The Nation: The U.S. Mania for Classification

LARGELY unremarked, the U.S. Government has been practicing a kind of prior restraint for three decades. By routinely stamping so much material as secret, it has cut off the flow of information to press and public, only to turn it back on at convenient moments or let it dribble out in calculated leaks. The disclosure of the Pentagon papers serves as a reminder of how much more information—hundreds of millions of pages—remains classified. A Washington bureaucrat can stamp as secret virtually anything he wants to.

That license is likely to be sharply curtailed as a result of the uproar over the Pentagon report. In hearings begun last week by the House Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee, Arthur Goldberg, former U.S. representative to the United Nations, testified that of the countless thousands of documents he had read and written, 75% should never have been classified. Some 15%, he continued, should have been kept secret for a short time. A mere 10% deserved to be classified for a longer period. William G. Florence, who recently retired as a security-classification expert for the Defense Department, went even further than Goldberg. Of the some 20 million classified documents, including copies, in the Defense Department, he estimated that only one-half of 1% should be kept from public view.

Dubious Material. Classification is a byproduct of America’s rise to world power. As the U.S. made its far-flung commitments in World War II, secret military information began to accumulate. The cold war speeded up the process. In 1953 President Eisenhower tried to straighten out the classification chaos by issuing an executive order. It broke down classification into three categories that are still used today: top secret, secret and confidential. Top secret is intended to cover information whose disclosure would result in “exceptionally grave damage to the nation.” This means revealing critical military or defense plans or secret technological developments that would be useful to an enemy. Only a top-ranking military officer or department official can stamp a document top secret. Still, a lot of dubious material gets labeled top secret. All but one of the volumes in the Pentagon papers were given that designation.

Even more discretion is allowed bureaucrats in using the lesser degrees of classification. Most communications with foreign governments fall into the secret category. But bureaucrats have got in the habit of stamping documents secret simply to make sure that their superiors will read them They know that a confidential classification will hardly raise an eyebrow. As for unclassified material, it is all but superfluous. As often as not, it consists of the transcript of a speech that was delivered in public.

Easy Skill. Classifying keeps many an otherwise idle bureaucrat occupied. Busiest of all are Defense Department employees who bring, as might be expected, a rare spit and polish to the job. More than 300 Defense officials, says Florence, have been given “original” authority to classify documents; hundreds of thousands of others have what is termed “derivative” power to classify. A virtual army marches through the Pentagon shooting down reams of innocent documents—truly a case of documental genocide. “In the past several years,” says ex-classifier Florence, “I have not heard one person in the Department of Defense say that he had no authority to classify information.” It is obviously a skill within the reach of everyone, whatever his failings in other areas.

When Florence suggested that a document might be revived and put back in circulation, he met opposition from people who were afraid of losing their “classification prerogatives.” While it is an “ego thing” to stamp secret on a document, it is even more of a thrill to label it top secret. Says Florence: “Classification has become as automatic as putting a period after a sentence. Individuals at all echelons in the department practice classification as a way of life.” It is an expensive practice, too. Florence estimates that it costs the Government millions of dollars a year for safes, fireproof filing cabinets, storage space and guards—not to mention the man-hours that are wasted.

Ike’s executive order has led to what Florence calls a “mass of weird confusion” in the Defense Department. The department, for example, refused to make public the list of military installations where liquor is sold to servicemen by the bottle. The Army once classified as a military secret a modern adaptation of the bow and arrow. The Air Force stamped secret on pictures of the interiors of transport planes that had been remodeled with plush lounges for the comfort of traveling brass. The Navy put a secrecy stamp on a report of attacks by sharks on seamen, even though they took place in New York Harbor (where few people swim any more) in 1916. When one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote a note to the others suggesting less top-secret classification of papers, his note was stamped top secret. Even in the Defense Department, however, there are limits. After someone placed a secret marking on a few newspaper clippings dealing with naval matters, an embarrassed Defense Department issued an order (yes, unclassified) directing personnel to leave newspapers in the public domain.

