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Loyal Opposition: the CIA and the Limits of Free Speech

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Loyal Opposition: the CIA and the Limits of Free Speech Frank Snepp. Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle over Free Speech. New Foreword by Anthony Lewis. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. 416 pp. $17.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-7006-1091-4. Reviewed by Maeve A. Cowan Published on H-Law (March, 2002) Loyal Opposition: The CIA and the Limits of father. In a way the mistake about his where‐ Free Speech abouts had reunited the estranged pair, but the It was April 1975 and CIA operative Frank tension between them continued. That difficult re‐ Snepp had gone missing. Or so the agency told his lationship paralleled the one he had with his su‐ family. Snepp's father, famously stoic and distant, periors at the CIA; each was to haunt him for locked himself in a dark room and wept when he years to come. The latter would entangle him in a learned of his son's fate. 12,000 miles away count‐ legal contest that brought him national notoriety, less South Vietnamese families also mourned for gathered powerful enemies against him, and chal‐ lost loved ones. Many of them, allies in the Ameri‐ lenged the rights of Americans under the First can war against Ho Chi Minh, wondered what Amendment. would become of them once the American evacu‐ Frank Snepp was an unusual candidate to ation of Saigon was complete. The feeing Ameri‐ take on the CIA. He was raised in the Southern cans left behind scores of collaborators whose tradition of chivalry, patriotism, and an apprecia‐ fate, like that of Frank Snepp, was unknown. tion of hierarchy and authority (if he found defer‐ But it soon turned out that Snepp was not ence to these occasionally difficult to muster). He missing. The CIA had been mistaken; he had made signed on with the Central Intelligence Agency it out on one of the last helicopters to leave brimming with love of country and a desire to de‐ Saigon. While Frank Snepp returned home, his feat Communism. But, as detailed in his frst book, Vietnamese associates suffered a less kind fate. As Decent Interval, after a few years on the ground with countless other Americans baptized in the in Vietnam, Frank Snepp became convinced that fires of Vietnam, Snepp's pain intensified after he the United States could not win.[1] And he was left the battlefields behind. For years, memories of deeply concerned that the local population that his lost friends and colleagues haunted him. And had colluded with the United States would meet a then there was his stormy relationship with his horrible end if the agency did not work to protect H-Net Reviews them. He tried on various occasions to communi‐ Papers, posed a threat to national security. Poten‐ cate this concern to his superiors, but his pleas tially, the "Ellsberg-Snepp syndrome," he warned, went unanswered. would lead to chaos: "any of our 210 million citi‐ After a long struggle Snepp decided to go pub‐ zens is entitled to decide what should and should lic with the story of how the U.S. government had not be classified information" (pp. 137-138). betrayed the South Vietnamese.[2] He was driven Why had Turner reacted so strongly? Given both by his own sense of guilt, and by anger at the political context, the agency's unease was well what he viewed as the "institutional disgrace" of founded. Snepp's account came at a time of in‐ the agency's behavior in Vietnam (p. 130). In 1977 creasing public cynicism about government gen‐ Snepp published Decent Interval, a withering in‐ erally, and about covert CIA activities specifically. dictment of the devastating failure of State De‐ Several years earlier, Congress had responded to partment and CIA officials to protect their South revelations of illicit CIA operations by forming the Vietnamese collaborators.[3] Snepp charged that Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, or the American officials had failed to destroy docu‐ Church Committee. By the time of Snepp's exposé, ments identifying South Vietnamese allies; had the committee's investigation of CIA actions in heartlessly deserted these partners; and had de‐ Chile and elsewhere had created a crisis of legiti‐ ceived Congress about U.S. prospects for victory. macy for the agency.