By John Burtis
Saturday, January 7, 2006
Isaac Newton explained that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. and so it is with the fourth estate and its reporting of secret information in the time of war.
Sometimes the press is lucky, very lucky. Take the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, for instance, which cost the US the valuable aircraft carrier USS Lexington. Its survivors were ploughing the seas homeward aboard a naval transport, including the Lexington's executive officer, who split a cabin with a Chicago Tribune reporter. In the course of the voyage, the naval officer allowed the correspondent to view a series of classified dispatches, which contained the US codebreakers' warnings concerning the battle and the upcoming Midway action. The paper ran the reporter's expose about these secret cryptographic activities in its June 7th, edition, under banner headlines.
The story was picked up by the Washington Times-Herald and other newspapers, but, surprisingly, especially in this day and age, not by The New York Times. But its impact last lasted for quite sometime, with army Chief of Staff George Marshall going so far as to ask Tom Dewey, a Presidential contender in 1944, not to mention these highly secret secret code breaking activities in the course of his campaign. He didn't.
Despite this incredible gaffe, and the untold damage it might have caused the US war effort , because we were regularly reading the Japanese naval codes, to say nothing of a similar program used against Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, somehow, thankfully, never picked up on the slip. and after this flurry of headlines, the code breaking program was consigned to periodical oblivion for the duration of the conflict.
Sometimes the press, and our fighting forces, are not so lucky. In June of 1943, upon returning home from a war zone ramble, Congressman andrew Jackson May (D-KY), a member of the House Military affairs Committee, held an impromptu press conference, where he bragged that our submarines had nothing to worry about because the Japanese were setting their depth charges in too shallow a manner to be effective. Unfortunately for the Silent Service, this time Dai Nippon's big ears were turned on and they picked up this juicy little tidbit of critical information. after the successful conclusion of hostilities, admiral Charles Lockwood, commander of Pearl Harbor's submarine force, stated that his untimely and thoughtless comment cost him, and per force us, "...ten submarines and about 800 officers and men." Loose lips sink ships.
So how does the NY Times and other newspapers of note decide how and when to print stories which may be directly deleterious to the war effort and which can, by their very nature, result in the deaths of US service men and women as well as US citizens? are they so insulated in their ivory towers that all they see are the friendly faces of the editors around the table, the ever present lawyers reminding them of the probable legal fall out and their First amendment rights and the businessmen, who will explain the positive impact on circulation which a story of such magnitude will have? Do they ever see the flag draped coffins, the burning buildings or the maimed citizens which their activities will almost surely produce? Do they ever have seller's remorse?
The NSa case is unique because the President of the United Stated States asked the Publisher and the Executive Editor not to print it, yet they did anyway. Unlike Tom Dewey, who listened to George Marshall's plea, they saw no higher cause other than their own and that of their desire to hurt a sitting President, and by their actions, to hobble the war on terror and to injure us. They put the message before america.
But behind these egregious decisions and the obvious media contempt for our collective safety, one must consider the profit and loss to be borne by american troops and american citizens. We may not lose submarines as a result of the NSa story, but we may lose critical intelligence capabilities, traffic analysis, and acquire permanent blindness in a particular part of the radio spectrum, all thanks to this calculated and thoughtless act.
Who gives the press such power? Is it not akin to yelling fire in a theater? Have we not gone too far in affording protection to those who offer our most valuable secrets in bold captions to a murderous enemy who shows no signs of moderating his bloody quest to cow us into some sort of submission? Have the actions of The New York Times not given valuable tips to those who promise to destroy us? Have we grown so complacent since 9/11 that we feel it safe to throw all caution and protection to the winds?
after all was said and done, with a year to reflect on the story, the President's request, and hopefully to catch the most fleeting of glimpses of the pain and suffering of those left naked by the diminution of our intelligence services, was there not enough already said to damage George W. Bush? Was it necessary to weaken the defenses of the United States of america to hurl one more arrow at the Commander in Chief? Will there ever be?
There can be no doubt that this story will hinder our prosecution of the war and will increase our vulnerability at home. While al-Qaeda's planning process will continue apace, only its speed of operations will be slowed in direct proportion to its new means of communication. Runners carrying messages and cash will replace telephone calls, e-mails and credit cards, while the deadly beat, driven by the mad and insensate dreams of Zarqawi, al-Zawahiri and bin-Laden, goes on. These craven zealots are not on a time line, death can wait for the perfect moment, and willing martyrs are seemingly a dime a dozen.
Who knows when our luck will finally run out and we will suffer that equal and opposite reaction?
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