U.S. WEIGHS PROSECUTING PRESS LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505090003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: May 7, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

U.S.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/10: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505090003-1
WASHINGTON POST
7 May 1986
Weighs Pecuting Press Leaks
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Reagan administration is
considering the criminal prosecu-
tion of five news organizations for
publishing information about U.S.
intelligence-gathering operations,
particularly intercepted communi-
cations reflecting U.S. code-break-
g capabilities.
Central Intelligence Agency Di-
ector William J. Casey said he had
iscussed the possibility of such
prosecutions-never previously
initiated against a newspaper or
magazine-with Deputy Attorney
General D. Lowell Jensen at a
meeting last Friday at the Justice
Department.
"We've already got five absolute-
ly cold violations," Casey told two
Washington Post editors whom he
met with later that day. Casey ap-
parently was referring to alleged
violations of a 1950 statute that
prohibits "knowingly and willfully"
disclosing or publishing classified
information about codes, ciphers or
"communication intelligence activ-
ities of the United States or any
foreign government." The CIA di-
rector added, however, that no final
decision had been made about
whether indictments would be
sought.
Casey named the five news or-
ganizations as The Washington Post
(for reporting on U.S. intercepts of
messages between Tripoli and the
Libyan People's Bureau in 'East
Berlin), Newsweek (also for report-
ing on intercepted Libyan commu-
nications), The Washington Times,
The New York Times and Time
magazine, the last three for unspec-
ified stories.
In addition, Casey warned Post
editors that possible prosecution
against this newspaper would be "an
alternative that would have to be
considered" if The Post were to
publish another story it has pre-
pared concerning U.S. intelligence
capabilities, but which the newspa-
per has not yet decided whether to
publish.
"'m not threatening you," Casey
Post Executive Editor Benja-
C. Bradlee and Managing Ed-
r Leonard Downie Jr. during a
ting at the University Club last
riday. "But you've got to know
at if you publish this, I would rec-
end that you be prosecuted un-
r the intelligence statute."
Bradlee and Downie declined to
Iiscuss the unpublished article.
. In the meeting, held at Casey's
equest, the CIA director did not
Iecify what statute he had in mind,
*Ientioning only "the intelligence
statute" and "the criminal statute."
I ut he appeared to be referring to
ection 798 of Title 18 of the U.S.
Code, the so-called "COMINT stat-
ote" that Congress first passed in
1950 to protect U.S. communica-
tions intelligence activities.
"I mentioned [Section] 798,"
Bradlee recalled. "He [Casey] said
`Yeah, yeah, I don't practice law
anymore. You know what I'm talk-
ing about.' "
White House national security
affairs adviser John M. Poindexter
and Gen. William Odom, director of
the code-breaking National Security
Agency, also have said the admin-
istration was looking for ways to
stop a recent spate of leaks to the
news media. "We're dusting off 18
USC 798," Odom told one Post ed-
itor.
The law carries a maximum pen-
alty of 10 years in prison and a
$10,000 fine.
Officials of the other publications
Casey mentioned said they knew of
no similar warnings from Casey or
any other high-ranking administra-
tion official about any stories of
theirs.
"It's news to me," said New York
imes Executive Editor A.M. Ro-
enthal. "I know we did.stories [in
ecent weeks] that referred to in-
ercepts [of Libyan cables] from
ast Berlin. But I know nothing of-
icially about it."
Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-
n-chief of The Washington Times,
?aid, "This comes like a bolt out of
the blue .... I have been chewed
out by Bill Casey at private dinners,
but in a very friendly way. There
was nothing mengcing about it."
Stephen Smith, executive editor
of Newsweek, and Harry Johnston,
general counsel for the Time mag-
azine group, said they knew nothing
about any possible prosecution.
Officials at the Justice Depart-
ment refused to comment. Jensen
declined through a spokesman to
grant an interview or to consider
any questions on the subject. He
would not confirm or deny that he
met with Casey last Friday.
"There isn't really much we can
say about it," said justice Depart-
ment spokesman Patrick Korten.
"Whatever conversations are held
at this point should probably be be-
tween Bradlee and Casey and per-
haps [Attorney General Edwin]
Meese."
The threat of criminal prosecu-
tions follows an increasingly vigor-
ous administration effort to crack
down on unauthorized leaks of sen-
sitive information.
In 1983, for instance, Reagan is-
sued a national security directive
that would have required every fed-
eral employe with a security clear-
ance to submit to He detector tests
if asked. It also would have set up a
lifetime system of prepublication
censorship for officials with access
to especially sensitive information.
