Washington cover-up

by Clark R. Mollenhoff

Our elected officials are given only a temporary grant of power, and only a temporary custody of government property and government records. Neither the President nor those he appoints have any royal prerogative; they have only a limited right to steer our government within the framework of the Constitution and the laws.

It is well to remember that every withholding of government business from the public is an encroachment upon the democratic principle that government officials are accountable to the people. It follows that citizens should regard all governmental secrecy with some suspicion as an encroachment on their right to know.

The American citizen should reject all arbitrary claims to secrecy by the bureaucracy as sharply as he would reject any claims to a right of the executive branch to by-pass Congress in levying taxes. A wise citizen should be as outraged at arbitrary secrecy as he would be at arbitrary imprisonment. Logically he should insist on the same safeguards against arbitrary secrecy that he would against unjustified arrest or taxation. The public’s “right to know” is that basic.

Unfortunately, there is a general tendency to regard government secrecy as only a problem for the newspapers. And even within the newspaper profession there is a tendency to ignore government secrecy until it interferes with a story the individual reporter or editor wants to develop.

I am not interested in pleading for any special right of access to government information for newspapers or reporters. As vital as their function is, newspapers, magazines, television and radio for the most part merely provide an orderly process for disseminating information about government to the people who do not have the time, money, or technical facility to acquire the information for themselves. Transmitting information gathered at a government press conference or through a government press release does not necessarily answer the people’s right to know.

The public has a right to expect that its government’s press releases will be factually accurate, and for the most part they are. We also have a right to expect our highest officials to be factually accurate, but we must recognize realistically that it is only normal for them to color facts with opinions and conclusions that are most favorable to the political party in power.

This manipulation, shading, twisting, or omission of facts—often referred to as “managing the news”—will be limited only by the political fear of being exposed for having made erroneous or intentionally misleading statements to the public. As reprehensible as the practice can be, it is nevertheless a political fact of life and those who lament its existence would do better to bolster the one sure safeguard against it: the people’s right to know—through the press and through their elected representatives in Congress. News management, I repeat, can be controlled only by insisting on the public’s right to go behind the statements distributed by the government agencies or by high government officials.

Those who manipulate the news or try to cover their tracks with arbitrary secrecy are not likely to be pursuing totalitarian goals. Usually the only motivation is short-term political gain. Often it is rationalized on grounds that a few factual errors and overdrawn conclusions are not important when viewed in the total context of the achievements of the party in power. There is also the standard rationalization that a few distortions only serve to balance the distortions of the other political party.

No administration enjoys admitting errors or mismanagement of government. Because the criticism is usually initiated by the political opposition, it is often harsh and overdrawn. An instinctive defensiveness springs up within the defending political party, and the battle rages.

In the classic political controversy, the initial criticism has been followed by a demand for a full investigation. The press has already done some investigative work and has printed stories dealing with all available aspects of the controversy. However, when the probing by the press or by private citizens has not been conclusive, the Congress, throughout the history of the United States, has launched investigations to dig out the facts not otherwise available to the press or the public. And almost as often as the Congress has dug in, the executive branch has refused or been reluctant to co-operate.