NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 12, #9; 24 February 2006)
2. BUSH ADMINISTRATION ASSERTS RIGHT TO PROSECUTE THOSE WHO POSSESS SECRET FILES
3. TOM WOLFE TO DELIVER 35th ANNUAL JEFFERSON LECTURE
4. HISTORIAN /SOCIAL CRITIC THEODORE DRAPER DIES
5. BITS AND BYTES: “Information is Power” Article Follow-up
6. ARTICLES OF INTEREST: “Should Historians and Librarians Be Worried About Prosecution Under the Espionage Act?” Steven Aftergood (Secrecy News)
1. A HOME RUN FOR HISTORIANS AND OPENNESS ADVOCATES IN EXPOSING A GOVERNMENT RECLASSIFICATION EFFORT On 21 February 2006, a front -page story in the New York Times
(<http://nytimes.com/2006/02/21/politics/21reclassify.html>;) reported that for nine years the CIA, U.S. military and intelligence and other federal agencies have secretly withdrawn from public access and at times reclassified over 55,000 pages of records taken from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA quickly responded to the story and a request for the agency to conduct an immediate investigation that had been made late last week on behalf of independent historian Matthew Aid by the National Security Archive (NSA) in conjunction with the National Coalition for History, Public Citizen Litigation Group, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
In the letter (see document #3 in the NSA report link cited below) raising concerns that was sent late last week to NARA and copied to various Congressional oversight committees, the petitioners collectively requested that the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) conduct an audit of the reclassification effort and publicly report on its findings. After ISOO chief William Leonard sampled some of the 55 documents provided by the historian Aid Leonard concluded that at least16 of them he in his opinion were improperly being withheld. Consequently, he authorized the audit investigation. Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT) also announced that, in part because of the concerns raised by scholars, his House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security will hold a hearing on classification policy on 14 March.
In late January, Matthew Aid, an independent historian who is currently a visiting fellow at the National Security Archive, and representatives of several historical and government openness organizations met with NARA officials to discuss an ongoing reclassification program that Aid had discovered through his wide-ranging research in intelligence, military, and diplomatic records at NARA. Aid had discovered that the CIA and military agencies had reviewed millions of pages, at an unknown cost to taxpayers, in order to sequester documents from collections that had been open for years, but that the agency felt had been improperly released. Aid’s discoveries confirmed what Steven Aftergood, editor of the Federation of American Scientists' “Secrecy News” had long suspected was going on In a Slate magazine article published in March 2005
<http://www.slate.com/id/2114963/>;) Aftergood wrote that he believed that “in the late 1990s government agencies took to scrubbing public records at the National Archives and elsewhere, pulling untold thousands of public records for ‘review’ and possible reclassification.” At the time, however, a NARA official challenged the accuracy of Aftergood’s claim. According to informed sources, the reclassification activity began as Aftergood had contended late in the 1990s but its scope widened during the Bush administration and the survey of records is scheduled to continue until 2007.
During the January meeting, NARA officials were informed that many of the documents Aid found missing from NARA’ s holdings were in excess of 50 years old. Amazingly, some of the CIA impounded documents already have been published in the State Department's historical series, “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS). According to Aid, other documents (copies of which were provided to NARA) have appeared in microfilm sets marketed by a private distributor, and still others have been declassified elsewhere and, “undoubtedly are in the research files of hundreds of historians and scholars.” What should be a concern to every historian who may possess some of these 55,000 documents is that under current law anyone who possesses one or more of these documents, might be in technical violation of the Espionage Act (see related story below).
As a result of the meeting, NARA officials agreed to look into the matter.
A formal letter from the meeting participants was sent late last Friday requesting the audit and calling for a promise from NARA to return documents to their rightful files and to develop better guidelines for agencies to follow in the review of historical records.
After the New York Times story appeared, the National Security Archives published a report that includes a sampling of the documents that Aid discovered had been pulled from NARA’s shelves (see <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB179/>). As readers can see, these documents concern such innocuous matters as the State Department's map and foreign periodicals procurement programs on behalf of the U.S.
intelligence community or State's open source intelligence research efforts during 1948. Aid and others believe that some of the documents have apparently been sequestered “because they were embarrassing,” such as a complaint from the Director of Central Intelligence about the bad publicity the CIA was receiving from its failure to predict anti-American riots in Bogota, Colombia in 1948 or a report that the CIA and the rest of the U.S.
intelligence community badly botched their estimates as to whether or not Communist China would intervene in the Korean War in the fall of 1950. According to a press statement released by the National Security Archives, “It is difficult to imagine how the documents cited by Aid could cause any harm to U.S. national security.”
To justify the reclassification program, officials at CIA and military agencies argue that during the implementation of Executive Order 12958, President Clinton's program for bulk declassification of historical federal records, many sensitive intelligence-related documents that remained classified were inadvertently released to NARA, especially in State Department files. Even though State Department History Office historians who compile the FRUS volumes and other researchers had been combing through and copying documents from those collections for years, CIA and other agencies compelled NARA to grant them access to the open files so they could reclassify documents. According to NARA officials, the CIA was alerted that many of the impounded documents had already been published, but, the agency ignored these arguments and impounded the documents anyway.
