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Secrecy: The American Experience

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Senator Moynihan applies his intellect and his strong academic and historical bent to examine the U.S. experience with secrecy, beginning with its early distrust of ethnic minorities. He applies his social science frames of reference to discuss secrecy as a form of regulation and secrecy as a form of ritual, both ultimately resulting in a deepening of the inherent tendency of bureaucracy to create and keep secrets-secrecy as the cultural norm. His historical overview, current right up to 1998, is replete with documented examples of how secrecy may have facilitated selected national security decisions in the short-run, but in the long run these decisions were not only found to have been wrong for lack of accurate open information that was dismissed for being open, but also harmful to the democratic fabric, in that they tended to lead to conspiracy theories and other forms of public distancing from the federal government. He concludes: "The central fact is that we live today in an Information Age. Open sources give us the vast majority of what we need to know in order to make intelligent decisions. Decisions made by people at ease with disagreement and ambiguity and tentativeness. Decisions made by those who understand how to exploit the wealth and diversity of publicly available information, who no longer simply assume that clandestine collection-that is, 'stealing secrets'-equals greater intelligence. Analysis, far more than secrecy, is the key to security....Secrecy is for losers."

Senator Moynihan quickly covers US government secrecy from early US history, through to the 1797 Alien and Sedition Act and 1917 Espionage Act, to the National Security Act of 1947, to the Freedom of Information Act, and to the current US policies on national security. Within this time frame, he covers WWI, between the wars, WWII, the Cold War, the battles against totalitarianism and communism, and his thoughts on our future course for national security in an open society. Within this, he discusses J. Edgar Hoover (FBI), the CIA, and the NSA;Truman, McCarthyism, atom and hydrogen bombs, Bay of Pigs, Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Carter and Reagan,Iran and Contras, Nicaragua,Viet Nam, and the failure of Russia and communism. He explains how excessive secrecy can be not only expensive and curtail freedoms, but all too often has proved to be ineffective or to lead to bad decisions, policies, and results. Moynihan points out how US intelligence failed to recognize the importance of Russia's Lennist-Marxist enormous social and economic problems, concentrating on the military, and how those problems greatly contributed to bringing down a military-atomic giant.

Moynihan recognizes the need for secrecy in defense, military, and police actions in an often unfriendly world, but says it is all too often and unnecessarily over done and slow to declassify, causing over-blown, hyper-secret departmental and agency bastians of power, bureaucracy, unnecessary spending, poor defense and security decisions, and lack of reported responsiblity. Finally, he explores that for the US to remain a powerful and democratic republic, we must practice and keep an open society where at all possilbe and curtail unnecessary secrecy that spawns these closed and burgeoning bureaucratic organizations, agencies, government departments and associated spending. The introduction by Richard Gid tells much about Senator Moynihan, and early in the book the reader is brought up to eye level with this very capable academic-politician, social scientist, and senior American statesman. An excellent book. A. Pardoe

Senator Moynihan, with many years of experience in the arcane world of congressional oversight of our intelligence agencies, shows how and why the American government classifies (i.e. withholds from public knowledge) an astonishing variety of information--when often the information that really matters is more likely to be found in your daily paper than in government archives. The most astounding revelation (of many) is why Omar Bradley, on behalf of the US Army, did not allow President Truman to know what the Venona intercepts of Russian intelligence communications revealed about the real degree of Soviet penetration of our government. Thus it was left to a bizarre cast of characters like the drunken Sen. McCarthy and the disenchanted Chambers and Bentley to give an ill-informed and partial picture of such penetration. Bradley's dutiful but obtuse territorial withholding of Army intelligence from his Commander-in-Chief deprived Truman of vital information that could have made a profound difference in waging the Cold War and averted collateral damage to domestic civility and polity. This sort of "classification" and "need-to-know" would poison American politics and skew American intelligence for fifty years. And if you don't think that the bureaucratic reflex to restrict, without good reason, the free flow of information isn't still harming this country, you had better read this cogent and powerful book.

A very interesting account of governmental secrecy during various times of conflict. Would make a nice supplemental reading for professors teaching a American Politics course. I touches upons foreign policy and the relationship between the Executive, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Most of the material deals with the development of secrecy as a standard operating procedure during WWI and WWII. Vietnam and the Iran-Contra Affair are touched upon but could have been expanded.

This is an important documentation and history of the blight of screcy overtaking the American Government in the wake of the Second World War, especially in the context of the Cold War. Moynihan is especially critical of the way in which the gestation of classified information supporting fallacious conclusions (e.g. the Missile Gap)thwared proper open discussion and review of wrong policies. Moynihan makes a sound case for the excessive use of classification, to the point of absurdity. This erosion of the open society requires an active correction, although it is hard to see how this usurpation of power can be stopped in the short term. In any case, the threat to 'government by the people' is direct and ominous.

