The 'Healthful Effec of Leaked Secrets

Daniel Schorr Pr/ 77 The 'Healthful Effec of Leaked Secrets Adm. Stanfield Turner, director of Central Intelligence, who will be testi- fying on the CIA and the media before a House Intelligence subcommit- tee during the congressional recess, has raised a fundamental issue in his Dec. 7 op-ed article in The Post. It is whether our society should "trust the judgment of its public servants re- garding what should and should not be withheld from the public." It is undisputed that no govern- - went can accept free-wheeling disclosure by individual decision as a way of life. Responsible officials will obviously seek more effective ways to enforce their secrecy rules. The question is whether a popular con- sensus exists—or should be en- couraged to come into being—in support of this idea. The issue is far from academic. The intelligence community is seeking to create a climate in which it can obtain legislation tightening the lid on secrets by making public servants criminally liable for spilling secrets. It is reverting to a concept that once commanded general acceptance and, to a certain extent, still does, even among some in the By Geoffrey Moss for The Washington Post press. New York Times columnist C. L Sulzberger recently wrote, "I do not see what right the press has to publish military secrets endangering their country's survival merely because Xerox machines make documents available to informers." To win its case, however, the security establishment must overcome the ef- fects of our recent past. If history teaches anything, I be- lieve, it is that society should not trust the unilateral judgments of public servants about what information is safe to release. Documented The writer; a former CBS corres- pondent, has written extensively about government security. stitutional interest with nationalln- the government as well. This erosion Jordan, there was little evidence of terest A spate of recently released of unquestioning acceptance of the damage serious enough to outweight documents (prodded out of the files • judgment and integrity of superiors the public interest in knowing what —not irrelevantly—by invocation of was connected with the spate of un- the government is up to. the Freedom of Information Act) authorized leaks (not to be confused Adm. Turner says that, for the testifies to the systematic misleading with high-level, deliberate leaks). past year and a half, at any rate, the of the Warren Commission by a CIA Typically, disclosures have been CIA has not used secrecy to protect and FBI more concerned abo'ut their motivated by indignation over per- its reputation. Let us accept that as reputations than the integrity of the ceived misdeeds and misjudgments. true, although another CIA director inquiry into the , assassination of Their aim, generally, has been to might deem it a badge of honor to President Kennedy. When the CIA, serve, not harm the national interest. make such an assertion even if un- in a self-protective post-Watergate Ironically, Frank Snepp's accusation true. Still, it was only a little more internal investigation in 1973, discov- is that it was the government that be. than a year and a half ago that Adm. ered evidence of past improprieties, trayed the national interest in aban- Turner's predecessor, George Bush, such as domestic surveillance, postal doning the CIA's Vietnamese employ- was urging the Senate Intelligence snooping and assassination conspire- Committee—in secret session, of ties, it took corrective action, but course—not to disclose that Richard sought to avoid any public account- Taking Exception Welch, the murdered Athens station ing—until news leaks forced Presi- chief, had ignored the advice of dent Ford and Congress to launch in- agency security officers not to ex- vestigations. ees. Daniel Ellsberg, in his defiant is- pose himself unduly by moving into abuses of discretion have, in effect, • A President in trouble may con- suance of the Pentagon Papers, still his predecessor's house. Bush was snapped the invisible bond of confi- fuse national interest with personal took care to withhold portions that vigorously opposed by a member of dence between the citizens and the interest. That awesome phrase "na- he considered really sensitive. the committee, Sen. Walter Mon- government, which, in the past, left tional security" was debased by It is perhaps because of the selec- dale, who said that the CIA was not these decisions in the hands of the President Nixon into an instrument tive nature of whistle-blowing disclos- seeking to protect any national in- guardians of national security. The of coverup. It turned up almost rou- ures that there has been'so little com- terest, but only a red face. abuses have been of three kinds: tinely in court briefs opposing the re- promising of really vital national The awareness that "secrets" may • In normal times, officials tend to lease of material sought by Congress secrets. Officials tend to cry havqc at leak tends to have a healthy, ombuds- tilt toward secrecy from a parochial and Watergate prosecutors. "That's every security breach, but little evb man effect in government, making view of their responsibilities. They national security!" Nixon exploded as dence has been adduced of havoc ac- covert operators ask themselves how generally see disclosure as reducing he ordered Assistant Attorney Gen- tually wrought. The Nixon admin- their plans would look if they were their options for maneuver and as eral Henry Peterson to keep hands istration could not persuade a federal exposed. In balance, this nation has raising unnecessary problems. From off the newly discovered break-in on judge, in the privacy of his chambers, probably been harmed much less by where they sit, the perils of publica- Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. of the "irreparable injury to the de• undue exposure than by undue se- tion always loom more menacingly Peterson's shattering experience fense interests of the United States" crecy. In the end, no oaths or regula- than the harm of public ignorance. —discovering that his highest supe- that it asserted would result from the tions will be fully effective before As a result, in the incessant contest rior could exploit "national secu- publication of the Pentagon Papers. confidence is restored in the employ-. between secrecy and disclosure, rity" for purposes of personal sear When the dust settled after rhetorical ment of secrecy to protect real they represent a party, but demand ritywas symptomatic of a • break- explosions over leaks like Henry Kis• secrets and not cost overruns, abor- also to be the arbiters. down of confidence in the govern- singer's orders about "tilting toward tive plots and personal wrongdoing. • Under unusual pressure, gov- ment secret-stampers, not only Pakistan" in its war against India, or That, to borrow Snepp's title, may re- ernment agencies tend to confuse in- among private citizens, but within the CIA's subsidy to King Hussein of quire "a decent interval". .

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