Abstract
The dominant attitude of the 106th Congress to government secrecy was that we needed a lot more of it. Those who thought otherwise were subject to insults and abuse.
“Hazel O'Leary, President Clinton's Secretary of Energy from 1993 to 1997, was the grand pooh-bah of nuclear openness,” declared California Republican Cong. Dana Rohrabacher in an impassioned statement on the House floor on June 8, 1999. “She massively declassified secrets and put them on the Energy Department's web site, including the diagrams of some advanced nuclear weapons….
“This is worse than the Rosenbergs,” Rohrabacher went on. “This is looney tunes. This is someone who has a fanatical anti-American attitude in a position to hand over to our worst enemies secrets that put our young people and our country in jeopardy…. Those who benefitted the most were the minions of the People's Republic of China, the Communist Chinese.”
Rohrabacher's statement neatly encapsulates several tactics traditionally favored by the political right in the enduring controversy over secrecy and nuclear weapons: He attributes an opponent's policy preferences to an “anti-American attitude”; he equates official declassification with espionage (“worse than the Rosenbergs”); and he even manages to dredge up a “communist threat.” Except for his mention of the web, nearly identical warnings could have been—and were—issued by redbaiting congressmen five decades ago.
In fact, little has changed. Despite the efforts of “grand pooh-bah Hazel O'Leary,” most of the policies and practices that were established in the early days of the Cold War to protect official secrets remain intact. Cold War secrecy colors our perception of the threat of espionage and continues to shape—and impede—public discourse on national security.
Today's secrecy system
The fundamental structure of today's system of secrecy closely resembles that of the early Cold War when President Harry Truman issued the first executive order authorizing the classification of non-military information. And the classification of nuclear weapons information is still governed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
It is true that the United States has the most open government in the world. Anchored securely by the First Amendment, openness is reinforced every day by a press corps that publishes even classified information without penalty. Today, more official information is more easily available to more people than ever before.
But the U.S. government is also the most secretive in the world. With its huge military budget and vast intelligence bureaucracy, the United States produces more new secrets more quickly than any other country. In 1999 alone, a total of 8,038,592 new secrets were created, an increase of 10 percent from the year before. And the number of “original classification authorities”— that is, officials who were authorized to designate an item of information as classified—totalled 3,846.
The total expenditures for classification-related costs—not simply for classification but also for classification-driven requirements such as security clearances, physical security measures, and so on—came to a hefty total of $5 billion. 1
Three categories
Clearly, as long as governments perform military, diplomatic, or intelligence functions, there will be a place for secrecy. Just as clearly, though, inherited Cold War secrecy policies exceed all reasonable bounds, a view that was ratified in 1997 by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's bipartisan Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy.
“National security” is reflexively invoked to defend classification. But among the many types of information that are classified by the government in the name of national security, it is possible to distinguish three very different categories: genuine national security secrecy, political secrecy, and bureaucratic secrecy.
Genuine
The second category is
This is the smallest of the three categories but it is the most dangerous to the political health of the nation. For example, some of the early research on the effects of radiation exposure on human subjects was explicitly classified to evade public controversy and legal liability. 2 More recently, the classification of a letter written by MIT Professor Ted Postol critical of missile defense technology was most likely an instance of political secrecy. 3
The third category may be called
Indiscriminate bureaucratic secrecy appears to be the predominant factor in current classification practice, accounting for the majority of the billions of pages of classified records throughout the government, including more than half a billion pages of historically valuable records that are more than 25 years old.
Not all observers will agree about which classified information belongs in which category at any given moment. But this scheme seems to account for the major uses and abuses of the classification system.
The Rosenbergs and the Wen Ho Lee case
If you read today's news with an awareness of Cold War history (or if you read history with an awareness of recent news), it is hard not to notice the reappearance of certain motifs.
The Rosenbergs that Dana Rohrabacher spoke of were convicted in 1951 of transmitting atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In sentencing them to death for espionage, Judge Irving R. Kaufman issued a ringing denunciation:
“I consider your crime worse than murder. Plain deliberate contemplated murder is dwarfed in magnitude by comparison with the crime you have committed…. I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason.”
