Presswatch/Sealed With a Kiss

...Said "another official critical of Webster...

...The Post quoted a "senior official" as saying: "If you guys start writing Bush is unhappy with him, the president will kiss both his cheeks in the Rose Garden and keep him for seven more years...

...It's quite possible that, excepting Bush and Webster, those "on the record" in response to the original story were unnamed sources for that story...

...But like the smell that suggests what's in the oven when the contents can't be seen, the story indicated as much...

...The next paragraph said that Chief of Staff John Sununu had quipped at a recent staff meeting that "he had learned more about the attempted coup in Panama from watching Cable News Network than from Webster's Central Intelligence Agency...

...Webster himself acted true to his own form, which places high priority on how he is regarded by establishment Washington,by not only sitting for an interview the day the story broke but also coming back to the Post several weeks later for a lengthy interview to show the world (i.e., the Washington world) that he is fully in charge...

...But the Post did not tell us...

...Doubtless that was comforting to Webster...

...That assumes the leak came from the White House, but it should be noted that by five o'clock the day before the Post story, word of the summit, known only to Bush, Baker, Sununu, and perhaps a few horseshoes, was sent to assistant secretaries at the State and Defense Departments...

...Secretary of State James Baker wound up calling his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, to tell him the story was out...

...On the other hand, on many occasions, as with the Webster story, a reader cannot know the whole story, which involves who, precisely, is leaking, and why...

...I asked the Post's Ann Devroy, who shared the byline, what the motives of this particular unsourced individual were...

...Reporters knew this and some reported it...

...The U.S...

...That is the moral reason, and it is usually the one given...

...Red Grange, the famous halfback of a half century ago, once said he could see the run happening as he ran...

...Webster is "not close to Bush" or Secretary of State James Baker...

...Bush sent out his press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, to advise the press corps that the Post story was "outrageous" and to affirm that Bush "has complete confidence in Director Webster and the leadership he is providing at the CIA...

...What to make of all of this...

...To reveal the identity of a confidential source is to break a promise...

...Here was a major story, or so it seemed...

...Once the story broke, however, all statements from the administration in response toit were "on the record...

...Senior officials in the Bush administration," went the lead, "are expressing increasing frustration with the performance of CIA Director William H. Webster and have begun to talk about possibly replacing him with someonewho can play a more active role as an intelligence adviser to the president...

...I'll focus more on the first leak than the second, but only because space is short...

...Alas for Webster, this approach, said the story, "appears not to suit many in the new administration...

...Bush hates leaks more than any President since Richard Nixon...

...Two months ago I wrote that George Bush's presidency had not been plagued by leaks to the same degree as Ronald Reagan's—especially leaks of the personal kind that seek to do in a high-ranking aide...

...After all, the President himself said the CIA director should not be in the cabinet...

...What was underwhelming to some White House reporters was overwhelming to George Bush...

...Thus, A-6: "Bush Aides Criticize CIA Chief' and A-7: "Agency Seen as Lacking Energy, Direction Under Webster...

...rr he story continued: A "knowledgeable source" said Webster was considered " 'too captive of Congress,' too lax in day-to-day management of intelligence and lacking a broad strategic overview of foreign policy and the intelligence community's role...

...The administration's response was a coordinated effort: in separate interviews with the Post, Webster and his two top aides defended the CIA's record under its new director...

...I can't talk about that on the record," was the reply...

...I am quoting now from the Post's story of October 17...

...The authors of the story noted, as though in an aside to the reader, that no one interviewed for the article "indicated that Webster's departure from the CIA is imminent...

...Their aides...

...No sourcing of any kind on this, but don't think it was Sununu, who isn't the sort to talk against his colleagues "on background...

...The best response—that is, one designed to help the individual under attack—is to get into the breaking story, on the record...

...It would have been interesting to know what that unnamed official thought of Bush's reaction—he would have had to comment on background, of course...

...And sources—especially unnamed ones—are what give a reporter, and the institution he works for, power (not to mention prestige...

...n Monday, October 16, the Washington Post published a front-page story by Ann Devroy and David B. Ottaway headlined: "CIA Director Under Fire: Bush Aides See Webster as Ineffective...

...Very likely, they include people both in the intelligence community and in the White House...

...Did Bush by Terry Eastland leak...

...Reporters who cover the White House are one thing, the souls who occupy the White House quite another...

...It was followed a couple weeks later by a second big leak...

...There it was, the lead of the Washington Post on October 31, put there by an unnamed source...

...surely higher-ups knew it was in the works...

...Furthermore, the reader is left wondering how come Scowcroft and others did not speak in behalf of Webster, and on the record, in time to make the first story...

...Coming on the eve of the scheduled announcement, this leak especially irked Bush...

...NV bite House reporters I talked to were underwhelmed by it...

...The story went on to elaborate Web32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1990 ster's problems, running thirty-five column inches and jumping twice, from A-1 to A-6 to A-7, acquiring new headlines at each stage, as though to alert the sleepy reader who'd forgotten his A-1 while eating his Cheerios...

...For the record, he couldn't talk about that on background either...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1990 33...

...That was a hard, confident lead, softened only by the adverb "possibly...

...Hmmmm...

...The Post did not tell us why the White House was officially speechless...

...Only the Post knows for sure...

...Nonetheless, Bush ordered all media calls to the Terry Eastland is resident scholar at the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, D.0 He is writing a book about the lessons for conservative government to be drawn from the Reagan and Bush years...

