The Iranian Papers Case William Worthy Paperbacks from Tehran add another kind of weight to unaccompanied luggage. N EARL y AUTUMN 1982, I received Given infighting among the four House, headquarters of the Nieman I a victorious phone call from Mark agencies and their hard-pressed at­ Foundation. The terms were a sweeping H. Lynch, Washington staffcounsel torneys - the Tort Branch, Civil Divi­ reaffirmation of the First and Fourth for the American Civil Liberties Union sion of the Justice Department - it took Amendments; they upheld the public's Foundation. until December for the settlement to be right to know, and scotched the dismal His call came just ten months after reduced to writing, signed by lawyers for prospect that the government could get the FBI, at Boston's Logan International both sides, and filed forsigning by U.S. away with illegal searches and seizures Airport, had confiscated, from our un­ of the personal effects of journalists and accompanied luggage arriving from other Americans returning home from Tehran, eleven volumes of Iranian re­ abroad. prints of secret documents seized at the Politically - and all such cases be­ U.S. Embassy in Tehran. His news: the come political in direct proportion to the IJl'llT[D STATES OISTRlCT C01JllT PORTH� D!STRJCTOFCOL�IA four agencies involved - Customs Ser­ amount of protective publicity generated vice, FBI, CIA, and State Department - - the settlement represented a complete had agreed orally to terms for an out­ climbdown from the government's three­ of-court settlement. WlLLIAM WORTHY. !£ �_! .. Plo \nt lfh, month-long threat to prosecute the three The terms: payment of $16,000 in Civil 11q,l_qn No, 82·018J lllLLIA11H. \.IUSTF.R tl�·· of us under the Theft of Government , FILED tax-free damages to me and my col­ AUGl21982 Property Act. Knowing firsthand the leagues Terri Taylor and Randy Good­ prolonged disruption of one's life by fed­ Upon cono!deutlon or Dehndantl' �otion For Protective Order man; destruction of "any fingerprint or and For!.!! c ...eu Procedure, tt1• oppo•ltlon theuto and the �overn­ eral indictments (on two occasions I've "'•nt'o reply, It ta thh llth du of AuyuH, 1982, other investigative materials developed ORDERED that the 1cheduled deposition of FBI >.gent Ch .. leo been through it, once as a conscientious Hichy io ouyed; •nd H h as a result of the seizure and detention" Fl!RTHF.RORDF,RJ;I) that the KOvernl"<nt oh�l\ oub<Alr by Augusr 19. objector, and once for the novel crime of the paperback books; and the return \982. dfid•vlU for !,!! � !nopectlon. •• rehrud to In Its ,,,.,tlon, uhtlng to the •Ute secnto privilege. Th• gov•r,..,,en< of coming home from off-limits Cuba to us of "any material or documents or 1hall •loo IUbl'llt •ny oupportlng menound• rehtlve to rhe !,!! �oub,,.lulonbyAuguat \9. Theparrhs sh.. ll aopur therufter "without bearing a valid passport"), I for copies of same [i.e., correspondence and before Judge hnn for furth.r cono!dH ..tion of rhe d•f•ndanu' one did not take the threat lightly. This other personal papers] seized from is not to deny the untenability of the plaintiffs' luggage." official claim that books printed on With their covers discolored by Iranian paper and on an Iranian press fingerprint-lifting chemicals, the books and sold in bookstores all over Iran and themselves had been abruptly turned in Europe were somehow U.S. govern­ over to Attorney Lynch and his co­ ment property. counsel, Susan W. Shaffer, on March What finally aborted prosecution 12, 1982, just before one of several court was the belated realization in Washing­ deadlines had forced policy decisions ton that, in order to convict us, ClA and action on a foot-dragging bureau­ officials would have had to testify in cracy. District Judge John Garrett Penn, to open court that the documents were whom the case had been assigned on authentic! The "Tehran paperbacks" (as January 20, 1982, when the ACLU filed The Washington Post later dubbed suit in our behalf. them) contained, among other politically Both the filing of the suit several sensitive materials, a critical CIA analy­ William Worthy, Nieman Fellow '57, is months ago and the settlement on sis of Israeli foreign intelligence and .m author and freelance journalist living December 9, 1982, were announced at security services, as well as the names 111 Boston. news conferences at Walter Lippmann of U.S. agents operating in the Mideast, Spring 1983 45 and instructions to protect their cover. lawyers won a very brief period of grace. So, pending compliance with that Under those circumstances, cooler Judge Parker tossed the proceedings injunction, the settlement in our case heads, presumably in the State Depart­ back to Judge Penn. Since it was highly reads: ment, prevailed. We were not indicted. unlikely that the Secretary of State and " ... the FBI will place all copies of There were other factors as well. the director of the CIA would have the records to be destroyed in sealed en­ When we landed at Kennedy