BORN SECRET'
Knoll, Erwin
"Born Secret' The story behind the H-bomb article we're not allowed to print Erwin Knoll On Monday, March 26, 1979, a Federal judge did what no Federal judge had ever done before in the 203-year...
...If we could not tell Morland's story about H-bomb secrecy, we could tell his story — and ours — about censorship and repression...
...We needed the extra time, but we did not rejoice in the delay: It meant another intolerable week of being gagged...
...We had received no reaction of any kind from the DOE, so Day called Cannon and was told that the sketches had not been received...
...Samuel H. Day Jr., the managing editor of The Progressive, joined our staff about a year ago...
...Just as nuclear arms are the greatest threat to human survival, the mystique of secrecy is destructive of self-government...
...He had fought to protect the First Amendment all his life...
...Even with the help of some willing and welcome volunteers, eighteen-hour days and seven-day weeks were too short...
...As he embarked on his tour of nuclear facilities in June of last year, Sam Day met Howard Morland, a free-lance writer engaged in a similar project...
...Morland was a former Air Force pilot, an anti-nuclear activist, who held a passionate conviction that Americans needed to be aroused to the dangers inherent in nuclear power and nuclear weaponry...
...Coleman said he had discussed the matter with Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger and with officials of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency...
...our attorneys had warned us that confirmation or denial was, in itself, a form of disclosure...
...All copies of that article that were in our possession, as well as the proofs from which it would have been printed and the headlines, sketches, and covers that would have accompanied it are, at this writing, locked away...
...It is important that this speculation be as close to the truth as possible in order for the narrative to be credible to knowledgeable readers...
...By maintaining that mystique, the Government has managed to shut off effective public debate on issues of vital national and global importance...
...That is why we are pledging our full support to The Progressive in its fight against censorship and prior restraint...
...He acknowledged that the injunction would "curtail defendants' First Amendment rights in a drastic and substantial fashion," and would "infringe upon our right to know and to be informed as well...
...It appears to me that is just what we're doing here...
...Perhaps they felt that The Progressive, a struggling magazine in Madison, Wisconsin, would be a vulnerable target...
...It was entitled "Tritium: The New Genie," and it appeared in the February 1979 issue...
...It was an article about secrecy in the nuclear weapons program, and it demonstrated that much of the information the Government withholds from all of us is actually on the public record...
...from The Washington Post...
...Sinykin asked...
...His account of his research begins on Page 24...
...A rough draft of Morland's major article on secrecy in the weapons program came to us in January...
...If the Government really thought Howard Morland's article contained secrets, why was it so casual about ascertaining in whose hands those secrets might be...
...We have no firm answer to that question...
...practical — is classified, restricted, protected unless, of course, it is declassified by the Government...
...But he opted for prior restraint...
...He agreed with that procedure and that was the principle upon which I operated during the entire course of my research...
...Sewell said all of Morland's sketches and captions, and about 20 per cent of the text of his article, were "Restricted Data...
...I advised them that I was a free-lance journalist under I want to think a long . . . time before I'd give a hydrogen bomb to Idi Amin' findings must be verified...
...Morland's article, he told us, contained some inaccuracies, but those were "not substantial...
...We were besieged at once with press queries from all parts of the nation and many overseas media...
...The first word I had was a call at 11 P.M...
...Some columnists, commentators, and editorial writers have rushed into print with judgments based on misinformation — or on no information at all...
...The judge said he had "agonized" over his decision and did not welcome the "notoriety" it would bring him...
...I told Sewell and the other Federal officials that I found it incredible that a magazine with The Progressive's pathetically inadequate resources and a writer of Morland's limited background could so easily penetrate what the Government was characterizing as a major "secret...
...To do so, I felt, would in itself compromise our First Amendment rights...
...Speculation will be identified as such...
...That stark formulation was not of Judge Warren's making...
...since it erupted into headlines on March 9, many accounts have been incomplete or inaccurate...
...In the article, Morland told of a member of Congress who raised some questions with the Department of Energy last fall about the Government's plutonium production program...
...The facts are precisely stated, and comport in every detail to the sworn affidavits we have filed in court...
...The Bomb should be described in sufficient detail to allow readers to see nuclear warheads as pieces of hardware rather than as score-points in a contest____ "By the end of August," Morland continued, "I hope to know as much as it is legal to know — and possible for a layman to understand — about thermonuclear warhead design...
...See "Scientists of Conscience," on Page 28 of this issue...
...Once again we withdrew to talk with our attorneys...
