CONSERVATIVES' SCHIZOPHRENIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100005-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100005-0
%Lj FHA; 27 May 1986
MARY McGRORY ~ Conservatives' Schizophrenia.
C IA Director William J. Casey's
threats against the news media
tell us less about conservatives'
paranoia regarding
the press than a ou
their abiding schizophrenia regarding
government.
Conservatives are of two minds about
the federal establishment, regarding it
alternately as Beauty and the Beast.
On the one hand, it is this greedy,
slavering monster which settles on the
backs of honest, decent people, robbing
them of income, hobbling them with
crazy rules, and sapping them of
dignity, initiative and the good life.
On the other hand-Casey expresses
this side of it-conservatives regard
government as a tender flower, fragile,
vulnerable, as threatened as a maiden in
a fairy le, ho must protected
against villains who steal its secrets,
publicize its follies and weaken
intolerably its capacity to exist and
survive.
The Reagan administration, despite
its professed devotion to individual
liberties, is, in the interests of
protecting Beauty's honor, eager to
polygraph great masses of civil servants
who are suspect anyway because they
work for the Beast and drink coffee and
read newspapers on time owed to
honest taxpayers. Any time some item
is divulged prematurely, all are to roll
up their sleeves. Secretary of State
George P. Shultz balked at the order
and became, in today's jumbled value
system, a hero of civil liberties.
The administration has cut back on
the Freedom of Information Act. It
sought to remove pens from the hands
of officials with access to classified
information so that they can never
write best-sellers that make use of
government secrets.
Two government employes have been
fired for dishing out the dirt. A former
naval intelligence analyst has been
prosecuted and convicted for g vingspy
satellite photographs to a magazine.
Casey is out wit i is tin savor and
shield, striking out in all directions
against those who would dl~ge
Beauty's secrets. Several weeks ago, he
warned Washington Post editors that
they wou ib ah uleedinto cour iey
published certain information he
deemed to the nations
securi He said he wasn't sure what
statute paiea.
Now 1a es Po k of NBC News has
cau ht Case s eye for re ortin that
accused sp ona Felton to t e
Soviets about "I Bells," an operation media in the dark about what else be has
by W . ` subinat7nes been no
to.
eavesdropped on Soviet shore
conversations.
This information about "Ivy Bells,"
formerly known as "Holystone"-who
says there are no poets in
government?-has been moving around
in the public domain for many years.
In the old days, "leaks" were called
tips by the people in government who
told friends-in the news media about
matters not made public. The reporters
who received this clandestine
information called their stories
"exclusives." Often they related to
federal schemes which belonged under
rocks. Exposed to fresh air, they
evaporated, which is what the tipster
had in mind.
Now, forbidden stories are known as
"leaks" by those who give and those
who receive them. By any name, they
are deplored by governments of any
stripe, although the aversion reached
historic proportions during the
administration of Richard M. Nixon.
The rage culminated in the Huston
Plan, a blueprint for a home-grown KGB
that was too much even for the late J.
Edgar Hoover, and the formation of the
infamous White House plumbers unit,
which was masterminded by Charles
Colson and undertook activities that led
to jail terms for him and his
confederates.
But since history is not a favorite
subject of this administration, the idea
of a plumbers unit has been resurrected
at the White House. An arm of a
Cabinet-level antileak task force has
proposed a special "strike force" of FBI
agents to pounce on leakers
immediately when the drops start
falling. Shades of the break-in of Daniel
Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office!
The mad plan was promptly leaked to
David Hoffman of The Washington Post
and, in consequence, may-molder on the
drawing-board.
It is inevitable, though, that it will be
replaced by some comparably
crackbrained scheme reflecting the
conservatives' view that what Beast
government does, unless it looks good
on the evening news, is none of the
citizens' business-but that when it
leaks out, Beauty government must be
avenged by fair means or foul.
Oh. where is the World Court now that
we need it? Its verdict on n*:ing
Nicaraguan harbors. a ey special,
would give the country material to make
a judgment about the judgment of the
CIA-director who, wants news
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100005-0