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LARRY BURRIS: Operation Dark Heart
By: LARRY BURRIS, Post Columnist
Back in 1971 The New York Times began to print a series of articles known as the Pentagon Papers that the government claimed contained top-secret information.
The government also asserted that release of the information would cause grave damage to the security of the United States.
The attorney general asked the Times, and later the Washington Post, not to publish the information, and both papers refused the request.
Over the next few weeks confusion reigned as attorneys on both sides argued fine points of press freedom and national security.
Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspapers, saying the government had not proven its claim of grave damage to the country.
Now, nearly 40 years later, the same kind of claims about national security are being made about another publication that contains classified information.
Late last month Saint Martin’s Press was supposed to release Operation Dark Heart, the story of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
After initially being cleared by the Defense Department, other agencies said the book contains top-secret information that will cause grave damage to the security of the United States.
Next the Defense Department offered to buy up all 10,000 copies of the book already printed, and then offered to edit, or censor, depending on your perspective, the book so it can be sold.
The Defense Department and the publisher did some negotiating, and a new edition containing some 200 deletions is supposed to go on sale this week.
It appears, however, that some of the deletions contain material more than 20 years old, and some of the information is already in the public domain.
If that is the case, then it appears the government is not so much interested in protecting secrets as it is in preventing the public from learning embarrassing information.
But here’s an interesting sidelight: Apparently copies of the original are in circulation.
There is an original copy for bid on e-Bay for more than $1,500, Washington Post officials have said they have a copy, and there are an unknown number of review copies floating around.
My guess is that multiple original copies will soon be on the internet, ready for download.
So actually attempts to censor the book will only make any disclosure of secret information worse.
After all, all I have to do is get a copy of the original and compare the deletions in the new version, and I will know specifically what the Defense Department considers so damaging.
Now it’s absolutely true we need to pay attention when government officials play the national security card.
But in too many instances in the not-so-distant past such claims have been used to cover up embarrassing information, or to promote pet projects or send us to war, rather than protect real secrets.
One has to wonder if that is happening again.
