GREANEY/ADLER INTERVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030025-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: October 27, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-005618000100030025-1
RADIO N REPORTS, .
~7~ i V/ ~~RD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAr.~G 20815 656-4068
FoR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
pArt October 27, 1983 12:00 Noon
~1?IECT Greaney!Adler Interview
STATION WTTG-TV
Washington, D.C.
PSAURY POViCH: Unfortunately, the events in Grenada and
Beirut over the last week have kind of dropped down to a lower
level or a priority a reaction on, actually, a bill that was
passed through the Senate about less than a week ago which put
off until April of 1984 the restrictions involving censorship of
government officials who have access to highly sensitive clas-
sified material from being able to use that in any kind of work
or print, book, article, without first clearing it through the
government. It was an executive order delivered by the President
of the United States. It's the same one, by the way, that had
something to do with lie detector tests for current government
officials. We're not going to talk about that today. But this
is people who want to write books, for instance, and they have
knowledge of, documents of very highly -- of a highly sensitive
nature. And what happened was that the Senate said, "Okay. We
want to take a look at this." And so-it's not going to go into
being until April of 1984.
With us, John K. Greaney, the Executive Director of the
Association of Former Intelligence Officers; Allan Adler, legal
counsel for the Center for National Security Studies.
Mr. Greaney, you don't mind this, do you?
JOHN GREANEI': No, I'm very much in favor of it, because
we, as an association of former intelligence officers, recognize
the need .for security. As a matter of fact, in the applications
of our members we point out to them that they still have an
obligation to protect those things that were classified which
they learned during the course of their employment.
I would like to take one exception to the terms you used
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in describing it, and that is the word censorship. To me, the
term censorship is a buzzword and is one that does not accurately
portray what is being done with the prior-publication review.
POVICH: Well, let me ask you this. If you write an
article, you submit it to government agencies for their review.
Correct? They cut something, edit something out of that article
that they feel is too highly sensitive and classified. That is
not censorship?
GREANEY: Well, that is not the way it works, Maury.
Because from my own experience, and confirmation from the Central
Intelligence Agency, they established a Publications Review Board
in 1977. And since that establishment, they have had 974 pieces
of material submitted to them for review, 700 of which have been
cleared without any deletions whatsoever, only 16 of which have
been rejected in total, and the rest have been negotiated. It is
not a cut-out. You don't cut out the paragraphs and things like
that.
POVICH: Okay. With that as a background, what's wrong
with the policy?
ALLAN ADLER: I think we would disagree with what John
has said about the nature of the material that's deleted. It has
.been our experience in the past, in representing former CIA
officials who have written articles and books...
POVICH: You represented Frank Snepp?
ADLER: Yes. Frank Snepp...
POVICH: Marchetti.
ADLER: ...Victor Marchetti, and a number of others.
Of course, there has been a dispute over the nature of
the sensitivity of the information that's deleted.
.But I think our problem with his really is at a thres-
hold stage, before you reach the question of the deletion of
information. And that is that I think in events that occur, like
the situation in Grenada or in Beirut, the American public wants
to hear from former government officials as quickly as they can
their perspective on what this means in terms of...
POVICH: Could these two gentlemen be muzzled that we
just talked to because they're former government officials who
are obviously -- they saw highly classified material about lots
of...
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ADLER: Well, certainly I think it's clear that had-this
little debate taken place in print -- for example, on the op-ed
pages of the New York Times or the Washington Post?-- that,-yes,
they both would have had to submit their ,.remarks to agencies for
clearance. -
POVICH: Is the order that encompassing?
GREANEY: Well, it depends on the author himself, as to
whether he is basing his report on the material that he gained
while the employment of the United"States Government. If he
makes the decision -- the more prudent author will submit it for
review. They have adopted a system where under close deadlines,
where people are writing articles, as Alan suggests, for the
op-ed page, they can turn them around very quickly. They have,
as a matter of fact, turned around and approved articles within a
matter of an hour.
POVICH: But what you're saying is that when you sign on
fcr the government and when you sign on to receive highly
sensitive material, you give up certain freedoms that a lot of us
still have who are not part of government. Correct?
GREANEY: Well, I think I would like to phrase it this
way: that when you sign a secrecy agreement, you are signing a
contract. You have the freedom of choice. You do not have to
work for the government. You do not have to work for...
POVICH: But the freedom of choice ends when you sign.
GREANEY: No. You just agree to abide by their rules.
It's not -- you haven't lost anything. You just agree to comply
with their rules.
ADLER: I think you certainly have lost something,
because, of course, this complies -- this applies to an individ-
ual for the rest of his life after he's left government service.
POVICH: That's true. The order does say for the rest
of your life.
ADLER: And more importantly...
POVICH: There's not a time limit on it.
ADLER: Right.
And I think that what's more important is what the
public loses by being able to hear...
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ADLER: We lose the ability to hear from .the experience
of former government officials applied to current events as they
unfold.
To give you a good example, this was an op-ed page of
the Washington Post that followed the President's speech, which
the media has called his Star Wars speech, concerning weapons...
POVICN: Outer space.
