are not aware of the alternative. Wiggins suggested an inverse relationship: as secrecy increases, freedom decreases.19

Suppressing information results in an uninformed or misinformed public. Advocates of this position note five ways in which this saps the quality of government. First, secrecy serves as a cloak for corruption. "One of the worst consequences of secrecy is the license it confers upon deceit. . . . When there are no independent means of verifying official accounts of public transactions, an invaluable check is removed. It then becomes relatively safe for authority to publish such a version of an event as lends the most luster to government, or the least discredit. The temptation to sugar-coat each disaster and gild every triumph will prove almost irresistible to officials who are secure against contradiction. Government then can manage the news to its tastes. It will speak with one voice and, however much that voice may err, there will be none to say it nay." The list of scandals and illegal activities by those in government is long, and information control procedures have allowed them to flourish. While ready access to information cannot be expected to eliminate corruption, some believe that removing official obstacles to the flow of information will limit clandestine activities and reduce their detrimental effects by exposing them earlier."

In addition to providing a cover for corruption, discretionary control of information at least temporarily protects in efficient or bumbling administration. Rather than using the public as a resource in making the best decisions, government officials may try to convince the electorate that the official policies are best. The difference is crucial: the thousands of information officers employed by the government constitute a propaganda force for the current administration, and the President has virtually unlimited access to the radio and TV networks. If, in addition to presenting their case forcefully, government officials suppress information which would contradict them, this is a matter for concern. "If the opinions of the public are to control the government, these opinions must not be controlled by the government." 23 The most eloquent objection to government-in-secret was made by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman William Fulbright. Changing his longstanding policy of holding hearings off-camera, Fulbright insisted that the Administration explain its conduct of the Vietnamese war both to his committee and by means of television, to the American people. He hoped to force a change in Johnson's Vietnam policy "by putting that policy on public trial. In short, he intended to go over the President's head to the people." " The suggestion has been made that a monument be raised to Fulbright for this action, although there is some disagreement about whether it should be erected in Washington or Hanoi.

Suppression of important information threatens good government because it precludes the open discussion of issues out of which wise decisions come. This led Mr. Justice Douglas to warn that "The safety of the Republic lies in unlimited discourse." In his study of propaganda, Terence Qualter judged that censorship of ideas poses a greater threat to democracy than propaganda because the inavailability of alternative points of view, rather than the persuasive presentation of one position, results in an unquestioning uniformity of opinion.20

Good government is precluded by an uninformed electorate because the people's judgment is, ultimately, final. Lacking information, judgments tend

15 Wiggins, loc. cit.

20 Ibid., p. vii.

21 Mollenhoff, op. cit., p. 202.

22 Whether the best decisions are made by the largest possible number of people is, of course, debatable. The difference of opinion hinges in part on different definitions of "best", a point discussed below in connection with diverse concepts of "good" government. But arguments about decision-making processes suffer from a shortage of good research. But for an analysis of small group processes, such as within the administration, see Barry Collins and Harold Guetzkow. A Social Psychology of Group Processes for Decision-Making (New York: John Wiley, 1964).

23 John C. Livingston and Robert G. Thompson, The Consent of the Governed (New York: MacMillan, 1963), pp. 348-349.

24 Evans and Novak, op. cit., p. 564.

25 Douglas, op. cit., p. 34.

28 Terence H. Qualter, Propaganda and Psychological Warfare (New York: Random House, 1962), p. xiv.

27

to be made on the basis of ignorance, rumor or prejudice: the government chosen by such a constituency is not likely to be the best.28

31

Government control of information militates against good government by alienating the people. Regardless of the reasons why President Johnson withheld information, his doing so hurt his administration by destroying popular confidence in his official pronouncements.29 Former President Truman observed that presidential power is, in essence, the power to persuade," and a persuader with low credibility is severely handicapped. But in addition to the question of credibility, secrecy tends to divide an uninformed mass from an informed elite, precluding development of the necessary public support for governmental policies and developing dangerous polarizations among the people. Analyzing the arguments advanced by opponents of government control of information, it becomes obvious that they implicitly endorse a particular concept of self-government. Two interpretations have been advanced: that of a democracy and that of a republic. Sidney Hook defined an absolute or direct democracy as "government of the whole people by the whole people." The prime analogy is that of a town meeting, at which every person discusses and votes on every issue. Obviously the American government is too large to be run by town meetings, but those advocating this concept believe that means should be found to assure that the citizens exercise the primary decision-making responsibility. This concept is consistent with the practice of "government by publicity" in which mass communication and public opinion polling serve as "twin technologies that seek to revive the Aristotelian concept of the citizen as firsthand spectator and participant in the marketplace of government."

