Redstate

Some thoughts on the effect of selectively releasing declassified documents on the media

By AcademicElephant Posted in War — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

In the abstract, I think the concept of George Washington University's National Security Archive is an excellent one. I would dearly love to see academic institutions serve as unbiased concuits that make primary documents widely accessible once they have been declassified. Thus, the sort of source material that has long been the purview of the professional historian or particularly diligent journalist may be examined by all interested parties, who will then be able to make their own assessment of the proffered analysis of various news outlets.

Sadly, the National Security Archive turns out to be no such disinterested source of information. Judging from its website, the institution's goal is to get mainstream media attention for the documents it makes available, the most sensational of which have been assembled on a so-called "Greatest Hits" page, which details "National Security Archive Documents and Selected Headlines/Stories They Generated." Number one on this hit parade? "Hundreds of Photos of Caskets Released" by Ann Scott Tyson, which appeared in the Washington Post on April 29, 2005. Number two? "Clarke to Rice, "Presidential Policy Initiative/Review -- The Al-Qida Network," 1/25/01, which inspired "'01 Memo to Rice Warned of Qaeda and Offered Plan" by Scott Shane (New York Times on February 12, 2005). Number three? "Briefing Notes for Rumsfeld Visit to Baghdad," 3/24/84, which resulted in "Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Iraqis, Documents Show" by Dana Priest (Washington Post on December 19, 2003). And so it goes; other conservative malfeasants such as Henry Kissinger (who appears on the site's masthead with oddly-tinted glasses, I suppose because he didn't look perfidious enough without Photoshop) come in for their share of criticism, but President Bush and his immoral Iraq war are the stars of the show.

Read on...

The denizens of the National Security Archive are clearly proud of their illustrious tradition of Speaking Truth to Power, but I find it problemmatic for an outfit that claims to be an unbiased academic source of primary documents that the Truths they choose to Speak are carefully selected, as are the Powers to which they deign to Speak them. Their timing is also has a smell of mischief to it. Thus, while it is disappointing, it is perhaps not surprising that they have most recently targeted Robert Gates, who is Mr. Bush's nominee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The Archive's first assessment of Mr. Gates was cautiously optimistic, but on Friday they changed course. They've honored the 20th anniversary of Ed Meese's public disclosure of Iran-Contra on November 24th, 1986, which conveniently came just ten days before Mr. Gates' confirmation hearings are set to begin, with "The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On: Documents Spotlight Role of Reagan, Top Aides--Pentagon Nominee Robert Gates Among Many Prominent Figures Involved in the Scandal." You see, Iran-Contra may have been a Reagan scandal, but for the National Security Archive it has direct relevance to Mr. Bush and his treacherous administration:

Twenty years later, the Iran-Contra affair continues to resonate on many levels, especially as Washington gears up for a new season of political inquiry with the pending inauguration of the 110th Congress and the seeming inevitability of hearings into a range of Bush administration policies. For at its heart Iran-Contra was a battle over presidential power dating back directly to the Richard Nixon era of Watergate, Vietnam and CIA dirty tricks. That clash continues under the presidency of George W. Bush, which has come under frequent fire for the controversial efforts of the president, as well as Vice President Richard Cheney, to expand Executive Branch authority over numerous areas of public life.

Amongst the documents selected by the Archive for release on Friday is a secret memo from Mr. Gates to then-CIA director William Casey advocating bombing Nicaragua to unseat the Sandinistas. I think the memo is pretty impressive as Mr. Gates argues against a half-hearted policy of containment and for the rigorous application of the Monroe Doctrine. It is perhaps a pity his advice went unheeded in this case.

There are those who do not share my opinion of the memo, and are so increasingly suspicious of its author. An article on this topic by Julian Barnes appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, in which Mr. Barnes interviewed the Archive director, Thomas Blanton, to get his take on the apparently-explosive memo. "It sounds like Donald Rumsfeld," Mr. Blanton opined. "It shows the same kind of arrogance and hubris that got us into Iraq." Mr. Blanton goes on to call Mr. Gates "a 'mini-me' Rumsfeld" during Iran-Contra. Even though he admits we should not judge Mr. Gates exclusively on the 1984 memo, this is pretty damning stuff for a nominee whose main appeal to Senate Democrats appears to be that he's not Mr. Rumsfeld. Check out the picture USAToday used to illustrate the AP article on this subject. Ominous.

Could this spell trouble for Mr. Gates? It will be interesting to see. It's easy for me to dismiss the National Security Archive as a partisan hack job, but it has proven successful in generating splashy headlines in the past. Review those "Greatest Hits" again. The vast majority of them graced the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Will those august papers follow the LATimes' lead and pick up the Gates memo in the days leading up to his confirmation hearing? And what effect might such press have on senators whose voting records appear to have been shaped by the editorial opinions of the Times and the Post?

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Archive is free to pursue this sort of selective document release in support of its political agenda. But we all need to be aware of that agenda, and of the way in which this primary source material is being manipulated by the media. It seems pretty clear that the Archive has initiated a campaign to paint Robert Gates as Rumsfeld-lite in an effort to derail his nomination. Whether or not this effort gains the traction of its other offerings remains an open question, and one that will be well worth watching over the coming days.