PUBLISHING OF LEAKED CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100110032-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: May 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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S
RADIO lv REPORTS,
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
May 12, 1986 7:00 P.M.
STATION WETA-TV
PBS Network
Washington, D.C.
Publising of Leaked Classified Information
JIM LEHRER: Next, the case of the U.S. Central Intelli-
gence Agency versus the U.S. press. The charge? Illegally
reporting on American intelligence methods and operations. CIA
head William Casey is the main accuser. The accused are the
Washington Post, the New York Times, the Washington Times, and
Newsweek and Time magazines. Casey told the Justice Department
he wanted the five criminally prosecuted for publishing certain
leaked information concerning the Libyan bombing raid.
The specific charge against the Post, for instance,
centered on an April 15th front-page story which said, "The
United States has the capability to intercept and decode Libya's
sensitive diplomatic communications. Sources said the decoding
was done by the National Security Agency, whose code-breaking
capability traditionally has bcen one of the most closely guarded
intelligence secrets."
Casey reportedly believes that violates a 1950 law
called Section 798, designed to keep U.S. intelligence techniques
secret.
The Post says that law has never been used against news
organizations. And besides, the story in question was merely a
follow-up to what President Reagan said in his nationally
televised address right after the raid.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: The evidence is now conclusive that
the terrorist bombing of La Belle discotheque was planned and
executed under the direct orders of the Libyan regime. On March
25th, more than a week before the attack, orders were sent from
Tripoli to the Libyan People's Bureau in East Berlin to conduct a
terrorist attack against Americans to cause maximum and
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON DC ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRItJCIPAL C:IiHS
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indisciminate casualties. Libya's agents then planted the bomb.
On April 4th, the People's Bureau alerted Tripoli that
the attack would be carried out the following morning. The next
day they reported back to Tripoli on the great success of their
mission.
Our evidence is direct, it is precise, it is
irrefutable.
We have solid evidence about other attacks Qaddafi has
planned against United States installations and diplomats, and
even American tourists.
LEHRER: Nothing has happened yet, except the exchange
of Casey charges and the news organizations' defense. But many
believe a formal criminal charge against a U.S. news organization
may be coming soon -- if not on the Libya story, another --
because Casey's anger over the leaking of sensitive stories is
shared by President Reagan and other high officials of his
Administration.
We join the argument tonight with a former CIA official,
a Washington Post reporter, and a press scholar who has studied
the anatomy of the Washington news leak.
First, the former CIA man. He is George Carver, who
spent 26 years with the agency, serving, among other things, as
special assistant to three CIA Directors and as Deputy for
National Intelligence. He is now a senior fellow at the
Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
Mr. Carver, you support the Casey position that news
organizations should be prosecuted for certain stories?
GEORGE CARVER: Certain particular types of stories,
Jim, that violate Section 798 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code
dealing with communications intelligence. I think that that
violation of the law that's been on the statute books for 36
years should be prosecuted.
Casey was firing a warning shot across those news
organizations' bow. He has many admirable traits, of which
subtlety and finesse are not always the chief and most notable
ones. He is doing nothing that Justice Whizzer White, Byron
White didn't do in the Pentagon Papers case when White put the
newspapers clearly under notice about 798 and said they must face
the consequences if they publish, and he would have no difficulty
sustaining convictions brought under that section of the U.S.
Code.
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LEHRER: Now, it specifically -- it only deals with
intelligence methods and techniques? Is that correct?
CARVER: No, it's even more precise than that. If you
have 20 seconds, I can read the operative language.
LEHRER: I've got it. I've got it.
CARVER: "Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates,
furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an
unauthorized person, or publishes or uses in any manner
prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States, or
for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the
United States, any classified information concerning the nature,
preparation or use of any code or cipher or cryptographic system
design, construction, use, maintenance, repair of any
cryptographic device, communications intelligence activities of
the United States or any foreign government, or intelligence
obtained by the process of communications intelligence from the
communications of any foreign government, shall be fined not more
than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than 10 years."
