LEAKOLOGY: THE WAR OF WORDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100080079-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 79
• Publication Date: July 1, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part
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July 1977
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II
"Of course it is unfortunate and I regret that
information and some misinformation
regarding our preliminary thinking came out in the
public press before we had a chance to consult
informally with the Congress. I guess after eight years
away, I still have to relearn how to view with some
equanimity the inevitability of such leaks to the
press. ?
Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense
Testimony before Senate Armed
Services Committee, 25 January
1977
Loose lips can do more than sink ships; they can
also sink or wound government policy and strategic
planning. Leaks concerning national security are
more serious than in any other area of government
since the survival of our own society and safety of the
members of the armed forces may well be at stake.
Leaks of classified or sensitive information can have
short-term effects (tactical leaks) which could, for
example, result in a Soviet intelligence trawler leav-
ing her normal area and appearing in an area where
highly classified operations were going on. Or there
can be longer-term (strategic) leaks where a leaked
piece of information or several little bits of informa-
tion can be used together to verify a new weapon
system's capability.
Because of the serious consequences that can result
from such leaks, the military professional-whether
he is a private in South Korea, a sailor in the Sixth
Fleet, or an admiral in Washington-must under-
stand how and why leaks occur and how-to, in Secre-
tary Brown's words, ". . . view with some equanim-
ity the inevitability of such leaks."
Leaks are not limited to any particular part of the
government or military establishment. At sea or in
the field, commanders and commanding officers are
faced with leaks of information which reflect on their
commands' readiness. The leak may concern a mate-
rial problem, a manning shortfall, or a training defi-
ciency. The seat of government in Washington has
been called by some people the "leak capital" of the
nation. The 3 May 1976 Time magazine declared,
"Nowhere do secrets have a higher mortality rate
than in Washington, D.C. The capital swarms with
leaking bureaucrats and a prying press corps. Incura-
ble gossips are wall to wall." Much of this juicy gos-
sip, whether true or false, appears to have been born
in the form of a leak.
Late last year, the top secret annual National In-
telligence Estimate (NIE) leaked. Former Director of
Central Intelligence George Bush faced a national
television audience and commented on the NIE leak
saying, "I'm a little disillusioned because I never
thought that we could be in this kind of phantom
duel where you're battling with unnamed
sources. . . . I just thought that we were more dis-
ciplined within the intelligence community."'
Since many of the most sensitive public affairs
problems facing commanders and their public affairs
officers involve "leaks," a closer examination of
"leakology" is in order. First, some general observa-
tions:
Leaks in the context of this discussion are defined
as both classified and unclassified. They include
politically sensitive government information that is
provided in an unauthorized manner to persons who
do not have a current government authorization to
have access and a "need to know."
~ It takes at least two people to spring a leak, an
inside source and an outside receiver.
~ It takes a transmitter (usually a news outlet) to
spread or publicize the leaked information.
- Leaks of classified or sensitive government infor-
mation appear to be widespread throughout the gov-
ernment.
Leaks usually feed controversy and, therefore, ben-
efit the vested interests of the source and sometimes
the economic and prestige interests of the news
transmitter.
Leaks generally "spring" around key and contro-
versial events or actions and are timed in relation to
key decision milestones in a manner which may in-
fluence the making of such decisions or policies.
Once a leak is put into the public domain, by such
means as the news media, its future course cannot be
controlled by anyone, including the source, receiver,
or transmitter of the leak. In other words, the final
effect of the leak on decision-makers may have the
opposite reaction to that anticipated by the source.
Leaks from inside a bureaucracy may reflect an
internal difference of opinion or power struggle in
which a source has a perceived interest in airing pub-
licly.
Leaks may have a "multiplier' effect, with one
leak stimulating another countermeasure leak cham-
pioning the opposite position.
~ Leaks, by their nature and the nature of humans
and mass media transmitters, highlight the more
dramatic aspects of an issue and seldom attempt to
present a balanced or detailed view of complex is-
1For footnotes, please turn to page 49.
