PAY ATTENTION, NOW-THIS IS A LEAK!

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030092-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 92
• Publication Date: May 13, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

S1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030092-7
LRTICL! APPSLRED
ON PAGZ A1L
THE WASHII\TGTON TIMES
13 May 1983
Pay attention, now-This is a leak
Armed with hip-holstered revolvers, fin- on the front page of every newspaper in the
gerprint dust, and lie detectors, the FBI is
looking for the country If the document had been pub.
"person or persons lishedwhen itwaswritten, inA rillg82 the
unknown" who leaked a copy of the admin- administration's plans for fighting southern
istration s April 1982 plans for fighting hemisphere communism could have been
communism in Central America to The New seriously compromised." Public ' under-
York Times. Using the FBI on this one makes standing of the problem waspoor, and oppo-
the fellow who used a shotgun to kill gnats bents 'of our Latin American could
look like a reasonable man. policy could
It's the firsttime the FBI has been asked well have-used the memo to advantage,
-to find a leak in the Reagan administration. But that was inApril 1982. When-The New
? As our Jeremiah O'Leary reported ?yester- York Times finally printed the-.aremo in
day National Security Advisor 'William April 1983,.it was old news. The .topsecret
Clark put the G men on the case after the paper .merely confirmed
what everyone
memo was published in the newspaper's knew to be the Reagan administration's
April 7, 1983 editions. views. If the White House staff hoped its
A White House.official leaked to O'Leary cries of outrage would call-attention to the
confirmation that :the published document memo, it got its wish. If it thinks the leak
is "authentic" The same official whispered threatened the security of the republic, it's
his suspicion that the leaker hoped publica- wrong.
lion would force Ronald Reagan to back off ~? ? `~__'=`?`
from his commitment "to counter the A word about lie detectors.
spread of Marxism in this hemisphere."
work. Last year the Pentagon said iitr would
We've read the memo in The New York use the machines to investigate news leaks.
Times, and we're mystified by all the fuss. This March the president told government
If the leaker thought he was going to agencies to write the devices into their reg-
make Reagan back down, he obviously ulations for the same reason. The FBI may
didn't know the stern stuff of which our use them to investigate the leak discussed
president is made. For the most part, the above. But the acting assistant secretary of
document shows how serious is the commu- defense for health affairs has told Secretary
nisi threat in Latin America and that the of Defense Weinberger, "the polygraph mis-
administration is serious about fighting it. classifies innocent people as liars" half the
We're happy to inform Jerry O'Leary's time. Flipping a coin would be just as
source that that's not a secret. accurate - and a lot faster and cheaper.
Washington runs on leaks. One man's leak Standard questioning technique with the
is another's trial balloon. We note that the machines uses a long list of intimate per-
newspaper published the memo only three sonal questions to "establish a baseline"
weeks before the president's unequivocal against which responses to the "real" ques-
April 28 speech to Congress on the need for tions can be measured. Even if the device
increased American aid to El Salvador. were 100 percent accurate, subjecting tens
It occurs to us that whoever committed or hundreds of people to such questioning
the leak may have wanted to lay a foundation' in the hope of catching one miscreant is too
for the El Salvador speech or, perhaps, test Big Brother-ish, too violative of personal
congressional and public reaction to the privacy. -
administration's determination to stop com- -Lie detectors have no place in a conser-
munist infiltration of the Americas. vative administration that values the rights
We don't mean to belittle the problems of individuals to be free from governmental
leaks can cause. The -government can't intrusion into their personal lives. The
function if all of its business - especially president's directive should be rescinded,-.
national security business - is conducted the machines
Junked.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030092-7