Though many good signs indicated the Kennedy administration meant what it said about an open information policy, there were other signs that did not augur so well. Perhaps the most important was President Kennedy’s personal sensitivity to criticism and his inclination to try to punish those he regarded as being “enemies” or unfairly critical.
The President himself had telephoned reporters and editors to complain about stories he considered unfair or unfavorable to him or his administration. At one time, the reporters for Time magazine were cut off from contact with White House sources on a direct order from the President. The order was lifted in about two weeks, after President Kennedy and his assistants felt Time’s reporters and editors had been given a lesson.
Other persons in the White House behaved even tougher, threatening retaliation against reporters they felt had done them damage. Lloyd Norman, Pentagon correspondent for Newsweek magazine, became the target of an FBI investigation when he beat his colleagues with an exclusive report on the alternative plans for action on the Berlin crisis. The investigation was instigated despite the fact that before publication the report was read by a high White House figure who raised no question as to the propriety of printing it.
A memorandum by Frederick G. Dutton, Special Assistant to the President, contained language on government information policies that “shocked” Representative John Moss. The Dutton memorandum of July 20, 1961, was attached to a Civil Service Commission statement on standards of conduct for government employees. It stated:
“Employees may not disclose official information without either appropriate general or specific authority under agency regulations.”
Congressman Moss asked the White House for a “complete reversal” of the statement, plus a “positive directive to all employees to honor the people’s right to know as a routine matter in the conduct of government business.
“This restrictive attitude expressed by this [Dutton] language is a complete reversal of all of the policies which the House government information subcommittee has supported for many years,” Moss wrote to Dutton. “It is also a direct contradiction of the clear position which President Kennedy has taken....”
The White House immediately withdrew the Dutton memorandum and asserted the right of the people to be informed about government operations. The incident nevertheless underscored the need for constant vigilance to prevent directives that in substance tell government employees to keep their mouths shut.
At the Pentagon there were also a few unhealthy signs that bore watching. Defense Secretary Robert Strange McNamara was generally praised as a bright, able, and hard-working public official, but his performance in the information area did not elicit equally laudatory comments. Though McNamara’s press chief, Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Sylvester, had served for years as a reporter in the Washington Bureau of the Newark News, he was sharply critical of the press in his first months in office. He did little to smooth the road for the Defense Secretary or to educate McNamara’s attitudes on freedom of information.
Testimony released in May 1961 by the Senate Committee on Armed Services disclosed that McNamara appeared to favor less information for the public as well as misinformation on our military developments.