January 18, 1979

The Risk Of Keeping Secrets

Are governments justified in keeping secrets?

On the morning of a great battle, a trusted officer once asked George Washington what his plans were for the day.  The general replied in a whisper, "Can you keep a secret?"  On being solemnly assured, he then added, "So can I!"

Ever since, Americans have debated about how much state business should be kept from common knowledge.

President Richard Nixon was toppled from office because he sought to preserve diplomatic secrets and taped conversations.  "Confidentiality" was his watch word.  His "secret bombing" of Cambodia triggered a wave of campus protests that ended only with the killing of four students at Kent State University in Ohio.  Daniel Ellsberg, Father Berrigan and "Deep Throat", who leaked private secrets, became folk heroes.

President Jimmy Carter campaigned on a promise to conduct public affairs openly.  "We must never again keep secret the evolution of our foreign policy from the Congress and the American people," he told a Chamber of Commerce audience.

Such frankness was refreshing, but recent events have shaken Carter's faith in that policy.

Shifting positions on the Israeli-Egyptian settlement, Cuban strategic bombers, Russian human rights issues, recognition of Red China and Iranian oil strikes have imperiled peace and prosperity.

Now Carter has retreated to a close-mouthed "realistic position" on the Iranian situation.  White House press secretary Jody Powell acknowledges the president is determining a new U.S. policy toward Iran now that the Shah has been overpowered.

But Powell steadfastly refuses to comment.  "I think you can understand our disinclination to be drawn out on a delicate situation such as this one on a daily basis."  I see no alternative, to take a rather unpopular position.  The decisions that are being made ...  are matters which at this particular point are not appropriate for public comment and discussion.

It is ironic that this new stone-wall attitude should surface in the same week that the Cambodia domino should fall and the Kent State University riot case should be settled.

Nixon's trouble began when he launched a military operation against Cambodia in the spring of 1970.  Antiwar protestors in the United States termed the action an "invasion" and a brutal bombing of "innocent" Cambodians.

At Kent, Ohio, college students burned the ROTC building, stopped classes, rampaged through the business district, and stoned police and firemen.

Upon the request of the Kent Mayor, Governor James Rhodes called out the National Guard.  In a nervous confrontation, four students were shot to death, one permanently paralyzed and eight others injured.  A Federal blue-ribbon investigative panel and a 1975 jury absolved public officials and the guardsmen of blame.  Parents of the slain students, however, appealed.  That legality was resolved with out-of-court settlements totaling $675,000 paid by the state.

The sad thing about Cambodia and Kent State is that they both resulted from a well-kept secret.

A decade ago the Russian and Chinese communists were still palsy-walsy.  Soviet-supported Viet Cong in North Vietnam and China-supported Khmer Rouge in Cambodia cooperated in conquering the Indochina states.

Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon warned that should the communists win the so-called Vietnam War, other states would topple like lined-up dominoes in a bloodbath of liberty-loving Orientals.

"Imperialist propaganda," shrieked the war protestors.  Finally public pressure forced abandonment of the Vietnam to the communists.  South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia quickly fell, and the predicted bloodbath followed.  The planned killings of Cambodians reached Nazi-style genocide proportions.

Subsequently, the two big communist nations split and began contesting control of Indochina.  The Viet Cong, better equipped by Russia, toppled China's running-dog Khmer Rouge.

Prince Sihanouk, Cambodia's chief of state at the start of hostilities many years ago, now tramps the halls of the United Nations waving a "Black Paper" which spills the secret that destroyed Nixon, freedom in the orient, and killed four young people at Kent.

An army of a quarter-million North Vietnam communists had moved into Cambodia to encircle the Americans in South Vietnam.  Sihanouk was afraid the North Vietnamese would turn on his country, but he was afraid to provoke them.  Consequently he consented to the bombing of invading communists on condition the Americans not challenge his "neutrality."

Thus it was that we bore the onus of aggression while trying to protect ourselves and a timid Cambodia from a secret, enemy aggression.

Sihanouk coolly admits his cupidity.  "We wanted to be one with the Viet Cong, but that was a mistake."

The U.S. mistake was in honoring a secret that cried out for public justice.  It misled the world, and the students at Kent, into a false and base opinion of this great nation.

There has to be a balance between secrets that insure national security, and revelations that encourage citizen cooperation.

Woe to him that fails the task.

Author: Lindsey Williams