PENTAGON DECIDES JUST TO REPRIMAND SUSPECTED LEAKER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100040032-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: May 20, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040032-2
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE All
THE WASHINGTON POST
20 May 1982
Pentagon decides'
Just to Reprimand
Suspected Leaker
The Pentagon has reversed field and decided to
send one of its officials a letter of reprimand rath
er than fire him for allegedly mishandling classi-
fied information that ended up in a Washington
Post article on the projected cost overrun on Pres-
ident Reagan's rearmament program.
The official, John C. F. Tillson, director' of
manpower management, failed three lie detector
teats ordered by Deputy Defense Secretary Frank
C. Carlucci in an attempt to find the source of
The Post article of Jan. 8.
The article disclosed that an internal Pentagon
study estimated that it could cost $750 billion
more than the $1.5 trillion projected to buy the
forces the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it would need
to carry out Reagan's military policies in the five
fiscal years 1984 through 1988.
Tillson denied that he was the source for the
article, or had discussed classified information
with any unauthorized people. However, his boss,
Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense
for manpower, notified him on March 9 that the
Defense Department intended to dismiss him for
"your disclosure of official information to unau-1
thorized persons and your disregard of Depart-I
ment of Defense regulations and procedures for!
the protection of classified information."
Since then, the unauthorized pen:ons to whom
Tillson was accused of disclosing information have
filed sworn statements denying that this was the'
case; the author of The Post article, staff writer
George C. Wilson, wrote Defense Secretary Caspar
W. Weinberger that Tillson was not his source; a
group of senior Pentagon civilian executives pro-1
tested in a letter to Weinberger that Tillson was'
being treated unfairly, and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-)
Ga.) sent Carlucci an assessment by Senate law-
yers of how the Pentagon legal case against Till-i
son was flawed.
James Heller, Tillson's lawyer, said yesterday
that the Pentagon decision to settle or a letter oft
reprimand and restore Tillson to his job with se-
curity clearances intact represented "complete vin-I
dication, although I would rather have seen them
send him a letter of apology."
The Pentagon had no comment on the case, the
administration's first high-profile investigation of
a newspaper leak.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040032-2