Airport, personally trivialized the rarely invoked velopes and maintain them in a special Customs didn't notice in our hand lug­ state secrets privilege by signing off on locked file cabinet. Upon the outside of gage another set of the documents. A the final papers, the government stopped the cabinet the following legend will ap­ few days later, a New York Times playing hardball and began talking set­ pear: editor, upon learning that we had them, tlement. prevailed on us to turn the papers over The FBI has agreed to destroy all to him. A week later, "intelligence investigative records in this file cabinet specialists" in his Washington bureau, to pertaining to William Worthy, Teresa The Boston Globe whom they were rushed for analysis, re­ ...when A. Taylor and Randy Goodman, in settlement of their claims in William jected them, to the dismay and chagrin ran a simultaneous series based Worthy, et al. v. William H. Webster, of the enthusiastic editor in New York. on a set of the books obtained et al..... Meanwhile, Scott Armstrong at The in Paris, the thought of federal They are not to be disseminated Washington Post had called to ask if we indictments became even more in ariy way pending their destruction might have a duplicate set. Within an ludicrous. upon review by the National Archives hour after the Times' final decision, one and Records Service in accordance of Armstrong's assistants had picked with all present and future Orders of them up at the Times' bureau. For the the Court in American Friends Service next six weeks, Armstrong carefully The case - a totally unexpected cul­ Committee, et al. v. William H. Web­ ster, et al. ...." checked the documents. When The Post mination of our eight weeks in Iran put everything in the public domain with under contract with CBS News - had Armstrong's front-page syndicated series its ironies. When the discolored books After the full text of the settlement that ran from January 31 to February 6, were returned to us in March, all the was made public at our triumphant 1982, and when The Boston Globe ran bindings had been broken. Our at­ December 9 news conference, those re­ a simultaneous series based on a set of torneys learned that the FBI had photo­ porters who managed to get through to the books obtained in Paris, the thought copied everything and rushed copies to the Justice Department spokesperson got of federal indictments became even more all the other U.S. intelligence agencies. a firm "No comment whatsoever." The ludicrous. With all the resources at its command, Associated Press dispatch read: "John Nevertheless, the ideologues and it seems inconceivable that the CIA Russell, a Justice Department spokes­ hardliners in the Justice Department hadn't previously obtained copies. But man designated to comment on the case, didn't yield graciously. For months apparently that was the case. did not return four telephone calls from thereafter they played games in order to Still another irony: After the Justice a reporter." keep the elusive Boston FBI agents and Department attorneys had finally At the news conference I remarked: also FBI officials in Washington from brought the FBI, CIA, Customs, and "Thank God for the Bill of Rights, and testifying, under oath, at pre-trial State Department on board and won thank God for the American Civil Liber­ depositions. Finally, on August II, our their assent to the settlement, one of the ties Union." out-of-patience ACLU attorneys had attorneystelephoned Mark Lynch at the While we three plaintiffs helped to brought FBI Agent Charles Hickey to ACLU to say, with considerable embar­ constrain the government by generating Washington under subpoena. On that rassment, that the FBI was already worldwide publicity, the real heroes of very day, in the absence of Judge Penn under court order not to destroy any of this case are the ACLU attorneys, in­ (who was on vacation), four Justice law­ its records without the judge's permis­ cluding national staffcounsel Charles S. yers - citing the state secrets privilege sion and without clearance, as provided Sims, who slugged it out in the trenches - prevailed upon Judge Barrington D. by law, from the Archivist of the United with their official counterparts and ulti­ Parker, who was totally unfamiliar with States. mately forced them to the negotiating the case, to sign a Protective Order stay­ This time it was the Quakers who table. ing Hickey's scheduled deposition. were on the FBI's back. The American And a very special note of thanks is The government also petitioned for Friends Service Committee had obtained due to Nieman Curator James Thomson an in camera and ex parte hearing on that broad court injunction at a time, a for agreeing to the ACLU's request that the state secrets privilege (i.e., a hearing couple of years ago, when the FBI was the two news conferences be held, with in the judge's chambers from which our destroying documents in order to con­ all the helpful symbolism, on the attorneys would be excluded).