There are a number of errors here. The Rosenbergs did not put the A-bomb into Russian hands. Their “contribution” to the Soviet program may have been entirely dispensable, given Soviet access to the information of atom spies Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall, not to mention the contributions of Russian scientists. In any case, it was absurd to hold the Rosenbergs responsible for American deaths in Korea, much less the deaths of millions of others. Nor were they charged with, or convicted of, “treason.”
Yet some of the same hyperbole associated with the Rosenberg case arose again in the case of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist accused of improperly downloading classified nuclear weapons data onto several missing tapes for the benefit of an unspecified foreign power.
At a December 1999 hearing that led to denial of bail for the accused scientist, the director of Sandia National Laboratories, C. Paul Robinson, described for the court the magnitude of Wen Ho Lee's alleged offense:
“These tapes could truly change the world's strategic balance. The previous worst case I am aware of classified information being stolen also happened at Los Alamos, with Klaus Fuchs taking a design that if detonated, could demonstrably kill 100,000 people in a city. These [missing tapes created by Wen Ho Lee] would allow the design of weapons that would kill several million people if a single weapon were detonated in a city.” 1
The claim that “the world's strategic balance” was at issue in this case was rejected by most independent observers. Sidney Drell, the eminent Stanford physicist who serves on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, called it greatly exaggerated, observing that “the global strategic balance depends on many more, and more fundamental, factors than how a nation designs its nuclear weapons.” Meanwhile, Robinsons implication that Wen Ho Lee's actions could somehow lead to the deaths of millions (an unconscious echo of Judge Kaufman's verdict) was inflammatory and unfounded.
Remarkably, the Rosenbergs themselves made an appearance in the FBI's wrenching interrogation of Wen Ho Lee, transcribed as follows:
Agent: “Do you know how many people have been arrested for espionage in the United States?”
Lee: “I don't know. I don't pay much attention to that.”
Agent: “Do you know who the Rosenbergs are?”
Lee: “I heard them, yeah, I heard them mention.”
Agent: “The Rosenbergs are the only people that never cooperated with the federal government in an espionage case. You know what happened to them? They electrocuted them, Wen Ho.”
Lee: “Yeah, I heard.”
Agent: “They didn't care whether they professed their innocence all day long. They electrocuted them. OK. Aldrich Ames. You know Aldrich Ames? He's going to rot in jail.”
Lee: “OK, I told you before. I don't belong to any religion. I don't go to church. Well, I mean once in a while, but I don't believe in God, OK. However, I think there must be a something like a God, OK. Not, may not be a Christian God, but something like that, you know, super power, super creature … round the universe, and I believe he will make the final judgment for my case. And I depend on him. I don't depend on you or depend on [name deleted] or depend on Washington people. I don't depend on this, I depend on this God. I think he will make a final judgment.”
Agent: “You know what, the Rosenbergs said that, too.”
Lee: “I don't …”
Agent: “The Rosenbergs professed their innocence. The Rosenbergs weren't concerned either.”
Lee: “Yeah.” Agent: “The Rosenbergs are dead.” 2
—S. A.
Reforming the system
If this analysis of the three categories of secrets is roughly correct, then it follows that the task of secrecy reform is to devise a way to eliminate bureaucratic and political secrecy, while preserving the core of genuine national security secrets.
There is no simple solution to the complex problem of limiting national security secrecy to its legitimate core, and the problem may never be permanently solved. But several desirable structural reforms and specific actions can be identified:
If “outsiders”—from other government agencies—were given declassifi-cation authority, they would share the commitment to national security, but they would not have the same bureaucratic or political interests as those in the originating agency, so they might help reduce secrecy to its essential core. This theory has been demonstrated on a small scale by the Inter-agency Security Classification Appeals Panel, an executive branch body established in 1996 that has fully declassified historical records against the wishes of the originating agency in more than half of the 150 cases it has considered. Applying this principle throughout the classification system would provide a strong internal self-check against bureaucratic and political secrecy.
