THE GREATER THREAT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820016-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: February 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820016-0
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NEW YORK TIMES
21 February 1985
ABROAD AT HOME ! Anthony Lewis- '
The Greater Threat
The whimpering end of General
Westmoreland's libel suit
against CBS confirms what
some of us thought from the start:
The dispute about enemy force
statistics in the Vietnam War was a
political one that should have been
left to public debate, not put to the
courts.
By pressing the lawsuit, the gen-
eral only hurt himself. Those who en-
couraged the suit, using him to fight
their war against the press, owe him
an apology. Everyone would have
benefited if the judge had dismissed
the case before trial. -
The failure of this misconceived
suit, with its chilling implications for
freedom to criticize public officials,
will relieve all those concerned about
the First Amendment. But it is no time
to relax in that concern. Other political
libel cases, brought by senators and
governors and judges, are still there.
So is a trend that I- think is a greater
threat than libel suits to the central
meaning of the First Amendment, the
right freely to debate public policy.
The trend is toward secrecy in gov-
ernment. Every President finds rea-
sons for secrecy, but President Rea-
gan and his people have carried the'
obsession to an extreme. Right now
they are trying to bring off a`legal
coup that would give the Government
a powerful new weapon to stop public
discussion of policy.
The aim, described in a previous
column, is to impose on the United
States the equivalent of Britain's dis-
credited Official Secrets Act. The
Reagan Administration is trying to do
that not by going to Congress in a di-
rect way but by asking the courts to
apply the Espionage Act of 1917 to the
use of leaked material in journalism.
The case is the criminal prosecu-
tion of Samuel Loring Morison,. an
employee of the Navy and part time,
with Navy approval; of Jane's Fight-
ing Ships.* He is charged with espies
nage for sending Jane's for publics-
tion three U.S. satellite photographs
of a Soviet aircraft carrier. The Gov-,
ernment argues that he violated the
Espionage Law even if he acted with-
out subversive intent - even, indeed,
it his sole aim was to expose wrongdo-
ing. That view would turn the act into
a strict anti-leak law.
-The notion that we already have
such a sweeping law is amazing. If so,
a former C.I.A. general counsel. An-
fa thony Lanham. said in 1979, then "We
have had in this country for the last 00
years an absolutely unprecedented
crime wave, because null there
have
of unauthorized disclosures of classi-
fied information .. yet none has ever
been prosecuted."
Moreover, '- -' - ~
Congress has repeatedly
refused to pass a general law making
leaks a criminal offense. Instead it
has taken careful aim and outlawed
in strict terms only disclosures of a
particularly dangerous kind - of nu;
clear data, for example and com-
munications intelligence such as that
gleaned from electronic eavesdrop-
Ving.
For the Reagan Administration to
ask the courts, by "interpretation,"
to do what Congress has declined to
do must seem extraordinary. Mr.
Reagan and his lawyers have talked
so much about the need for "judicial
restraint, "-and urged judges to leave
only that: talk. The Reagan lawyers"
have not made it a consistent princi-
ple. Their real- interest is in moving
American law radically to the right;
when they thought judges would do.
that, they have not hesitated to ask.
. And the present Supreme Court
just might disregard the long record'
of Congressional no's to proposed
anti-leak laws and read the Espio-
nage Act, to make disclosures for
publication a crime. After all, the
Court last year sustained the Reagan
Administration's ban on travel to
Cuba in the teeth of contrary legisla-
tive history. The justices seem in-
clined to say yes to any claim of ex-
ecutive power, however extrava-
gant, when national security is said
to be involved.
What will the American press do
about the Administration's extraordi-
nary grab for power? About its move
to give this country an Official Se-
crets Act and thus throttle public de=
bate on large areas of policy? About
its attempt to do all this without put-
ting the proposals to Congress?
I ask those questions because the.
press often seems inert, on First
Amendment issues, unless its own in-
terest is directly involved. A big libel
suit arouses the passions of the press,
but a move to oppose a new blanket of
secrecy on Washington may not.
The Morison case has its first bear-
ing in Federal Court in Baltimore
tomorrow. Editors and members of
Congress and Americans generally
should see it for what it is: a danger-
ous sneak attack' on the American
system of freedom. 0
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820016-0