FIRING GUILTY OFFICIALS IS THE WAY TO PLUG LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100100082-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 82
• Publication Date: May 22, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100082-0
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE -J-/
WALL STREET JOURNAL
22 May 1986
Firing Guilty Officials Is the Way to Plug Leaks
It has long been clear that the Reagan
administration's concern about leaks bor-
ders on paranoia. Now it appears that the
president's men are as serious as they say
they are. After five years of proposing dan-
gerously repressive legislative remedies
and implementing ever tighter administra-
tive restrictions on the flow of information,
they have finally taken the kind of public
action that might actually do some good.
They have fired two purported leakers.
The names of the two, one at the Penta-
gon, the other at the State Department,
Viewpoint
tion of an Official Secrets Act regime sim-
ilar to Britain's. The great hunt is
launched, the rabbits are sent to hole and
the quail flushed, and nothing happens, ex-
cept the further diminution of freedom in
the name of national security.
The leaking goes on, and for good rea-
son. The masters of the hounds, and many
of the hounds, in the great leak hunts are
often the quarry in disguise.
What is involved here are not the selec-
tive, "authorized" leaks that mark every
presidency. Classification being an admin-
istrative rather than a legislative act, any
president or his anointed agent can, at the
drop of a political or diplomatic whim, se-
lectively declassify virtually anything-
and does. More than one CIA director has
groaned in disbelief while a reading stories
that came directly from Me residence "
are not particularly important. What is im-
portant are two characteristics they
shared. Both were political appointees.
Both obviously felt their leaks advanced
the president's "real" agenda.
Therein lies the lesson. The leaks that
matter in Washington (as opposed to espio-
nage, which is another matter) are almost
invariably the work of political players
rather than bureaucratic moles. That is
not the way that presidents and their
teams usually see it. The initial reaction,
from a Jimmy Carter no less than a Ron-
ald Reagan, to the flood of leaks now com-
monplace in every administration is that
faceless men and women at lower levels
are deliberately sabotaging their political
mandate with unauthorized disclosures.
And so there is much presidential
pounding on desks and throwing of the fur-
niture, not always figuratively, and de-
mands that something be done. If it is this
administration, that something includes
radically increased polygraph testing, ad-
ministrative orders restricting officials'
access to information and the access of re-
porters to officials, and the creeping evolu-
by Hodding Carter III
that serious com romis is treasured
intelligence methods and sources.
For that matter, there are times when
the publication or broadcasting of such of-
ficial leaking by one White House hand is
publicly rebuked by another. There was,
for example, the notorious example of a
planted White House story at the height of
the Lebanon crisis. Several reporters were
brought in and told, among other things,
that then national security adviser Robert
McFarlane had advocated a get-tough pol-
icy against Syria. As it turned out later,
he had, but that was beside the point. The
initial public White House reaction when
the story appeared was livid outrage. Mr.
McFarlane was traveling in the Middle
East at the time, and according to the
White House spokesmen, the stories were a
direct threat to his life.
The reaction was hypocritical nonsense,
of course, but it was only a slightly larger-
than-life rendition of the usual hypocrisy
that surrounds the subject. In practice,
leaks per se are not abhorred in high
places. What are abhorred are leaks with-
out the official seal of approval.
But then comes the tricky part, and the
explanation for the hemorrhaging phenom-
enon of modern-day official Washington.
There has been little consensus in the past
few administrations on a number of basic
issues, from national security to social wel-
fare. Various factions each have felt they
spoke for the president, if only he fully un-
derstood all the facts. Each has felt that
the rightness of the cause would be under-
stood by the media, Congress and the peo-
ple as well if only the relevant information
were made available. And each has there-
fore engaged in preemptive leaking, count
terstrike leaking and plain, old-fashioned
disinformational dealing in an effort to
gain the upper hand.
Which brings us back to the two men
who were recently fired. If the stories are
correct, each leaked information to ad-
vance the ideological agenda of the hard"
right wing in the administration. In other
words, rather than being people who were
determined to impede the president's poli-
cies, they felt they were advancing them.
Not enemies, they reportedly considered
their leaks to be in his best interest.
Which is why their dismissal, if the
facts are true, is so important. It serves
notice that some in the administration un-
derstand the root cause of the problem. It
penalizes the kind of people who are re-
sponsible for most of the leaking that oc-
curs. It should consequently strike at least
a few qualms the next time someone is
tempted to leak.
It is the right response to the offense,
an offense that involves the constant sub-
stitution of irresponsible individual judg-
ment-irresponsible in the basic sense be-
cause it is anonymous-for presidential
policy. The way to fight for a position is
first from within, and if the fight goes
badly and the issue is of fundamental im-
portance, from outside after resigning.
Terminating two midlevel political ap-
pointees makes the point. Firing at least
one of the well-known leakers in high
places would drive it home.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100100082-0