PAPER-LOOK FOR:

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003200210009-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 31, 2005
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: October 24, 1978
• Content Type: OUTLINE

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~.i
Paper - look for:
Leaks
Court
Subpoenas
Find - Problems of press sources
Wel come
Farber - Stanford
One key problem intell.
Past focus abuses
Assure less threat - than inadequate
Allies
Agents
Timidity
Risks
How correcting?
Internal
Tighten
Balance
Table tilted
External
Openness
Respect more
More than openness
Respect legitimacy
a q aa -e)) 97 9
Mal Li G a"-
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2
Farber believes legitimacy warrants withholding
court of law
Bases on interpret. of Constitution
Being questioned
My obligation to protect sources based in law
Addition - problem you don't have
Protect info of national security
Clearly because risks - right to keep secret must have checks
Greater assurance today
1. Openness
2. Controls
Guidelines
Prohibitions
Injunctions
3. Oversight
Revolution
Charters
Neither solve problem - promote understanding complexity issue -
Helms - ITT - not capricious
Not without check
Oversight
Whistle blowers
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p y- d /9 7'
DCI-17
SIDE A
0
We in the intelligence field most often think of you in the media
profession as adversaries. We have the secrets and believe we must keep
them to fulfill our responsibilities of keeping our decision makers informed
about developments in foreign countries. You want our secrets and feel you
need to have them in order to fulfill your obligation-to keep our country
informed and to check on improper performance of government officials.
As I unfold my morning paper each day and scan it to find how many of our.
I look to see how many of our delicate sources of intelligence may have been
compromised by one story or another, or how many of our intelligence officers
are being ordered to testify in court when they may be forced to reveal
the
delicate sources, or how many subpoenas have we received for/delivery of notes
or documents which contain information information that will point to our
sources. It is as likely as not, however, today that in scanning for these
problems I will find your problems instead. It will be you, the media, who
are being taken into the courts and forced to'defend the secrecy of your
sources or you who are receiving the subpoenas; at least if I Understand it
the essence of the court cases against sir. Farber or the Stanford Daily
is whether preserving the confidentiality of a newsman's sources is essential
to meeting his obligations and to the continued success of your profession.
There is one problem in American intelligence today which transcends
all others in importance. I believe it is exactly the same one that you are
facing of maintaining the confidentiality of sources- Today we simply have
i naa[~~ fr a~l~ 2 b? OF t }'A-R~~8~ 1~`5 0 obi jb0b@-9ecrets in the
name of prosecuting violators of the law. We are asked to give up secrets
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in the name of keeping the American public informed. We are asked to give
up secrets in order-to insure that no newspaper or academic institution
is not aware of prior private relationships of its members with the intelligence
community. We are asked to give up secrets in the name of Congressional
investigation, and so the list goes on and on. The net result of all this
is disquieting trends in our intelligence capabilities.
Allies ...
Agents ...
Timidity ...
And let me assure you that we cannot have intelligence
without risk-taking, but if we think we can have intelligence
without risk-taking, we are going to end up without intelligence..
Now can we in the field of intelligence go about correcting this
situation? First there are a lot of things we can do internally. A lot of
the problem is right on our own doorstep. Sometimes it is our own employees
or recent employees who provide the leaks. Sometimes we are vulnerable to
deliberate espionage because we do not adhere to our security precautions
properly. Accordingly, there are things we can and are doing to tighten our
security procedures. It is always a matter of compromise between such tight
controls that we cannot do. our job with reasonable efficiency and such great
efficiency that we cannot properly control our-secrets. The tables today are
tilted a bit too much in the direction of efficiency of operations. I am
working to turn them back and I hope that will make your lives more difficult
with respect to obtaining our secrets.
We are also doing things ?y4/,ty4?/?~f?~/f~/p? externally, the first of
which requires your assistance. This is a policy of greater openness with the
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3
American public. There is no question in my mind that the American public
recognizes the importance of having a strong and secret intelligence
capability for our country. Yet I also believe that the public would like to
base there support of our intelligence capability on abetter understanding
of what we do and why we do it. My presence here is evidence of my personal
commitment to keep the public better informed by being more open about
intelligence activities where and when that is possible. I am grateful to
all of you for the fact that it is only through your auspices that such
messages can be conveyed to our citizens.
