INTRUSION OF POLITICS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403500004-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 18, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STATIl"}, w~ WASHINGTON POST
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403500004-9
,Deane Kirkpatrick
Intrusion of Politics
'tree recent events raise interesting
questions about the proper boundaries
po t-Tfics anTI sf reTafio p to sex, religion
ail 'science.
75F--most sensational case was the
matter of Gary Hart's dealings with Donna
Rice. The surveillance, published stories
and subsequent discussion suggest that
many in the media feel a presidential
candidate loses all rights to privacy when
he announces his candidacy-as if the
public's right to know about all aspects of
his life were as great as the power of the
office he sought.
The fact that no further revelations
concerning Hart's sex fife followed his
withdrawal from the presidential race (al-
though, we are told, The Post has in hand
affidavits concerning these matters) tacitly
suggests a corollary to the principle: presi-
dential candidates have no right to privacy.
but ex-candidates do. It is an interesting
doctrine, one that sucks the whole life of a
presidential candidate into the political
arena.
Public opinion polls tell us that most
Americans believe presidential candidates
do have a right to privacy and do not
approve of The Miami Herald's investiga-
tion. They were, nonetheless, inf uenced
by its disclosures.
A second case concerned the behavior
of Bishop lohn McGann at the of
the late CIA director William J. Casey.
M den shocked most of those at Casey's
f-iiiwhen m ti hanily_ he followed an
approving description of Casey's good
works m-ffie-Wocese-with criticism and
disapproval oTGasey's opuioas on nuclear
policy and aid to the contras. _
ER, Casey funeral. was largely a
matter among Roman Catholics, and it is
surely not for a non-Catholic (like me) to
pronounce on hat is aridus not a propri-
a ehavior o a is op tower a cotmm~u-
nicantt andd_~resuma McCaw
believed Casey's views on nuclear and
Nicaraguan policy were relevant to his
quality as a man, a Christian and a Catho-
lic. But treating such questions of public
policy as a matter of faith and morals not
only politicizes reii----n- it makes the reli-
gion of a public offic3~l a matter oftblic
concern because it seriously con
the independence of the two~onaas
McGann intend to reopen this iseuelaced
and .presumably put to-rest--y~hn F.
Kennedy in 1960?
A third instance of the intrusion of
politics into a domain our society generally
considers nonpolitical was the decision to
deny Harvard political scientist professor
Samuel P. Huntington admission to the
National Academy of Science. It was the
second time that Huntington, president of
the American Political Science Association
and director of Harvard's Center for Inter-
national Studies, was recommended by
social scientists in the academy for mem-
bership in this honorific academy. And for
the second time he was turned down.
The extracirdiin" campaign mounted
against Hu ntingtot by mathematics pro-
fessor Serge Lang and the nature of the
charges ahet Huntington convinced
many that Huntington was judged lea on
the basis of his scholarship than on the
basis of his political opinions.
The fact that Hmudtngton's "pure sci-
ence" critics attacked all social science as
based on opinion only slightly complicated
the issue. Like all academic and scientific
organizations, the National Academy of
Science normally operates on the principle
that scholarly qualities should be evaluated
by fellow scholars trained in the methods
and standards of the relevant field. But the
high regard in which Huntington is held by
fellow political and social scientists was
overridden by people who fuund his associ-
ation with the US government prima
facie evidence of his lack of full qualifica-
tion as a "scientist."
In politicizing the consideration of Hunt-
ington.
ic the National Academy of Science
and btnloe down some hallowed barriers
between politics and scholarship.
What are we to think of these cases? Is
sex relevant to politics? Is politics relevant
to the situation of a dead man's being
commended by his bishop to God? Or by a
political scientist considered for member-
ship in a learned society? Each of these
issues concerns the proper boundaries of
politic&
Maintaiiiig bocadaries between politics
and the eat of society has been a defining
dsazacte ietic of Mail democracy, one
that it from totalitarian
states, where all society and all social
relations are politicised. In totalitarian
states, there are political criteria for ad-
mission to higher education and for en-
trance into pcPinto d penfessions.. There
are political criteria for career advance-
ment and for pcnfeusioal honors. There
are political criteria for art, science, litera-
tue, music. -
Liberal democratic societies not only
believe that the power of government
should be limited, they believe the domain
of political t~tions should be strictly
defined and most human relations and
activities treated as "private" rather than
public." In the view, each domain should
be judged by its own standards of excel-
lence aid not by political standards.
But the "totalitarian temptation." as
Jean Frattois Revel called it, is always
with us, tempting us to extend the bound-
aries of politics to make "private" morality
and activities a "public" matter.
Freedom of the press, of religion and
academic freedom are all the product of
the fences we have built between politics
on the one hand and private fife and
opinion on the other. The Miami Herald,
Bishop McGann and the National Academy
of Science have a large stake in preserving
these fences-and their freedom.
,t:198.'. Loy .Aigdc.a Tune,'. rota t,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403500004-9