...Gilbert that I had no knowledge of what information was classified and what was not...
...I said, furthermore that I saw no reason for me to anticipate what information might be classified...
...Some of the needed information is classified, of course, and holes in the story will have to be filled by educated speculation...
...We asked him several times to identify the "secret" portions, but he said he could not do so without "breaching security...
...Without revealing military secrets I should be able to describe a hypothetical warhead containing the known components of warheads in some plausible configuration and thereby tie the production plants to their product...
...In a time when military policy is closely linked with technological capabilities, debate about military policy that uses technical information is part of a vigorous system of freedom of expression under the First Amendment...
...Now the Government has mounted a similar attempt against a small publication of political commentary...
...Under the terms of Judge Warren's preliminary injunction, we, Howard Morland, and our "agents, servants, employes and attorneys, and all other persons in active concert or participaErwin Knoll is the editor of The Progressive...
...The Progressive is concerned for our future and has sought to save us from this deadly course...
...Why did the Government go to pains to verify the accuracy of Morland's article, when he himself had conceded that some of it was speculative...
...Neither Morland nor any member of The Progressive's staff has Ramsey Clark on freedom Mention the H-bomb and you strike terror in the listener...
...He replied that he was troubled by that too, and that steps were being taken to tighten up on "security...
...Morland proceeded to do exactly what he had said he would...
...The difficulties imposed on us by the Nader: no secrets The case to suppress The Progressive's article is one against the First Amendment and against the national security...
...He read us the relevant portions of the Atomic Energy Act and asserted that Morland's article fell within the area of "Restricted Data" as defined in the law, though he declined to specify which portions of the article were objectionable...
...He is the former editor of the Bulletin of the A tomic Scientists, and one of his first projects for us was a tour of some of the key facilities involved in the production of nuclear weapons — a tour arranged for him by the Department of Energy...
...We should do our best to head off a confrontation with the Government without surrendering our rights...
...I was unhappy about the suggestion...
...All who believe in truth, love freedom, and favor survival should rally to support The Progressive...
...By certified mail, Sam Day sent the sketches and captions to Cannon at the DOE, with a letter asking the Department to comment on their accuracy...
...We should explain how Morland compiled his article entirely from public sources and open interviews...
...If it pertains to nuclear weapons or, for that matter, to nuclear energy, it is automatically classified: It is, as the Government was to tell Judge Warren, "data restricted at births That such language, which is, in our judgment and that of our attorneys, unconstitutionally broad and in clear violation of the First Amendment, draft submitted by Rathjens...
...The facts at issue in the Government's dispute with The Progressive will be determined in the courts, but the principle of freedom of the press is one to be vigorously safeguarded by all of us...
...It details the role of some of America's largest corporations in that complex, and the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that have been invested in it...
...Behind Judge Robert W. Warren, an American flag was mounted on the ornate, oak-paneled wall of his Milwaukee courtroom...
...We were not about to let that opportunity go by...
...It was Howard Morland's achievement to explode the myth of secrecy, and therefore to threaten the monopoly of power held by that tight little group...
...If the Government was convinced, as it claimed to be, that we were in possession of "secrets" vital to the "national security," did that mean we would be kept under surveillance forevermore to make sure we did not divulge those "secrets...
...We believe that The Progressive is fighting to protect the First Amendment rights of every publication in America, including those with which we are associated...
...we should send the final draft to the DOE...
...We assumed that if the Government were to regard anything at all in the Morland article as "sensitive," it 'Our purpose . . . had been to raise the issue of secrecy and to alert Americans to . . . the nuclear arms race' should have stood unchallenged for decades is, in itself, evidence of the oppressive secrecy that has surrounded the nuclear program...
...It is that explosion — not a nuclear one — that the Government fears...
...Morland read extensively in the open literature available to anyone who has a library card — physics texts, encyclopedia artiassignment from The Progressive magazine and was continuing the efforts of Mr...
...This gross violation of the First Amendment was promptly and unequivocally rebuffed by the courts...
...He acknowledged that he had not read Howard Morland's article — but he delivered himself of a line that would haunt us for weeks, providing fodder to hostile editorial writers and racist cartoonists: "I want to think a long, hard time before I'd give a hydrogen bomb to Idi Amin...
...We had a problem...
...We decided to consult a lawyer...
...The Progressive, Inc., et al...
...The New York Times says the Government's case fails "to cite any breach of security, loss of classified documents or invasion of its secret facilities...
...Day encouraged Morland to pursue his research with a view toward writing a series of articles for The Progressive...