How will openness help us preserve secrets? Well, simply by reducing the
excessive corpus of secrets that now exist within our government. Today so
much is unnecessarily classified that we have come to lose respect for the
classified label. By whittling away the more we can safely make available to
the public, the less that must be kept under classified wraps and the easier
it will be to engender respect for that which remains secret.
It takes more than openness, however, to preserve our secrets. Basically
there must be some renewed public acknowledgement that secrecy is - legitimate.
Clearly there is a very fine line which we must tread between impeding justice
or the free flow of information within our societX and giving away data that
is of vital importance to us. It is a delicate balance between a government
that serves its people poorly because it does not keep them informed and one
that serves them poorly because it does not maintain some necessary secrets.
No government, no business, no newspaper, no private individual can conduct his
life or business without some element of secrecy. Mr. Farber feels the release
of his notes would endanger an obligation he had to individuals and set a
precedent that would endanger the future of his profession. So, too, do we
in tlpl -i W k t"siei 3@A?COW~dtCI#fi 4JAql-F4R" 4V4A%9d i fference between
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our attitudes and obligations. Mr. Farber's case and yours rests upon
your interpretation of the Constitution--an interpretation which today
is being challenged. My obligation rests upon a law of this country. The
National Security Act of 1947 requires that the Director of Central
Intelligence in his person make every reasonable effort to protect our sources
and methods of collecting intelligence. Still another difference in our
perspectives is that protecting sources is only one of our problems. Still
another is that there truly is information which it is not in our national
interest to disclose--as I mentioned earlier, our negotiating positions,-our
weapons characteristics, etc. j/X/ It has become very suspect these days toZ /?~ft even to refer to
national security interests. Abuse of this term in the past however does not'
make it invalid today. There simply is information which it is not in the
national interest to disclose.
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 Tape 2
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Side A, 0-3
Continuation of another tape
We cannot negotiate a SALT treaty if we cannot maintain the. privacy of our
negotiating position. We cannot afford to develop weapons systems or devices
for collecting intelligence and then tell those against whom ~r?~/ri.~i~ ,tab
/i~?/tOOOfi //we might have to use them-what their precise characteristics are.
No government, no business, no newspaper, no private individual can conduct
his life or business without some measure of privacy or secrecy.
Because, however, we in the world of intelligence are in the risk-taking
business and because there are dangers to our national fabric of the improper
use of secrecy or the improper use of the intelligence process then shrouded in.
secrecy, clearly there must be special checks on us. There must be means.to
determine whether the loss of the identification of one of our sources would
in fact be inhibiting or whether the disclosure of what is claimed to be
sensitive information would in fact endanger the national security. I would
like today to give you my sense that never before in its history has f014-the public
country been in a better position to feel confident that tI~%~ abuses such
as these will not occur. The country is today perhaps more aware than ever before
of the potential for such abuses. It could not help but be so after
after
almost four years of intense public scrutiny with revelation X04 revelation and
allegation after allegation. Out of t~$$?/fO$t the crucible of those years of
criticism, however, we have over the past several years constructed a whole new
regimen of controls and checks.
These begin with the policy of greater openness that I have cited to
you before. There is no doubt in my mind that the American public understands
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the importance of having a capable and secretive intelligence service. At the
same time, because of these past revelations the American public wants ~lyiq}
OWM/)O/J y001 to have a better base on which to support our intelligence
activities. I believe this will come from a better understanding of what we do
and wwhy. My presence here, for instance, is an evidence of my personal commitment
keep the
to/public better informed by being more open about intelligence activities ---where
and when that is possible.
Beyond this, we have established a complex system of control mechanisms
to govern our day-by-day activities. These range from two basic guidelines which
are the framework within which all intelligence professionals now work. The first
guideline is that our espionage must be considered an extraordinary remedy. Clandest-
means of gathering information should never be utilized when the same information
might be available openly. The second guideline is that actions which we take
in secret must be defensible, in principle, in public. Clearly, we cannot lay
out publicly all the details of each instance of espionage which we undertake, but
we can in public defend the general classes of actions which we take. Beyond the
guidelines,we have established a series of prohibitions. Some activities, such as
assassination, are so repugnant to our national standards as to warrant prohibition
without exception. In some cases a total prohibition is a bit too rigid a position.