Adopting a statutory “balancing test” that required classification decisions to consider the public interest in disclosure as well as the security interest in secrecy, and making decisions subject to judicial review, would be one way to impel judges to assert themselves and provide another check on secrecy policy.
“The president is a traitor”
In the frenzy of Cold War paranoia, it did not take long to reach the reduction to the absurd: The president, the leader of the free world, is a traitor!
This claim may have been first enunciated in a 1958 book by Robert Welch, Jr. of the John Birch Society. As described by historian Stephen J. Whitfield in his 1996 book, The Culture of the Cold War: “Welch's book … charged that the president of the United States was ‘a dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy’ ‘a political front man’ for the party.
“And since Eisenhower had often praised the astuteness of his brother, who served as president of the Johns Hopkins University, Welch conjectured, ‘The chances are very strong that Milton Eisenhower is actually Dwight Eisenhower's superior and boss within the Communist Party' How else could one account for Ike's continuation of the policies of the ‘communist-directed Truman administration’? The Republican president was therefore ‘knowingly accepting and abiding by communist orders, and [had been] consciously serving the communist conspiracy for all of his adult life.’”
The theme of presidential treason was elaborated by Bill Gertz in his 1999 book Betrayal, which purports “to expose the threat the Clinton administration poses to American national security.” Betrayal claims to reveal “how Bill Clinton sold out American security for campaign cash and a fistful of foreign policy lies.”
Gertz's accusation of treason by the Clinton administration even became a best-seller, reaching the New York Times best-seller list within several weeks of publication.
—S. A.
Keeping nuclear secrets in perspective
Nuclear weapons secrets have been a particular subject of concern over the last two years. Certainly the government should make every reasonable effort to ensure the protection of sensitive nuclear weapons information— but no more than a reasonable effort. The limits of what can be achieved should be understood so that responsible policies can be formulated and maintained.
It should be obvious that information is only one ingredient in nuclear proliferation, and not the most important one at that. As a 1995 report of the National Academy of Sciences concluded, “Access to classified information is not necessary for a potential proliferator to construct a nuclear weapon.” 4 Much information about nuclear weapons design has been declassified since 1945, and in any case, such information, classified or not, can be independently replicated.
It is not within the power of any classification system or any information security policy to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The most that classification of scientific or technological information can accomplish is to delay the independent achievement of a particular scientific discovery or technological feat. Discovery or duplication cannot be prevented. For instance, an Energy Department report concluded that, “The considerable progress of Iraq toward becoming a nuclear power was largely independent of U.S. classification policy.” 5
When we leak, it's patriotic
In the course of his anti-communist crusade, Sen. Joseph McCarthy called upon a ‘Loyal American Underground’ comprised of executive branch officials and asked them to disclose classified documents revealing communist infiltration.
Today, the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is justified by some on the political right as necessary in order to expose the administration's perfidy. Obtaining these kinds of agenda-driven disclosures of classified information is an activity at which Bill Gertz excels. Through his reporting at the Washington Times, he is probably the leading, and certainly the most consistent source of classified information now reaching the public. His book Betrayal includes some 50 pages of highly classified documents offered to buttress his case. He explains:
“This [Clinton administration] betrayal of American national security so angered some intelligence, defense, and foreign policy officials that they responded in the only way they knew how: by disclosing to the press some of the nation's most secret intelligence.”
“The fact that these unsung heroes have jeopardized their careers to expose wrongdoing only underlines the great danger to our country brought about by the Clinton administration…. I regard them as both dissidents and patriots.”
—S. A.
Everyone should understand that the number of nuclear weapons secrets is diminishing and will, in time, approach zero. Time favors disclosure, not continued secrecy, and secrets that took hundreds of person-years and billions of dollars to invent can be disclosed by a single individual and disseminated around the world in an instant at no cost—whether through official declassification, independent discovery, foreign disclosure, espionage, malice, dissent, or error.
In short, it is far easier to disclose nuclear secrets than to create them. And unlike the secrets of diplomacy or intelligence, nuclear secrets are not replenished on a daily basis. And not many new ones are likely to be created. As a result, as time goes by there will be fewer and fewer nuclear secrets left to protect.
