WHY TOLERATE SNIPING WHITE HOUSE AIDES, LEAKS AND UNFAIR LABELS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100020059-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 59
• Publication Date: December 2, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/21 : CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100020059-5
- "' ' """" ,2 December 1984
vI IMV
The Outlook Interview: wine Kirkpatrick Talks t
why Tolerate Sniping White douse
Aides, Leaks and Unfair Labels?
'.Q: During the first Reagan admin-
istration there were a number of
'well-publicized divisions among and
?urithin the Departments of State and
'Defense and the National Security
Council. How do you think American
foreign policy has been affected by
'such things as the public feuds be
tween Secretary of State George
-'Shultz and Defense Secretary Cas-
par Weinberger?
A: I think it is inevitable and
-desirable that a president have
.more than one counselor on foreign
affairs, just as he has a number of
counselors on economic policy.
-What is not natural, inevitable or
.desirable is to have discussions
'.within an administration aired in
public. It inhibits and distorts such
- discussions, if only because the ac-
counts that are leaked to the media
are. always inaccurate and incom-
plete. Frequently, by the way, this
Idnd of leak is used to strengthen
the position of one of the contend-
?ers in the internal policy discus-
sions. Often, it is used to assassi-
nate the character or intelligence of
some of the participants. I think
that's appalling, and that it has a
-negative effect on the conduct of
--government.
Q: Haven't You been one of the
main victims of such leaks?
A: There's no doubt about that. In
the Washington Post editorial en-
:dorsing Walter Mondale, there was
;a- paragraph about the divisions
within the administration. It said
that thwere nearly unprrecedent-
e w
.'@, and that worst attackon
former National Security Adviser
Richard Allen, ICLA Directorl Bill
-Case Presidential Counselor] Ed
Meese, Interior Secretaryl
Clark, myself, Cap Weinberger and
don't remember who else had
? come from within the administra-
tion. This creates a terrible circum-
stance under which to live and
work. It has a bad effect on morale,
policy, the president and the gov-
ernment.
In the November issue of En-
counter magazine the British jour-
nalist and historian Paul Johnson de-
-scribes the extent to which major
media have been manipulated to
serve as "bulletin boards" for the
political ambitions of insiders. You
can't necessarily blame the media,
but you can ask that they scrutinize
"insider" - accounts as closely as
they do on-the-record statements.
I once wrote a piece in which I
said that there was a paper triangle
formed by the symbiotic relation-
ship between journalists, anony-?
mous sources and the public. That
relationship is dangerous to public
policy and the public interest, be-
There still may be
some special sort of
resentment of
women in high
politics in this
country.
cause it distorts the public's infor-
mation.
The worst thing about anony-
mous "information" is that it resists
verification. Typically, there's no ef-
fort made even to verify it. An ex-
traordinary pattern has developed
in which some journalists - partic-
ularly those who cover Washington
- actually prefer anonymous
sources to on-the-record sources
and assume that things said "for at-
tribution" are less reliable than
some secret "insider" version.
What emerges are fictive accounts
of public events and public personal-
ities in which public information is
exploited for private purposes.
Demoralization of government
occurs when colleagues become ad-
versaries bent on the destruction of
one part of the administration. But
most serious of all, at least from the
point of view of someone with a
long-range vested interest in the
reliability of public accounts, is the
falsification of history - not just its
distortion, but it's falsification.
Q: Most of of the leaks designed to
undermine you are said to have
originated with senior White House
aides. Why do you think they are
doing this to you?
A: I don't know. During my brief
period in public life I have had an
extraordinary experience-with disin-
formation of one kind or another.
The simplest and the easiest to un-
derstand is the sort disseminated by
the KGB. I probably have been a
target for more of that than any
other member of the -administra-
tion, except the president.
There are several documented
cases in the State Department's dis-
information studies, including the
circulation of forged letters, schol-
arly monographs and interviews
that have made their way into both
the American press and that of the
Third World.
That kind of disinformation is
easy to understand since it comes
from our real opponents in the
world. What I don't understand and
what I have found much harder to
bear, frankly, is the characterization
of me as some kind of right-wing ex-
tremist, an ideologue and anti-
democrat.
Take Central America, where I
have been depicted continually as an
extreme hard-liner. Actually, inside
administration policy discussions, I
probably have opposed the use of
force by the United States in Cen-
tral America more often and more
strongly than any member of this
government. I don't mean the use
of U.S. combat troops, because no-
body's ever suggested that; I mean
any kind of force, even in principle.
I wasn't even present when the
United States decided to go to Gre-
nada.
Lally Weymouth is a free-lance
-writer. She conducted this interview
Tor The Las Angeles Times.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/21 : CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100020059-5