...Our purpose, after all, had been to raise the issue of secrecy and to alert Americans to the awful peril of the nuclear arms race...
...But when I told him about the Atomic Energy Act, he backed off right away...
...Meanwhile, we finally learned — at least indirectly — which passages of Morland's article were regarded as "secret" by the Government...
...We intend to resist the Government's attempt at censorship and suppression by all legal means at our disposal...
...Our first step was to gather up all copies in our possession and remove them to a safe storage place...
...My home telephone rang at about 9:30 P.M...
...On March 14 we received a censored version of the article from the Government, and this time 1,322 words were deleted — a 40 per cent reduction in "secrets" in a period of five days...
...In the Pentagon Papers case of 1971, the Nixon Administration tried, in effect, to create an Official Secrets Act by court order...
...We knew that the technical information in Morland's article was not only available to anyone who made a diligent effort to search it out, but that this information had a direct bearing on urgent matters of public policy...
...That effort was directed at two of America's great newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and it was decisively rejected by the courts...
...It ran to about eighteen manuscript pages and was accompanied by seven sketches hand-drawn by the author...
...The Progressive advanced him $500...
...The Progressive's lawyers had to be "cleared" to look at the Government's classified filings in the case and take part in closed sessions of the court, and these clearances came through less than twenty-four hours before the lawyers were to appear before Judge Warren on the Government's request for a preliminary injunction...
...My reaction to the Government's offer to "rewrite" our article was expressed in a few blunt expletives...
...It had been suggested to him in sworn affidavits signed by some of the highest officials of the U.S...
...Would the shadow of Howard MorWe had little time to reflect on these troublesome questions...
...It was our feeling, last summer, that the Government had invoked secrecy for thirty years to keep Americans from questioning the nuclear arms race...
...When we walked out of Judge Warren's courtroom on the afternoon of March 9, we were "under restraint...
...But if Judge Warren had denied the Government's request for a preliminary injunction on March 26, we still would have been able to publish Morland's article in this issue...
...Probably not...
...I suspect — though he was too polite to tell me so — that Gordon Sinykin found Morland's article somewhat boring...
...The basic question that has troubled us since the beginning of this episode is: Why would the Government go to such extraordinary lengths to protect "secrets" that are not secret...
...In his opinion he wrote: "Does the article provide a 'do-it-yourself guide to the hydrogen bomb...
...Day to write an article with respect to the nuclear weapons production complex in the United States____ "I explained to Mr...
...Morris H. Rubin, who served as editor of The Progressive from 1940 to 1973 and as publisher from 1973 to 1976, and his wife, Mary Sheridan, our book editor and former managing editor, were due to return from a vacation in Mexico on Monday evening, March 5. They had devoted most of their lives to sustaining this magazine...
...Gordon Sinykin had a comment, too...
...We gave him a copy of the Morland article — not the early draft we had sent out for review, but a final draft we intended to publish in the magazine...
...He acknowledged, after "wading through" the documents filed with the court, that "many wise, intelligent, patriotic individuals can hold diametrically opposite opinions on the issues before as...
...I will then trace each major component through its fabrication process, starting with the mineral ore and ending with final assembly of the warhead...
...Government — the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Energy...
...The intent and effect of the law were brought home to us in a pointed remark to Sam Day by the DOE public information officer, Jim Cannon: "I had a network correspondent in here the other day and he began asking some questions," Cannon told Day...
...In that case," I said, "we have nothing more to discuss" — but I did ask him to whom he had sent the article...
...Principle and reason are abandoned...
...Some self-styled champions of freedom of the press, who would cheerfully invoke the First Amendment to shield themselves from the anti-trust or child labor laws, wasted no time in editorializing that The Progressive had no business challenging the Government, or warning us that if we dared to exercise our rights in the present "adverse climate," we would be jeopardizing their freedom...
...Some subscribers have written to us in puzzlement — and a few in anger...
...They wanted to present the court with affidavits from scientists who would testify that Morland's article contained no secrets — but they could show the article only to those who had received the Government's security clearance...
...or (3) the use of special nuclear material in the production of energy, but shall not include data declassified or removed from the Restricted Data category____" That language means, Gordon Sinykin explained to me — and later explained to the court in The Progressive's brief — that "every bit of information, then, every scrap of knowledge — whether theoretical or A principle to be safeguarded The following statement supporting The Progressive and the First Amendment was endorsed by the editor or publisher of The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, Society, Village Voice, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Scientific American, Seven Days, Working Papers, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Inquiry, Win, In These Times, The Witness, Texas Observer, Science for the People, Dollars & Sense, The Black Scholar, and Politics Today, and by organization spokesmen for Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, Critical Mass Energy Project, War Resisters League, Friends Peace Committee, and American Friends Service Committee: "In 1971, the Government of the United States moved against The New York Times and The Washington Post in an unprecedented attempt to assert a right of censorship and prior restraint...