33

35

Many are not convinced that democracy is either practical or desirable. Implicitly supporting their arguments for government control of information is an interpretation of self-government as a republic, or a system in which citizens choose representatives who then rely on their own initiative in the formulation and execution of policy. In a republic, "while the electors choose the ruler, they do not own any shares in him and they have no right to command him." This concept is consistent with the Jeffersonian belief in a natural aristocracy on the basis of intellect. Those who accept this position tend to be those occupying positions of power and responsibility and who place "great confidence in their own judgment, with a correspondingly low estimate of the general run of people."

99 37

THE CASE FOR GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF INFORMATION

Advocates of this position rely on three lines of argument. First, democracy is impractical in a large, complex society. Second, efficient administration of government necessitates the ability to control information. Third, requirements of national security demand information control.

The issue of the size and complexity of government and society is a major theme in the reasoning of those convinced that democracy is impractical. Representative John Moss complained that there is so much information

27 For a description of communication behavior in ambiguous situations, in which people "attempt to construct a meaningful interpretation by pooling their intellectual resources" (p. 17), see Tamotsu Shibutani, Improvised News (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966). When information is lacking about important topics, the lacuna are filled by collective inferences: rumor.

28 William A.Robson, The Governors and the Governed (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), p. 36.

29 For example, see Bruce Ladd. Crises in Credibility (New York: New American Library, 1968); and William McGaffin and Erwin Knoll, Anything But the Truth: The Credibility Gap---How the News is Managed in Washington (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1968).

Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: The New American Library, 1964), p. 32.

31 Wiggins, op. cit., p. 113.

32 Dan Lacy, Freedom and Communications (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). pp. 16-17.

Michael Curtis (ed.), The Nature of Politics (New York: Avon Books, 1962), p. 463. Douglass Cater, The Fourth Branch of Government (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), p. 10.

Curtis, loc. cit.

Walter Lippmann. The Public Philosophy (New York: Mentor Books, 1955), p. 46. Chafee, op. cit., p. 47.

38

about so many issues that it is difficult to obtain what is available about a particular topic. This implies that the people are at best only partially informed about complicated issues. Further, the information they do have is likely to be that which is most accessable, not necessarily the most important for making good decisions." On the other hand, Senator Mark Hatfield argued that government policy as well as logistics limits information accessibility. "Our leaders have taken the position that an issue is far too complicated for the people to understand even if full information is available."* The basic theory of democracy, that the people know best and that the majority of the people, if well-informed, will make sounder decisions than small groups of leaders or geniuses, was directly challenged by James Reston. "This is undoubtedly sound doctrine for sinking a sewer or building a bridge or school in a local community, but is it a practical way to conduct foreign policy?" He concluded that it is not."

Walter Lippmann clearly rejected the democratic ideal as impractical. According to Lippmann, an unrecognized revolution in the Western democracies during World War I resulted in a functional derangement of the relationship between the mass of the people and the government." In essence, the overextended democracies lost the power to govern without the support of public opinion. Deploring this development, Lippman argued that government must be freed from dependence on public opinion, for the unhappy truth is that the prevailing public opinion has been destructively wrong at the critical junctures. The people have imposed a veto upon the judgments of informed and responsible officials . . . Mass opinion . . . has shown itself to be a dangerous master of decisions when the stakes are life and death.'

