ALL ABOUT LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100100081-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 81
• Publication Date: May 22, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

NUW YUU TIMES
ON PAGE 22 May 1986
AllAbout Leaks
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100081-1
By LESLIE H. GELB
Spada! to TM NOW York Timm
WASHINGTON, May 21 - The
anonymous passing of i formation
from vernment to ourna st. or
what is sometimes "the leak "
may the most misun ers ac-
tivity in etTi pursuit of power and voll-
cy;makin
g
oc7~curs not only at the top of Gov-
ernment, or only by dissidents, by
left-wingers or right-wingers, or by
legislators, as opposed to Administra-
tion officials.
It is not merely a weapon in inter-
nal policy debates, or just informa-
tional, or principally gossip.
It is not simply something officials
give to reporters or something report-
ers dig out on their own.
It is not only knowledge that would
damage the national interest or an of-
ficial's reputation, or enlighten and
advance the people's right to know.
"The leak" is all these and more.
The practice is taking on sianifi-
nin as the Reapa Ad-
ministration tries to crack
under es Ong a laws or u s
secre a ven out on communica-
tions intelligence or terce pts.
This subject "gets way oversimpli-
fied," said Robert J. McCloskey, who
served as the State Department
spokesman far longer than anyone
else, from 1964 to 1973, then again in
an informal capacity from 1974 to
1976. "There is a lack of understand-
ing in and out of Government on how
the news process works in Washing-
ton," he added.
No Agreement on Definition
There is not even agreement on a
definition. The narrow and commonly
understood definition of a leak is a
deliberate planting of information in
the press that is against established
Administration policy. Given the fact
that a good deal of each day's news is
based on unnamed sources and offi-
cials, is a leak then everything other
than Government handouts, state.
ments, news conferences and the
like?
Or is it really the passing of sensi-
tive information that officials what to
keep secret, for whatever reasons?
Who is to say whether those reasons
are valid? Who in the executive.
branch might have approved the
leak? And if it came from someone as
high as the Secretary of State, was
the President aware of the leaker?
The trouble for the public and the
problem for Government officials not
involved in the leak is figuring out
what is going on.
Take the front page of today's New
York Times, which does not begin to
exhaust the various permutations and
combinations of leaks.
Syria and Terrorism
According to unnamed American
officials, the sole terrorist survivor of
the Rome airport bombing last
December told Italian officials that
Syrian agents planned and aided in
the plot, contrary to belief that the
terrorist had been operating only
under orders from Libya.
Officials at neither the top or bot-
tom of the Reagan Administration
wanted this information made public.
They feared that the reaction would
bring pressure to take strong action
against Syria at a time when the Ad-
ministration has not begun to make
up its mind about responding if in fact
Syria is deeply involved in terrorism.
Speculation around Washington to-
day was that the article probably
originated with the Israelis or friends
of Israel in the Federal Government
with an interest in turning public
opinion against Syria. In fact, the ini-
tial tip, on the story came from an
American official who is in no way in-
volved with policy toward Syria.
The tip came in response to a half-
joking request by the reporter for a
lead into a good story, any good story.
Israeli officials were asked but said
they had no knowledge of the terror-
ist's statement to Italians. Adminis-
tration officials then confirmed the
tip, and some even added details.
They did so in the hope of shaping the
story to reflect their position: That
while the testimony of the terrorist
contributed to the growing evidence
of Syrian complicity in international
terrorism, it was in no way "conclu-
sive" about Syrian involvement in
terrorism.
Envoy's Resignation
William A. Wilson, the United
States Ambassador to the Vatican,
resigned, and the Administration of-
fered no explanation other than say-
ing that he wanted to return to private
life in California.
But unnamed Administration offi-
cials told The Times that their senior
colleagues had been warning Presi-
dent Reagan for months that Mr. Wil-
son's diplomatic free-lancing and pri-
vate business activities would lead to
nothing but trouble for the White
House. Times reporters had been
working for weeks to follow up tips
that Mr. Wilson had had private con-
nections and dealings with the Liby-
ans in the face of policy not to do so.
