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Coverage of Terrorism
John Deutch felt comfortable putting
such sensitive operational materials on
his unsecured home computer. Such
disregard is the natural byproduct of
obsessive secrecy. Abuse of secrecy
breeds contempt for the system. It is
like inflation. The more of it there is,
the less it is valued.
This is a lesson lawmakers refuse to
learn. Instead, their knee-jerk reaction
is to respond to each leak with the
threat of tighter strictures. While the
CIA frets about press leaks or bemoans
the aggressiveness of this or that reporter,
the next Kim Philby or Aldrich
Ames may already be plotting to milk
the system. The keepers of secrets have
always had trouble distinguishing between
contretemps and treachery. In
the end, they worry more about safeguarding
secrets than security itself. “If
we guard our toothbrushes and diamonds
with equal zeal, we will probably
lose fewer toothbrushes and more
diamonds,” observed former national
security advisor McGeorge Bundy.
Much of the tension we see today
between disclosure and secrecy is familiar.
Foster Hailey covered the war in
the Pacific in World War II for The New
York Times. In 1945 he wrote, “There
have been some correspondents who
were easily discouraged in their fights
with the censor and the gold braid and
contented themselves with writing
pretty stories about generals and admirals
and movie heroes who happened
to be wearing uniforms. Or they were
content to sit around the rear bases
and write only what the public relations
officer brought around to them.”
Today, it is less a matter of contentment
than containment. But then as
now we journalists have less to fear
from the censor than from our own
natural inclination to identify with and
further the interests of our fellow citizens.
It is not our role to help maintain
the fighting spirit, to cushion the blows,
or airbrush reality. We serve our country
best when we report objectively
and dispassionately, not as citizens of
but one nation, but as stateless chroniclers
promoting no agenda and serving
no purpose but to inform. “In a free
country,” wrote the late E.B. White, “it
is the duty of writers to pay no attention
to duty.” That is a particularly
stern commandment, one that requires
a near-absolute faith in the sanctity of
information and the maturity of our
nation’s leaders and citizenry to put
that information to good use.
“Loose lips sink ships,” it is said. But
sealed lips may suffocate entire democracies.
Reporters have no taste for
putting their fellow citizens at risk or
compromising national security. Where
a story may put Americans in peril, the
rule remains: “When in doubt, leave it
out.” But, among the millions and millions
of secrets in this war against terrorism,
there may be but one ultimate
secret that our government would least
like the American public or its enemies
to know. That secret, I fear, is that they
are in possession of no secret so valuable
or insightful that it holds the promise
of an end to our vulnerability. ■
Ted Gup is author of “The Book of
Honor: Secret Lives and Deaths of
CIA Operatives” and is professor of
journalism at Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland. He has
received the George Polk Award, The
Worth Bingham Prize, The Gerald
Loeb Award, and the 2000 Investigative
Reporters and Editors Book
Prize.
tedgup@att.net
The Pentagon and the Press
Several ‘principles’ of coverage became victims of the war against terrorism.
By Stanley W. Cloud
Since the end of the Vietnam War,
whenever the U.S. military has
swung into action, American war
correspondents, with few exceptions,
have found themselves hog-tied and
blindfolded, utterly unable to provide
their readers, viewers and listeners with
adequate coverage of actual combat.
As the “war on terrorism” unfolded
following the attacks of September 11,
the pattern seemed to be repeating.
Vast journalistic resources were committed
to covering the war from a distance,
often with impressive results.
But in the early stages, at least, much of
the fighting took place in secret, far
beyond journalists’ eyes and ears. Once
again, reporters from the freest country
on earth were begging the Defense
Department for permission to cover a
war firsthand. Again, to a large extent
they had to rely on “pools” and briefings
for details, such as they were.
Military commanders, of course,
have never been very enthusiastic about
having journalists around during combat.
(It’s a different matter afterward,
when heroics and medals are under
discussion.) The main objections
haven’t really been that journalists are
anti-military, or ignorant of military
matters, or can’t be trusted to abide by
reasonable ground rules that protect
secrets and lives. Those are the arguments
of spin-doctors and right-wing
commentators. The military’s objections
have been more basic: Reporters
and photographers can get in the way,
and when things don’t go well, they
have a tendency to tell the whole world.
In Vietnam, the first and only modern
U.S. war that was completely free
of press censorship, the problem between
journalists and the military had
little or nothing to do with the accuracy
of the reporting, let alone the military’s
desire to maintain operational security.
Mostly, it had to do with reporting
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 13