MEDIA LEAKS A TWO-WAY STREET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100710041-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 16, 2011
• Sequence Number: 41
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

QTAT --- .,..... --, __
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/16: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100710041-0
MEDIA LEAKS
A TWO-WAY STREET
The game of leaking information is a popular Washington
pastime adroitly played by government and the press.
So why all the uproar?
istration that has been especially tough
on leakers. Weinberger himself carne
under suspicion because he had been
excluded from the Geneva conference.
Could it have been a member of his
staff? A peer'' A political foe:' While
this administration has done more than
most to try td plug leaks and intimidate
leakers, in this case it cleanly typified
an ancient Washington maxim: Govern-
ment is the only vessel that leaks from
the top.
Leaking comes as naturally in the
capital as daffodils in spring because all
the players perceive it to be useful. In
their view, it properly provides reporters
with grist for exclusive stories while
providing bureaucrats a fairly safe wav
to go public with information while
remaining anonymous. High officials.
who publicly condemn the practice, are
not above privately leaking material to
the press when it is to their advantage.
SPECIFIC examples have been doc-
umented in, among=other places,
the Columbia Journalism Review-
leaks to marshal public-upport for the
administration's policy-toward Libya's
MoammarGadhafi and leaks to influence
public attitudes toward Central America.
Just before the recent election in the
Philippines, the press bubbled with
inspired stories from capital sources
obviously designed to distance the ad-
ministration from the unpopular regime
of Ferdinand vlarcos.
The journalistic competition for
exclusivity in Washington, and else-
where too, tends to balloon even trivial
leaked items beyond their normal news
value. Unlike common gossip, which
also sells well, the voices from nowhere
-"officials," "authoritative sources,"
"knowledgeable sources," among others
-can be disguis"d as legitimate news
even when their information is thin and
maybe even stale.
Leaking earned a bad name because
it sometimes involves important mat-
ters impinging on national security,
or what is contended to be national
security. The press and its sources. for
example, were harshly criticized for
anonymous reports-some right, some
wrong-out of the Vietnam war, the
Watergate inquiry and the Pentagon
papers. Some officials claim the feel-
ing, particularly in the military, that the
press couldn't be trusted with anything
secret was clearly reflected in the de-
cision to bar newspeople from the
Grenada invasion.
Continued on page 56
By William Giles
k
UST before the Geneva
summit conference last
November, Defense Sec-
retary Caspar Weinberger
wrote a personal note to
President Reagan. In it, he
privately urged the Presi-
dent to avoid making any
commitments to the Rus-
the Weinberger episode merely reaf-
firmed the convivial conspiracy in the
capital between press and government.
This enduring relationship thrives on
the informer's need-to-tell and the re-
porter's need-to-know. It produces what
are negatively called "leaks" but more
positively may be viewed as the pub-
lic's right to know.
The surreptitious passing of informa-
sians on two key arms control issues.
Two days later, the text of the let-
ter-word-for-word, right down to the
signature, "Cap"-mysteriously ap-
peared in a New York newspaper.
Publication of the letter touched off
a small tempest. A White House aide
called it "sabotage." Weinberger said he
was "disturbed" and embarrassed. The
Pentagon launched an investigation.
There were hints of reprisals.
A dreaded "leak" had sprung again.
Curiously, Reagan seemed unper-
turbed even though it was his personal
mail that had been publicized. Other
high-ranking officials, unaccountably,
seemed irritated with Weinberger. Col-
umnists had fun with the White House,
the Pentagon, the State Department
and, as one writer put it, "the mole who
came out of the hole."
To most Americans, the incident must
have been baffftng. The bitter fights and
repercussions over previous govern-
ment leaks, the threats of lie-detector
tests and phone taps to plug leaks, the
somber concern of top officials about
leaks-all contributed to a general
sense that leaks were both despicable
and dangerous.
To Washington veterans, however,.
William E. Giles, a consulting firm
executive in Troy, Mich., is a veteran
journalist and former editor of the
Detroit News.
LEAK-Weinberger was unhappy, but
the President didn't seem to mind.
tion to the press is not new, of course:
every administration since George
Washington's has had to cope with the
practice. And it's not confined to
Washington or politicians. Business-
men, lawyers, celebrities, scientists,
sportsmen, editors-they all do it to
curry favor, embarrass opponents or
cover their rears. It is almost as Ameri-
can as Saturday morningTVcartoons-
and often just as entertainingly trivial.
What set the Weinberger incident
apart is that the leak obviously came
from somebody high up-in an admin-
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/16: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100710041-0
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MEDIA LEAKS
Continued from page 14
Just last April, CIA Director William
Casey lectured newspaper editors anew
on both the need for and the dangers of
anonymous sources.
Casey admitted that editors have
shown restraint in publishing much
information that he and other security
people have considered sensitive. How-
ever, Howard Simon, curator of the
Nieman Foundation, in rebuttal to
Casey's general argument, pointedly
noted that no American editor or re-
porter "has ever been prosecuted for
espionage."
What often gets obscured in such
arguments is that leaking is a two-way
street. Officials routinely use leaks in
one way or another to try to manage
public attitudes and actions. In casual
conversations, off-the-record talks,
background briefings and other in-
ventive ways, sources witlrspecial
information diligently work pliertime
to "educate" both reporters and their
audiences.
Only a small fraction of the informa-
tion leaked ever sees the light of day:
most reporters are bright enough to
know when they're being "used," which
is death for professional journalists. If
they cannot confirm the substance of a
leak in some fashion, it's usually filed
and forgotten, along with the source.
Officials resort to leaks generally
because they do not want to be iden-
tified with disclosure of information.
sometimes because the "objectivity" of
the press is thought to he more credible
to the public than the authority of gov-
ernment. Reporters listen and pay heed
to anonymous sources because they get
instructive, newsy peeks behind the
flat, uncommunicative face of bureau-
cracy. In this peculiar wedding of
interests, the public often benefits
because it, too, gets an inside look at
the actual workings and attitudes of its
government.
Leaks can be troublesome in a free
society but the alternative is a closed
society where there are no leaks and
never a need for "plumbers." Could you
imagine, for example, any American
administration having the temerity
the Soviets had when they announced
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, obvi-
ously without fear of complaint or
contradiction?
Still, the truth leaked out, in waves of
radioactivity. ^
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