GOVERNMENT LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030111-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 111
• Publication Date: April 28, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030111-5
ABC NEWS TONIGNT
28 APRIL 1983
GOVERNMENT BELL: Richard Threlkeld has r..:)re on govern ens leaks, a
LEAKS virtual art form in this city.
THRELKELD: Frank Snepp is unemployed. He's an author who can't
write a book or give a speech'or teach a class without first
clearing it with a government censor ever, for the rest of his
life. He used to be with the CIA, and he wrote a book critical
of it without ciearing.it with the CIA censor just in case he'd
revealed some secrets. He didn't reveal any, but the Supreme
Court decided he violated his agreement with the CIA and ordered
him to turn over all his book and movie royalties, $180,000, to
the government. Now he says he feels like one of those South
African dissidents, banned. S:NEPP: When someone cannot speak,
talk, get a job because he's offended the regime, he's called
banned. Well, that's what's happened to me.
THRELKELD: Last month the Reagan administration started
applying the Snepp rule to tens of thousands of Frank Snepps
still in government, anybody with access to top secrets.
They'll all have to take a pledge not to leak secrets and take a
lie detector test if they're suspected of it and let the censors
go over anything they ever write or say about their service.
RICHARD WILLARD (Department of Justice): We have had a problem
of too much classified information leaking out one way or
another, some from negligence, some from deliberate disclosures.
THRELKELD: Mr. Willard, whose committee recommended the
crackdown, insists the leaks have been damaging but can't say
exactly how. That's secret. Certainly there are a lot of
national secrets that ought tc stay that way, but which ones?
There are an estimated 16 million national secrets. At one
time, even the White House dinner menu was secret. Strictly
enforced, the no-leak rule would require a whole library of
books by government movers and shakers past and present to go to
the censor. It would require Walter ?ondale, for one, tc have
his presidential campaign speeches censored. Washington has
always been a veritable sieve of leaks, and the most
incorrigible leakers have beer our presidents. John Kennedy
remarked that America is the cnly ship of state that leaks from
the top. Just last month. Ronald Reagan leaked some pictures
showing the Russians in Cuba and the Cubans in Nicaragua.
REAGAN: These pictures only tell a small part of the story. I
wish I could show you more without compromising our most
sensitive intelligence sources and methods.
THRELKELD: And the way the White House figures it, from now on,
there'll only be one leaker. You can leak if the president
wants to leak or the president says it's okay. WILLARD: That's
the president's authority in our system of government, and the
only alternative to that woulci be to have anarchy where every
government employee could decide the question for himself.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030111-5