to protect its
sources.
The government's dilemma is that normal methods for resolving
this problem are unavailable. you. . can question. government
employees who had, access to the information, but that kind of in-
vestig#t on israrely. successful. Polygraph testing might be helpful in
certain cases. That is why I have given a limited yes to the question. If
we are going to take action in some of these leak cases, the polygraph
is one of the few avenues available.
"'fhis is a long-standing problem that cannot be completely solved,
no matter what we do. We have to do what we can to reduce its sever-
ity in an acceptable manner. That has been the purpose of the ad-
ministration's program. We are open to suggestions from Congress
about better ways to accomplish this goal, and we have an open mind
on the question.
DANIEL RAPOPORT: The polygraph is an inappropriate tool for
accomplishing what Mr. Willard wishes to accomplish. This morning,
in preparation for this event, I spoke to the lawyer for Lennell Geter.
Geter is the young black engineer who was imprisoned for a year for a
robbery which the state of Texas now has decided he did not commit.
In this case four polygraph tests were given. One was given by a state-
sponsored polygraph examiner while Geter was in jail. He decided
that Geter showed deception on questions about the robbery of which
he was accused. After Geter was freed, his lawyer arranged for three
other polygraph tests, given by two different examiners. According to
his lawyer, he passed those. The point here is that there was a conflict
between the conclusions of the examiners. In over fifteen years of
observation, I have concluded that polygraphy is not the objective,
reliable technique that its proponents claim it is. It seems to me that
anybody who knows anything about polygraphy would decide that he
is risking a lot-whether he is innocent or guilty-if he relies on a
polygraph examination.
But I do not dismiss ao-ygraphy technique as completely worthless.
orinaecuratear,Thc a s-examiners who. are_experl_-at_adm nistering_
these tests, and the odds are against fooling them. But there is amo g
the very best examiners, aone to five per cent inaccuracy factor. There
are so many variables in dealing with anything as complex as the
human mind, that it is absurd to assume that anyone with a limited
background in psychology and physiology can conclude with complete
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accuracy whether someone is lying. What the machine shows, and
very accurately, is that there has been some physiological response
correlated to a given question at a given time.
There is too much at stake for anyone to submit voluntarily to a
polygraph test. A government employee is not voluntarily submitting
when he is asked to take a test and could lose his job if he refuses, or
suffer "adverse consequences"-meaning a career setback. It seems
to me patently unfair to ask someone who has genuine doubts about
the validity of the polygraph to stake his career on such a technique.
This is testing that is inappropriate, no matter how serious leaks may
be. There will probably be more false positives than false negatives,
and qualified people may be excluded from government service.
Although you may screen out potential security risks, you may also
eliminate many who are not security risks.
FORD ROWAN: I think there are some things that the government
properly should keep secret in the public interest, yet at the same time
I believe that a democracy that knows most works best. I have been a
Pentagon correspondent, I have covered miltiary operations (in-
cluding the first Israeli incursion into Lebanon), the Watergate trials,
the White House during the Nixon years, and investigations of alleged
CIA and FBI abuses. I am aware of the shortcomings in government,
and also of the shortcomings of the press-the sensationalism, the
subjectivity, and the shallowness which reporters, and I include
myself, sometimes exhibit. Good reporters try to rise above that and
many do, but it is a problem that plagues journalism. You don't have
enough time to dig up all the facts, sometimes you report things
without knowing the entire picture, and sometimes published infor-
mation has a result that you never intended.
I have been the recipient of lots of leaks. I chose not to broadcast
many of them. Some were not newsworthy, or what newsworthiness
they had was eclipsed by the damage that could be caused by their
publication. But most of the information that I have received I
worked into news stories. I didn't suppress anything that I thought
was truly newsworthy.
Journalism of its nature is selective. It selects what it thinks is im-
portant or interesting. I have always balanced what was important and
what could be damaging,-a7td 1'think other reporters do the same.
The First Amendment doesn't mandate a responsible press. It's nice
if the press corps acts responsibly, but the question is who decides how
it should act, and under our system it is not the government that
should decide.
What should we do about the problem of classified material? Much
material should be classified, but some should not. Some classifica-
tion is an effort to protect what the people in the CIA once referred to
as the family jewels-the embarrassing or illegal things that an agency
might have become involved in.
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Why do people leak information? First, they could be traitors, but
it is more likely that a traitor would give secrets to the other side, not
to journalists. I don't think that that's one of the main motives for
leaks. Vanity is another motive-to ingratiate yourself with the press,
or to have a feeling of power. It could be spite-to embarrass your
superior, a competitor, or another agency in the bureaucratic wars.