The information for today's article
was provided by people in and out of
Government who were unhappy
about Mr. Wilson and wanted to bring
about his resignation. To them, the
story was an instrument.
Saudi Arms Deal
The White House announced that
Mr. Reagan would no longer ask Con-
gress to approve the sale of portable
antiaircraft missiles to Saudi Arabia.
The portable missle was the most
disputed part of the arms package,
and the White House was clearly hop-
ing that its elimination just might be
enough to overcome an overwhelm-
ing majority in Congress opposed to
the sale. (Mr. Reagan today vetoed
Congress's resolution disapproving
the sale.)
The rest of the story embodied,
typically, comments from unnamed
White House officials. These were
high-level officials who wanted to put
the best face on the decision. These
officials also passed on thoughts
about their strategy for dealing with
Congress.
Except for the comments on strat-
egy, the background information and
explanation of the decision were un-
doubtedly made at senior levels, and
the unnamed officials were "leaking"
with top-level authorization.
Beyond these examples, past and
present Government officials have
their own problems dealing with
leaks and leakers.
John Hughes, who was the first
spokesman for Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, said he "could not
think of a single instance where
Shultz asked me to leak."
But he remembered all too well the
1984 story about highly classified in-
telligence reports that an East Euro-
pean ship might be headed toward
Nicaragua loaded with advanced
fighter aircraft of the kind the United
States had said it would not tolerate in
the possession of the Sandinistas. The
Central Intelligence Agency could not
be sure of the cargo or its destination.
"But on the eve of the Presidential
election, someone in the White House
leaked to CBS that we knew" that the
cargo included the prohibited jets and
the destination to be Nicaragua, Mr.
Hughes continued. Indeed, the ship
stopped in Nicaragua, but no jets
were on board.
"My suspicion was that someone in
the White House with an axe to grind
wanted to make it sound as if Nicara-
gua was being more daring than it
was, and that someone was also
trying to create a strong Administra-
tion reaction," recalled Mr. Hughes,
now a columnist for The Christian
Science Monitor.
Mr. McCloskey, the former State
Department spokesman, now a
counselor at Catholic Relief Services,
recollected his own travails with
Henry A. Kissinger's propensity to
provide information to reporters on
an unnamed basis.
Mr. Kissinger was known for such
one-to-one arrangements when he
was natiional security adviser, and
"maybe it was mutally advanta-
geous," Mr. McCloskey said.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100081-1
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100081-1
But "when Henry became Secre-
tary of State, I recommended that he
deal with the press as a whole, not in-
dividually," he added. "He didn't
agree and went on seeing people indi-
vidually."
Officials in the Nixon White House
did not take such a detached view of
Mr. Kissinger's "individual" con-
tacts with reporters, much of which
they contended was directed against
them.
The current batch of disclosures
causing so much consternation in the
Reagan Administration concerns two
things: the reputed passing of sensi-
tive communications intelligence by
an American to the Soviet Union, and
the interception of messages between
Libya and its diplomatic posts over-
seas prior to and just after the terror-
ist bombing of a West Berlin discoth-
eque.
Larry Speakes, the White House
spokesman, was asked today why
news articles about the secrets re-
portedly already given to Moscow
were more damaging to national se-
curity than Mr. Reagan's own public
statement about the United States in-
tercepting the Libyan messages.
Mr. Speakes responded: "The
scope and the impact of it is entirely
different. Also, the fact that it was a
carefully considered decision here to
release the Libyan information, what
of it we did, and it was a judgmental
call that we made to declassify that
information."
But, a reporter persisted, was not
the C.I.A. concerned about the deci-
sion to release the Libyan informa-
tion?
"Well, I think those type of discus-
sions were held," Mr. Speakes re-
sponded. "But the final determina-
tion was that it was in the national in-
terest to provide the information to
the public."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100081-1