The Secret War Over Secrecy
September 19, 1993
The Central Intelligence Agency, it is said, has decided to release edited versions of secret documents about major covert operations from 1950 to 1963. Thus much more may be learned about the 1953 coup that re-enthroned the Shah of Iran, the 1954 overthrow of an elected leftist president in Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961.
But it speaks volumes about old habits of secrecy and the timidity of reformers that this policy of openness was heralded by unnamed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The backstage struggle over secrecy is not over. And that's because the main reason for secrecy is less to protect U.S. security than to preserve the tattered myth of omnicompetent clandestine services.
It will be past time if the C.I.A. truly delivers. Also promised are secret estimates of Soviet strength from 1950 to 1983, and open publication of "Studies in Intelligence," the agency's in-house journal. But the proof will be in performance; skeptics remember that in 1991 the agency with much ado formed an "Openness Task Force" -- whose report was promptly classified.
Secrecy is not just a way of life at spy agencies; it is a state religion. The National Archives is steward to 325 million classified documents, including still-secret files dating to World War I. When documents are declassified, key passages are often blacked out, on the pretext of protecting sources and methods. But keepers of these secrets are equally protective of evidence of gross misjudgments and abuse of power.
No doubt many lurid tales about the C.I.A. are unfounded, and many of the agency's successes are unsung. But that is the price all intelligence agencies pay for secrecy and lack of accountability. During the cold war, many Americans were willing to give their spy services the benefit of the doubt. But as the Soviet empire fell, so did the old justification for maintaining a huge secret bureaucracy in an otherwise open society.
There are good signs. R. James Woolsey, the new Director of Central Intelligence, seems to understand the need for opening windows at Langley. Anthony Lake, the national security adviser, has had firsthand experience as an author in dealing with the sludge-slow Freedom of Information Act bureaucracy; his requests took years to process, and then he was denied documents for his book about the fall of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. And President Clinton has ordered a review of all secrecy, to be completed by Nov. 30.
What bodes badly is that Mr. Clinton's task force is composed of the very agencies that create and protect secrets, notably the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and the State Department.
"The intelligence community is the problem," says Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who should know, since he once chaired the intelligence oversight committee. "Nothing personal, but they live off secrecy. Secrecy keeps the mistakes secret."
Hence the fear that the task force may balk at en masse declassification of millions of ancient documents, and instead recommend yet another review. Under existing rules, it will take 19 years for the National Archives just to review State Department records for the 1960's. It's up to Bill Clinton, that reinventor of government, to assure the removal of this incredible, outdated wall of paper between citizens and their supposed servants.