“Why should we tell Russia that the Zeus development may not be satisfactory?” McNamara asked the Armed Services Committee. “What we ought to be saying is that we have the most perfect anti-ICBM system that the human mind will ever devise. Instead, the public domain is already full of statements that the Zeus may not be satisfactory, that it has deficiencies. I think it is absurd to release that kind of information.”
The McNamara statement was met with immediate criticism from Representative John E. Moss, chairman of the House Government Information Subcommittee. Moss, a Democrat, declared that McNamara’s testimony was “a gross disservice” to the people of the United States and inconsistent with views expressed by President Kennedy. He asked how the McNamara statement could be reconciled with President Kennedy’s pledge to “withhold from neither the Congress nor the people any fact or report, past, present or future, which is necessary for an informed judgment of our conduct and hazards.”
Representative Moss declared that “advocacy of a program of misinformation constitutes a grave disservice to a nation already confused and suffering from informational malnutrition. To claim perfection in a weapon system, thereby creating a false sense of security, only results in complacency complained about by the very officials who would further feed it.”
McNamara, Moss said, “expressed an attitude which while not new is nevertheless most alarming.”
In the face of a barrage of similar criticism, the Defense Department hurriedly released a statement that McNamara did not mean to mislead the American people but only the Russians.
At his press conference on May 26, 1961, the Defense Secretary issued a four-point statement to serve as a guide on information policy. McNamara, forty-four-year-old Phi Beta Kappa and a former assistant professor of business administration at Harvard, had learned at least what his published position must be.
“In a democratic society,” his clarification began, “the public must be kept informed of the major issues in our national defense policy.”
While pointing out the need to avoid disclosure of information that might aid our potential enemies, he declared it “is equally important to avoid overclassification. I suggest that we follow this principle: When in doubt underclassify.”
The Defense Secretary also said that public statements must reflect the policy of the Defense Department, and that Defense personnel should not discuss “foreign policy subjects, a field which is reserved for the President and the Secretary of State.”
Representative Moss commended Defense Secretary McNamara for “recognition of the people’s right to know.” He singled out for praise the McNamara comment that “the public has at least as much right to bad news as good news.” However, he reserved judgment on the instructions restricting comment on policy matters. Moss asked to be advised on all directives or other instructions used in implementing the general information policy. He had learned by now that fine policy statements can mask the most intolerable withholding of information.