...Corporate connections should be explained...
...The press, of course, picked up that title, and some media mysteriously transformed it into "How to Build an H-Bomb...
...We had decided that we would comply strictly with the court's order while we pursued our fight for our First Amendment rights — but it was only gradually that we began to understand the full implications of being muzzled...
...In thirty years as a journalist, I had never before submitted anything to the Government for "clearance" — or for any other purpose...
...It already had, we understood, the early would be his crude sketches and the captions accompanying them — though comparable sketches appeared in encyclopedias available in any library...
...Gordon Sinykin suggested that Day and I fly immediately to Washington to confer with DOE officials...
...We are, and have been since that day, the only journalists in America who are compelled to keep "secrets" under penalty of the law — "secrets" available to anyone who goes looking for them...
...Morland's suppressed article explains the huge, immensely sophisticated, and enormously expensive industrial complex required to produce thermonuclear weapons...
...What follows is an attempt to set the record straight...
...The chief spokesman was Duane C. Sewell, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs, who again read to us from the Atomic Energy Act — a piece of legislation we have almost learned to recite by rote...
...But two of the four members of The Progressive's board of directors were out of the country and totally unaware of the crisis that had befallen us...
...The sketches were captioned "How a Hydrogen Bomb Works...
...I know a secret!' We can believe neither in bombs nor in men until we see the bomb and our world, and face them, not as children, nor as ignorant armies in the barren Nevadas of negotiation, but as men who can know, think, and act, as men who, knowing the terrifying power of their weapons, prefer talk to threats, negotiation to destruction...
...For its trouble, the U.S...
...Before him sat the plaintiffs, officials of the Government and their attorneys, and the defendants, the editors of this magazine and a thirty-six-year-old free-lance writer named Howard Morland and their attorneys...
...He gave me the name of John A. Griffin, Director of Classification for the DOE...
...But if the Government was genuinely concerned about "security," why did it wait so long — two weeks — to respond to the draft of Morland's article turned in by Professor Rathjens...
...By February 26, The Progressive was approaching the production deadline for its April issue...
...The opinions expressed are, of course, those of an interested party — a defendant...
...How did all this happen...
...Gordon Sinykin, with characteristic understatement, would later advise the officials that we found their offer "more than objectionable...
...Even Morland's own affidavits — a painstakingly detailed account of the public sources for all the scientific and technical details in his article — were subjected to heavy deletions...
...It proved impossible to meet the seven-day deadline, and Judge Warren granted an extension from March 16 to March 26...
...Born Secret' The story behind the H-bomb article we're not allowed to print Erwin Knoll On Monday, March 26, 1979, a Federal judge did what no Federal judge had ever done before in the 203-year history of the American republic: He issued a preliminary injunction, at the request of the Government of the United States, barring a publication from printing and distributing an article...
...If that was the reasoning behind the assault on our First Amendment rights, we are determined to prove it mistaken...
...Is it not patently absurd to imply that anyone who wished to know the information in The Progressive's article would not, by now, have acquired it...
...Furthermore, we knew that Morland's article could in no way be construed as a manual or guide for building a hydrogen bomb...
...we are already burdened with more "secrets" than we care to have...
...I said I didn't, and he proceeded to tell me...
...The proliferation threatened by publication of Morland's article is not a proliferation of bombs but a proliferation of information to which Americans are entitled...
...After hearing brief arguments from the Government and The Progressive on Friday afternoon, March 9, Judge Warren granted the Government's request for a ten-day restraining order...
...He notified the Government that we saw no reason to withhold the Morland article, that we would not permit it to be "rewritten" by the Department of Energy, that we intended to publish it, and that if the Government planned to move in court to restrain us, it should do so with dispatch...
...Why did it make no effort for several weeks after that to find out from us who might have received copies of the article, or where our copies were...
...The Progressive should raise the visibility of the nuclear warhead assembly line, which stretches in a great arc across America from Tampa, Florida, to Amarillo, Texas...
...In a letter to The Progressive last July 7, Howard Morland summarized his assignment, as he understood it after two conversations with Sam Day: "We agreed," Morland wrote, "that nuclear weapons production has prospered too long in an atmosphere of freedom from public scrutiny...