It's narrow, it's tightly drawn. But on that, I think
it's important.
LEHRER: Why is it important?
CARVER: It's important, Jim, because if you compromise
communications intelligence, you lose a facility that you cannot
regain.
The President spoke more than he should have. He should
have stuck with his adjectives about direct, precise and
irrefutable.
The stories in the Washington Post and the New York
Times would have told the Libyans and their East German advisers
precisely which messages were compromised, and they have changed
their procedures. It will be weeks, months, or years before we
ever get more information warninq of attacks. And Americans may
pay for that with their lives.
LEHRER: How? How would an American pay for this with
their lives?
CARVER: Because if we do not get a warninq of a kind
that we have gotten before and would have gotten if our ability
to read certain types of Libyan communications were still intact,
then lack of warning could easily cost people their lives.
LEHRER: What do you say to the news organizations who
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say, "Hey, wait a minute. If you want to go after leaked
information, go after the people who leak it, not the people who
publish it"?
CARVER: I think both should be gone after. I think
people who leak in an unauthorized way should be fried in oil, or
something else whould be done.
But I think that you have a statute that was drawn to
take care of and protect a particular kind of ultra-sensitive
ability. It specifically includes the word "publish," by
congressional intent or design. It has been reviewed by the
Ninth Circuit in San Francisco and by the Supreme Court. And I
think it deserves to be enforced for the particular purpose for
which it was drafted.
LEHRER: And against news organizations.
CARVER: Against news organizations. Who else
publishes? And I think that the publication of communications
intelligence which compromises our ability to get the same
intelligence in the future is extremely damaging to the interests
of us all, and is something that the government must protect.
LEHRER: Thank you.
ROBERT MACNEIL: Now a view from one of the newspapers
named by William Casey, the Washington Post. Walter Pincus is
that paper's national security correspondent.
Mr. Pincus, what do you think of the view George Carver
just laid out?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, it's happened before and we've
been through this before. I think in this particular instance
this Administration, like other Administrations, has decided it
wants to take a more active role, and they are going to go about
it publicly. And we have been threatened before, not just the
Post, but newspapers in general, for doing this.
I'm slightly amused at this new approach and bringing up
a piece of statute that was passed 36 years ago that's never been
enforced since.
There have been books written about communications
intelligence that describe in exquisite detail what's gone on in
the past. And as far as I know, no attempt has been made to move
against any of those at the time they were brought out.
MACNEIL: Specifically, Mr. Carver's point, which I
suppose would resemble Mr. Casey's, that in this particular
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ultra-sensitive area where publishing information about
communications, intelligence communications, or the information
that is the product of those communications compromises the
ability to similar information.
PINCUS: Well, it's a chicken-and-egg situation. The
Administration itself, through a series of its own spokesmen,
made it abundantly clear, if not to the public at large,
certainly to the Soviets, and, through them, certainly to the
Qaddafi government, that we were intercepting messages. Going
back even before the President's statement, there was a statement
by General Rogers, who spoke rather specifically about the types
of information we had...
MACNEIL: He's the commander...
...and the solid proof.
I cannot remember that General Rogers had anything said
to him about it, as far as I know.
The President then takes it a step further. And what
the Post was doing was really adding, as other people have, to
the general background of this particular activity.
MACNEIL: What do you see as the press's responsibility
in this area in deciding what to publish, in what it gets from
officials who are leaking to the press, and what not to publish?
PINCUS: We do make decisions on those matters, and
there are things that we have not published. It is not difficult
to make a decision because it's obviously in many cases that
things can hurt the public interest. And there are ways of
avoiding doing some of the precise things that the President did
to point to the fact that this kind of intelligence came through
electronic intercepts.
I think the press, over the years -- and I'm really
talking going back 10 and 15 years. This is not a new kind of
intelligence. It's been going on since the late '50s. So we've
been dealing with it for a long time, and I think we have
withheld a great deal of information.
MACNEIL: Right now, the Post, according to the reports
in your own newspaper, is sitting on another story which seems to
be Mr. Casey's actual aim, to prevent you from publishing. What
is your decision at the moment? Is the Post going to publish
that story or not?