I
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Fem.'n&J
sties. In short, leaks oversimplify issues.
' Finally, leaks are almost impossible to track down,
and an investigation of leaks, while it may be neces-
sary, can itself be counterproductive, adding more
fuel to the public affairs problems of commanders or
other military officials.
Before going into some of the dynamics of leakol-
ogy, it is important to pause and reflect on why mil-
itary officials in the United States are put on the
defensive more often by leaks than are their counter-
parts in any other country. One thing is certain in
the public affairs "rules of the road," and that is that
the American commander or public affairs officer is
always the "burdened vessel" in a crossing situation
with leaked information, because of the nature of the
public affairs system in this country.
American Public Affairs System: The acceptance and
defense of our constitutional form of government in-
volves a public affairs. "triad" which has functioned
for the past 200 years with the following major
players: government, news media, and public. Of
course, this player definition is simplified since each
part of the triad can have different faces. For exam-
ple, the government could represent the military of-
ficial in the executive branch or a Congressman, with
quite different defense views, in the legislative
branch. Also, the public could represent various spe-
cial interest groups (pro- or anti-military), and the
news media could mean electronic or print media
with quite different physical reporting problems, not
to mention various editorial or reporter viewpoints.
Within this triad there is a constant tug-of-war in
making information public.
Public's Right To Know: In the wake of the Viet-
nam conflict and the Watergate affair, we have seen
both the government and the news media suffer from
the so-called credibility gap. The past public frustra-
tion with the perceived lack of candor (or worse) on
the part of the executive branch has led to a new
dimension in the relationship of the players and has
resulted in a number of "sunshine" laws. These laws
have the objective of opening up more government
proceedings and records to public scrutiny. In a 17
November 1975 The Washington Star article entitled,
"Too much 'Sunshine' can cause government chaos,"
Charles Bartlett stated that openness in government
has become a de facto yardstick of integrity. The
1974 Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act
(as amended in 1974), and the Government in the
Sunshine Act of 1976 are examples.
From a military point of view, these sunshine laws
add to the already often confusing demands of free-
dom of information on the one hand, and both the
need for personal privacy and the protection of prop-
erly classified national security information on the
other hand.
Columnist Jack Anderson, well known for his use
of leaked material, broke the story of the recovery of
part of a Soviet "Golf'-class submarine by the Hughes
Glomar Explorer in March 1975, even though he was
asked to withhold the story as other news organiza-
tions had done in the interests of national security.
Anderson claimed that national security was not at
stake and that ". . . news belongs to the people and
not to the government."
Secretary of Defense Brown, while expressing frus-
tration over leaks in the press, at the same time has
adopted an active stance in taking defense issues to
the public in order to foster public understanding
and support. The day after the appearance before
Congress during which he cited the problem of
leaks, he held his first meeting with the Pentagon
press corps and stated that he recognized, ". . . the
value and indeed the vital importance to the proper
functioning of the Defense Department in a way re-
sponsible to the public [and] sufficiently cognizant of
its accountability to the public."
It is clear that the American public has a right to
government and military information (with reason-
able national security and personal privacy restric-
tions considered). Indeed, public support demands
information access in order to understand security is-
sues. But this does not excuse the unauthorized re-
lease of classified information. In the heat of the de-
bate over the 1976 reorganization of the nation's in-
telligence community, former President Gerald Ford
stated:
"Openness is a hallmark of our democratic soci-
ety, but the American people have never believed
that it was necessary to reveal the secret war plans
of the Department of Defense, and I do not think
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they wish to have true intelligence secrets revealed
either."2
Whether one takes a positive view of the need for
public information or treats it as a necessary evil, we
still come face to face with the challenge of com-
municating with the public whose support we need.
Without the "artillery of the press," including radio
and television, there would be little opportunity to
reach the public with our information. It is during
the public affairs squalls, brought on by leaks, that
military officials must be the most careful in at-
tempting to heal the sores of misinformation. Under-
standing the players in leakology is helpful in this
regard.
