PLUMBING THE REAL WORLD OF LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100090007-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: March 29, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100090007-5
tvkvv5~nrratcrti trtUrnaa~xtrrtrrt 1 29 iinrch 1975
STATI Plumbing the Relall World of Leaks
Those who want simple answers about the giving away of Government secrets have
had a hard time of it in recent weeks. First, Daniel Schorr of CBS irritated even a lot of fel-
low journalists by the way he slipped a congressional report on the CIA to New York
City's flashy Village Voice. Henry Kissinger complained that "highly classified in-
formation" had been leaked. Then Kissinger himself was embarrassed by leaks of his
own confidential Middle East negotiations and, having denounced the deed, had to rep-
rimand one of his closest aides, who had leaked with Kissinger's approval, but perhaps
more than his boss had intended. Such a diplomatic reprimand-obviously written in
quick fading ink-carries about as much weight as a diplomatic denial.
New York Times Columnist William Safire (a Kissinger colleague in Nixon's day
but now an implacable enemy) gloated over Kissinger's discomfiture. But many Wash-
ington journalists, whatever their views of Kissinger's policies, gratefully regard him as
the ablest private explainer of public policy in Washington. His leaks are easy to spot.
A recent story in the Times begins: "Henry A. Kissinger has concluded that Cuba is
again in the business of `exporting revolution.' " The story gces on: "But Mr. Kissinger
has reportedly decided not to say this in public for now." Kissinger thus "goes public"
with what he professes not to want to say publicly. When such is the real world of
leaks, much of the official huffing and puffing about the subject is humbug.
But not all. When leaks embarrass, the first official cry is that national security has
been compromised. On the record of the past few years, this charge simply will not
wash. Too much has been stamped confidential
in order to conceal hanky-vanky and ineptitude.
not were s. tvcu utc ce1COrateu 91 volumes 01
the Pentagon papers contained, as a Pentagon of-
ficial admitted, "only 27 pages that gave us real
trouble"-and these came to not much. In Dan-
iel Schorr's case, Village Voice readers must have
nodded over the congressional committee's ten-
dentious maunderings and its few carefully bowd-
lerized CIA documents.
Still leaks can damage. The real effect of the
Pentagon papers was to reveal the Government's
systematic deception of the public. The real dam-
age of the Schorr leak, once the House of Rep-
resentatives had voted to keep the report secret,
was to show congressional inability to keep a se-
cret. The Kissinger leak warned foreign minis-
ters that what they env in rnnfiaen^e may ht.+r
But even if security is not violated, does not
the Government have a right to secrecy, and to '. _
private discussion? Indeed it does, as well as the
responsibility to keep it private. No one can object if an Administration, by discipline
and discretion, saves itself from too many unseemly disclosures. In the poisoned at-
mosphere of Viet Nam and Watergate, men who leaked were denounced as traitors or
hailed as heroes, but in most instances were neither. A leak by a man of conscience,
upset by wrongdoing and willing to take the consequences, deserves honoring. But most
leaks serve the self-interest of those who supply them, or come from secondary bu-
reaucrats appealing over their superiors to public opinion when their side of an internal
argument has lost.
Where the public's interest lies in this dispute between Government and press was
put best by Alexander Bickel, a Yale law professor. In his posthumous book The Mo-
rality of Consent, he answered: "It is the contest that serves the interest of society as a
whole, which is identified neither with the interest of the Government alone nor of the
press." Bickel expected each side to pursue its interest with zeal, but the weight of the
First Amendment is on the reporter's side, because the assumption ... is that secrecy
and the control of news are all too inviting, all too easily achieved, and, in general, all
too undesirable."
Bickel argued and won the Pentagon papers case, which resulted in the landmark de-
cision on secrets and leaks. The Supreme Court decided, in Bickel's words, that -if a news-
paper had got hold of those documents without itself participating in a theft of them,
although somebody else might to its knowledge have stolen them, it could have pub-
lished them with impunity." This makes newspapers sound unconmfortably like crim-
inal fences, though the stolen property is not jewels but information.
Many people are disquieted that editors should have the po'.ver to print whatever
falls into their hands: who elected tbetn? Editors, debating among themselves, usually
conclude that they cannot halt what is already public enough for them to know about.
Not to publish. when the information adds to the public knowledge, would seem to
them c,en more of an arrogance of power. All in all, it is easier to prove a democracy
made sounder by public knowledge than a nation weakened by secrets revealed.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100090007-5