EVERYBODY'S PLAYING 'I'VE GOT A SECRET'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403700003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403700003-8
A,ZTICLE A,17EARED
ON PPE C 1k_
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
17 June 1985
Everybody's playing `Pve
Got a Secret'.
FLLOWING THE allegations that
a family of esspionage agents had
been selling secrets to the Soviet
Union for 18 years, almost everybody in
Washington who claims to be anybody
released thunderous statements about
the need to get a firmer grip on the
national security. Caspar Weinberger,
the call-
ed for secretary exeof defense, cution of those found
guilty of spying during peacetime.
The official alarm strikes me as
excessive, and I suspect that the mili-
tary secret has become as obsolete a
weapon as the crossbow. Consider the
tonnage of secrets lugged across in-
ternational frontiers during the last 40
years. Legions of agents working two or
three sides of every rumor have copied,
collated and sold enough information to
fill the Library of Congress.
And what has been the result of this
immense labor? How has the exchange
of classified news impinged, even
slightly, on the course of events? When
pressed by questions they would rather
not answer, the gentlemen in Washing-
ton invariably make some kind of spe-
cious case for the incalculable signifi-
cance of a particular scrap of paper.
But the knowledge of what secret
could have prevented the United States
from blundering into Vietnam? The
makers of policy for both the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations already
knew what they thought, and no amount
of contrary evidence could have dis-
suaded them from embracing the beau-
ty of their geopolitical romance.
The acquisition or loss of what sec-
ret could prevent the U.S. from build-
ing its arsenal of nuclear weapons as
necessary to the American economy as
to the American theory of reality? What
perfect secrets could have rescued the
Shah of Iran or changed Nicaragua into
a democratic suburb of Los Angeles?
Assume that the Soviet Union could
track every American submarine or that
the U.S. could decipher the launch
codes of every missile in Siberia. What
then? Somebody still has to decide to
touch a match to the nuclear fire.
sts"that the
a et
whether overt or v arise
instead rom pass onate illusions, from
dreams and the fear of the dark.
When presented with the discovery
of suspected spies, the national media
(as enthralled by their love of secrets as
any secretary of defense) broadcast
By LEWIS H. LAPHAM
melodramatic reports of their exploits,
outfitting even the least among them
with vast and mysterious powers.
Together with the buyers and sellers of
secrets, the media like to say that
governments without perfect know-
ledge of other governments take actions
that otherwise they might not have
taken-with far-reaching consequences.
Only people fool enough to play at
being gods imagine that they can obtain
an impregnable state of omniscience.
Malcolm KV>fte Poi
his memoirs. with e nce his
the British secret service: "Secrecy is
as -vice as vestments
and incense a 2-2 as ess to a
a sear an at costs
preserv whether or no serves
any purpose ... Witti old liands, It be-
comes secon nah" to communicate in
codes an use an acco on
ocuous conk-
h i a
Muni tions? to prefer a cacen potting shed a normal letter box and
a D oma C bag to a suitcase for car-
rying blameless personal ec
John Walker appears have oper-
ated under the cover of an analogous
fantasy. Authorities say he was fond of
disguises, carried a sword-cane, styled
himself with a code name, "Jaws," and
thought himself engaged in "damn gla-
morous work" During the period of his
reputed service for the KGB, Walker
belonged to the John Birch Society and
the Ku Klux Klan. All three organiza-
tions place as much emphasis on secre-
cy as do Weinberger and the curators of
the Pentagon who believe that, by
administering lie detector tests and
limiting security clearances toa mere
2 million people, they can lock the
vagaries of human nature safely in a
file cabinet.
OF THE 19,607,736 new documents
that the federal government last
year classified as secret, it's
probably safe to assume the majority
were granted this status for one of two
reasons: to conceal stupidity, irrele-
vance or chicanery from the embarrass-
ment of disclosure to the public; or to
make the documents more precious,
perhaps sacred, thus adding to the store
of religious amulets with which to ward.
off the corruption of the unclassified
world and the malevolence of the evil
eye set in the head of an evil empire,.
Lewis H. Lapham is the editor of
Harper's magazine.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403700003-8