There is ambition, to enhance one's own career, or one's own agency.
And patriotism-that is a motive that I have seen more often than any
other. People want to right a perceived wrong, or correct a mistake in
strategy-the whistle-blower idea. The patriotism motive can be a
mistaken one, for the person may be wrong about what is really in the
best interest of his country.
Leaks can be a corrective to mistaken policies. Information
enhances the public's ability to participate in policy-making, and it is
pro-democratic, but I think some leaks have harmed the nation.
I don't think we need an Official Secrets Act-we are partly there
already. We have the Intelligence Identities Protection Act which pro-
hibits press disclosure of the identities of CIA operatives. I don't agree
with those people who put out booklets that name names of CIA
agents for the sake of naming names, but I can see instances where this
increases the credibility of a story, and the impact of information.
The initiatives of this administration. have been harmful to the con-
cept of popular democracy. Pushing for lifetime prepublication
review rights over thousands of government employees is a mistaken
policy. Those who know the most about a government policy could
only criticize their successors with the approval of those successors.
I regret that classification has been tightened. That has limited
disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act by increasing the
amount of classified material exempt from disclosure.
I think the administration has erred in barring the entry of foreign
citizens who bear messages that the administration feels the American
public ought not to hear. Also, going through the motions of labeling
such films as the Canadian film on acid rain as political propaganda
was a mistake, even though it didn't inhibit the public's ability to see
that film.
I have a similar attitude about polygraph testing as President
Nixon. He once said, "I don't know if it works, but I know it scares
the hell out of people." Government by intimidation means you can't
trust your employees. Although this may sound awfully naive to some,
from the intelligence agencies "and ile military, trust is something that
is important in our society. We ought to think in terms of a com-
monality-of interests.
We now have policies that, taken together, amount to a quasi-
Official Secrets Act. I am not sure that that's what we really need
The press in our society, for better or for worse, has become the op-
position. Some would call it the watchdog, but it really is political op-
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position. It's not pro-liberal or pro-conservative: it's just anti-
whoever-is-in. The question is, is the press a loyal opposition? I
sometimes think that this administration doubts the loyalty of the
press.
ALLEN WEINSTEIN: There are occasions such as today when I
speak last on a panel and find myself in the uncomfortable position of
not disagreeing with a word that's been said thus far. Let me suggest
some dimensions of the problem, however, that we may not yet have
considered.
First, I am proud to have been the plaintiff in a case fought through
the years by my attorneys in the American Civil Liberties Union,
which won the first Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on the ques-
tion of obtaining historical records from a major intelligence agency,
in this case the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Those at the ACLU
who were involved in that case set a precedent which has been of great
value to scholars and journalists.
Second, it is difficult to judge whether the questions that have been
discussed here primarily concern anxiety over potential enemy in-
telligence agents or anxiety over the actions of the American press.
The question of whether the United States should have an Official
Secrets Act because of the problems of confronting intelligence adver-
saries is very different from the question of whether an Official
Secrets Act has any place in a free society if its primary purpose is to
deal with alleged sins of omission or commission by the U.S. media.
Third, who leaks and why? I, think, that Ford Rowan's discussion
was comprehensive, with one critical exception. That is the degree to
which what we call "leaks". have become a normal part of the policy
process. Perhaps they have always been so, since the beginning of the
republic. In short, those who leak information often do so in order to
have-M&-views heard on specific public issues, not all of which have
to do with national security. One administration's "leaker" is an op-
pos166n's "loyst"American underground." That latter phrase was
used by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s to describe State
Department officials who leaked memoranda to his staff alleging that
there were communists at State and elsewhere in the government who
had not been detected by loyalty-security tests. McCarthy was promp-
tly denounced by President Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, and the
liberal Democratic leaders of Congress as an unregenerate proponent
of disruptive leaking.
Depending on the administration, we have had liberals denouncing
conservatives and conservatives denouncing liberals for this practice.
Probably so it will always be. I caution you, therefore, against think-
ing that anxieties about leaking have any particular ideological or
political tilt in this country. They do not, and the politics of leaking
depends on who is in power and who is being leaked at.
Fourth, how, in any period, do we best assure maximum concern on
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the part of all Americans for the legitimate national security interests
of this country? I start from the premise that there is not a person in
this room, whatever his politics, who is not deeply concerned that this
country be secure from its adversaries at home and abroad. Then the
question becomes: when in the twentieth century have we seen periods
of relative consensus on the ground rules? Let me list a few of the bet-
ter periods.