...The Government had provided us with an opportunity to reach many more of our fellow citizens than we could ever hope to reach through the pages of this magazine...
...Still, the article had been sent, over our protests, to the Government...
...How much justification was there for the secrecy, we wondered, and what kind of information was being withheld that might help people formulate informed judgments on such vital questions as environmental risks, occupational health and safety threats, nuclear proliferation and the continuing arms race, and the astronomical costs of the nuclear weapons program...
...As it turned out, the Department had jumped the gun...
...Another result — in the same issue — was an article entitled "The Neutron Bomb Lives After All," which revealed for the first time that the Carter Administration had decided to proceed with production of neutron bomb components — a fact confirmed some weeks later by the President...
...Morland discovered, in fact, that information withheld from him by one source on grounds of secrecy was readily provided by another on grounds that it was public knowledge...
...We called Coleman's office at the DOE late that afternoon to report our readiness to be in Washington the next morning...
...Once some affidavits were obtained, under the incredible circumstances detailed by Sam Day elsewhere in this issue, they, too, were censored — words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, whole pages deleted from the open court record at the Government's insistence...
...we have only some lines of speculation and conjecture...
...But that evening he sat down after dinner to read the Atomic Energy Act of 1954...
...But he warned that publication of the article could result in Government seizure of an entire issue of The Progressive...
...Ironically, Rathjens was one of the authorities Morland had consulted in preparing his article...
...Hu acknowledged that "any prior restraint on publication comes into court under a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity...
...The messenger is here right now," she said...
...The Atomic Energy Act declares: "The term 'Restricted Data' means all data concerning (1) design, manufacture, or utilization of atomic weapons...
...Rathjens said he had sent the manuscript to the DOE...
...We have learned a great deal from this experience, and we will doubtless learn more before we are through...
...One result of that tour was an article entitled "The Nicest People Make the Bomb," which appeared in the October 1978 issue...
...We asked for time to consult with our counsel...
...For some time now some officials have yearned for enactment of an Official Secrets Act in this country — the kind of legislation that would permit them to censor the press at will, and to punish reporters and editors who publish information the Government wants to withhold...
...We knew that he had compiled his article exactly as any resourceful reporter would, and that anyone else could obtain the information he had by perfectly legal means...
...If we're going to have a lawsuit," he said, "let's have a lawsuit — and a good one...
...The First Amendment springs from the belief that a people who know the truth may be free...
...The response came early in the afternoon of Thursday, March 1, in a telephone call from Lynn R. Coleman, General Counsel for the Department of Energy...
...On that day, therefore, and at our attorneys' urging, wc sent a copy of the complete manuscript, along with the sketches, to Cannon...
...Do you know what's in this law...
...In sum, we knew that there was every good reason for publishing Morland's article, and no good reason for suppressing it...
...In fact, we had already decided to withhold the article from the April issue, which was on the press...
...It would be well to establish, Gordon Sinykin advised, whether the Department of Energy had any objection to publication of our article...
...He pointed out that while not all Americans would want to know the details of nuclear bomb production — just as many don't want to know how a doorbell or a television set works — those who were interested should have access to the information...
...He had one bit of reassuring news: The Act no longer carried a death penalty...
...On March 9 the Government had submitted to the court— but not to us — a copy of Morland's manuscript in which 2,190 words were bracketed as "Restricted Data...
...Day protested vigorously, and urged the secretary to have Rathjens call us before sending the manuscript...
...There are only secrets against ordinary American citizens who do not have the ready means to get policy information but have the right to decide what is best for America when provided with that information...
...Gordon Sinykin has been The Progressive's friend, legal counsel, business adviser, and chairman of the board for close to four decades...
...The restraining order imposed severe limitations on the answers we could provide to reporters — or to many others who called, wrote, or sent telegrams inquiring about the article...
...Much of the research for this part is already completed, but my preliminary cles, magazine pieces, unclassified Government publications...
...Instead, he offered to have the Department of Energy "rewrite" our article in a form that would make it acceptable to the Government...
...Sam Day would later remark, in rueful reference to the potential legal costs of resisting the Government's censorship attempt, "It cost us $500 to get Mor-land's article, and it's likely to cost us $150,000 to print it...
...In reply, the Congressman was advised that his questions — not the answers but his questions — were classified information...
...By the fall, Morland's first article for The Progressive was ready...
...It would have been entitled, "The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It, Why We're Telling It...
