LETTER TO JOHN SEIGENTHALER FROM GEORGE V. LAUDER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740030-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2012
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: April 21, 1986
• Content Type: LETTER

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/18: CIA-RDP90-009658000605740030-0
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20803
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Phone: [phone]
21 April 198
Mr. John Seigenthaler
Editor, Editorial Page
USA TODAY
1000 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, Virginia 22209
Dear Mr. Seigenthaler:
USA TODAY's 11 April editorial "Too Many Secrets Are Real
Security Risk" is disappointing. It dismisses the President and
Director Casey's concerns that the disclosure and publication of
sensitive information seriously damages the nation's ability to
protect its citizens. It also blithely insists that only
information provided by this country's traitors to the nation's
adversaries is harmful, while the sensitive U.S. national security
information the KGB and its cohorts read in-the U.S. press is
considered to be not damaging. Curious reasoning indeed: The
Problem is as President Truman put it in a 1951 press conference:
'Whether it be treason or not, it does the U.S.
for those military (and national intelligence) secretsstoube made
known to potential enemies through open publication as it does for
military (and national intelligence) secrets to be given to an enemy
through the clandestine operation of spies."
Make no mistake about it, intelligence comes from real people
around the world who risk their lives to provide information of
benefit to the U.S. and the free world. Intelligence also comes
from our allies and from sophisticated technical systems that cost
billions of dollars to develop and maintain. Director Casey is
charged by law with protecting the identities of these people, the
information our allies provide, and the capabilities of our
sensitive and expensive technical systems. In most cases that means
that the information provided by these sources must be classified,
since its publication will- enable our adversaries to identify and
destroy these assets. In rare instances when source-identifying
data can be eliminated or the President deems that it is in the
national-security interest, intelligence can be officially released
and publi-shed.
It is unfortunate that USA TODAY. cannot differentiate between
the very serious damage done to the nation's security through the
publication of leaked-sensitive intelligence and the need for the
American public to possess as much information as possible to make
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/18: CIA-RDP90-009658000605740030-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/18: CIA-RDP90-009658000605740030-0
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Mr. John Seigenthaler
"2" 21 April 1986
informed judgments about the conduct of the government's business.
Both concerns are real, different, but clearly not mutually
exclusive. There can be freedom of the press and a sensitivity by
the press to the need to protect military, diplomatic and
intelligence activities that defend this nation. The nation can have
both freedom and security, but without security it will have no
freedom.
While it is obviously desirable for the press to seek out,
publish and criticize malfeasance or nonfeasance on the part of
individuals or government entities, it is .injurious to the nation's
interest for the press to attempt deliberately to ferret out and
expose the sources and methods used in intelligence .collection. It
is equally damaging to publish such information provided by leakers
without attempting to determine the degree of damage that will result
from such exposure.
USA TODAY and many of the press put the blame for. the hemorrhage
of secrets on the leakers, but the press itself caters to such
leakers, encourages their purposes and then absolves itself from the
damage that results to the nation's security from its actions. In
short, the press often carelessly .tosses about the verbal hand
grenades that a leaker hands it. When -they explode, killing people
and inflicting great damage, the press shrugs and says in effect,
well, it's a free country. It seems to those of us in the U. S.
national security agencies who are endeavoring to protect this
nation's security and thereby its freedoms, including the very
freedom the press enjoys, that the press cannot have it both ways.
The press is outraged when hostile spies are uncovered in the U.S.,
but happily conveys equally harmful information to our adversaries by
printing very damaging leaks. Why aren't the leakers who have
betrayed our government's trust condemned by-the press at least to
the same extent that it chastizes those who spend thousands of
dollars for costly aircraft toilet seats? It seems to us~ there is a
good deal of media hypocrisy in all this.
Director Casey asked that the press of this nation work with CIA
and the other national security organizations in protecting this
nation's legitimate secrets. Some organizations and individual
journalists already do. I strongly encourage the other members of
the press to do so too. After al-1, CIA protects this nation,
including all of you in the press. By damaging our capabilities you
damage yourself. Let us work together as much as we can for the good
of our country.
Sincerely,
George V. Lauder
Director, Public Affairs
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/18: CIA-RDP90-009658000605740030-0