The Second World War saw consensus, as did the early years of the
cold war, both in the Truman and Eisenhower periods. We found it
even in the aftermath of the revelations concerning intelligence agen-
cies of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in reform efforts during the
Ford and the Carter administrations that stressed the new role of the
Senate and House Intelligence Committees. In all these eras, there was
a certain amount of consensus on what revelations would injure the
national interest.
In our periods of deepest controversy, however, for example during
the First World War, when there was no consensus within the United
States as to what constituted an act designed to assist our enemies, the
government was relentless in pursuing real and imagined enemies. The
Vietnamese war era in the Johnson and Nixon administrations hardly
constituted a quiescent period in regard to the issues that we are
discussing today. I think it is fair to say that whatever views we have
on the specific proposals that have been made, within the Reagan ad-
ministration we have seen a resurgence of debates that a number of us
witnessed in earlier historical incarnations. Why?
Fifth, I oppose an Official Secrets Act, not only because of its con-
stifOtiotiaarbAd-legal inappropriateness to the American system but,
also, because of its guaranteed ineffectiveness..
The-probiems-intierent in -polygraph examinations and the im-
possibility of enforcing non-disclosure pacts (which the administra-
tion has now backed away from, at least for this session of Congress)
indicate these-along with Official Secrets Acts-may not constitute
the most appropriate remedies for a very real problem, in part because
they constitute horse-and-buggy approaches to space-age security
dilemmas. We are in a period in which, if somebody had his little dia-
mond stickpin with a listening apparatus, he could drop it into a glass
of water and somebody hundreds of feet away could hear what was
being said. The technology of intrusion has clearly outrun the ability
of individuals in a democratic society to determine sensible, constitu-
tional, legal, appropriate ways of dealing with and policing the abuses
involved.
My underlying argument doesn't differ fundamentally from Mr.
Rowan's in one regard. I do not consider myself particularly naive on
issues of intelligence. In any given era, there are those trying to ferret
out the few genuine secrets of an open society. If you look closely at
those periods in which there was a relative degree of consensus on the
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ground rules in this area, however, you will discover that they were
also periods in which the purposes and the definitions of national in-
terest were generally agreed upon by the society's leadership. They
were periods in which you began with a measure of trust and did not
necessarily have to provoke it by excessive legislative means.
Sixth, one problem of dealing with agreements never to disclose
anything you learned in government is that you have to begin with the
memoirists. "Affcult_tojug% at to do when an overnment
UT -iii the docua~. lr ty .are."....
in"?_ tnoXj n.Lje ;8L?f a best-,liua.molr. uch
Into A4~9 , R ---~
classified goodies are salable commodities on Madison Avenue as well
in the Kremlin. Given the commercial realities for a Kissinger, a
~s'alYce"g'Carter;'or a~Isig, it seems excessive to me to take the GS-15
who 1&q ed. mi&i tily on behalf of his country for thirty years, and
say: '_1You.are going . to sign a nondisclosure agreement, though those
who hgusyd restrictedmaterials can continue to do so without com-
plaint-so long as they hold sufficienty high public office."
Seventh, as to the role of informants, my sense is that in a number
of periods in American history, when we have been deeply concerned
over problems of secrecy, accident often plays a remarkable role in
events. Often it's the person who tires of an ideology-Nazism,
Fascism, Communism, Khomeinism, or whatever-who says, "I've
had enough. This is a democracy. It's a marvelous country. I don't
want to subvert it any longer. I am going to go to the authorities and
tell them what I know." We Americans have been the beneficiaries of
this conversion process time and again in this century and probably
will continue to be because of the open quality of our society, because
of what is considered by people in a closed society an exhilarating
amount of personal freedom.
Eighth, how do we restrain abuses in the classification system,
which exist and will continue to exist? There have been serious efforts
made by successive administrations of both parties to do that. It is
necessary to move toward an even more rational classification system,
one that will assist the efforts of those who have to use the documents,
and who often-whether they are in the military or the intelligence or
the law enforcement community-are as hampered by an excessively
rigid classification system as any of the rest of us.
Finally, as for media coverage, I see no sensible way of coping with
the` dilemma through legislative means. Journalistic self-restraint will
not a encouraged in the long run by the threat of jail. There is
nothing that can advance a person's career in the media more quickly
than being threatened with imprisonment over .a free press issue. Why
s ouul e or she seek to avoid the kind of attention and support that
would co~ meTromTii`s:oi her.colleagues in such a. situation?