...Our telephones never stopped ringing, and we were determined to take every call, answer every question as best we could, provide every bit of information that did not conflict with the court order...
...He said he didn't mind at all so long as I realized he might not answer some questions...
...Unless we agreed to refrain from publishing the article, Coleman said, the Government would subject us to legal action...
...Late Thursday night, March 8, the Justice Department in Washington began telling reporters that it had moved in court to restrain The Progressive from publishing an article entitled "How a Hydrogen Bomb Works...
...If we were asked whether the article contained reference to this or that specific fact, we could not comment...
...2) the production of special nuclear material...
...I then asked if he minded if I asked any questions of him that come to mind...
...Perhaps Morland's account of the H-bomb production process contains basic errors and this whole exercise is, as some of our more suspicious friends have suggested, a colossal "disinformation" effort on the Government's part, designed to mislead others about thermonuclear weaponry...
...Morland had made some revisions, and we had incorporated into it some of the explanations and corrections we had received from scientists who had reviewed the early draft...
...On the other hand, we have also learned that the First Amendment has many staunch defenders in America...
...It is only a matter of time until proliferation leads to destruction...
...On the afternoon of Friday, March 2, we met in the conference room of the law firm — LaFollette, Sinykin, Anderson, and Munson — with a Federal delegation consisting of four representatives from the Department of Energy and two from the Department of Justice...
...we were also under order not to discuss or disclose any of the "Restricted Data" in it — and we had no clue at that time as to what the "Restricted Data" might be...
...In one of his sworn affidavits filed with Judge Warren's court, Morland wrote: "On July 28, 1978, I met in Ger-mantown, Maryland, with Charles Gilbert, Deputy Director of Military Applications, Department of Energy (DOE), and James S. Cannon, Special Assistant for Defense Programs, Office of Public Affairs, DOE...
...That three-word phrase was later to be cited by the Government as an example of Morland's "secret/restricted data...
...it can be information private citizens create, or conjure up out of their feverish imaginations...
...That would not be necessary, we were told...
...We should try to ascertain, he said, exactly what the Government's objections were...
...But Judge Warren apparently found neither the facts nor the laws and Constitution sufficiently persuasive to deny the Government's request for a preliminary injunction...
...I had been through an exhausting day, and so had he — but he was about to spend many more hours working on The Progressive's brief...
...He urged Morland, in particular, to explore the secrecy that surrounds the nuclear weapons program...
...Some scientists have abandoned the skepticism that is supposed to be the hallmark of their profession, choosing instead to accept the assertions of Government officials as eternal verities...
...Our three attorneys — Gordon Sinykin, Earl Munson Jr., and Brady Williamson — worked even longer hours than we did...
...Government has violated the first right of the people — unfettered communication — and threatened our existence...
...They read the article on Tuesday morning and heard our discussion of the background, the risks, the principies at stake...
...Public reaction might be adverse, and even our own subscribers might be alienated...
...Americans have been subjected to enormous dangers — environmental dangers, dangers of war — and to enormous costs without being given the facts that would allow them to question the policies pursued by their Government...
...As is our practice when dealing with a subject in which we have no particular expertise, we sent copies of the manuscript to half a dozen qualified experts for review of its accuracy...
...Perhaps the Rubins would feel that the risks were too great...
...Their judgment was unequivocal...
...The conditions in which they had to work to accommodate the Government's obsession with secrecy were impossible...
...Ralph Nader March 27, 1979 restraining order were trivial compared to those that confronted the lawyers...
...And from The Progressive's subscribers, from writers who have been published in this magazine, from total strangers who had never heard of The Progressive before, we have received magnificent support that has given us the courage and determination to continue this fight...
...We will somehow find the resources to sustain our struggle...
...It need not be Government information...
...We have learned, for example, that the First Amendment has many fair-weather friends...
...There are no secrets not already published and available worldwide...
...I have yet to learn which components determine the shelf-life of a warhead and, consequently, how often each warhead must be returned to the factories for overhaul...
...Perhaps the officials who read Howard Morland's manuscript were sincerely convinced that "security" had been breached...
...He agreed with that...
...As long ago as October 1953 The Progressive had published an article entitled "Faith, Fear, and Fusion," by Michael Am-rine (coincidentally, also a former editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), which had concluded with the following sentences: "The naked violence of the hydrogen bomb is no more sinister than the hysteria which has made us behave like smarty children crying, 'I know a secret...
...In fact, we were required to submit such an accounting more than three weeks later...
