Politics of secrecy debated in American journalism

The Los Angeles Times reported late last year that: “At least 15 federal agencies have yanked potentially sensitive information off the Internet … for fear that terrorists could exploit the government data. The excised material ranges from information on chemical reactors … to airport data and mapping of oil pipelines.”

These concerns now seem to be reinforced by a recent New York Times report about the public availability of information on germ warfare agents. Yet these latest reports may suggest a different lesson, one I learned in an earlier battle with the U.S. government over nuclear secrecy. Attempts to monopolize secrets serve only to keep the U.S. public in the dark about the risks some of our most advanced technologies pose to our own population.

Twenty-three years ago when I was an associate editor of The Progressive, an investigative reporter, Howard Morland, approached my late senior colleagues, Erwin Knoll and Sam Day, with a story idea about the hydrogen bomb. He wanted to establish: 1) that claims that the United States and a very few other powers monopolized “the secret” of the hydrogen bomb were bogus, 2) that the manufacture of hydrogen bombs posed a safety risk to surrounding communities even if those bombs never exploded, 3) that government efforts to restrict access to information about nuclear technology shielded elites and their policies from full public scrutiny.

Morland, who had taken half a dozen physics courses in college, had read the academic literature on the hydrogen bomb. With the permission of the Department of Energy, he visited weapons production facilities, talked with weapons designers, and obtained reams of unclassified information. He then wrote an article detailing the basic concepts of the bomb and the implications of his work for current nuclear issues.

Since none of us were nuclear scientists, we sent Morland’s draft to several weapons experts, hoping thereby to confirm the accuracy of the piece. Some did so, but in a curious way. They notified the government that The Progressive was about to disclose vital, classified information. Very soon thereafter, the Carter administration sought a temporary restraining order to block publication of the article.

In the course of the brief hearing on their request, Federal District Judge Robert Warren made a caustic remark that attracted national media’s attention: “I’d like to think a long hard time before I gave the hydrogen bomb to Idi Amin.” Though The New York Times withheld initial judgment, even such liberal bastions as The Washington Post soon began to pressure us to drop the article on two grounds: 1) we were disseminating dangerous information, 2) by handing the government a strong case, our inevitable defeat would establish a precedent for more government control of the media.

Nonetheless, any doubts we may have harbored were forestalled by the actions and words of the government itself. Sam Day recounted to me a story our attorneys had told him about prominent government physicists. In the course of their depositions, some of the government’s own witnesses had admitted attending cocktail parties where German and Indian physicists casually discussed some of the most sophisticated techniques in laser fusion and H-bomb triggering. Day then chuckled that this deposition material was itself classified, that our lawyers probably shouldn’t have told him this story, and that we shouldn’t be talking about it.

Sam’s story made it even more obvious that there was no H-bomb secret. Anyone with the training and desire could gain more sophisticated and specific plans than our article provided. Efforts to prevent the spread of technology through secrecy were futile. Major new technologies inevitably require extensive collaborative efforts, and the individuals take pride in their work and often talk about that work with others.

Finally, it became obvious that even many government officials knew there wasn’t any magic secret. Claiming that hydrogen bomb technologies were and must remain secret only served to prevent open and informed debate about the risks that even the production of nuclear weapons pose. As I pondered Sam’s story, I looked forward to the day when reports of such casual exchanges would surface in court and embarrass the government.

Unfortunately, as our attorneys debated the government’s, a Madison newspaper published another hydrogen bomb piece. The government then dropped its case. The “secret” was revealed, but the government’s duplicitous and manipulative role in the secrecy mystique remained largely hidden.

Do I want terrorists surfing the Web for information on germ warfare or safety controls at nuclear power plants? Of course not, but educated terrorists can obtain this data by close reading of company reports, careful perusal of basic literature, and casual conversations with specialists as well as current and former employees.

Restricting the flow of information only makes it harder for ordinary citizens to become aware of and freely debate imminent threats to their own communities, as the whole shameful history of nuclear pollution from our highly classified nuclear weapons factories makes plain.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him

may e-mail messages to jbuell@prexar.com.