SANCTIONS/N.Y. TIMES SNEPP EDITORIAL.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05T00644R000601740003-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2009
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 17, 1978
• Content Type: LETTER

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The Director of Central intelligence
17 July 1978
Dear Abe,
I'm not one to take issue with individual editorials, yet
The Times had one on 25 June concerning the Snepp case, "Why Censor
Non-Secrets?", which raises a very substantial issue. Specifically,
it gets to the heart of whether and how I'm going to be able to
maintain the modicum of secrets which our intelligence agency must
maintain if we are to be effective. I fully recognize that any right
of pre-publication review has the potential for abuse. Yet there are
existing safeguards against abuse and in addition I have difficulty
finding a satisfactory alternative that is likely to keep our secrets.
One of my staff, after reading your editorial, wrote the following
comments to me in a memorandum. I'd like to pass them along as grist
for your mill. I genuinely am seeking an answer to this difficult
problem.
"As I see it there is not much disposition to quarrel with the
idea that the Government has a right if not a duty to protect its
secrets against disclosure, and that it is legitimate to apply some
sort of restraint to former CIA employees who undertake to write books.
The reality that escapes the critics is that it is impossible to
separate the secrets from the non-secrets without having pre-publication
access to the book, unless one accepts the proposition that ex-employees
can make the final judgments, in which case there are no real secrets
because the employees can simply rationalize them out of existence.
And it does no good to suggest, as The New York Times would apparently
have it, that breach of contract suits are appropriate only when it can
be shown that classified information in fact was disclosed. In the
first place, this notion misapprehends the objective, which is to
prevent the publication of secrets rather than to have the satisfaction
of a legal remedy once they have been published. Secondly, a scheme
requiring it to be shown that a book contains classified infcrmation
would not afford much of a remedy at all, bi- caue the necessary proof
Would often cause more damage than the book itself. These considerations,
plus the absence of any applicable or effective criminal sanctions,
explain the need for the pre-publication review feature of Agency secrecy
agreements. They also explain, and I believe justify, the decision to
pursue Snepp. The central purpose of the suit was to vindicate our right
of prior review. It was never contended, nor- could it be, that our right
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of prior review carries with it a right to "censor" anything other
than properly classified information, and even at that our judgments
are subject to independent judicial scrutiny. Therefore, The New York
Times editorial writers asked the wrong rhetorical question, or at
least one that does not correspond to the issues actually involved in
the Snepp case."
All the very best.
STANSFIELD TURNER
Mr. A. M. Rosenthal
Executive Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036
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