Those provisions were shelved fol-
lowing a storm of congressional
criticism, but thousands of officials
are being required, under another
portion of the directive, to acknowl-
edge in writing that they face crim-
inal and civil penalties for any un-
authorized disclosures for the rest
of their lives.
Another sign of an administration
crackdown was the firing last week STAT
of an assistant undersecretary of
defense, Michael E. Pillsbury, for
allegedly giving reporters informa-
Jtion about an administration deci-
sion to supply advanced Stinger
missiles to resistance forces in An-
gola and Afghanistan.
Last fall, the justice Department
successfully prosecuted former na-
val intelligence analyst Samuel Lor-
ing Morison for furnishing three
secret U.S. spy satellite photos to a
British magazine. Morison, who was
sentenced to two years for espio-
nage and theft but is now free on
appeal, was the first person con-
victed of a crime for leaking nation-
al security information to the press.
He was found guilty under an inter-
pretation of the law that could sub-
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
ject news organizations, as well as
their sources, to criminal prosecu?
tion.
The COMINT statute did not
come into play in the Morison case,
but it is more explicit and, experts
any, more precisely drafted than the
r ttsd at that teal. Its history
.gees to 1945 when Congress con-
dlbted, and rejected, a much more
sweeping proposal that critics said
would have made it a crime to pub-
Ish any information that may have
6Nen transmitted in code, even U.S.
d $k,matic and military dispatches
that toutinely produced news sto-
Under that proposal, Rep. Clare
Debthe Luce (R-Conn.) protested at
lhes'time, "no newspaperman could
t 4bat is called the inside or
bIckg pond information anywhere
itWmfdngton without going to the
bead of the department to get it as
a direct handout."
Five years later, Congress came
back with what is now Section 798,
limiting its coverage to classified
information about the ciphers,
codes and cryptographic systems
"of the United States or any foreign
government" and several other re-
lated categories including classified
information "obtained by the pro-
cess of communications intelligence
from the communications of any
foreign government."
Prosecutions under the law have
been few and far between. One of
the most celebrated involved Chris-
topher Lee Boyce, who was sen-
tenced in 1977 to 40 years in prison
for selling Soviet agents secrets
that he had obtained from a secret
code room operated for the CIA in
Redondo Beach, Calif.
More recently, the statute played
a role in the 1982-83 controversy
over the Reagan administration's
omifation of former New York
rimes reporter Richard R. Burt as
ssistant secretary of state.
Burt came under fire from Sen-
ate conservatives for a 1979 story
he wrote disclosing the existence of
an operational intelligence satellite
system, code-named Chalet, that
involved use of an electronic listen-
ing post in Norway. Burt's critics
said the story clearly violated Sec-
tion 798; they said a vote to confirm
Burt would undercut any future use
of the law.
"How could anyone he prose-
cuted under that law if you are
awarded this position of great honor
and responsibility?" Sen. Orrin G.
Hatch (R-Utah) asked at one point.
Secretary of State George P.
hultz, however, took the position
that "whoever leaked the material
is at fault"-not Burt. The Senate
voted 81 to 11 to confirm Burt.
Although much recent reporting
on intelligence matters has involved
covert operations rather than com-
munications intelligence, numerous
news organizations have published
information about secret commu-
nications intercepts.
For example, during the Nixon
administration, The Washington
Post reported that U.S. intelligence
had systematically intercepted ra-
dio telephone traffic between mem-
bers of the Soviet Politburo while
they were traveling by car.
In the first year of the Reagan
administration, Newsweek cited
"administration sources" in report-
ing that Libyan leader Muammar
Qaddafi had made threatening
statements toward President Rea-
gan in an "intercepted telephone
conversation." This intercept and
other intelligence evidence later
formed the basis for claims that Lib-
ya had sent "hit teams" to the Unit-
ed States to kill U.S. officials.
A Post story quoting from inter-
cepted Libyan messages was pub-
lished after Reagan's televised dis-
closure of several messages be-
tween Tripoli and its People's Bu-
reau in East Berlin.
"The president himself first re-
vealed the nature of these inter-
cepted messages," said Downie,
The Post's managing editor. "What
we reported subsequent to that-
details of the intercepts-did not do
anything more to reveal our intel-
ligence capabilities than the pres-
ident himself did."
Z
WILLIAM J. CASEY
... "five absolutely cold, violations"
D. LOWELL JENSEN
... discussed prosecutions with Carey
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