...After all, only the most naive can fail to see a story like that coming...

...But as they say in the news business, it never hurts to ask...

...Ah, the mysteries of the leak...

...Or national security adviser Brent Scowcroft...

...Not exactly...

...The Post's original Webster story was entirely dependent on unnamed "high-ranking" sources...

...The benefits are mixed...

...On the other hand, it could be argued that whoever made the colorful "kiss-both-cheeks" remark had precisely the motive of getting Bush to "keep [Webster] for several more years...

...I didn't expect she would...

...A "senior official" was quoted at length...

...Possible...

...Just how high...

...The next paragraph was explanatory...

...That would have been something to hear...

...A third reason was the negative flavor of the story...

...Now to the first leak, a striking one indeed...

...Scow-croft also put out a written statement saying "rumors of White House displeasure [with Webster] are totally false...

...Revealing a source also works against a reporter's desire to cultivate new sources...

...That proves nothing, of course...

...Perish the thought...

...Not a single one of the Bush aides going after CIA Director William H. Webster was on the record...

...Baker...

...It's not that he's paranoid about the media...

...The November TAS had just begun to circulate when a quite major leak, indeed one of those anti-aide kind, could be observed in the Bush presidency...

...Webster's mission in going from the FBI to the CIA in 1987, in the wake of disclosures regarding the Iran-contra affair, was to "play down the director's role, especially in policy discussions, and emphasize good relations with Congress...

...Given the sourcing, itprobably could not have...

...How many, not to mention just who in the new administration, was left unsaid...

...He simply sees leaking as violating the terms of employment (perhaps also the concept of the "unitary executive," as a constitutional law scholar might put it...

...But who knows...

...Of course, the Post had not written that Bush was unhappy with Webster...

...White House routed through the press office...

...The Post queried a CIA spokesman, who for the record said that Webster had seen Bush several times in the past week...

...and the Soviet Union had coordinated their watches and were scheduled to announce the summit on the very day the story appeared...

...Scow-croft...

...Doubtful, I know, but we're dealing with sources we don't know who probably include intelligence people, trained in counter-intelligence—and maybe skilled at counter-leaking...

...The net of all of this is that, notwithstanding the concerns within the administration about Webster, concerns that are undeniable, his directorship of the CIA has probably been given a longer lease on life...

...More likely...

...She declined to say, of course, just as she declined to reveal who this source was (or who the other sources were, for that matter...

...Bush acted true to his anti-leak form, in sending Fitzwater out to blast the story and support Webster...

...Both times President Bush went into his "leaks thing," by which I mean he went ballistic...

...With my own eyes, I could see this leak happening as I read...

...The next paragraph had someone saying that the White House " 'is playing without a full deck of advisers.' " Said who...

...The CIA, he (or she) said, is "not being very energetically or effectively led...

...Their view is understandable...

...And second, no one really can...

...There is unhappiness with the intelligence being provided . . . and with the conclusions based on that intelligence...

...But the Post did not inform its readers of that possibility, much less the truth of the matter...

...The Post had a hard time nailing down when Webster might leave or be asked to leave...

...The reader is left in the dark, just as the day before he wasn't told what the motive of this unidentified source was...

...Bush has indeed kissed the man on both cheeks...

...The Post, in covering the administration response to its story, regurgitated some contents of that story, repeating the "kiss-both-cheeks" quote...

...One reason is that the kind of complaints made about Webster in the Post story are old-hat...

...To reveal a confidential source is also to dry it up, perhaps even to draw a nasty lawsuit (a Minnesota court recently ruled against a newspaper that identified such a source...

...Ullman declined to write the story...

...The intelligence community in particular had groused about Webster during the transition...

...A second reason is that some reporters thought it unfair to report a story critical of Webster for failing to meet expectations different from those Bush originally had...

...Webster, presumably through the spokesman, had no comment on criticisms "made by these administration officials," who, the Post pointed out, "all declined to be identified by name or position" and who "include high-ranking officials...

...Recall that Sununu's remarks about statements made by drug czar William Bennett at the September education summit were on the record...

...Knight-Ridder's Owen Ullman says, "Nothing is easier to do than find someone, even a responsible figure, willing to trash someone else in the administration on background...

...The reason, as I explained in my September column, is that the source-reporter relationship lies at the heart of modern journalism...

...Reporters regard it as sacred...

...Whatever the case, the Bush order on media calls evidently did slow down conversations between reporters and White House officials for a day or two...

...ut there are practical reasons as well...

...As it turned out, the Soviets, perhaps because they need the summit more than we do, said the leak caused "no problems," according to a spokesman in Washington...

...The second leak produced a premature announcement of official news, in this case the "saltwater summit...

...As one White House reporter told me, his newspaper "had already gone the distance on that...

...And maybe this official was, this time, on the record...

...They protect it as surely as they do their lives...

...And here's a postscript: I asked a CIA spokesman about the administration's absence from the original story...

...What otherwise might not be known but should be known, by any estimation of the public interest, is brought to light...

...Doing it discreetly...

...Clearly, then, it is time for another round of leakology...

...that is, he should be more bureaucrat than adviser...

...Confidential sources enable a reporter, once in print or on the air, to become a public repository of what is known only privately by those involved in the story he covered (assuming, of course, that the sources are telling the truth...

...First of all, no one has told the whole story...