•

Charles B. Seib ''*777- 1/7 7 Lessons From a Submerged CIA Story Details of the CIA's involvement with mer. But in early 1975 a leak appeared caper. We still don't know which if the American press continue to surface. —not in the Glomar but in security. any—version was right. A few weeks ago we bad 's A story mentioning the CIA subma- That is all history. What is new is the examination of the spy agency's use of rine hunt appeared on the front page documented details on how the CIA press people for its own purposes. of the Los Angeles Times. There were stroked news executives and played Now, thanks to a Freedom of Infor- errors—the wrong ocean, for example them against each other, keeping rec- mation suit brought by Harriet Ann —but the story brought a CIA reaction ords, including transcripts of telephone Phillippi, a reporter, we have a picture so swift and frantic that William conversations, along the way. of how the CIA tried to suppress news Thomas, editor of the Times, was per- Colby sewed up not only the Los An- of its Glomar Explorer caper back in suaded to move the story back to page geles Times, but also The 1975, and succeeded for a time. la in that morning's late editions. Times and ; Time, Both of these items show that the Thereupon William Colby, then CIA Newsweek and Parade; the networks CIA operated most effectively at the Director, and his lieutenants set out to and public broadcasting. But every top. Media hrass can be prime patsies. convince the press—the whole press— deal leaned on the same weak reed: In case you've forgotten, the Glomar that any further publication on Glomar "We won't publish--unless somebody Explorer was the ship Howard Hughes would be a threat to national security. else does." So when Anderson pulled built for the CIA at a cost of a quarter Colby's efforts succeeded briefly, but the plug, the deluge followed. of a billion dollars. Its mission was to they were self-defeating in the end. By The documents give the full flavor of lift from the bottom of the Pacific the time he finished trying to stop the the dealings between the CIA and the Ocean a Russian submarine that had story, practically the whole Washing- media brass: perished there. We don't know how ton press corps knew about it. Finally, Thomas, editor of the paper that first successful that mission was; the columnist Jack Anderson brought surfaced the story, promised, according conflicting press repasts that finally down Colby's jerry-built structure by to CIA, "to exercise the full authority of came out have never been resolved. We telling the Glomar story in a radio his position to keep the results [of his do know that the Glomar is in moth- braodcast. reporters' digging] from ending up in balls, waiting for a buyer. True to the best journalistic tradi- the L.A. Times." Apparently the Glomar was able to tion, the giants of the press took Ander- He is also reported in the documents raise part of the sub in the summer of son's 300-word broadcast as a signal and to have offered to let the CIA see what 1974. Apparently, also, the plan was to blossomed out with voluminous but his reporters turned up and to remove try for the rest of it the following sum- contradictory versions of the Glomar "any particularly sensitive items" from

a story he prepared for use if suppres- agreed to hold the story, although a sion failed. Times man, Seymour Hersh, probably Thomas says that while he agreed to had done more work on it than any suppress the story, he did not make other reporter. such offers. He says that he told CIA So what comes out of the documents is agents he would expect them to answer a clubby press establishment pact: "I questions and, that while he did review won't tell if you won't ten." It took an en- parts of the story with them, he did not trepreneur on the fringe of the establish- give them the right to censor. ment, Jack Anderson, to break it down. , publisher of The Taken all together, the documents Washin gton Post, assured Colby in a say two things. They say, first, that news people are not as heedless in de- ciding what to print as is sometimes The News Business charged. They do, on occasion, bow to arguments of national security—al- telephone conversation the CIA trans- though they often come to regret it, as I cribed that "it is not anything we suspect most of those involved in the would like to get into" and "we have no Glomar suppression did. And second, problem with not doing it." She noted, the documents say that the press, at however, that "it can be that things are least at its upper reaches, is easy to con. starting that have not gotten here." There is no evidence I know of that Mrs. Graham gave the assurance the executives who agreed to suppress after consulting with Howard Simons, the story made any real effort to find managing editor of The Post. At the independent evidence to support or re- time The Post did not have anything on fute Colby's claim of national security. the Glomar story,ry but it put reporters It seems to me that they accepted his on it. Their work was not used until An- pitch with disconcerting speed. derson broke the story. There is, to be sure, evidence that they A New York Times executive, identi- realized—and told Colby—the fix fied in the documents only as E-L also couldn't last. But that is another matter.