Instead, we have injunctions which generally prohibitacertain activities unless there
is a specific authorization for them. This is an analogous to procedures in COMM
use in our country with respect to law enforcement-. There is clearly an injunction
against law enforcement agencies invading the privacy of our hones, for instance,
the
but with/specific authorization of a search warrant an exception can be made. We,
too, in intelligence are establishing analogous procedures-
Equally importantly, however, the most significant change in American
intelligence in recent years and one that is truly revolutionary is the introduction
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of effective external oversight. This oversight is intended to check on how the
guidelines,prohibitions and injunctions are being carried out,and to relate the
nature of intelligence activities to the attitudes and mores of the country as a
whole.
Intelligence Oversight Board:
Oversight committees to the Congress...
Accountability is sobering(?)...
..Charters...
On top of all these governmental checks and controls, we also'of course
view the media as an important oversight mechanism, surely of _ major importance
in reassuring our public and in preventing abuse. i4y plea to you, however, is to
recognize that we are in fact in the sarre plight. We are professionals dedicated
to secrecy who are constantly having to defend ourselves against being pressed
into excessive openness. You are professionals dedicated to openness who are
now facing great pressures to dispense with your few secrets. I hope you will
recognize that when we balk at disclosing all the secrets necessary to prosecute
a Dick Helms or an ITT we do not do so in an arbitrary manner. Our judgments may
be incorrect but we study the issues carefully. Beyond that, we are required
to justify our positions not only to the Attorney General but in cases of controversy
to our oversight committees. Yes, it is right for you to question these judgments
but here your oversight is frequently hampered by undersight. That is, you are
at a severe disadvantage compared with our Intelligence Oversight Board and our
Congressional committees when surveilling the activities of the Intelligence Community
since we deliberately do not share our secrets with you. This indeed places you
in a difficult position. With the data that is incomplete you must be concerned
about mi4 Jv88 F ~I a~~c'1 5/ S i~ ~ ~ 1s ffo 2003!9 national interest-
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and must constantly balance those dangers with your obligation to our citizenry
to keep them well informed and to uncover malfeasance in government.where it
exists.
Another area of delicate responsibility for you is in judging the validity
of so-called "whistleblowers" who come to you with shocking-tales of impropriety
or inefficiency. Many of these appear to have nothing but the most altruistic
of motivations, and I'm certain they'bring reassurances that what they are disclosing
is not really secretive. Let me- suggest that what is legitimately secret or sensitiv
is not always obvious on its face, especially to former officials who were third
of fourth ?Jf UJ~J . echelon at their best and who are badly out of date. The
potential in these situations for abuse of you and your role is immense. What
better way to promote a forthcoming book than to titillate the public through
encouraging you to issue samples of unauthorized revelation. How many so-called
"whistleblowers" go through the oversight mechanisms I have described where abuses
and undue secrecy can be questioned AA4,4t within the governmental circle of secrecy.
Frankly, I have yet to see a whistleblower fully utilize these relief valves before
going to the court of last resort--you the public press. I am suspicious as to
motivation and suggest you might well be also.
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TAPE 13(a)
Side A, 0- "a-
When I thumb through my morning newspaper each day, I instinctively
ask how many of our intelligence sources may have been compromised, which
reporter picked up the leak, which intelligence officer required to
testify in court was caught off guard, which subpoena resulted in turning
over a document or notes that could incriminate a human agent. Crearly,
I have come to look on you people as the bad guys in. the black hats who
disclose the secrets that we in the white hats are trying to maintain.
As often as not, however, I am finding that the issue;of protecting
sources has become your problem as much as mine. I welcome you to the
club, not only is the profession of intelligence today endangered by
undue disclosLrebut so, too, it would appear is your profession. .At
least I interpret your response to the court cases against Mr. Farber
Ahc1
in the Stanford Daily and others as indicating you believe that preserving
the confidentiality of your sources is essential both to meeting your
obligations as news persons and clearly continued usefulness of your
profession.
Let me assure you that if this is anything of a problem to you
the danger of disclosing sources is the number one threat to our
of
American intelligence community today. The focus/the media with respect
to intelligence for almost four years now has been on actual and alleged
abuses. Let me assure you that I sincerely believe the threat to our
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country of excesses in intelligence operations is far less today
than an inability to conduct such operations because of the risk of
disclosure of them.
For instance, our allies.
For instance, our agents.
And finally, we are beset by the danger of timidity.
But we must take risks.
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