19 42

The argument that efficient administration of government requires secrecy was presented by Robert Cutler, former Special Assistant to President Eisenhower on National Security matters. Cutler advocated that there be no publicity about a proposed course of action before the government decides what to do. He suggested that 1) arguing in the press the pros and cons of the options available to the government tends to disintegrate policy by contributing to a piecemeal approach to major decisions; 2) pre-decision secrecy does not violate democratic rights because nothing has actually happened until the decision is made; and 3) the President should be able to disregard the advice of some of his advisors without publicly disclosing the fact and thus embarrassing the advisors. Well publicized disputes within the Administration provide unfriendly nations a vantage from which to apply pressure against the government. After a decision is made and the policy implemented, Cutler urged continued discretionary suppression of information. His reasoning was based on the premise that national security programs are an inseparable whole. Bringing public attention to projects conducted in secret, particularly those with unhappy consequences or evidencing inept administration, would result in overattention and overcompensation, imbalancing the whole. He argued that foreign policy particularly would be distorted by piecemeal post hoc correctives. Cutler apparently realized that he had advocated complete suppression of information, and reponded by arguing that free speech about foreign policy must prove its validity and usefulness to national survival if it is to be seriously considered in decisions about withholding information." To say the least, this position represents a shift in the burden of proof with respect to free speech.

The government's right to control information vital to national security is generally conceded. President Kennedy's Press Secretary Pierre Salinger inter

38 Stuart W. Little. "Just Unbelievable," Saturday Review, 51 (February 10, 1968), p. 70. 39 Others extend this argument, suggesting that the volume of available information coupled with inappropriate criteria for news among journalists, rather than administrative suppression, is the major obstacle to informing the public about vital issues. See J. Edward Gerald. "Truth and Error-Journalism's Tournament of Reason". Quill, 57 (July, 1969). 12-15; Dan Lacy. Freedom and Communications (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), p. 18; and Ronald Lippitt, "Barriers to Communication: As Seen By a Social Psychologist", in Frederick T. C. Uyu, ed., Behavioral Sciences and The Mass Media (N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation, 1968), pp. 189-195.

40 Little, loc. cit.

41 James B. Reston. "The Press, The President and Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs, 44 (July, 1966), pp. 553-559.

42 Lippmann, op. cit., pp. 19-24.

43 Cater, op. cit., pp. 113-116.

preted the First Amendment as not requiring full disclosure either to the press or to Congress. Salinger reasoned that covert operations such as the Bay of Pigs invasion are necessary in the Cold War against an opponent who regularly engages in secret maneuvers, but prohibiting government control of information makes implementation of such tactics very difficult.“

A surprisingly frank statement of the right of government to lie in cases of national security was made by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Sylvester. To illustrate his point, Sylvester used a pressing ethical issue of the Kentucky frontier in 1804: whether a man captured by hostile Indians was justified in lying to conceal the presence of one of his children hiding nearby. The so-called Truthful Baptists said no; the Lying Baptists, yes. Sylvester aligned himself clearly with the Lying Baptists in this situation, and claimed that it was comparable to that faced by government. He reasoned that national self-preservation takes precedence over truthfulness: "[citizens] don't want their children surrendered to the savages merely so that the Government could boast it always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." 45

Many who believe that government should suppress information at least some of the time are not willing to state their position as frankly as Sylvester and would not agree with Cutler's sweeping conclusions. But all of those endorsing this position seem to accept, implicitly or explicitly, the idea that government is too cumbersome to be administered by public opinion, that the best government is that which usually keeps its own counsel about its plans and which has a healthy appreciation for the demands of national security.

ANALYSIS OF THE CASES FOR AND AGAINST INFORMATION CONTROL

The arguments presented by both groups meet rough tests of proof: examples and authoritative opinion may be cited to substantiate them all. In addition, the cases are internally consistent if the basic, often unstated, tenets of the position are granted. The conflict of opinion must be understood on the basis of an analysis which goes beyond the claims for belief offered for individual contentions.

Those for and those against government control of information see the world through different eyes. Their affinity for certain arguments and antipathy for others is a function of their willingness to place confidence in the ability of the "common man" and their interpretation of the nature of selfgovernment. For adherents of either position to understand those agreeing with the other side, they must be able to shift perspectives at least temporarily, and see the issues from the other orientation. In addition, an analysis of the communicative process suggests that this sort of role-taking is essential for good between-groups communication.46

Good government is important to both those advocating and those opposing information control. But they mean different things by good government. Those opposing suppression of information by the government identify good government as that which is most responsive and most accountable to the people, while government which is efficient and effective in implementing its policies is considered best by those favoring information control. The extent to which the former concept is practical and the latter desirable should be a theme in discussing the relative merits of each case.