PINCUS: Well, I think that's something you'll just have
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to wait and see.
MACNEIL: I see.
Well, thank you.
LEHRER: Back to you, George Carver.
You heard what Mr. Pincus said, that decisions are made
all the time by news organizations not to print various stories.
What's wrong with a news organization making that decision?
CARVER: Well, I think it's fine if it makes a decision
not to print. But I think making a decision to print stories
that could compromise communications intelligence techniques and
capabilities is, to my mind, irresponsible.
LEHRER: Under no circumstances should any story, no
matter what the prefaces had been to that particular story?
CARVER: Not if it -- Jim, I will take an extreme view.
Not if it could do further compromise to this particular narrowly
defined type of intelligence capability. And I do not -- I hold
the personal view that a newspaperman's rights under the First
Amendment do not abrogate his or her responsibilities as a
citizen. And I think that from the standpoint of a citizen,
compromising our most delicate intelligence capabilities is a
very irresponsible act.
LEHRER: How do you feel about that, Mr. Pincus, the
difference in your role as a newspaperman versus that of a
citizen?
PINCUS: I don't really see it as any different. I
think we act as journalists and citizens in the same way. I
think journalists have a different kind of approach to some of
these matters.
But people like Mr. Carver avoid two specific thinqs.
One is, by overlooking casually the idea that somebody did give
us that information. Somebody, in this case, who had access to
what's supposed to be one of the most highly protected secrets
around spoke to a journalist. We didn't steal it. We didn't get
it undercover. It was given to us. So somebody else made a
decision.
And I'm fascinated, as this particular exercise has
raised it by this Administration, that they've been unable to
sort of even make an attempt to indicate anywhere where this
information came from.
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I'd like to point out one second thing about the
so-called second story of the Post. And that is that it ought to
be made clear to people that we, in determining what we're going
to do with a lot of stories, go to the Administration and tell
them what we have and listen to what their arguments are. And we
then do make decisions, but we're not making them in the dark.
And what's going on with the second story, I think, is a perfect
example.
LEHRER: Is it your position, Mr. Carver, that the
journalism organizations should not make those kinds -- those
kinds of decisions should be left to the government?
CARVER: I think that with respect to whether or not
communications intelligence facilities and capabilities are going
to be compromised, those decisions have to be left to the
government because they're the only people competent to make
them.
Other decisions, no. Criticism; fine. But in this
particular narrow field, I think the government's right must be
paramount.
PINCUS: I get down to these petty things because it's
the way I write things. I'd be interested in knowing what
specific capability was compromised.
CARVER: Two things, without compounding the damage.
The story in the Post contained precise times of the dates the
messages were transmitted that were intercepted, when they were
intercepted, their precise length, and quoted from their text.
The Libyans and their East German advisers could hence have known
precisely which communications procedures were vulnerable and
which codes and ciphers we could read. Those could be changed,
as I believe they have been. And it may be a very long time
indeed, as I said, before we get any further warnings of
terrorist depredations via that channel.
PINCUS: But you'd have to be a fool to believe that,
given the President's statement, that they didn't realize that
their codes had been broken. I mean he talks about messages
being sent immediately. They're not doing it by smokescreen.
CARVER: Walter, there's a lot of difference between
knowing that codes had been broken and knowing precisely which
messages have been compromise. And I really don't feel that it
was necessary for Bob Woodward to do whatever damage the
President himself had not...
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LEHRER: Bob Woodward is the reporter for the Washington
Post who...
CARVER: Whose bylined front-page story is the story we
are discussing.
PINCUS: And the source of that, who want to boil in
oil, you have -- there's just no way to find that out?
CARVER: I'm a simple retired civil servant. I can't
find him out. But if he is found, I think that 798 should be
applied to him, too, in its full rigor.
LEHRER: What about Mr. Pincus's earlier point that the
stories about this kind of communication, spying by communication
and electronic spying, there've been books written on it,
exquisite detail about it, nothing new has come out?