The Players: The first is the unnamed source.
Stories often quote "informed defense officials" or
other inside sources. Their anonymity greatly com-
plicates the military official's task in answering alle-
gations. The word "complicate" is used here because
the unnamed source can either help or hinder the
named official who is held accountable for his actions
and must reply "on the record." If the story appears
to further the government's point of view, journalists
may refer to the information as a "plant" rather than
a "leak." One can readily imagine a situation
wherein there might be confusion over whether a
"leak" is a "plant"; the beauty is in the eye of the
beholder. Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times,
appearing on the 27 April 1976 CBS morning news,
commented, ". . . on the question of leaks and dis-
closures, a double entry bookkeeping system is used
by the CIA. The favorable leaks are okay. It is the
embarrassing ones they want to suppress."
Growing out of the stormy history of the press-
government relationship has come the technique of
interviewing & government official source under the
cover of mutually agreed ground rules;- wherein the
exact name or position of the official is not used.
These are the so-called background (not for direct
attribution), deep background, or off-the-record in-
terviews.3 The original reason for the growth of these
agreed press-government official interview tech-
niques was to allow the official to put stories into a
more balanced context and in some cases to answer
speculative types of questions ("What if?") which he
could not answer on the record. The problem with
using these informal techniques is that many news
persons refuse to adhere to them because they con-
sider them to be platforms for "plants" and don't
wish to risk the possibility of professional embar-
rassment for either party to the interview. In the
light of the perceived dangers from either side of
such an interview, most military officials or com-
manders stick to the on-the-record interview.
Many reporters openly brag about their ability to
routinely piece together major stories from several
unnamed sources. These sources may be from differ-
ent branches of government, from different executive
departments, or from former officials who have re-
cently left government service. A story with leaks
may result from a composite of sources. In this
multi-source method, journalists theoretically sort
the wheat from the chaff, and seemingly insignifi-
cant bits of information are blended together to pro-
duce a "blockbuster" story. One of the problems here
is that the source's motives are not usually men-
tioned in the news story. Instead, the source is
treated in a neutral manner. A 19 April 1976 The
Wall Street Journal article by Edward Jay Epstein en-
titled "The Grand Cover-Up" was stimulated by the
film "All the President's Men" and concerned the use
of multiple sources and the manner in which the film
painted sources as neutral. According to Epstein, the
movie was an example of a naive view of accidental
leaks by sources who were unaware of the potential of
the bits of information they disclose. Epstein stated:
"This accidental view of news is convenient,
and indeed functional, to journalists who want to
conceal the identity of sources and protect their
relations with them.
"The alternative view that information is delib-
erately leaked to journalists by sources with an
interest at stake in the story would raise serious
problems for journalists: It would suggest that the
'leaks' are in fact plants, and that they are merely
ammunition-carriers for the surreptitious authors
of the story who are engaged in a power struggle..
"Even for the best of reasons, if journalists rep-
resent news as being accidental when in fact it is
deliberate, then they may willy-nilly assist in
camouflaging the interest behind the disclosure,
and thereby be part on a grander scale of the
cover-up of an intra-government power struggle."
The receiver is another player in the game of
leakology. In most cases wherein' a government offi-
cial is involved, the receiver of a leak is a news per-
son. Just as in the case of a good intelligence agent,
the receiver (reporter) protects his sources. Also, as
in the case of an intelligence agent, the reporter
keeps his source confidential as an insurance policy to
keep channels open for future exchanges of informa-
tion. Some reporters will cite sources remote from
the actual sources in order to protect them. For
example, the reporter may cite a "Navy official"
when his actual source is in the State Department or
vice versa. A reporter may even "invent" a source. In
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 commenting on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's
The Final Days in The New York Tinier Book Review of
18 April 1976, Richard Reeves touched on the in-
vented source technique as a means of protecting real
sources. Siding with those people who believed that
"Deep Throat"-the famous source with alleged
White House connections-was a fabrication,
Reeves stated, ". . . I have never been convinced
that Deep Throat existed. The whole thing was too
much like an old newspaper tactic that I have used
myself inventing a secret source that would talk
only to me, thereby keeping other reporters off a
good story and editors off balance." One of the obvi-
ous messages from such a discussion is that an official
might attempt to track down an alleged source,
thinking it was in his area, and spin the investigat-
ing wheels searching for someone who either did not
exist in the first place or was in another4mrt of gov-
ernment.