ADLER: ...in outer space. This is a situation where
you have two former officials from the Carter Administration
taking a position critical of the President's speech. You have a
current Reagan Administration official at the same level essen-
tially defending the policy in the President's speech. Had such
an order been in effect at the time that the two Carter Adminis-
traiton officials were in office, the Reagan Administration
official would probably have been able to review the comments of
the two Carter Administration officials prior to publication; in
fact, might have been able to argue that some of the information
in both of their arguments was based upon classified information
or derived from sensitive comparted information, and should
therefore not be included in the op-ed piece.
GP,EANEY: Well, I would take issue with the fact that
they would have given it to the writer to prepare his rebuttal
article. 1'ou have to understand that the way the system works,
you have people that are skilled in identifying that material
which is classified. When an article is submitted for review,
the elements are looked at from the components that would have
responsibility for the classified information. They then go back
to the author and say, "If you can rework this in a way that does
not identify classified material, it goes ahead."
And I would still put forth the argument that it is not
an element of removing criticism. It's not into the substantive
matter.. The only thing is to discuss -- discover that which is
classified and protect the classified material.
POVICH: That's what you fear most, that things that
might be critical of certain Administrations might be edited out.
And what you're saying is that's not the material that's
edited out..
ADLER: I think that's part of what we fear. The other
fear that we fear is that because of the time element involved,
because of the number of individuals who would be involved in
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this -- the General Accounting Office recently testified at a
congressional hearing that some 130,000 individuals in the
government would have to sign this kind of agreement right now.
If you consider, exponentially in a ten year period, how many
individuals who reach that position in government where they have
access to such information would have to sign such agreements,
it's quite conceivable that ultimately millions of individuals
will have to have their writings somehow monitored by the
government in the future.
GREANEY: Well, I think that the escalation of the
number of people that have filed reviews is limited by the
restraints in the order t~o the fact that personal writings -- for
example, if somebody tells you how to grow tomatoes, you don't
submit that for review.
POVICH: Let me ask you this. It would be interesting.
If the order was in effect, let's say -- let's go back a few
nears -- does that mean that Jimmy Carter would have to submit
his memoirs, Henry Kissinger would have to submit his memoirs?
ADLER: Well, interestingly...
POVICH: Now, that is intriguing. Because if that were
the case, maybe a publisher would say, "We're not going to pay
these guys a million dollars for these books, because they're not
juicy enough. I mean they're not giving us anything we don't
know."
ADLER: There may be a question about whether or not
President Carter would have had to submit his book, because it's
quite possible that elected government officials, as opposed to
appointed government officials, might be excluded from this
because they do not have to go through a security clearance
process in order to obtain access to classified information. For
example, members of Congress do not have to be cleared in order
to obtain such information.
But in the case of Henry Kissinger, what was very
interesting was that he in fact only submitted for clearance
specific quotations from classified .documents that...
POVICH: Oh, he did submit, because he signed...
ADLER: But only those -- no. Only those quotations
that he sought to use in his memoirs from classified documents
were cleared. He did not submit his entire manuscript.
POVICH: So he decided on the quotes to submit.
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ADLER: That's right.
POVICH: That's interesting.
GREANEY: Speaking of quotes, I'd like to make two
quotes from the Agee passport case.
POVICH: Sure. Go right ahead, because we have ta...
GREANEY: Because Alan worked on that.
POVICH: Is he still -- is Frank Agee still around?
GREANEY: Philip Agee.
POVICH: Or Philip Agee still around?
GREANEY: In Germany. But these were...
POVICH: It's years ago I interviewed him.
GREANEY: ...two quotes. One was, "It is obvious and
unarguable that no gcvernment interest is more compelling than
the security of the nation." That's out of the Aptheker case in
.1956. And the second one was, "While the Constitution protects
against invasion of individual rights, it is not a suicide pact."
POVICH: B,v the way, do you and many of the former CIA
officers believe that Philip Agee was the cause of death to a lot
of agents who he exposed? -
GREANEY: Well, the only case where it was suspected...
POVICH: The one in Greece?
GREANEY: Dick-Welsh in Greece.
And by the way, AFIO is not limited to CIA people. We
have Army, Navy,...
POVICH: What is it, FBI and...
GREANEY: ...Air Force, State Department, NSA people.
POVICH: Defense Department. Intelligence people and
everything.
GREANEY: The whole intelligence community.
POVICH: So we are now on hold until April. Hearings
will be held. Correct?
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ADLER: That's right.
POVICH: So, public reaction can be sent to the appro-
priate committee. _
What committee is going to hold those hearings, would
you think?
ADLER: Well, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
and the House Government Operations Committee have already held
hearings. We expect there will be more.
As for public opinion, I think you could look at the
editorial in today's New York Times as an example of what many
people think about this system.
POVICH: You can understand how we, as jourhalists, get
very skittish about things like this, don't you?
[Laughter]
POVICH: But then again...
GREANEY: My biggest concern with the journalists is
that they distort the facts. And I really fight...
P04'ICH: Oh, okay. All right. Ohhh. Not that the
government would distort the facts, right?
GREANEY: I can't speak for the entire government.
POVICH: Okay.
I thank you both very much, John Greaney, Executive
Director of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, and
Allan Adler, legal counsel for the Center for National Security
Studies.
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