REPORTER MURREY MARDER ON ACCESS TO 'SECRET' INFORMATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380080-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 80
• Publication Date: June 22, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 20 4~04T28 19&-RDP88-01314R0
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1''ollozoing ts the test of an tion with other classified in= communist takeover." through the .
processes tie
affidavit.submniitted to Judge formation not volunteered 11. As the account relates,
Gesell by Murrey Marder, by the government. This is..the U. S. Ambassador was scribed above. What these
Washington Yost staff ,writer. the process through. which first urged by Washington materials have added to my
the widest possible spec- to "assist in establishing" a knowledge, and to what I
1. I am a reporter em? trum of information is military junta; the junta have previously reported in
ployed by The Washington brought into the market then submitt
d
t i
e
a reques
n ,
Post and I make this afficta- place of public knowledge to writing for U. S. military The Washington Post as fact
vit in opposition to the compete in the struggle for support. But the administra- or analysis during the years
truth. tion was unwilling to send-. covered in these materials,
plaintiff's motion for a pre- 7. Attached as Exhibit A is troops for such an acknowl- is significant corroborating
liminary_~injunction? a study I wrote which was edged interventioi]ist pur- detail, plus some new facts,
2. Intermittently since printed in The Washin
ton
g
Pose, The Ambassador went
1948, and constantly since Post on June 27, 1.965, con-
.1957, I have beenf regularly cerning the highly conti?o- back to the junta leaders to
engaged as part of my du- versial American interven- get them to modify the pur
ties covering the State De- tion in the Dominican Re- pose of the request for U. S.
partment and other U.S and public.
foreign offices around the aid to state that "American
E. This account was based lives are in clanger," requir-
world. In considerable part on gov-
3. No competent reporting crnment cables which then Ing "temporary intervention
on diplomatic, military or were hitthly classified and and assistance in restoring
related affairs is possible !still, as far as I know, rc- order in this country."
'without some form of offi- main classified. Many of 12. The illustration cited
chilly-sanctioned-but rarely those cables were made is only one form of the Gov-
officially admitted-access available, to me by the John- ernment-press relationship.
to what is labeled "confiden- son Administration through Throughout my experience
~ ' the officially unadmitted as a diplomatic reporter I
liar,, secret' or "top secret -have e been dealing with in-
information, almost literally but officially sanctioned, formation that the United
on a day-to-day basis. process described in Para- States or other governments
4. The United States graphs 3 through 6. Cable ;have classified on security
Government,- as every other information that was volun-
government, picks and teered was designed to sus-
- chooses the classified infor- lain the Government's pub-
mation it passes on to the He assertion that the pur-
press, out of public sight, pose of the U. S. military in-
for its own purposes. These tervention in the Don]ir i-an
.purposes can be to advance Republic was to "save Amer-
the government's interna- jean lives." Cable infoi5ma-
tional interests; to serve its
domestic interests, govern- tion that was not volun-
mentally . or politically; to leered showed that this was
.transmit information to_ not in fact the actual initial
other nations, or to serve objective.
other objectives.' 9. The volunteered cable
5. The semi-covert disclo- information in, this case, as
sure of classified infora]a- the published story shows,
tion is inherently .weighted contained exact t.ransmis-
sion times because the Act-
in favoreof officials who con- ministration Wanted to Sub-
trol the information. The stantiate through me its
volunteer leaking is scree-
tive: often a portion of a public version that the Pres-
classified ? cable is leaked ident had acted swiftly be-
' cause "American lives were
but not key qualifications; in clanger."
or a whole cable is leaked 0. But as tl]e account
but not previous or subse- 1
, sh1 . I was able to count
yokin
quent cables chanting or re- tain from other sources that
yoking the directions given prior cable traffic (also clas-
iil the "volunteered leak." 1__11
but even these new facts
were in conformity with my
prior knowledge of the sub-
stance of the U. S. policy
during this period.
14. The complex relation-
ship between press and gov-
ernment described in this
affidavit, in which the press
is the recipient of classified
information, the searcher
for contradictory classified
information, and the distrib-
utor of both, is not familiar
to the public at large; even
specialists in foreign affairs
who enter government can
find it puzzling to practice.
15. As an illustration,
when McGeorge 13urldy left
grounds. Governments want ' Harvard to take office in
to be free to state certain in- 1961 as the President's na-
formation on the public rec- tional security adviser at the
ord, and to amend, amplify, start of the Kennedy Admin-
even contradict, what they istration, he expressed to
have said publicly. They de- inc his puzzlement about
Pend on the press in part to how he could talk at all to
convey these subtleties not any diplomatic reporter
only to the public but to such as me, even though he
other nations, disseminating had known me before. his
information which they problem, he said, sitting in
themselves have stamped his White House office with
with a security label. his desk covered with docu-
But a free press, if it is to ments, was that every paper
remain free, cannot be on his desk was classified
bound by what the govern- "confidential," "secret," "top
meat disseminates in either; secret" or even higher.
classified or non-classified I replied that first, he
information; it must be free would find that most of the
to test the validity of both documents were grossly ov-
by exercising its own re- erclassified; that he proba-
sources to obtain contradic- bly would conclude by expe-
tory versions of both types rience that at a maximum
of information. they contained only five per
13
Turnin
to the arti
l
.
g
c
e
by me published in the June
19, 1971, edition of The
Washington Post entitled
"Viet Study Says Bombing;'
Lull Pressure Move
" the"
,
Ii. it is a Prime Junction and Santo Domingo con- *overwhelming proportion of
~?-.- of the press in a non-totali- terecl on landing U. S, the information contained in!
tarian society to cross-check t f ? 1'ff ? t tl
and try to balance this vol- roops of a cl el el] plloi - Ie materials on which this;
unteered'classified inforlna- ity purpose: to respond article was based was pre- I
to the Embassy s ,fear of a viously known to me
l.,
?ontinuot
Approved For Release 2004109/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380080-4