How do reporters develop their sources? Aside
from the source who contacts the reporter on his own
to champion a specific cause, right a perceived griev-
ance, or get a "news tip" reward, reporters develop
their sources in various ways. While the public af-
fairs office is certainly an official source, it is not
usually involved in the context of this covert'source
discussion. As an example of how a source is devel-
oped, one reporter explained his technique as fol-
lows: First, he would avoid the command's public
affairs office and go directly to the office that had
people who had probable access to the type of infor-
mnation he desired. Second, he would "shotgun"
telephone calls to that targeted office and would at-
tempt to talk with as many people as he could (hav-
ing a government directory of the office personnel
was a great help). Third, he would, through his con-
tact with the command's public affairs office, at-
tempt to find out if his calls were reported to the
public affairs office and if so by whom. Finally, after
he learned who had reported their conversations to
the public affairs office, he dropped them from his
list. He then went after the persons he had talked to,
but who -had not reported that contact, until he es-
tablished a "source." This is only one example of an
investigative reporter's technique.
The third player in the triad is the transmitter.
Those who read the book All The President's Men and the
millions more who saw the movie with Dustin Hoffman as
Carl Bernstein and Robert Redford as Bob Woodward, were
introduced to that consummate leaker "Deep Throat" and can
decide for themselves whether most leaks are deliberate or, as
the film seemed to suggest, accidental.
Most leaks reach the public through the news media.
It is difficult for a commander or other military offi-
cial to forget the adversary relationship between the
military and the news media which seemed to reach a
boiling point during the Vietnam War. In fact, one
should not erase this memory but use it instead as a
constructive -reminder that the military-media rela-
tionship has long been a stormy one. News media
artillery rounds will' continue to fall short of the
truth, in the view of military officials, and those
same officials, from the news person's view, will con-
tinue to be overly secretive and prone to double-talk.
Phil Tracy, writing in the 4 May 1976 issue of The
Washington Post on "Why Nothing Works in Wash-
ington," aired the all-too-familiar stereotyped news
media view of the military:
"It is a closed system, the Pentagon, not unlike
those ecosystems of which the conservationists are
so fond. There is really no way to penetrate it. It
has a language all its own, composed of technolog-
ical terminology, awkward abbreviations, and out-
right evasion, designed not to communicate in-
formation indiscriminately, but to limit it to the
military brotherhood."
In the face of this natural military-media tug-of-
war, 'it follows that both sides have to do their
homework. The military, when talking to the public
through the news media, must limit the jargon and
thus allow clear communications to flow. But there
is also an obligation on the part of editors to train
reporters to understand specialized reporting areas,
including the military "beat." Problems usually
occur when a reporter with little knowledge of the
military services is assigned to write or rewrite a mil-
itary story. In all fairness, the government official
who is caught in the leak or negative story
"crossfire" should understand that the military pro-
fession is not the only profession facing a daily chal-
lenge of how to deal with news media relations.
Donald S. MacNaughron, board chairman of the
Prudential Insurance Company, recently pointed to
the news media's alleged sins of suspicion, over-
simplification, and lack of understanding. Putting
blame for the confusing and strained relationship on
both sides, he said that well-motivated business
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48 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1977
people and news people ". . . meet in apparent har-
mony, discuss at cross purposes, and come up with
nterchange.
two different understandings of the interchange."
Leak Damage Control: Investigating leaks in order
to plug them up is usually a fruitless task, according
to W. Donald Stewart, who headed the Defense De-
partment investigations of unauthorized disclosures
from 1965 until 1972. A description of Stewart's
views was published in a 25 February 1976 story in
The New York Times and included the following ob-
servations:
~ Of the 222 substantive complaints of unauthorized
disclosures processed by his office from 1965-1972,
about two-thirds were actually investigated by the
individual military services. Sanctions were imposed
in only a handful of cases.
