REAGAN SECURITY ADVISER ENDORSED WARNING MEDIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100100017-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: May 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100017-2
R APPEARII I
WASHINGTON POST
30 May 1986
Reagan Security Adviser
Endorsed Warning Media
Officials Deny Free-Speech Infringement
By Eleanor Rudolph
and George Lardner Jr.
WaaMnetan Peat Staff Wilier
The White House said yesterday
that President Reagan's national
security affairs adviser, John M.
~/ Poindexter, endorsed in advance a
warning to journalists to limit their
reporting on intelligence matters
revealed in an espionage trial this
week to details the government
chooses to disclose in the court-
room.
The warning, which has drawn
increasing criticism from journalists
and First Amendment specialists,
was issued Wednesday by William J.
Casey, director of the Central In-
telligence Agency, and Lt. Gen.
William E. Odom, director of the
National Security Agency.
Casey and Odom, in an interview
with the Associated Press yester-
day, accused the news media of be=
coming hysterical about the state-
ment, and said they have no inten-
tion of harming freedom of the
press.. '
Their Wednesday statement,
which followed publication of sto-
ries about the first day of the trial
of Ronald W. Pelton in Baltimore,
"cautioned" reporters "against spec-
ulation and reporting details beyond
the information actually released at
trial. Such speculations and addi-
tional facts are not authorized dis-
closures and may cause substantial
harm to national security."
"We are in full agreement with
the thrust of the statement," White
House spokesman Edward Djerejian
said yesterday.
Djerejian, who said that Poindex-
ter had endorsed the warning, said,
"I think what the statement said
was that speculation and reporting
details beyond the information that
has actually been released at trial
should be considered very, very
carefully."
Broadcast network and newspa-
per officials said yesterday that the
statement was viewed largely as
unnecessary meddling by Casey,
who has been campaigning in recent
weeks to stop news organizations,
including The Washington, Post,
from publishing details of intelli-
gence information that former NSA
worker Pelton allegedy gave the
Soviets.
"We try very hard not to tell Mr.
Casey how to catch spies," said
"CBS Evening News" anchor Dan
Rather, "and I hope he'll understand
that we're not going to take it too
seriously when he tells us how to
cover trials.
"The only position for a journalist
in this case must be one of respect-
ful defiance," Rather said.
There were unconfirmed reports
yesterday that Casey had been plan-
ning to hold a news conference. In-
stead, Casey and Odom gave the
Associated Press an exclusive in-
terview, which Casey's deputy Rob-
ert M. Gates said was designed to
'lower the noise level, turn down
the volume and have a serious di-
alogue."
"We haven't made ourselves al-
ways as clear as we might be,"
Casey told the AP. "And I think that
certainly the press has been very
hysterical about the thing, saying
we're trying to tear up the First
-Amendment and scuttle the free-
dom of the press. We're not trying
to do that."
Odom told the AP that they were
concerned because of "a series of
recent signals intelligence [elec-
tronics and radio intercepts] leaks
over the last six months ... the
most serious we can remember in a
long, long time."
Casey added that "every method
we have of obtaining intelligence:
our agents, our relationships with
other intelligence services, our pho-
tographic, our electronic, our com-
munications capabilities, have been
damaged .... This is costing the
taxpayers billions and billions of
dollars, and, more importantly,
Americans' and our national secu-
rity are at risk. We can't permit this
to continue."
Casey and Gates told AP's Mi-
chael Sniffen that some agents had
not been heard from following dis-
closures in this country, but they
declined to provide details.
A senior White House official said
that Wednesday's statement was
written by Odom, who had been
working with lawyers to determine
what could be used in the court-
room. It was approved by Casey and
then endorsed by Poindexter, be-
lieved to be one White House offi-
cial most likely to agree with the
statement. The official said that the
advice to the media was not preap-
proved either by President Reagan
or chief of staff Donald T. Regan.
A draft of the statement, which
was released Wednesday to many
public information officers in the
government, included a final sen-
tence that was deleted from the
official release. The line admon-
ished journalists that unless they
followed the guidelines, they could
be subject to prosecution under a
1950 law that prohibits publication
of classified information about com-
munications activities or code-
breaking.
Odom said in the AP interview
yesterday that he would recom-
mend prosecution of journalists
with "the greatest reluctance."
However, the intelligence commu-
nity has already recommended
prosecution of NBC for an advance
story on the Pelton trial that basic-
ally repeated an NBC broadcast last
fall on the same subject.
First Amendment lawyer Floyd
Abrams and others suggested that
the use of the word "speculations"
seemed to embrace far more than
any of Casey's previous warnings
and move into the area of analysis
of the trial.
"I really don't mind when he
[Casey] tries to persuade The Post
and other publications not to pub-
lish something. That is ... his job.
The difficulty is when urgings turn
into warnings and the warnings are
then expanded to cover the most
routine of- journalistic endeavors,"
Abrams said.
;ifs
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100017-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100017-2
"The notion that one cannot spec-
ulate, either the press or the public,
without the authorization of the
government is a repugnant notion,"
said Lawrence K. Grossman, pres-
ident of NBC News.
Grossman, who said that the
press in this country is generally
very conscious" about national se-
curity, said that Casey's warning
will not affect their coverage of the
trial.
"If I had it to do over again, I
might not use that word," Casey
said of the word "speculation." "I
might use extrapolation."
02
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100017-2