Advocates of both positions would agree that the tensions between the right to know and the government's need to suppress information should be resolved so as to achieve simultaneously three goals; individual liberty; good government and national security. Those who would suppress information do so in the name of national security; those who would not, invoke individual liberty as their criterion. But there are situations in which achieving national security must be at the price of individual liberty, or vice versa. The question is, in these situations, which should be preferred? The difference between the positions thus hinges on a value judgment about the relative importance of these two policy objectives.

44 Salinger, op. cit.. p. 150.

45 Sylvester, op. cit., p. 14.

4 For example, see the concepts of role-playing and role-taking in the process of covert rehearsal. J. Edward Hulett, Jr. "A Symbolic Interactionist Model of Human Con munication", Audio-Visual Communication Review, 14 (Spring, 1966), 5-29.

Formally stated, the dilemma seems real. Those who would choose national security as the foremost objective reason that if the nation falls to an aggressor, individual liberty will be lost more surely and totally than under any conceivable security restrictions. On the other hand, those who would choose individual liberty as the primary goal of national policy argue that if security is achieved at the price of liberty, it scarcely matters if the tryants are foreign or domestic.

But the statement of the delemma is a semanticist's nightmare. Obviously, the class terms "security" and "liberty" are being used as if there were no differences among the phenomena within the categories. Certainly some liberties may be sacrificed for security, and security is not worth the loss of all liberties. But where do the tolerance limits of compromised freedom and security occur in specific situations? Although a topic by topic answer to this question lies outside the scope of this paper, a series of three questions indicates the factors to be considered in developing a better policy of reconciling the people's right to know and the government's right to withhold information.

First, should any information ever be legitimately suppressed? Either an affirmative or negative answer to this question becomes the key to a Pandora's box of troublesome issues. Students answering this question find themselves qualifying their responses with the same "beaurocrate-ese" that they criticize government officials for using as substitute for English. The discussion should focus on the distinguishing characteristics of those situations (if any) in which information control is and is not approprite.

Second, who should decide whether a particular item of information should be released or suppressed? Giving discretionary powers with respect to withholding information to those who make policy decisions imposes an intolerable ethical delemma. Discriminating between selfish and statesmanly motives for suppressing information is extremely difficult under the best of circumstances. The Chief Executive may be deprived of both the awesome power and responsibility of deciding when to lie to the people by appointing a special non-policymaking agency entrusted with these duties. But this raises other problems. What type of people would be best on such a committee? How can each person be confident that only that information which is essential for national security is being withheld? What correctives should be established in the event of poor decisions regarding information control?

Third, is there some practical way to distinguish between information which legitimately threatens the national interest and that which merely embarrasses the current administration? This is tougher than it looks because some will argue that anything which embarrasses the administration threatens the security of the country. For example, the alleged atrocities at My Lai by American troops were concealed for a number of reasons, one of which was the propaganda value of this information to the North Vietnamese. The question is, which is more damaging: the fact that the North Vietnamese ultimately found out about the massacre or that the American people were asked to make foreign policy decisions without this information.

CONCLUSION

This paper traced the interrelated nature of the freedom of speech and the people's right to know, discussing in some detail government suppression of information as a threat to freedom of speech. By summarizing the cases for and against government control of information, the paper served the scholarly function of providing the basis for informed and constructive discussion of the issue. An analysis of the case for each position indicated that they were separated by different interpretations of self-government (democracy; republic) and of good government (responsive to the people; efficient in implementing its programs with minimum discord) and by the goal of government policy considered of primary importance (individual liberty; national security). This material may be used to provide students a perspective which will facilitate comprehension of readings in this area. Three questions were posed which have been found conducive to the kind of class discussion which stimulates interest in and sensitivity to the problems of free speech and information control. But the summaries of the cases for and against information control