In several other cases, government employees were
dismissed or transferred from sensitive positions.
But, when his office urged prosecution and the case
was in the hands of the FBI, the Department of De-
fense declined to declassify the information involved
so that it could be used as evidence in court.
There have been more recent indications that the
balance between compromise of classified national se-
curity information and the decision to prosecute has
resulted in a decision not to take a case to court.5
The story which outlined Stewart's views also
stated, "At other times, several sources said, the ac-
tual source of a news leak was such a high official
that investigations and prosecutions were halted to
avoid political embarrassment." While these views
are of interest to the official who has the authority to
initiate an investigation of leaks, they should not
deter him from his duty to take whatever law-
ful steps are necessary to protect classified informa-
tion.
Myth of the controlled leak: Call it what you will, a
"trial balloon," a "plant," or a "leak," it is a myth
that one can control or manage the final result and
thus use it as a tactic in public information. Leaks
cannot be orchestrated once they are in the public
domain. A leak can stimulate, prolong, or confuse a
public debate, but it can do little to ensure public
understanding and, therefore, should be avoided.
Leak defensive options: As has been pointed out, a
leak usually involves controversial information and,
in the case of the Defense Department, issues may
involve classified or sensitive information that may
be damaging to the national security. The problem
often is how to reply to a leak on the public record
without further damaging national security or fan-
ning the flames of controversy. Also, by definition
one is put on the defensive in answering leaks. Gov-
ernment officials and their public affairs officers usu-
ally resort to one or a combination of the following
six defensive options:
ll~ Refusal to confirm or deny-"No comment" in reply
to allegations. This may be the only option when
classified matters are involved. Some view this op-
tion as a neutral one. However, from the public's
view, the net effect of such an option may be for the
person on the street to say, "There must be some
truth to it, or they would give an answer."
~ Demand a retraction or write a letter to the editor.
Complaining to the editor or publisher can be a
mixed blessing even if you get your viewpoint aired.
A news medium will rarely run a retraction, and if it
does, the placement in the newspaper or newscast
will never be in the same context as the original
story. The audience and impact will differ and may
prolong the debate with other people stimulated to
comment on your comment.
Issue a statement or press release. Usually this option
is reactive and fighting to catch up after the damage
is done. Also, unless requested by the media- it will
get less than full coverage and may prolong the pub-
lic confusion and debate. `
ll~ Call a news conference. This involves the same prob-
lems as in the previous option. However, if an alle-
gation must be answered, this may be the best on-
the-record manner of answering the allegation face to
face with reporters.
ll~ Hold a "backgrounder." Many news reporters will
refuse to attend such a session where the interview is
not for direct attribution. What they need to keep
the story boiling is on-the-record comments, not
more unnamed sources.
k Prepare an answer to query. This is a passive tech-
nique which is useless if the right question is not
asked. A derivative of this technique is the "side-
by-side" answer to query wherein each allegation is
commented upon with the official viewpoint, back-
ground material, and approved statement to be given
out to the press, if asked.
In the 18 February 1976 edition of The Wall Street
journal, Irving Kristol outlined some of the above
options in a discussion of how. to reach the public
with an economic message from business leaders, in
the face of a press with an anti-business bias. Dis-
counting the value of the above options, Kristol ob-
served that the "Best Defense" option is an offensive
one attacking the credibility of any biased story. He
explained:
"They [journalists] may not give a damn what
the business community thinks of them, but they
care very much what kind of professional reputa-
tion they have among their peers. When they
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commit a flagrant error, they are at least mildly
disturbed; when they are publicly exposed as hav-
ing committed such an error, they are embar-
rassed; and when such public exposure occurs re-
peatedly, they feel humiliated. So, incredible as it
may seem, journalists are vulnerable to the truth.