CARVER: Well, that there have been books written in
exquisite detail is true. Whether or not anything new has come
out is another question. An I think we have been far too
lenient in allowing people, such as my friend Jim Bamford, to
publish books such as "The Puzzle Palace."
[Confusion of voices]
CARVER: ...specifically about the NSC.
LEHRER: Right.
CARVER: Which gave my friend Bobby Inman, who has been
the Director of NSC, a case of almost cardiac arrest, for
understandable reasons.
I think we are far too loose-lipped in this country.
And as a result, we've compromised capabilities that we may one
day desperately need, and put American lives at risk in ways that
I find reprehensible.
LEHRER: Don't go away, gentlemen.
MACNEIL: Next we have the perspective of a political
scientist who's done a study of press leaks in Washington. He is
Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Mr. Hess, you have actually classified leaks by the
kinds of leaks there are. How is the press supposed to
distinguish between leaks from officials that it should publish
and leaks that it should not publish?
STEPHEN HESS: Well, I tend to think that the press
doesn't give us much of a clue as to where the leak is coming
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from or why the person is leaking. The press seems, to me, to be
interested solely in whether the leak is true or not.
Now, there are some leaks that are plain ego leaks. In
fact, I think that's the biggest category in Washington. People
leaking information are really saying, in a sense, "I'm important
because I have important information."
There are leaks that are straightforward policy leaks.
Other leaks that I call animus leaks. They're aimed at
an individual. They're to settle a grudge.
There are leaks that are trial-balloon leaks. You send
something up and you see whether it's going to survive the
publicity. I tend to think that those leaks mostly come from
opponents of things, because it's so much easier to shoot
something down.
And I think there are also whistle-blower leaks. Those
are the only leaks that come, generally, from civil servants.
They get so frustrated with something that they go public on it.
By and large, leaks come from political appointees. And
after a while, a President has to recognize that he can't keep
attacking the faceless civil servants, that the leaks are coming
from people that he appointed, himself.
MACNEIL: What category would you put this leak into,
the one that's caused a fuss with Mr. Casey and the Washington
Post, on the interruption [sic] of communications with Libya and
East Berlin?
HESS: Well, I don't know. And the interesting thing
about leaks is they're not mutually exclusive. They can have
more than one reason...
...ego trip and a policy...
HESS: And a policy leak. Or they can be sort of a
[unitnelligible] reverse leak. It looks as if it's going to do
one thing, but really you're doing another.
A funny example like that, also with Bob Woodward, was
several years ago when the Post printed the secret minutes of the
Secretary of State, Alexander Haig's early morning senior staff
meetings, in which, among other things, he called the British
Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, a duplicitous bastard. And
though we all assumed immediately that that was someone trying to
do in Alexander Haig, we now tend to believe, at least in the
mythology in Washington, that it was leaked by someone who was
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friendly to Haig, and he was indeed trying to show that Haig was
still in charge.
It's very hard to really...
MACNEIL: In deciding how the national interest is
served in this particular case, there were a lot of people
calling -- I remember we asked questions on this program -- for
more information to back up or give credibility to the
Administration's general claims that it had proof that the
Libyans were involved.
HESS: Yeah. I think Mr. Carver is right int he case of
this leak being -- he calls it a warning shot. I might want to
all it a bluff. I think if you go after, by name, five major
news organizations, you're not serious about prosecuting them.
if you were, you would use a rifle and not a shotgun.
MACNEIL: Well, in the system, as the American system
works, who is the better judge of what should be published, the
press or the government?
HESS: Well, if you look at most Administrations, you
would find that they're more leaked for than against. They, of
course, call it a plant. If it's an authorized leak, it becomes
a plant.
But in general, if we had a way of doing away with all
leaks, I think it would be the President who would be, by far,
hurt the most by that practice.
MACNEIL: Mr. Hess, thank you.
LEHRER: Do you agree with that, George Carver, that
most leaks are in fact authorized?
CARVER: Some of them certainly are. But I would not
want to say that most of them are. And most of them, I think,
come from people who are either on ego trips or trying to
sabotage policies, or are flattered by people in the press.