...But our formal response was that we would take a few days to consider our position, and that we would, in the meantime, refrain from publication of the Morland article...
...It's a First Amendment issue," Morris Rubin said, and that was that...
...How did The Progressive, which has fought against militarism throughout its seventy-year history and crusaded against the nuclear arms race more persistently than any other publication in America, suddenly find itself accused of threatening to "pave the way for nuclear annihilation...
...Though the nation's news media have given extensive coverage to the case called The United States of America vs...
...Such legislation has always been repugnant to Americans and has found little support in Congress...
...And we will win...
...Though Morland had taken only a few college undergraduate science courses, he had begun to educate himself on the nuclear arms race and its links to the nuclear energy industry...
...The forty-seven exhibits appended to Morland's affidavit — a two-and-a-half-inch stack of magazine articles (including one from a model-builders' hobby magazine), book chapters, publicly distributed brochures, and encyclopedia articles — were censored too...
...Watch this space for Howard Morland's article, "The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It, Why We're Telling It...
...The article suppressed in what Judge Warren called "the first instance of prior restraint against a publication in this fashion in the history of this country" was the article that had been scheduled to appear in this space in this issue of The Progressive...
...No wonder The Times calls the case "against the national interest — against free speech and free inquiry...
...On February 15, Rathjens called Sam Day and expressed concern that Morland's article contained "secrets" which should not be published...
...The Progressive's staff was unanimous and firm: We had been offered no persuasive reason to suppress or censor the Morland article, and we were not about to acquiesce in a denial of our First Amendment rights...
...Because of the mystique of secrecy, policy-making in this crucial area has been confined to a tight little cabal of "experts" — the keepers of the "secrets" — and their corporate collaborators...
...Why would the Government go to such extraordinary lengths to protect "secrets" that are not secret?' land's suppressed article hover from now on over our work at The Progressive...
...Though it dealt with some details of the hydrogen bomb production process, no objection has ever been raised against it — by the Government or anyone else...
...A number of affidavits make it quite clear that a sine qua non to thermonuclear capability is a large, sophisticated industrial capability coupled with a coterie of imaginative, resourceful scientists and technicians...
...He discussed the dangerous substances used in bomb production, and noted that some people who work or live in close proximity to those substances don't even know about the risks...
...It could also result in criminal prosecution, and convictions could mean sentences of up to twenty years' imprisonment...
...Morland explained, for example, why the weapons-makers insist that they must continue to do underground nuclear testing, despite the hazards entailed in such tests...
...Attorney General March 27, 1979 sought clearance, nor have we looked at or been told about the suppressed court documents...
...But we were not only barred from publishing or disseminating Morland's article...
...How did the full force of the Federal Government come to be arrayed against a small, perpetually struggling magazine published in Madison, Wisconsin...
...By the time he issued his preliminary injunction on March 26, even Judge Warren had apparently come to understand that the Morland article would not "give a hydrogen bomb to Idi Amin...
...Our present policy of secrecy is a fatal abdication of founding principle...
...There is no way terrorists or hoodlums or anyone but a large, highly industrialized nation could build a hydrogen bomb...
...If we stopped for coffee in a greasy spoon, would an agent be at the next table to see whether we were holding a surreptitious rendezvous with, say, a Ugandan spy...
...Accordingly, it was agreed that I would ask any question I desired, and that i! was up to the person who was talking to me to know whether the answer to my question is classified or not...
...When J. Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked by the Atomic Energy Commission in the hysteria-ridden 1950s, someone suggested he should be compelled to undergo brain surgery to expunge the "secrets" from his mind...
...Why did Assistant Secretary Sewell confirm that the article was "substantially" correct, when he could have dismissed it as an amateurish or — worse — journalistic effort...
...In consultation with the author, we subjected the draft to routine editing...
...Rathjens's secretary called Day the next morning...
...It is an unenviable state, and one we hope no other American journalist will ever have to share...
...Democracy, however, depends on an informed public...
...Would we have to assess every article on the nuclear arms race (or on nuclear energy) to be sure we were not inadvertently revealing "secrets" linked to the article...
...Professor Rathjens was "in conference," she said, but he had asked her to advise us that he was sending a copy of the Morland manuscript to the Department of Energy...
...We faced the likelihood of horrendous legal costs...
...Still, he assumed "the awesome responsibility of issuing a preliminary injunction against The Progressive's use of the Morland article in its current form" because, he said, "a mistake in ruling against the United States could pave the way for nuclear annihilation for us all...
...Ramsey Clark Former U.S...
