Llmtrl Our Democratic Process, Yet Our President Source
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OPINION COLUMBIA MISSOURIAN, Monday. Sept. 10. 1984-P- age 4A labeling The third provision states that, in case of normal to find one agency disclosure, agencies are required to information classified and another putting Censorship investigate employees believed to have the same information on open record. leaked such information. In 1975 Aviation Week magazine published Whv the mistrust of government officials an article containing information classified Directive 84 opens door to abuse and w'hy the need for secrecy an "open and by the Naw. The story prompted the Navy in to investigate. It closed President Reagan has made clear his free" society'' America was founded on the Investigative Service basis of a government by the people, for the that investigation after learning the mistrust of other government officials who he was obtained from an open believes are leaking to the press information people. The free flow of information is vital to information llMTrL our democratic process, yet our president source. The Congressional Record. vital to the nationalsecunty of the United information, States Reagan has set out to plug those leaks classified Sensitive Compartmented insists on stifling that process by taking What then is classified and and of public debate. According to a 1982 executive before the American public knows more than Information, that is, information concerning government officials out the who decides'' thinks they should. NSDD 84 stands, government officials order by Reagan, information that he or deriving from intelligence sources and As expected to cause In March 1983 Reagan introduced his methods, must sign a nondisclosure are subject to silence about classified "reasonably could be information learned while they w orked in damage to the national security" of our solution. National Security Decision agreement plus adhere to prepublication classified. But Directive 84 It has been called the review of all their writings that might deal gov ernment for the rest of their lives All country can be labeled or not because almost anything can "be expected" censorship bill by its critics and should be with such information, including books or writings can be reviewed, whether many rejected by the American public. Its articles they may try to publish while in or they contain secret information. It gives an to do anything, the definition leaves possibhty unacceptable amount of power to the censor. questions unanswered. provisions leave open the that out of office. These officials can also be country lie-detect- this has government "reviewers" will abusetheir subjected to or tests during It's a power the American public should Censorship is an idea power to censor. government investigations concerning reject. always fought. In this election year, voters NSDD 84 contains three mam provisions. disclosures of classified information There is some information that should be should fight Reagan's attempt at censorship One, all agency officials dealing with It would be the first time government kept secret one example being President Otherwise, like a motto on an office wall in classified information must sign a officials outside the intelligence gathering Kennedy's silence concerning missiles in the Pentagon says, we may become a society nondisclosure agreement before access is agencies would undergo such a broad use of Cuba in 1962. But there is some "classified" where, "In God We Trust: Others We given: two. all officials with access to both the lie-detec- tor test information that is subjective in nature. It is Polygraph." Mondale needs to debate, not 'Great Communicator' New York Times NANTUCKET Mdb - When Walter Mondale adced for six tele lsed debates with President Reigan eerbod knew he would be luck to set two, though eerbod also Commentary knew whj he was asking for six and wh V & Reagan, if he could hae his druthers A JJ Russell Baker wouldn't grant him e en one Mondale needed to be seen as much as pos- " sible in the compam of a president, while this particular president had no need to be seen in the compan of Mondale These men knew that Reagan's popular Eervbodv knew, too, that Reagan appeal rested partly on his detachment from couldn't have his druthers so would hae to his work, which gave the public occasions to make at least one. mabe two, TV appear- smile sympathetically if he greeted a visit- ances with Mondale Was he not, after all, ing African dignitary as "Chairman Mao" or "The Great Communicator''" How could he mistook one of his cabinet secretaries for a sidestep Mondale's challenge without being tounng mayor relabeled The Chicken Communicator''" Claiming he was absorbed in his job might The onh interesting question still un- anger millions who liked Reagan because answered was What feeble excuse will the they'd always thought he was as confused as president give for avoiding the