US Policy Is to Keep the Veil of Secrecy in Place

[marmar]

from truthdig:


US Policy Is to Keep the Veil of Secrecy in Place

Posted on Jul 23, 2013
By William Pfaff


For some 20 years, in another and more youthful phase of my life, I was one of the (apparently) several hundred thousand Americans who possessed a “top secret” security classification.

This was deposited upon me I know not why, as I was a Korean War non-commissioned officer, my sole military qualification that of “small-unit infantry leader,” on my way to the Far East Command. You may imagine how many secrets I knew! Some kind of foul-up further up the line I supposed.

My clearance stayed with me throughout my military service during the Korean War, through an active Army Reserve commitment and through a period of involvement in Cold War political warfare undertakings meant to provide Western intellectual and cultural publications and art to readers inside the Soviet bloc and in the Middle East and Asia. It even lasted through my encounter with a think tank dealing with international relations and strategy, and with why the Vietnam War was a disaster. My top secret clearance went on and on.

It was not a card in my wallet, or a subscription to be renewed, nor did it weigh on my mind. I kept it even after a Soviet KGB man at the U.N. struck up a conversation with me at a party in New York City, and two sober-meined (and obviously well-informed) FBI agents subsequently invited me out for a coffee and asked if I wouldn’t like to pursue the acquaintance on their behalf. I said that if the Russian called me, I would let them know. But I wouldn’t pursue him in order to set him up, which is what they had in mind. They seemed to find this a reasonable moral distinction to draw, thanked me and paid for the coffee. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/us_policy_is_to_keep_the_veil_of_secrecy_in_place_20130723/

[JayhawkSD]

1. I was given top secret information for which I was not cleared

Heh. They could not avoid it, because the information was simply my location. Submarines operating off the north coast of Russia was "top secret" in those days, but they could not entirely keep the crew from knowing where we were. When we got home we were not permitted to tell anyone where we had been. We were told to say that we had been at Key West.

We were not told how to explain why we had no tans. No, constant sumberged operation didn't cut it. I was on a diesel boat.

[JoeyT]

3. I had a buddy that was in the Navy

and used to joke that he made the navigation charts, but because his clearance was too low he wasn't allowed to read them after he made them. I'm still not sure if he was serious or just screwing with me.

[bemildred]

2. If it is not secret, you can't blackmail people with it.

So of course they want as much as possible to be secret. Like that was a good thing.