A concise history of American govermental secrecy and its consequences. Essential reading for anyone interested in American history and the future of democracy in America or elsewhere. A bit scholarly for a casual read but eye opening. Great book about the consequences of excessive secrecy on a democracy.

Few people would be as qualified as Moynihan to write about secrecy in the U.S. federal government, as he was trained in political history and theory, and was part of the federal government's national security apparatus. And a book of this kind is very much needed. From this point of view, Moynihan's relatively good book is disappointing.

The book is largely and supposedly about secrecy in the U.S. national security apparatus during the twentieth century. This requires a lot of background material on national security issues during the twentieth century, and this background makes up much of the book. Moynihan's main theses are:

* The federal government got into the secrecy business gradually during the twentieth century, largely in response to perceived internal and external threats. Once the institutionalization for secrecy was established it took on a life of its own, frequently at the expense of the missions of the agencies that kept the secrets.

* In particular, the government kept many secrets from the American people, more out of habit or for esoteric bureaucratic reasons than because of any conspiracy. But as Americans noticed the increasing secrecy, Americans started imagining conspiracies everywhere.

* In addition, many secrets were trivial, and some should have been made public. Perhaps Moynihan's favorite example is the Venona transcripts, which Moynihan claims demonstrate an active but limited Soviet spy apparatus in the U.S. during World War II: he suggests that it would have been a revelation to the Left that there was such an apparatus, and a revelation to the Right that it was small. The result of such secrecy is that Americans do not have the facts and mislead themselves.

All this is very interesting, especially coming from one of the most knowledgeable and acute observers of the phenomenon. But I have several criticisms of the book.

* What is secrecy for? Secrecy is an ancient practice of princes, and has a variety of purposes and delusions. Moynihan takes for granted that loose lips will sink ships, but was secrecy a result of armchair policy-making or bitter experience? One might get the impression that it was fashion - the Europeans were doing it so we might as well do it, too. But I do not think that that is the impression Moynihan wanted to make.

* Are the secrets that secret? Moynihan himself admits that the Left was aware of Soviet spying, and while he doesn't explicitly say that the Right was aware of how overblown McCarthy's accusations were, it should be remembered that establishment conservatives played a part in bringing him down. It is not clear how much of a revelation the Venona transcripts would have been: people see what they want to see.

* This really isn't just a twentieth century phenomenon; it's just the bureaucracy that's bigger. In fact, Moynihan shows a remarkable lack of perspective for someone who knows so much history. For example, he regards the Cold War as a consequence of communism, thus overlooking Russia's protracted Great Game against with Britain over central Asia - which led some Nineteenth century observers to warn of a future confrontation between Russia and America - this while the Czar was on the throne! And as recent events suggest, announcements of the end of the Cold War may be somewhat premature.

So the book we really need has yet to be written. But meanwhile, this book is a path-making project and should serve as a reasonable introduction to the subject.

Moynihan presents an array of anecdotal evidence of instances where secrecy produced unintended, and unfortunate results, and draws that sweeping conclusion that secrecy is bad. A more modest conclusion, such as that the government designates too much stuff as secret might be supported, but Moynihan's generalization is too much. Also, the introduction to the book written by Richard Gid Powers far outshines the portion written by Moynihan. Moynihan's stuff is a dry as dust.

First, let me say that Patrick Moynihan is an intelligent man. However, this book is bunk. He states that the Cold War was completely unnecessary - that the USSR was going to collapse anyway. Therefore, all the money/effort spent on it was wasted. That's like saying that we would've won World War II anyway, so all that money spent on D-Day was a waste.

The USSR was in trouble BECAUSE of the Cold War pressure. According to Moynihan Russia was on the verge of collapse for years, but the FBI and CIA covered it all up. Here's what he's saying - Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter & Reagan - and maybe earlier Presidents as well - had no idea that the USSR was in trouble all those years. The FBI and CIA can cover up things, but not an entire economy on the brink of collapse. That's what Moynihan wants you to believe.

I would've thought it would be beneath Moynihan to engage in the now widespread practice saying that Reagan had nothing to do with the end of the Soviet Union.

For example, the premise that Truman had Russia on the ropes is ridiculous. How handing over all of Eastern Europe contributed to the defeat of Communism is beyond me. Carter's boycott of the 1980 Olympics, his idea of a blow to the Soviet machine, was purely a symbolic gesture. And a weak one at that.

That was the extent of Carter's efforts to contain Russia. Both of these men did some good things in office, pressuring the USSR was not one of them.

Moynihan is just another party liner, as intelligent as he is. He proved it by endorsing Hillary Clinton to take his place, despite catching her in a lie. In making her case to be his successor, she actually claimed to have been the originator of legislation that Moynihan himself had created (You can read about it in the Vanity Fair article). The fact that he called her on it and STILL endorsed her should tell you something. By doing that, and by writing this book, he proved to be all about toeing the party line.