six-performa- nce they'd be if they had accidentally wound up schedule'' in the White House Oh es. eer connoisseur of politics as- Amazingly, the president finally came up sumed the president would issue a feeble ex- with an e en feebler excuse to wit, that he cuse instead of a forthright explanaUon The thought the American voter would get bored forthright explanation would have been "I'd stiff if exposed to six debates be insane to give Mondale six chances to let The feebleness of this excuse can be savor- some of m magic presidential dust blow off ed best after reflecting that it comes from on him with the whole countrv looking on " the onh man in the world who could single-handed-ly The charming honestv of this explanation have ordered an end to the Repub- might ha e made it the natural choice of am- lican National Convention in Dallas before it ateurs but the president is not advised b left all America at the edge of coma amateurs, and professional politicians dis- Students of mass boredom tell me the stu- trust few things so heartily as the distrust por produced by that convention has not honesty And for good reason They know been matched since the golden age of radio sipito, hair-raisin- fmaw g it from experience that the public paralyzed an entire nation every Sunday is almost alwas more comfortable with night with Major Bowes's Amateur Hour what it knows to be a feeble excuse than it is Not only did Reagan tolerate this monumen- mmmmiM with honest explanations tal exercise in stupefaction, he also partici- A people inured to feeble excuses may be pated in it with a zest betraying an attitude dangerously alarmed by honest explanations that can only be characterized as "public and panic under the misapprehension that boredom be damned' " 'Alien' won't drop Ferraro matter the politicians are falling back on honesty But it is not just the president's transpa- onh because the situation is too dire to be rently bogus reluctance to play the bore that From Chicago Tribune paign that she obtained it out of 'savings' handled by the usual routines makes his excuse so feeble; we must also scarceh clears up the mystery." So Reagan needed a feeble excuse but consider the public's impermeability to bore- You might think that when Geraldine Fer- Well, why doesnt that answer clear up the could not use the feeblest excuse possible, dom It makes no more sense to talk of bor- raro hauled out a tmckload of tax records "mystery" if there is any mystery to be which was that he was too busy at the office ing the TV audience than it does to talk of for the world to see, that would have ended found? Reagan's political experts, who are justly boring the carvings on Mount Rushmore. all the talk about a scandal Commentary VT??P" First of all, is there anything mysterious praised for their cunning, avoided this trap I speak as part of that great American in- It's pretty hard to find something scandal- about investing in municipal bonds? Or put- down-payme- Sure, they had gall enough to insist if stitution, the TV audience, when I state that ous in somebody paying 28 percent of their Mike FJoyko "V g) ting a nt on a condo I've done necessarv that Reagan, straining under as a person who has often spent 12 hours in a income in federal taxes and another 13 per- A bom myself. Should I start wearing dark the mighty burdens of his office, could not single sitting watching Humphrey Bogart cent in state and local taxes. glasses and a false beard ? abandon those labors for TV chatter about whip the Los Angeles Raiders in the last 10 This was a severe disappointment to those And since when is there something mys- politics It was not a question of gall The seconds because Kojak got Eddie Albert's Republicans who gleefully assumed that judgment terious about using savings to buy bonds, a president's advisers are tough men, brilliant stomach alkalizer filled to the run with Ferraro's husband a real estate man So what's left for the Ferraro scandal condo, or anything else' If that's mys- men too brilliant to throw away an elec- Bnm, I'd vote all day long for anybody bor- had come up with enough tax shelters to hunters' Not much But they haven't given terious, then every thrifty Bohemian who tion by pleading Reagan too busy to debate ing enough to chase me away from the tube avoid taxes up ever slapped down cash for a purchase is a Mondale and into bed. And while it's possible that Ferraro cut Just the other day, there was this headline furtive character some corners on the election financing laws, in a newspaper: "Ferraro Tax Mystery Still What will The Alien's sleuths come up with it would be pretty hard to convince most vot- Unsolved." next' Maybe we will see a story that says ers that there is something sinister about a It came as no surprise that the headline "This week, Geraldine Ferraro's purchase woman accepting a campaign loan from her was in a newspaper that is owned by The of three designer dresses, two pairs of expen- own husband.