"Abuses of Power"

"Abuses of the power in federal agencies to suppress information of value and interest to the nation were never so rampant as now." Thus, the American Civil Liberties Union last week summed up a report on the suppression of Government news by official agencies, usually hiding behind the subterfuge of classified information. Government secrecy is not a partisan issue, the report made clear; the Truman Administration was guilty of the same kind of suppression. But, it added, "invisible government is now worse than at any time in many years."

The report, which was issued as a House subcommittee prepared to open hearings and question reporters on the same subject, was the work of Allen Raymond, 63, a veteran newsman who won his credentials at home and abroad on the New York Times and Herald Tribune. To measure censorship-at-the-source in Washington, Reporter Raymond spent six weeks interviewing capital newsmen as well as officials. His sober, 70-page roundup put together facts that have long rankled reporters in the capital. Samples:

P:Security labels--"secret," "confidential," etc.--which were intended primarily for military and state secrets, seal off information not only at the Pentagon but at the Post Office and also such agencies and departments as the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Treasury and the Department of the Interior.

P:The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a well-meaning attempt to ensure accuracy, has revamped its rules, making it virtually impossible for a Washington correspondent to get timely information about proxy fights in important corporations--though ironically one of SEC's main jobs is to keep the public informed on corporation activities. Two months ago the SEC tried tightening its regulations to go even farther. "The new rules," said the report, "make liable to criminal prosecution any reporter or publisher who secures such information from trade or .other independent sources, and publishes it."

P:The Agriculture Department drags its feet about releasing recommendations of its advisory committees. Recently, after a five-day delay, it made public five out of 50 recommendations by one group; eight weeks later the full report showed that many of the 45 suppressed recommendations had opposed department policy.

P:Even in the genuine realms of national security, the Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission have withheld from the U.S. public information already available to the Russians. For example, more than a year after the Northrop Snark and Bell Rascal guided missiles had been parked at public airports for all to see, the Pentagon was still trying to keep their photographs out of print.

Apart from masking stupidity, corruption or political self-seeking, Raymond said, exaggerated Government secrecy can have the effect of damaging national security rather than protecting it. He cited Aviation Week as one of the critics making this charge and warning that the U.S. aircraft industry was suffering from Pentagon censorship. Last week Aviation Week returned to the attack with the "shocking" instance of how the U.S. development of the speedier "Coke bottle" design for supersonic planes was virtually unknown for almost three years to most U.S. plane designers. When Aviation Week recently published the complete details, said the editorial, "we were swamped with inquiries from aircraft industry engineers who had obviously never heard of [it]." Added the magazine: "The Air Force is now realizing that it has been paying a prohibitively high price for its supersecurity."

The Washington newsmen themselves--and their papers--are partly to blame for the fact that so much legitimate information can be suppressed, said Raymond. Because most publishers support the Administration, he said, "able reporters today will not dig as deeply or work as hard to penetrate secrets within the federal Administration which they know will be undervalued, or cut to brief items on page 32 or 48, as they might have worked for Page One display during the Roosevelt or Truman Administrations."

But he emphasized that it was the Government, not the press, that had made Washington a city of secrets. As the House subcommittee under California Democrat John E. Moss got ready to listen to correspondents on the question, it issued a 552-page book summarizing the replies of 60 executive agencies to a list of 80 questions about information policies. Among other things, the replies showed that the classic categories of classified military information ("top secret," "secret," "confidential," "restricted") had multiplied like rabbits. Now there are rubber stamps in federal agencies with such legends as "classified defense information," "limited official use," "for staff use only," "confidential treatment," "not for publication." In all, at the latest count, secretive bureaucrats had figured out no fewer than 32 such high-sounding ways of saying no to newsmen.

Criticism was also leveled last week at newsmen for letting Government agencies suppress or color the news to suit themselves. Too many newsmen, scolded the Domestic News Committee of the Associated Press, suffer from a bad case of "handoutitis." The committee was talking about A.P. staffers, but it made clear that the disease is widespread. Said the committee: "Our reporting has deteriorated into a spoon-fed operation, complacently accepting handouts from Government, labor, business and self-serving organizations without asking questions or digging into the facts."

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