The question is: Who is,going to be telling this
truth if the journalists themselves do not?"
In short, to set. the record straight, Kristol rec-
. ornmended to businessmen a strong public rebuttal
of any misinformation or slanted reporting. He
suggests that when publicly shown in error, reporters
are' likely be much more careful the next time they
deal with a comparable issue and that this is gain
enough (and, in his words, all that can be expected)
on the news media battlefront.
Offensive Public Affairs Strategy: It is always more
comfortable to be on the offensive, charting a posi-
tive course of action. Damage control and defensive
options are necessary, but what is recommended is a
more open public affairs approach. Before a leak
sends the commander to "general quarters," it is
good preventive maintenance to establish working re-
lationships with the news media. If such a relation-
ship is routine, it may well serve as a dialogue to
prevent misinformation springing from leaks. A re-
porter who personally knows the commander is more
likely to call informally after he gets his news tip in
order to get the official's reaction. This dialogue is
useful to the official as both an "early warning" of a
possible had story and the chance to get some bal-
ance into the story before it is printed or aired. 'The
very fact that an official must react to a story that is
already in the public domain limits his public affairs
options.
Stephen Rosenfeld, writing in the 14 January
1977 issue of The Washington Post stated:
"The best way to balk 'damaging' leaks of
special-interest material, however, is to make a
broad range of material available routinely in a
context devised not by the special interest but by
the government itself. Call it preemptive leaking,
or public information."'
In the final analysis, there are security limits to
what information we can release in the Defense De-
partment, but it is public opinion that dictates the
strategic military options open to policymakers in
the American democracy. It is unrealistic to ignore
that fact. It is to the benefit of the government,
news media, and the public to have factual and bal-
anced public information. Who will tell our story if
we don't?
A 1963 NROTC graduate of Northwestern University,
Lieutenant Commander Baker initially served in the
USS Okinawa (LPH-3) prior to his designation by the
Secretary of the Navy as a special duty (public affairs)
officer in 1965. He holds a master's degree in jour-
nalism from the University of Wisconsin. His duty as-
signments have included: press officer, CinCLant/
CinCLantFlt staff; deputy special assistant (public affairs) to the CNO;
public affairs officer on the staffs of Commander Task Force 77, Com-
mander First Fleet, and Commander Third Fleet. He is now serving as
special assistant (public affairs) to Director Joint Staff of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.
t Warren Brown, "Bush 'Appalled' By Leak of New CIA Estimate," The
Washington Post, 3 January 1977, p. A2.
2 "Text of Ford Plan on Intelligence Units and Excerpts From His
Executive Order," The New York Times, 19 February 1976, p. 30.
a Meg Greenfield summarized the ground rules as follows: "We have 'on
the record,' which permits source and story ('Chicken Little announced
yesterday that 'the sky is falling.'). At the other end we have 'off the
record,' in which both source and story are ruled out of print (we can
'know' but not 'use.'). In between there is 'background' or 'not for at-
tribution, in which source is camouflaged but the story remains ('A
usually well-informed official has told the Gazette the sky is falling'). A
variation on this is 'deep background' or 'Lindley Rule,' in which the
source disappears altogether, leaving only his valuable nugget of news
('The sky is falling, it can be revealed.')." See Meg Greenfield, "Telling
It (Sort of) Like It Is," Newsweek, 22 July 1974, p. 50.
Charles B. Seib, "Business and the Media," The Washington Post, 26
March 1976, p. A27.
See also Anthony Marro, "National Security Questions Termed Issue in
Inquiry Into 1973 Testimony by Helms," The New York Times, 15 Feb-
ruary 1977, p. C15.
Passing Remark
In the spring of 1902, Admiral George Dewey was strolling in Washington when an
effusive stranger rushed tip to him and, grasping his hand, said, "Georgie, I'll bet you don't
know me." The admiral answered grimly, "You win," and continued his stroll.
Captain Edgar K. Thompson, USN (Retired)
(The Naval Institute will pay $25.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100080079-7