SUPPRESSING LEAKS CURBS RIGHTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100040065-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 65
• Publication Date: March 4, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sl , Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22 : CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040065-6
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
1 MARCH 1982
By Henry Steele Comm ager
PI?SIDENT REAGAN and his national security adviser,
William P Clark, are, now launched upon a crusade to
increase secrecy in the government. They have issued new
regulations,. enlisted the Central Intelligence Agency and
administered lie detector tests to suspects--tests which
apparently include questions about "consorting with foreign-
ers." How lucky for Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jeffer-
son that they did not have to submit to these!
The occasion for this new flurry of censorship is the
`-leak," some weeks ago, to the effect that the Pentagon,
with the blessings of the administration, had deliberately
underestimated the defense budget for 1983 and 1984 by some
$7150 billion. This disclosure; asserts the President, consti-
tutes a threat to national curity.
Even in a day when Ignoring the Constitution has become
almost an official policy, few programs have rested. on a
soggier legal foundation than this. President Reagan has
insisted that "the law must be enforced," but there is in fact
no law restricting the ventilation of "classified"-information,
only a series of executive orders. Nor are there any
standards for such "classification"; those who classify make
up their own rules as they go along, and-just to make sure
that these rules are latitudinarian-Lhe executive has de-
creed that in case of doubt, the question is always to be
decided in favor of "security."
TO OLD LADS of World War lI this whole clamor for
"secrecy" has a familiar ring. When I worked, briefly, in the
Office of War Information and, Iater, in the historical
branch, almost every piece of paper that came across my
desk was stamped "secret" ;including, be it noted, the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the
United States. Had I been so reckless as to take one of these
to my classroom, and read, let us say, the 1st Amendment,
guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press, I could
have been punished by fine aid imprisonment.
There's no ground for astonishment "in all this. This is the
way the official mind works. Far better is stamp-everythh g
"secret" than to take chances. It Is reliably estimated that
95 percent of the hundreds of millions- of documents now
classified "secret" . and gathering-dust in various deposi-
tories, could be declassified without the faintest impact on
national security.-or, for that matter, on anything else. No, -
the fault is not in.the subordinates,. but in those at the top
Henry Steele Commager is a historian. and author of
many books, including "The. Empire of Reason"- and. "The
American
who -apply the term "national security" without either
defining it or setting up standards for its application. These
"public servants" who lent themselves to the chicanery of
deception on the budget do not believe that the American
people have a "right to know," or that democracy and
freedom depend on the exercise of that right.
More is involved here than the matter of official secrecy.
What is involved is the very character of the American
consitutionai system=-an issue which, curiously enough, has
attracted little attention even in the-Congrem For if there is
one principle that is deeply rooted in English and American
history, and engraved Into the American Constitution, it is
that the legislative branch controls the purse. This was the
issue between Parliament and both Tudor and Stuart
monarchs for more than a century, and was finally settled in
Parliament's favor by the great Bill of Rights of 1689.
The principle was revived-in the American colonies, and
invoked by most of the colonial legislatures in their struggles
with royal governors. It was, finally, written into Article One"
of'the Constitution: "All bills for raising-revenue shall,
originate in the House of Representatives." That principle
was so widely accepted that it did not excite any debate
either in the Constitutional Conventions or in the state
ratifying' conventions.
THE LOGIC of this was obvious at the time. It still is. If
democracy is to work, it must be lodged in the people, or
their direct representative, not in the executive. That has
long been our chief assurance that the executive power will
not get out of hand.. But if both the public, and members of
the housa whom they elect, are to be deceived about the cost'
of particular programs, how can they faithfully perform
their constitutional obligation?
We have for some 30 years now a clear illustration of the
danger of secrecy in appropriation. The Constitution (Article
One, Section 9) provides that "no money shall be drawn
from the treasury but in consequence of appropriation made
by law; and a regular statement and account of ex
enditur
p
es
of all public money shall be published from time to time.,,
No such "statement," regular or irrregualar, has ever been
published of expenditures by the CIA. What is most ominous
is that the' Congress has never had the courage to demand
such a statement. That is why the CIA has been able now for
three decades to act. like a bull in the corstitut`:; vt1 china.
shop
If the Reagan administration wished to strengthen tffi
censorship, it could not have found a worse excuse than
this convulsive effort to plug up "leaks" about the budget-
Here, if anywhere, the people, who are required to be
eternally vigilant, have a right to know. -
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22 : CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040065-6