You know, "You're not important enough to know about
"Of course I'm important enough to know. Let me explain
to you how important I am."
It's the oldest investigative technique in the business.
LEHRER: George Carver, you've been -- you were involved
in this business for 26 years. When you read this story, the
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story we're talking about, the April 15th story in the Washington
Post, it must have occurred -- and the other ones too -- it must
have occurred to you, "Hey, I bet it was Sammy Sue or Billy Bob,
or a type, who leaked that story." Who would have had a
motivation for leaking that story?
CARVER: I don't know. But my suspicions instantly
riveted on someone fairly senior, possibly on the White House
staff, who didn't realize how much damage he or she could have
been doing. I think that any professional officer, if he didn't
have more sense than to do that, then he has no business drawing
the government's money.
LEHRER: Walter Pincus, can you characterize the type of
person who leaks this kind of information, intelligence
information? Does it fall into all of Steve Hessl's categories,
or mostly ego trippers, or what?
PINCUS: Well, they fall into different categories. But
when you get this specific, my guess is that it clearly was --
and I don't know. My guess is that it clearly was somebody who
had the information officially. If you look back to the time it
came out, it came out at a time, as Steve has said, that they
were trying to back up -- there were beginning to be questions
raised about why we had done it. And it fit into that kind of
category.
Also, I think I have to remind everybody there was no
talk about a violation of any security when the story came out.
The story has only come out in connection with Mr. Casey raising
the issue of the second story.
CARVER: That's not true. There's been a great deal of
seething in the government, which finally erupted.
PINCUS: But there was seething in the government prior
to the President making his announcement. There was a fight
within the Administration, where the intelligence people, as they
usually do, and as you do, make a good case for keeping it
secret. They lost. The President said more than he was supposed
to say. And that was a calculated decision, and this one just
took it one step further.
CARVER: And then, Jim, I think people on his staff
wanted to show how able we were, and what they were doing handed
the U.S. intelligence community a favor. And they were dead
wrong.
LEHRER: All right. Then why go after these five news
organizations for a White House staffer who was...
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CARVER: And I think they should also, if it is a White
House staffer, go after him. The old French practice, you know,
the old French comment about the English, who occasionally hang
an admiral to encourage the others, is I think necessary. And I
think here are a couple of admirals, both inside and outside the
government, probably ought to be hung.
LEHRER: Steve Hess, what's history say about attempts
of Administrations to close leaks, by whatever techniques?
HESS: Well, they always fail. And every Administration
says, "We're the most leaked-against in history." And every
Administration is right. There's simply more and more classified
documents today. There are more and more duplicating machines
today. There are more and more government officials who have
access to classified information than ever before. There are
more and more journalists in Washington. And there are going to
be more and more leaks.
And to my way of thinking, there really has never been a
successful way of dealing with the news organizations. I tend to
agree with Walter Pincus earlier: The way you get at it is you
go after the person in the government. And since these are the
President's own people who do the leaking, President's should
consider this more carefully in terms of who they choose to
represent them.
LEHRER: Walter Pincus, does even the threat of criminal
prosecution have an effect on the way the Washington Post and
other news organizations will function on intelligence-type
information like this?
PINCUS: One, I don't think so. Two, I hope not.
Three, I don't think we'll change our system. I think we do
weigh what we do.
LEHRER: You think a few criminal prosecutions would
be good for the press. Right, George Carver?
CARVER: I think a few focused on this particular topic
would be salutary for the press and for the country. Not
generaly stopping of criticism, but protecting communications
intelligence, on which our survival could easily depend.
LEHRER: Do you think that Steve Hess is right, that
they're really bluffing now? Or do you think they really mean it
this time?
CARVER: Well, I think, as of today, they mean it. The
Justice Department would have to decide to prosecute if another
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story is published. There'd be a lot of discussion, and it might
come to naught. But I think that certainly Mr. Casey means it,
and the Director of the National Security Agency means it. And I
can well understand why.
LEHRER: ...Thank you very much.
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