Edgewise

The Two CIA Leaks Are Not the Same!

David Kolodney

CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu
Some Critics See a Plame Parallel
Media Notes By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post 11/14/05

"[S]aid author and radio host Bill Bennett, a fierce critic of the Post story. ‘The hypocrisy here is for the media establishment to say some great wrong was done to Valerie Plame, but where is the outrage about Dana Priest? [Author of the Post story]’"

DKo: I guess he means the great harm done to the alleged US torturers in Eastern Europe. House Republicans are investigating this CIA leak, as retaliation for the investigation that led to Scooter Libby’s recent indictment.

When I was an editor of Ramparts magazine, we published the first critical examination of the National Security Agency. In that article we revealed (since corroborated) that the NSA could then, already, pinpoint the location of every Soviet nuclear-armed submarine, the supposedly untrackable, hence invulnerable, arm of their, and our, “nuclear deterrent.” They had all the subs displayed on a huge map at their headquarters.

My reasoning went like this:

The government has a right--even, as in the Plame case, an obligation--to keep some secrets. A paradigm is tactical military details, like the location of particular units in wartime.

But when the government lies publicly about what it knows secretly, and it is a strategic fact on which it invites the body politic to form its political judgments, it gives up its right to keep the secret that refutes the public lie.

At that time, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird was engaged in one of the periodic “Missile Gap” scare campaigns. He claimed that the Soviets had gained a dangerous edge over us, which required from us heavy increased nuclear weapons spending, and a hard line against them internationally. The truth was the opposite.

(Our article was highlighted on the front page of the New York Times. Fortunately for the editors, the government chose to respond, “We wish we had those capabilities.”)

Currently, the government is lying about whether or not it adheres to international law against torture, and it invites the public the rely on those lies politically, even in the face of pending legislation. Reporters have the right to reveal secrets that set the record straight.

The truth hurts. Lies kill.