Up to 1941. Not that other Government agencies are much less secretive. The General Services Administration refused to make public the rent it was paying to lease office space in a building. The Justice Department classified as secret a report on expense-paid trips to shooting matches by federal border-patrol inspectors. The State Department refused to let reporters see gifts that had been presented to federal officials by foreign governments. Reason: the gifts were stored in a “classified building.” The Forest Service would not release the names of persons granted permits to graze cattle in a national forest. The Civil Service Commission censored the results of an investigation of irregularities in a rural mail-carrier examination. That leaves the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. It suppressed a report listing studies of human reproduction problems.

In theory, all Government agencies are required periodically to review classified material in an effort to declassify it. In fact, much information—foreign communiques, intelligence reports, coded messages—is exempt from declassification. Otherwise, records that are marked top secret are supposed to be gradually downgraded to secret, then to confidential until after twelve years they are fit for public viewing. Inevitably, declassification is pursued with considerably less enthusiasm than classification. The State Department, for instance, has only got as far as 1941 in its declassification program. Anyone who wants to look at records later than that must get a security clearance and submit for inspection all the notes he takes. Declassification, moreover, requires the consent of the office that originated the document as well as the approval of the department’s legal adviser. Even if the scholar or journalist is able to pass these tests, he will still be turned down if he seeks information that might embarrass the Government. A case in point is Historian Julius Epstein, who asked to see the records on the repatriation of Russian prisoners and refugees after World War II. Epstein was never given a clear understanding of how he could jeopardize national security by examining the documents, though they would undoubtedly cast some discredit on the U.S. for forcing over a million Russians to return, many against their will, to their homeland and likely incarceration in Siberian labor camps. Epstein sued the Government on the grounds that the Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966 to make more information available to the public, permitted him access to the files. But he lost the case because the statute exempts “national security” matters and lets the Government decide what constitutes national security.

While the Government routinely keeps masses of material from public view, it just as routinely leaks secret information when it wants to.

In an affidavit filed in support of his paper’s case, Washington Post Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee told of receiving classified information from the Government on hundreds of occasions. In an effort to kill a foreign aid bill, a Congressman once supplied Bradlee with a secret State Department document, neatly slicing off the secret label on each page as he handed it over.

Sometimes one agency of the Government will leak information in order to combat another branch. Last March, Democratic Senator Henry Jackson was apparently given a report by the Defense Department that the Russians were enlarging their intercontinental missile silos. Jackson warned that the Soviets were about to deploy a more advanced offensive missile. Two months later, Senate Republicans leaked a report from the CIA indicating that the Russians were only reinforcing missile sites and not accelerating the arms race.

Not Only Lives. Though the Government has complained that the New York Times distorted the Pentagon report by publishing only portions of it, the White House has been known to make selective leaks of its own when it had a point to get across. In another affidavit, Washington Post Reporter Murrey Marder included a story he wrote in 1965 after the American intervention in the Dominican Republic. The Johnson Administration had given him cables purporting to show that the U.S. intervened only to protect American lives. By digging deeper on his own, Marder discovered other cables that told a much different story: the U.S. was really worried about a Communist takeover.

Now that the secrets of classification have been revealed, there is finally talk of changing the system. Goldberg proposed that Congress take more of a hand in deciding what is to be classified. Several Congressmen, in fact, are preparing to introduce legislation. Hubert Humphrey wants to establish a joint congressional committee to review classified material. Edmund Muskie would prefer an independent review board with the power to make documents public after two years. Even if Congress does not want to venture into the thicket of classified documents, the Executive Branch could impose stiff penalties on bureaucrats who classify more than they have to. At a time when Government credibility is in grave doubt, perhaps nothing would restore public confidence so much as release of the information that is now senselessly bottled up in official archives. Some of these mountains of documents might never be read; others might well embarrass the bureaucracy. But at least the Government would no longer be using the secret label merely to avoid bad publicity.