CIA'S DILEMMA IN PROTECTING MILITARY SECRETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100100048-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: May 24, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100048-8
CIA'S DILEMMA IN PROTECTING MILITARY SECRETS
5 By Robert McNeill
WASHINGTON
CIA Director William J. Casey's wrath at publishers and broadcasters who
'report on U.S. decip` rFeer-mg r nations' coded radio traffic is a 1986
version of a World War II dilemma.
The difference is that Casey seems determined to take his case to court, a
course the government rejected as counterproductive in a 1942 case because a
public trial might have caused disclosure of even more secret information.
Casey may have considered this factor when he backed away from his initial
suggestion that Newsweek and Time magazines, The New York Times, The Washington
Post and The Washington Times be prosecuted for publishing stories saying the
United States was reading Libya's coded radio transmissions.
X But when NBC correspondent James Polk, reporting May 19 on the Baltimore spy
trial of Ronald W. Pelton, made reference to U.S. submarines eavesdropping
inside Soviet harbors, Casey called for prosecution under a 1950 law prohibiting
disclosures of ' 'communications intelligence. ''
The Washington Post on Wednesday backed away under CIA pressure froin
similar disclosures in the Pelton case, printing a story without details of what
Pelton may have compromised.
Casey's feud with the media recalls Navy Secretary Frank Knox's case against
the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and Washington Times-Herald in the
second world war.
In 1942, Just after the U.S. Navy reversed the course of the pacific war with
its devastating defeat of the Japanese Imperial Fleet at the Battle of Midway, a
Tribune war correspondent, Stanley Johnson, disclosed a military secret.
Stationed aboard ship in the Pacific, but writing under a Washington
dateline, Johnson reported that the Americans learned in advance the Japanese
plan to invade Midway.
Johnson's story did not say so, but the implication was clear: Such knowledge
could have been obtained only by code-breakers eavesdropping on Japanese radio
traffic, which indeed was the case.
Knowing their naval code was broken, the Japanese would be expected to
instantly install a new code, drastically different from the old one and
requiring perhaps months, even years, for U.S. cryptographers to decipher.
The 1986 version of this 1942 episode is doubtless far less critical, but in
Casey's view disclosure of U.S. decoding of Libyan transmissions was a serious
setback to anti-terrorist efforts. As for eavesdropping by U.S. submarines,
Casey said it is his ''statutory obligation to protect intelligence sources and
methods.''
In 1942, Johnson's Tribune story, also printed in the New York Daily News and
Washington Times-Herald, went unnoticed by the Japanese, which was miraculous.
But in 1986 the Libyans took notice and changed their code, which was expected.
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On June 9, 1942, two days after Johnson's story was printed, Knox called for
prosecution under the Espionage Act, and in August a grand jury was convened in
Chicago.
But there the matter ended. The government dropped the case lest a trial
produce sensitive testimony that would damage not only U.S. intelligence
gathering, but also that of the British.
Up to a point, Casey's actions parallel those of Knox. At first he suggested,
in private, that the newspapers and magazines be prosecuted under' the 1950 law
creating the CIA, which protects such secret operations from the public eye.
Then, in a speech to the American Jewish Committee May 16, he backed off,
saying the disclosures about Libyan radio surveillance were ''spilled milk,''
but that future offenders should be taken to court. And so he requested to the
Justice Department in the NBC case three days later.
''The media, like everyone else, must adhere to the law,'' Casey said. " ...
All of us have responsibilities to balance in carrying out its mission.,,
The gist of Casey's language seemed to be that publishers and broadcasters
should protect national security by refraining from making public information
that aids U.S. adversaries.
Such has been the tack used in the past by the United States, which unlike
Great Britain cannot conduct closed trials and has no ''in defense of the
realm'' laws requiring news media compliance with certain national defense
policies.
As British historian Ronald Lewin wrote in ''The American Magic,'' an account
of U.S. code-breakers in World War II, the open U.S. society ''can suffer
terribly from self-inflicted wounds.''
Lewin also noted two other unprosecuted press disclosures of information
that could have damaged the U.S. World War II effort:
-The Washington Post reported that Marines captured a code that provided them
with the time a Japanese landing force would reinforce Guadalcanal.
-rime magazine reported the United States had decoded messages from an
underground radio station in South America that implicated Nazi Spies in
Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and the United States.
U.S. intelligence services in World War II were so fearful that the Japanese
would learn of their code-breaking capability that they were tormented for days
after P-38s snot down the Japanese bomber carrying Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the
Japanese Fleet commander, over Bougainville in 1943.
Navy cryptographers had decoded a Japanese radio message announcing
Yamamoto's itinerary for an inspection trip in the Solomon Islands. Army pilots
were advised of his route and timetable and Yamomoto died in a fiery jumgle
crash.
Intelligence officials across the Pacific were haunted by speculation that
such a dramatic coup would be leaked by some euphoric local commander or staff
officer unable to restrain himself.
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But Yamamoto's death was belatedly announced by the Japanese themselves.
Americans who knew about the radio interception kept quiet and the Japanese
never suspected Yamamoto was the victim of a precisely timed aerial ambush until
the full story was told at war's end.
But for voluntary restraint, probably the most striking cryptography case in
the second world war was that of Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the
Republican candidate opposing President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.
Dewey had evidence the Army had broken ''Purple,'' the Japanese diplomatic
code, and had read Tokyo's most secret communications for a considerable time
before the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
Gen. George Marshall, Army chief of staff, heard that Dewey might use this
information to charge Roosevelt with negligence in failing to head off the Pearl
Harbor attack. Such a campaign ploy would have revealed to the world the United
States was reading the Purple Code.
Marshall knew that any attempt by Roosevelt to persuade Dewey to renounce the
issue would be considered a political maneuver, so he took it upon himself as
head of the Army. At first Dewey suspected Marshall's motives and assumed the
general was Roosevelt's agent.
But during tedious negotiations through an emissary, Army Col. Carter Clarke,
Marshall convinced Dewey he was acting without FDR's knowledge, and that
disclosure of Purple Code deciphers would do enormous damage to the Allied war
effort both in Asia and Europe. Dewey then reluctantly forswore a potential
campaign issue that almost certainly would have bolstered his presidential race.
In World War II, the U.S. Population was solidly united against the Axis
powers and the press willingly accepted war theater censorship. Even private
letters from servicemen overseas were censored and few complained.
Combat zone press censorship worked well through the Korean War, but was
abandoned during the Vietnam War. To what extent publishers and broadcasters can
be Expected to voluntarily withhold leaked or purloined military secrets today
is problematical.
But as Casey said in backing down from his suggested prosecution of the two
magazines and three newspapers, he would not rule out court action:
' ' I would not, therefore, at this time favor action for these past
offenses,'' Casey told the American Jewish Committee. ''But I strongly believe
that if we are to protect our security as a nation and the safety of our
citizens in this age of international terrorism and intercontinental missiles,
the law now on the books . . . dealing with communications intelligence, must now
be enforced.''
All such cases pose a dilemma for government: prosecute and face the
possibility of being trapped during a public trial into revealing even more
secret information, or let the matter drop.
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