WILLARD: Obviously we don't have enough time to debate each par-
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titular administration policy which has been criticized here. A lot of
these criticisms are not new, and it is unfair to criticize the Reagan ad-
ministration for enforcing, for example, the Foreign Agents Registra-
tion Act-which was passed in 1938-with regard to registration of
movies. This has been enforced in this administration no differently
than in any other. The judge in California who had the case concern-
ing the application of the Act to the Canadian film on acid rain had no
criticism for the Reagan administration; he said that Congress had
passed an unconstitutional law and we had simply tried to enforce it.
Similarly, on denying visas to foreign visitors, this administration is
applying the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Prior administrations,
Republican and Democratic, have used that Act to exclude controver-
sial foreign visitors. It is unfair to claim that this is some pernicious
new doctrine of the Reagan administration.
It is true the Reagan administration has adopted a new executive
order on classification in order to tighten up some of the excesses of
the prior order. Yet statistics compiled by the Office of Information t
Security Oversight show that, in general, there has not been an in-
crease in the amount of classified material under the Reagan ad-
ministration, and, in certain important categories, there actually has
been a decrease.
I do not claim that the policies of this administration are perfect,
but there has been a great deal of overstatement by critics-particular-
ly people in the press-on these issues. I think our discussion today
has been much more moderate in tone and substance than much of
what I have seen in the editorial pages of newspapers across the coun-
try for the last year. I congratulate my fellow panelists. If they had
been writing all the articles and editorials over the last year, we would
have had much more reasonable coverage of these issues.
Q: Mr. Willard, will there be another proposal for a prepublication
review agreement which would apply to government officials, on a
different or a narrower basis?
WILLARD: We want to works embers of Congr4ss.>io. try-to
reach a cone' u oriwl a o~ one. I think there is a recogni-
`fi3tl-an"'Clie part critics that this is not an illegitimate security
device, and that with a modified prepublication agreement, we will be
able to reach a consensus"-mow Y '~i~
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been criticized here. A lot of
'air to criticize the Reagan ad-
the Foreign Agents Registra-
vith regard to registration of
administration no differently
da who had the case concern-
idian film on acid rain had no
-; he said that Congress had
iad simply tried to enforce it.
visitors, this administration is
1952. Prior administrations,
hat Act to exclude controver-
ri that this is some pernicious
ion.
has adopted a new executive
;n up some of the excesses of
by the Office of Information
al, there has not been an in-
terial under the Reagan ad-
categories, there actually has
is administration are perfect,
itement by critics-particular-
I think our discussion today
and substance than much of
f newspapers across the coun-
fellow panelists. If they had
s over the last year, we would
ge of these issues.
,roposal for a prepublication
o government officials, on a
nembers of Congress to try to
one. I think there is a recogni-
is not an illegitimate security
lication agreement, we will be
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ticular administration policy which has been criticized here. A lot of
these criticisms are not new, and it is unfair to criticize the Reagan ad-
ministration for enforcing. for example, the Foreign Agents Registra-
tion Act-which was passed in 1938-with regard to registration of
movies. This has been enforced in this administration no differently
than in any other. The judge in California who had the can concern-
ing the application of the Act to the Canadian film on acid rain had no
criticism for the Reagan administration; be said that Congress had
passed an unconstitutional law and we had simply tried to enforce it.
Similarly, on denying visas to foreign visitors, this administration is
applying the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Prior administrations,
Republican and Democratic, have used that Act to exclude controver-
sial foreign visitors. It is unfair to claim that this is some pernicious
new doctrine of the Ragan administration.
It is true the Reagan administration has adopted a new executive
order on classification in order to tighten up some of the excesses of
the prior order. Yet statistics compiled by the Office of Information
Security Oversight show that, in general, there has not been an in-
crease in the amount of classified material under the Reagan ad-
ministration, and, in certain important categories, there actually has
been a decrease.
I do not claim that the policies of this administration are perfect,
but there has been a great deal of overstatement by critics-particular-
ly people in the press-on these issues. I think our discussion today
has been much more moderate in tone and substance than much of
what I have seen In the editorial pages of newspapers across the coun-
try for the last year. I congratulate my fellow panelists. If they had
been writing all the articles and editorials over the last year, we would
have had much more reasonable coverage of these issues.
Q: Mr. Willard. will there be another proposal for a prepublication
review agreement which would apply to government officials, on a
different or a narrower basis?
WILLARD: We want to work with the members of Congress to try to
reach a consensus on what should be done. I think there is a recogni-
tion on the part of our critics that this is not an illegitimate security
device, and that with a modified prepublication agreement, we will be
able to reach a consensus.
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