A SOBERING TRIP THROUGH THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404270001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
19 August 1985
A SOBERING TRIP THROUGH THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
By JIM ANDERSON
WASHINGTON
By chance, Martin Miller discovered in 1981 that th
ere was a big mistake in
government publications about who legally owns the West Bank, occupied by Israel
since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The discovery led him on a four-year odyssey through the snail-like workings
of the federal bureacracy that left Miller a Iat mare cynical about the
government he once worked for.
Miller, a retired Treasury Department employee, found U.S, publications gave
ownership of the 2,200-square-mile area to Jordan,
But Jordan's 1950 annexation of the West Bank is not recognited by any
government except Britain and Pakistan, and in 1974 even Jordan gave up its
claim to the area.
The United States considers the area occupied territory, with ownership to be
determined by negotiation, but the area still is shown ^n U.S. maps to be an
occupied part of Jordan.
Miller, filled with confidence in the essential goodness of the U.S.
government, pointed out the cartographic mistake in a polite letter. The State
Departmet geographer responded, saying the department would tell ail government
publications that the West Bank is oat under the sovereignty of any Middle East
country -- including Jordan.
In 1983, the State Department announced that the mistaken map would be
changed in the next edition of the "World Factbaok, " which is published by the
CIA under the policy direction of the State Department.
The map was corrected, but the accompanying text was still wrong, giving back
to Jordan what the map took away.
The matter was brought up at the State Department press briefing and
spokesman John Hughes, whose office is in charge of the subject, promise d
something would be done.
Plathing was.
Miller then called in one of his big IQUs, a casual friendship with George
Shultt. Miller saw Shultt in April 1984 and explained his story. The secretary
of state promised quick action.
pother ear assed. Miller Carr in a briefcase full of letters
ma s,
books and promises. went from the IA to Capitol Hil and back to the Sta P
rlo n~ r+w~nn +
At the CIA. spokeswoman Patti Volt told him the agency has no intentio
f
n o
"revising, replacing or chanaina maps of Jordan published by the U S oaverm n t
at Lo
"
is point in time.
Miller wondered aloud if the rest of GIA intelli ence is as accurate as its
maps of the Middle ast.
Continued
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Z.
This year, Miller decided to take his case elsewhere.
He went directly to such publishers as the National Geographic and Macmillan
and painted out that government publications are either wrong, inconsistent or
both. He suggested that map and atlas publishers ignore the gone rnment and
follow the facts. Some publishers followed his advice. Others did not.
The National Geographic played it right dawn the middle. In their aerial map
of Jordan in February 1984, they got it wrong. Rut in a bird's-eye map of Israel
in July, they got it right.
The State Department, after more than four years of ignoring Miller and his
retirement obsession, finally put together a new "background paper" on Jordan,
to be published later this summer.
For the first time, both the maps and the text are correct.
Thus, it is possible to compute that it took 18 months for a direct order
from the secretary of state to filter down to the working levels of the
department and take effect.
Th re is na indication how long it will take the CIA to follow the State
D~ aartment policy guidance in its pu tca cans.
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