[4] Decent Interval was yet Snepp specifically faulted U.S. Ambassador Gra‐ another bombshell, and further emboldened the ham Martin with deliberate and cynical deception CIA's critics. Journalist Seymour Hersh embraced of Congress. Martin, Snepp argued, spread "hor‐ Snepp's account as further proof of the folly of ror stories in the press about an impending Com‐ America's Vietnam policy. Conservative thinker munist bloodbath" in order to shore up congres‐ and former CIA operative William F. Buckley, Jr., sional support for South Vietnam (p. 131). The proved an unlikely Snepp ally. Although uneasy agency reacted to the book with outrage and set about revealing "CIA habits," Buckley found in out to silence Snepp. Irreparable Harm details the them evidence that "the fall of Vietnam could CIA's efforts to prevent him from publishing fu‐ have been averted ... if Richard Nixon had not ture accounts without CIA approval, and to gar‐ been hounded from office" (p. 141). nish his revenues from the book. The agency repeatedly attempted to persuade Published in 1977, Decent Interval created an the Justice Department to intervene and halt the uproar in the intelligence community. Shortly af‐ publication of Snepp's book. The department re‐ ter the book's release, Snepp appeared in a 60 fused. At the insistence of the CIA, Attorney Gen‐ Minutes interview in which he laid out his argu‐ eral Griffin Bell brought suit against Snepp. Im‐ ment against the CIA. Following the interview portantly, the Justice Department did not accuse sales of his book skyrocketed, and within a week Snepp with breaching security. The government it was a bestseller. In the aftermath of the inter‐ could not prove that Snepp had divulged any se‐ view, CIA Director Stansfield Turner embarked cret information because he hadn't. Indeed, as the upon a campaign to discredit Snepp, and to rail person responsible for briefing the press in Viet‐ against information leaks. In The Washington nam, Snepp was well aware of what could not be Post Turner attacked Snepp for violating an al‐ divulged, and "knew as well as anyone what had leged promise to "surrender (the) manuscript," been kept secret and what hadn't" (pp. 153-54). and disputed Snepp's claim that he had ever The government's case therefore rested on the brought his concerns to his superiors. Turner charge that Snepp had violated his confidentiality charged that Decent Interval, like the Pentagon agreement with the agency. Snepp charges that 2 H-Net Reviews the government wanted not only to silence him, screaming 'national security!' and everybody just but to "reduce (him) to penury" (pp. 158-59). Lack‐ assumes you've sold out the country" (p. 283). ing any proof that he had indeed imperiled na‐ Not content to accept the court's decision, tional security, the government argued that the Snepp and his legal team, which included ACLU mere "appearance of a breakdown in security" attorney Mark Lynch and Professor Alan Der‐ could hinder U.S. international intelligence opera‐ showitz, submitted their case for the considera‐ tions (p. 160). tion of the Supreme Court. Their timing could Assigned to the case was septuagenarian hardly have been worse. In November of 1979, as judge Oren R. Lewis. One observer contended that the Snepp brief awaited decision by the Court, stu‐ the hard-bitten Lewis, known as "Roarin' Oren," dent protesters overran the American embassy in made "Genghis Khan look like a civil libertarian" Teheran. Among those taken hostage were several (p. 177). Notoriously unpredictable and an ardent CIA officers, along with sensitive materials and Republican, Lewis had gained infamy by jailing the names of "local spies and collaborators." Norman Mailer and meting out harsh punishment Snepp alleges that the "paroxysm of rage" that en‐ to anti-war activists. His appointment to the case sued made it impossible for an alleged turncoat understandably struck fear in the defendant. like himself to get a fair hearing. To make matters Snepp alleges that Lewis's handling of the worse, several weeks later Bob Woodward pub‐ case was questionable at best, and that his politi‐ lished The Brethren, a controversial "inside" ac‐ cal views clouded his judgment. At the summary count of the Supreme Court.[5] Woodward's un‐ judgment hearing, Roarin' Oren, impatient with flattering depiction was "the last nail in the coffin" the ramblings of one of the defense attorneys, for the case, Snepp contends (p. 336). This charge sneered, "You sound like someone from the deserves more attention. It also underscores a ACLU!" (p. 180). Over the course of the proceed‐ problem with the book. Snepp devotes much time ings it became obvious that Lewis had made up to the women in his life, and not enough to what his mind that Snepp was guilty. At one point he as‐ he argues was the pivotal, even decisive, political sured the prosecution that clearly Snepp had com‐ context. As the defendant, Snepp may have been mitted a "willful breach of contract and a willful, convinced of the odds against him no matter the deliberate breach of the highest trust that you can political context. Given what we know about the have, to divulge information ... and particularly to struggle over government autonomy during the do it for money" (p. 261). In short, Snepp argues, 1970s, it seems that he may well have a point.
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