The CIA contends that no documents have been “reclassified”; instead these withdrawn records simply were never “properly classified.” William Leonard, director of ISOO, states that while this line of argument may be technically correct, others would conclude that the reasoning seems strained. In his review of a sampling of documents provided by Aid, Leonard concluded that sixteen of them should not be secret.
After the New York Times story appeared, NARA announced that an “official investigation into the matter was underway.” According to the NARA statement (<http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2006/02/nara022206.html>;), an audit will be conducted by ISOO to determine the exact number of documents that have been withdrawn, whether there is authorization and justification for the withdrawal, and the appropriateness of the reclassification action. The audit is expected to take approximately 60 days. Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein also expressed concern when he stated, “Inappropriate declassification can subject our citizens, our democratic institutions, our homeland security, and our interactions with foreign nations to potential harm....The American people expect and deserve nothing less and the National Archives is determined to fulfill its role in this process.”
According to historian Aid, "Every blue ribbon panel that has studied the performance of the U.S. defense establishment and intelligence community since September 11, 2001 has emphasized the need for less secrecy and greater transparency. This episode reveals an enduring culture of secrecy in the U.S. government and highlights the need to establish measures prohibiting future secret reclassification programs."
2. BUSH ADMINISTRATION ASSERTS RIGHT TO PROSECUTE THOSE WHO POSSESS SECRET FILES Following up on the ramifications of the story posted above in terms of historians and journalists who come into possession of classified documents, on 30 January 2006 the Bush administration stated in a court filing that journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information. “There is plainly no exemption in the statute for the press” stated the Justice Department brief that was filed in response to a motion to dismiss charges against two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The lobbyists reportedly received classified information during conversations they had with government officials, one of which told the two men that they were receiving “highly classified ‘Agency stuff’”. That official subsequently pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act.
The government asserts in the brief that lobbyists “have no First Amendment right to willfully disclose national defense information.” But the government went on to say “....we recognize that a prosecution under the espionage laws of an actual member of the press for publishing classified information leaked to it by a government source would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly, indeed, the fact that there has never been such a prosecution speaks for itself.” We now know where lobbyists and journalists stand in the eyes of government prosecutors, but how about historians and scholars such as Matthew Aid?
3. TOM WOLFE TO DELIVER 35th ANNUAL JEFFERSON LECTURE The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced that celebrated novelist, journalist, and chronicler of American society, Tom Wolfe will deliver the 2006 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. The Jefferson Lecture is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities; the lectureship carries a $10,000 honorarium.
Wolfe, who has a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University, is a pioneer of the “New Journalism” and an astute observer of American manners and mores. He has written nearly a dozen books, including “The Right Stuff”
which is about the U.S. space program and status competition among pilots. His most recent work of fiction “I Am Charlotte Simmons” (2004) draws on the author’s extensive observation of college life in the United States.
According to NEH Chair Bruce Cole, “Tom Wolfe has entertained and enlightened readers with this meticulously researched commentary on the American scene. His skill as a literary stylist has influenced our language. He has documented our culture, and, through his journalism and fiction, shaped the American identity.”
According to Wolfe, his talk “is going to be about ‘the human beast’" and will reflect his longtime focus on “status as a primary human motivation.”
The Jefferson Lecture will be delivered on 10 May 2006 at 7 p.m. at the Warner Theater in Washington D.C. Attendance at the lecture is free, though by invitation. Those interested in receiving an invitation should call
(202) 606-8400 or send an e-mail message to: <info@neh.gov>. Additional information about the NEH and a list of previous Jefferson Lecturers is available online at: <http://www.humanities.gov>;.
4. SCHOLAR, HISTORIAN THEODORE DRAPER DIES On 20 February 2006, Theodore Draper, who wrote prolifically about the history of American communism, racism, and abuse of power died at age 93 at his home in Princeton, New Jersey.
Draper was born 11 September 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. He abandoned his studies in history at Columbia University to join the Communist Party. Ultimately he completed a course of study in philosophy at Brooklyn College.
In his writings, Draper frequently probed presidential authority and conflicts within the Executive branch of government. He wrote a number of books, many of which focused on the general theme of the lack of accountability among political leaders his book on Iran-Contra titled “A Very Thin Line” (1991) is perhaps the best known. An earlier work, “The Roots of American Communism” (1957) is considered a classic; in writing it he drew upon his experience as foreign editor on the communist newspaper New Masses. Later in life Draper was affiliated with Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. He was a regular contributor to a number of magazines.
His thoughtful and pithy essays in the New York Review of Books may be found in the clipping files of many a scholar.
5. BITS AND BYTES
Item #1 “Information is Power” Article Follow-up: A follow-up item on our last “Article of the Week” posting in which Terry Allen of "In These Times" discussed the Bush Administration’s effort to bar most public access to birth and death certificates for 70 to 100 years (visit <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2488/>;). The federal legislation that authorized this federal program was Section 1026 of the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 which sets minimum standards for birth certificates. Rules for implementing relevant provisions of the act were posted for public comment in December 2005; final standards are expected to be adopted by Spring 2006.
6. ARTICLES OF INTEREST
One posting this week: In “Should Historians and Librarians Be Worried About Prosecution Under the Espionage Act?” Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists (Secrecy News; 23 February 2006) discusses how the government’s interpretation of the Espionage Act leads to “absurd conclusions.” For the article go to:
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/22139.html .