BTV NEWS REVEALING TOO MANY GOVERNMENT SECRETS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100010057-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: February 15, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100010057-8
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON P
Network correspondents on the
intelligence beat walk a fine line
between informing the public
and jeopardizing national security
By John Weisman
February 1983: The U.S. secretly de-
ployed four AWACS early-warning aircraft
to Egypt and made other clandestine
moves in order to monitor a Libyan mili-
tary buildup on the Sudanese border. ABC
national-security correspondent John
McWethy learned about the U.S. moves.
But at the request of high-ranking Pen-
tagon officials, who told him that if he
broadcast it, American intelligence
sources and methods would be compro-
mised, McWethy sat on the story for 24
hours. "The assessment," says former State
Department spokesman Alan Romberg,
"is that [McWethy) perhaps helped save
somebody's life."
May 1983: CBS correspondent David
Martin, citing "Administration sources,"
reported that U.S. intelligence intercept-
ed a series of cables sent from Tehran to
Damascus: cables that implicated the
government of Ayatollah Khomeini in the
April 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy
in Beirut in which 17 Americans died. CIA
spokesman George Lauder says Martin's
report "caused us to lose the manner in
which the intercept was made within 10
days after the story ran."
"If that's true," says Martin, "I cost CIA
a source. Not a human source, a source
which I'm sure they have replaced by
now. But it probably cost them some mon-
ey to do it. If, in fact, that is true, then
obviously that is a story I shouldn't have
done. "
TV GUIDE
25-21 February 1986
During the hijacking of TWA Flight 847
last June, all three networks reported on
the movement of Delta Force, the U.S.'s
elite counterterror strike force, to the Med-
iterranean. Even though CBS, ABC and
NBC's reporting was nonspecific, Sec-
retary of State George Shultz and other
Administration officials accused the
press of jeopardizing the hostages.
NBC correspondent Fred Fran-
cis says that before airing his
report he called "a ranking officer in the
Army" for confirmation about Delta's
movements. The officer, says Francis, "told
me flatly . . . 'we'd rather you didn't [re-
port) it, but frankly [Delta[ isn't going
anywhere near that plane'." Francis claims
U.S. intelligence knew TWA Flight 847
was going back to Beirut before Delta
could stage a rescue operation at Algiers,
and the press disclosures jeopardized
nothing.
According to a high-ranking intelli-
gence official, at one point during the
seajacking of the Achille Lauro by PLO
terrorists, CBS's David Martin gathered
information for a report about "'SIGINT'
[signals intelligence] information on the
methods we were using" to learn what
was taking place aboard the ship. Ac-
cording to the official, CIA director Wil-
liam Casey placed a personal call to
then-CBS News president- Edward Joyce
and convinced Joyce (who declined to
be interviewed for this article) not to tel-
evise Martin's exclusive. (Martin says he
decided independently not to broadcast
the spot.)
There is a constant battle over sensitive
information going on these days. In one
camp are the networks, whose news op-
erations want to inform viewers about de-
velopments within the intelligence and
national-security areas. In the other are
officials at the CIA, the White House, the
State Department and the Pentagon.
"Th
Georg
a righ
of ga
know
is ac
to krw
cides
comes to reporting national-security ano
intelligence-based stories? A good per-
centage of those charged with keeping the
Nation's secrets will tell you that often it
is not responsible at all. "There is a lot of
reporting of classified information that is
damaging to us, which we dont know about
until we see it on the air," says chief Pen-
tagonspokesman Robert Sims.
But those who cover the beat say that
the Government tends to overreact when
it comes to intelligence reporting, crying
wolf too often to protect, not national se-
curity, but incompetence and embarrass-
ing intelligence failures. ABCs John Scali,
who has covered the netlonal-escirity and
intelligence beet for more than 40 years,
says. "News organizations have a re-
sponsibility to help maintain the Nation's
vital secrets in a world where nuclear
weapons can incinerate a hemisphere.
But this doesnt meant we have to stand
mute and salute every time somebody
demands a story be killed."
"I don't know how strong I can be on
this," says NBC's' Fred Francis. "They
classify too much. They scream too much
about what they read in the papers or see
on television, when in fact most of what
they see or read has already been pub-
lished before, or reported in testimony
before some Senate committee."
As evidence, Francis cites a two-part re-
port he did in January 1985 on the Pen-
tagon's special-operations forces. He and
his producer, Bob Windrem, came across
an article in the periodical Naval Pro-
ceedings that reported about two nuclear
submarines, the John Marshall and the
Sam Houston, which were being con-
verted by the Navy for special-operations
commando use.-
Francis says when he went to the Navy
to ask about the program, which had also
been discussed on Capitol Hill, he was
told it was classified. "I said, 'Nan, guys,
it's not classified. Look at May 1984 Naval
Proceedings.' But they refused to talk
about it. Well, the day they refused, we
were flying over the two submarines on
the West Coast, filming them."
Mark Brander, a fomter Naval officer who
is the Washington national-security as-
signment editor for ABC News, cites an-
other example. "I'm dealing with the USS
Samuel Raybum. which, under the SALT
agreement, is now dismantled-its hatch-
es are tying open and the missiles are out.
The sub is sitting at the Chareslon, South
Carolina, Naval Shipyard right now--sit-
ting in the water alongside a pier, no tent
Cob"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100010057-8