WIDE POWER GIVEN ON CLASSIFIED DATA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030151-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 151
• Publication Date: March 14, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030151-1
WIDE POWER GIVEN
ON CLASSIFIED DATA
THE NEW YORK TIMES
14 March 1983
. o i , aware of the vast
power given to them by the Supreme
Court as a result of the Snepp decision,
have been very careful in reviewing
manuscripts, said Mr. Lynch, a critic of
the surveillance procedures. Ernest
Mayerfeld, deputy general counsel of
the agency, said the Publications Ra
view Board tried to complete its acru-
'tiny of a work within 30 days and could
clear an essay within 48 hours if it was
needed for a newspaper. 'The board's.
rules say that "approval will not be
denied solely because the subject mat-
ter may be embarrassing to or critical
of the agency."
But former agents who have gone
through the review process have often
had difficulty. Ralph W. McGehee re.
cently wrote a book about his 25 years in
the C.I.A., and in an appendix describ.
ing the prepublication review process,
he said, "Agency officials show no hesi-
tation in trying to censor embarrassing,
critical or merely annoying informa-
tion."
Under Reagan Order, Agencies
Will Have Right to Review
Writings of Employees
By ROBERT PEAR
SpecialmThe New Ya tr=
WASHINGTON, March 13 - Federal
agencies will have broad power to re-
view and approve books, magazine arti-
cles and the texts of speeches prepared
by their employees and former employ.
ees under President Reagan's new
order protecting classified information.
The order, in effect, requires the
State Department, the Defense Depart.
ment, the White House, the National Se-
curity Council, the Justice Department
and several other agencies to establish
procedures similar to those of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency, which rou-
tinely reviews manuscripts intended for
publication by its employees and for-
mer employees.
The C.I.A. has a Publications Review
Board, seven officials who meet once a
week. Charles E. Wilson, chief of public
a`fairs who is chairman of the board,
said it had reviewed more than 800
manuscripts containing a total of 70,000
pages since it was established in 1977.
The manuscripts included memoirs by
former intelligence officials such as
Vernon A. Walters, William E. Colby
and Cord Meyer, as well as a chapter of
a book written by Vice President Bush,
a former director of the agency.
Arr. Reagan's order, issued Friday,
was designed to halt unauthorized dis-
closures of classified information. It
said that any Federal employee with
access to classified data must sign a se-
crecy agreement and submit to a poly-
graph examination if asked to do so by
Federal agents investigating a leak of
such information.
Disclosures Irked Reagan
Administration officials said the di-
rective reflected the President's irrita-
tion over disclosures of classified infor-
mation,.such as the fact that American
aircraft and ships were deployed near
Libya last month.
The order said that employees with
aooess to highly classified data known
as "sensitive compartmented informa-
tion" must agree, in advance, to have
their manuscripts reviewed by the Gov-
ernment to "assure deletion" of all
classified material.
. Steven Garfinkel, directoi of the In-
formation Security Oversight Office,
which monitors the handling of classi-
fied information at all agencies, said
thousands of Government employees
would be subject to the rule requiring
"prepublication review."
. Fiction as well as nonfiction will
probably have to be submitted for re-
view, Mr. Garfinkel said. The C.I.A. re-
quires agents and former agents to sub-
mit fiction, such as spy stories, on the
ground that it "can be used as a subter-
fuge to convey factual information.,'
The Supreme Court upheld the va-
lidity of the agency's secrecy agrees
meat, including the requirement for re-
view of manuscripts, in a 1980 case in-,
volving Frank W. Snepp 3d, a former in-
telligence officer who published an un-
authorized book about the fall of Saigon.
The Government did not argue that Mr.
Snepp's book contained classified infor-
mation. But it did say that he had vio-;
sated both a written contract and a "fir
duciary obligation" in publishing it'
without clearance from the agency:
'Letters to Editor' Included
Justice Department officials said
that the secrecy agreement used by the
?C.IA. vas a prototype for the forms
that other Government employees
would now be asked to sign. The agree
meat requires review not only of classi.
fied information, but of "air,' informs-
- lion or material" relating to intelli-
gence, including letters to the editor,
book reviews and scholarly papers. The
Government contends that it is the only
proper judge of what material is classi-
fied.
Morton H. Halperin, a former De-
fense Department official who is now
director of the Center for National Se-
curity Studies, said the prepublication
review requirement would permit the
Government to censor the written
works of former officials, especially
diplomats and military officers. "It will
be much more difficult for them to par.
ticipate in public debate and the politi
cal process," he said.
Mark H. Lynch, a lawyer for the
American Civil Liberties Union, said
that under the President's order it
would be virtually impossible for Fed-
eral officials to become newspaper or
television reporters because they would
have to obtain Government approval
for articles and scripts using informa-
tion gained in the course, of their Gov.
ernme nt employment,
_ Under the new policy, Mr. Halperin
said, Mr. Reagan would ? presumably
have to submit his memoirs for review
by some future Administration, just as
Jimmy Carter and his chief of staff, :
Hamilton Jordan, would have had to
submit their manuscripts to the Reagan
White House under the policy.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030151-1