This does not mean, of course, that every design choice and each feature of any particular weapon will inevitably be disclosed—it is possible that many technicalities will remain secret indefinitely. But the overall trend is toward disclosure.
Lawyers for Wen Ho Lee intended to present expert testimony to argue that much of the classified information he is was accused of mishandling is available in some form in the public domain. Meanwhile the Internet has made the dissemination of information, including information that may be officially “classified,” easier than ever before.
According to a 1999 Reuters report, “China sneered … at allegations it stole U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, saying warhead technology is readily available in libraries and on the Internet…. ‘They are no longer secrets, so there is nothing to steal,’ [cabinet spokesman Zhao Qizhen] said in a statement he read to reporters before logging on to the Internet to demonstrate the availability of nuclear technology.” 6
This is a self-serving exaggeration at best. There are are still some secrets worth stealing and people who are trying to steal them. But Zhao Qizhen's basic point is valid: the domain of nuclear secrecy is shrinking.
Long before the public controversies and policy debates over government secrecy are concluded, the reality of the situation will have shifted irreversibly toward increasing transparency. For better or for worse, the legacy of Cold War secrecy will eventually be overtaken by events.
Congressional zeal meets the New York Times
Fifty years before the Cox committee's 1999 report alleging Chinese espionage, another congressional committee was hurling accusations of atomic espionage that were prominently reported in the New York Times, only to be rebuffed by the executive branch and found to be without substantial merit.
In September 1948, the New York Times carried six front-page stories detailing the House Un-American Activities Committee's hearings on atomic espionage. The stories had lurid titles, like “Atomic Spy Report Will Shock Public, Official Declares,” “Gravest Matter Uncovered,” “House Body Plans to Expose Details of Atomic Spying,” and so on. 1
In the end, though, there was no “there” there, as a Department of Justice statement explained: “There is absolutely no competent proof here … of the actual or attempted communication, delivery, or transmittal of information relating to the national defense to a foreign government or to one of its representatives…. The congressional ‘reports’ on espionage and loyalty matters … are injurious to the principles of free government.” 2
Several aspects of this episode were repeated last year in the case of the Cox committee's report on Chinese espionage, the conclusions of which were leaked to the Times over a period of months. The Times declared as fact the assertion that China had stolen nuclear weapons secrets from the United States, and the newspaper fingered Wen Ho Lee as the culprit. “The New York Times [was] responsible for fueling the scandal and portraying Wen Ho Lee as a traitor,” read a critique published in Brill's Content last November. Again the Times played a conspicuous role in highlighting, and occasionally inflaming, the frenzy over espionage.
—S. A.
Secrecy by the numbers
Sources: 1 through 4: Information Security Oversight Office; 5 and 6: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy; 7: James Madison Project; 8: Central Intelligence Agency, Congressional Research Service; 9: General Accounting Office; 10 and 11: Patent and Trademark Office; 12: Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Archive; 13 : New York Times, Cryptome.org; 14 and 15: Department of Justice.
Footnotes
1.
Data from the Information Security Oversight Office, 1999 Annual Report to the President.
2.
See, for example, the Atomic Energy Commission memo on “Medical Experiments on Humans,” April 17, 1947, reprinted on page 56.
3.
William J. Broad, “Pentagon Classifies A Letter Critical Of Antimissile Plan,” New York Times, May 20, 2000.
4.
“A Review of the Department of Energy Classification Policy and Practice,” National Academy Press, 1995, p. 19.
5.
“Classification Policy Study,” prepared for the Department of Energy by Meridian Corporation, July 4, 1992, p. 35.
6.
Matt Pottinger, “China Says U.S. Nuclear ‘Secrets’ On Internet,” Reuters, June 1, 1999.
1.
Quoted in Eileen Welsome, “Spies, Lies & Portable Tapes,” Denver Westword, April 20, 2000, emphasis added.
2.
Ibid
1.
Walter Gellhorn, Security, Loyalty, and Science (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1950), p. 118.
2.
Ibid., p. 119.