...Would the Government of the United States perjure some of its highest officials for the sake of a "disinformation" attempt...
...That comment illustrated, in itself, the heavy price we have paid in public ignorance for thirty years of official secrecy...
...More than any of us, they had a stake in its survival — and Gordon Sinykin minced no words in warning us that its survival might be jeopardized by an open confrontation with the Government...
...It was, as our attorneys noted, a "dramatic example of the uncertainty inherent in the classification process...
...By arrangement with the Department of Energy, he began visiting nuclear production facilities...
...We had re-edited the manuscript, and in that process a member of our staff had casually inserted a three-word phrase to clarify an awkward sentence...
...The Department was wrong about the title, too, though it persisted for weeks in calling the article "How a Hydrogen Bomb Works...
...Perhaps some officials felt that Howard Morland's article, dealing with the emotion-charged issue of nuclear weaponry, would provide a better shot at the First Amendment...
...We knew that Morland had seen no classified documents, had stolen no "secrets...
...Were we in the same fix...
...As Howard Morland's suppressed article makes abundantly clear, there is no way that Idi Amin could build a hydrogen bomb even if The Progressive provided the instructions — which we would not and could not do...
...We will know this if we can see the truth in time...
...We had a constant stream of visitors...
...The Progressive's small staff, overburdened even in normal circumstances, was overwhelmed...
...He acknowledged that this was true...
...By this time, we were worried...
...We will appeal Judge Warren's preliminary injunction to the Court of Appeals and, if necessary, to the Supreme Court...
...tion with them" are barred from "publishing or otherwise communicating, transmitting or disclosing in any manner any information designated by the Secretary of Energy as Restricted Data contained in the Morland article...
...The Government's tendency to hide widely known technical processes under a mantle of secrecy in the national interest and prevent press commentary on these matters can only result in stifling debate, not in pro-1 tecting the physical security of Americans...
...Without our consent — without our knowledge, in fact — one of those reviewers passed a copy of the manuscript to George Rathjens, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who also serves as a Government consultant...
...Sam Day was out of the office when Rathjens called back later that Friday, so I took the call...
...It had, indeed, gone into Federal district court in Madison that evening to seek a temporary restraining order, but Judge James E. Doyle had immediately disqualified himself...
...that had been repealed several years ago...
...It never occurred to them, apparently, that their freedom could not survive if ours was destroyed, or that their rhetoric was feeding the "adverse climate" about which they professed to be concerned...
...The lawyers had seven days to make the case against the Government's request for a preliminary injunction...
...Some newspapers whose editorial policies are diametrically opposed to ours have been firm and eloquent in our defense...
...We have learned, in recent weeks, that many individuals who work in "classified" areas are totally unaware of what is available in the open literature...
...At 10:30 one evening, I walked with Williamson from his office to the law library at the Wisconsin State Capitol...
...On February 21, we took a half-way step...
...Sinykin, explaining the Act to me in that late-evening telephone call, was clearly alarmed...
...We thought — mistakenly, as it turned out — that the Government would move swiftly to secure all copies — perhaps to seize them — and that it would want a full accounting of the copies we had sent out before we were restrained...
...he is an old friend of the Rubins and a former law partner in the LaFollette, Sinykin firm...
...a group of Federal officials would be in Madison the next day to talk to us...
...Would our telephone lines be tapped in perpetuity, our mail scrutinized, our movements watched...
...Fear obscures the absurdity of the notion that there are, any longer, "secrets": this article, after all, has been written by an investigative reporter who had no access to classified documents or classified data, who relied exclusively on public sources of information...
...We are more inclined to believe that the Government is concerned not about losing "secrets" but about losing the mystique of secrecy in which the entire nuclear program has been enveloped for more than three decades...
...He was, it seemed, more impressed with the prominent names of high officials affixed to the Government's affidavits in the case...
...We understood, of course, that until Judge Warren's order was lifted or reversed, we could not publish Howard Morland's article, or disseminate it in any way...
...We suspected — and scientists later confirmed — that a competent physicist could learn in a short time what it had taken Morland months to piece together...
...On the other hand, the magazine, Morland, and all of us involved in publishing his article faced potentially serious consequences...
...There was no mention of the draft sent to the DOE by Rathjens...
...Failure to understand this leads to reliance on secrecy rather than development of international systems of prevention and control based on law...
...One does not build a hydrogen bomb in the basement...
...Freedom is thrown at the feet of absolute obedience to authority...
...But it is possible to legislate by judicial decree, too...
Vol. 43 • May 1979 • No. 5
