State Department: Continued Leaks of Classified Documents to Washington Times


U.S. Department of State
96/07/15 Daily Press Briefing  
Office of the Spokesman  
  
  
                          U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE   
                            DAILY PRESS BRIEFING   
                                 I N D E X    
                           Monday, July 15, 1996   
   
   
                                             Briefer:  Nicholas Burns   
   
 
   
DEPARTMENT   
   Continued Leaks of Classified Documents to Washington Times... 14-17   
   

   
                  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE   
                    DAILY PRESS BRIEFING   
   
                                                DPB #114   
   
              MONDAY, JULY 15, 1996, 1:06 P.M.   
           (ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

Q Do you have anything on the publication of the Primakov letter to the Secretary which appeared in the Washington Times this morning?

MR. BURNS: I can't say we were surprised, George. There's been so much of this, this trail of leaks to a particular reporter in the Washington Times. My policy on this has been to say that if someone is leaking highly classified documents, I will not reward that person by responding to the leak.

I will tell you, however, I was a little bit surprised by the Times when it printed an alleged letter from Primakov to Secretary Christopher and, if you look very closely -- this is in the Times today, and this I think is a front-page article -- there's a signature block that says "Primakov," and then underneath it says "Source: State Department."

It was very helpful of them to put that there, I suppose; but I found that very odd because I can tell you, since we are the branch of the State Department that presents information to the Fourth Estate, we did not publish this letter or any letter like it. We don't publish diplomatic correspondence from one Minister to Secretary Christopher.

For the Times to publish it as a "Source: State Department" conveys an impression that the State Department gave this letter to the Times to print. We didn't. We didn't do that. We wouldn't do that. Any diplomatic correspondence between Primakov and Christopher is going to remain confidential, so I'm not going to talk about it.

Q By describing it --

MR. BURNS: It was odd. It was a very odd thing to do, I thought, for a major newspaper.

Q By describing it as a leak, are you confirming the accuracy of the letter, though?

MR. BURNS: I'm not going to talk about the letter at all, because I would reward the leaker, who is violating U.S. law, somewhere inside the U.S. State Department. I just can't, Jim. You understand the reasons why I can't do that, to be completely serious for a moment.

Q (Inaudible)

MR. BURNS: Yes, I do understand what you're asking. I do.

Q If I understand exactly what you're saying, you're saying that you, as the official Spokesman of the Department, and the people who work for you did not officially give this out. But you're not saying that somebody in this building of thousands of people may not have passed it along?

MR. BURNS: Oh, I think it's -- we have a problem here. We have somebody inside the U.S. Government who has access to classified information who is passing it on to a certain reporter -- Bill Gertz at the Washington Times. There's been a steady stream of these leaks to him.

I'm not going to deny that there have been leaks in the past and that this may have been a leak. I was very surprised to see us as the source of this because I can tell you authoritatively we do not give letters like this to any newspaper, including the Washington Times.

Q How many people have access to the Secretary's high-level correspondence?

MR. BURNS: I'm sure that someone could give you an exact count, or maybe even a count approaching that. I don't know how many. I suppose it's a fairly high number. You never can tell about leaks. You never know where they're coming from. You never know who is doing them. They are routinely investigated -- and I mean routinely; they're always investigated on a routine basis. Our success in finding out who is leaking documents is hit-or-miss. Not only our success in this Administration but over, I think, the course of many Administrations.

All I know is that to leak a highly classified document is wrong. It's also illegal.

Q Who would be investigating this?

MR. BURNS: The proper authorities. It depends on the agency involved. In this case, our Diplomatic Security.

Q Is the IG investigating this?

MR. BURNS: I don't know.

Q Nick, what are the ethics of this? Is the reporter culpable that takes these documents and publishes them?

MR. BURNS: Bill, in the past I've chosen not to comment on the reporter's end of it. I have only commented on the U.S. Government end of it, meaning what are the responsibilities of an employee of the State Department who has a Top Secret clearance and who takes a Top Secret or highly classified document and gives it to a reporter. There are very clear laws that say it is illegal for an employee of the State Department or any other branch of the U.S. Government to do that. I'm not going to comment on the reporter's end of it.

Q You're not saying that the reporter should cease and desist?

MR. BURNS: I'm just not going to have any comment on it. But I'm certainly in a position to comment -- I want to protect the State Department and let the readers of the Washington Times know, through all of your services, that we did not give this document. They ought not to do this in the future. They ought not to say that the source is the State Department when it clearly isn't the State Department.

Q Doesn't that help you?

MR. BURNS: Pardon?

Q Doesn't that help you?

MR. BURNS: It doesn't help us at all. It looks like we're just giving diplomatic correspondence at will to reporters. I'm sure the Russian Government wouldn't want us to do that, and we don't want to do; so it doesn't help us, no. Good try, though.

Q Do such letters circulate to interested committees on the Hill?

MR. BURNS: Excuse me?

Q Do such letters circulate as part of a normal course?

MR. BURNS: When Congress requires information -- various committees of Congress -- on our diplomacy, they routinely ask us for classified documents. I have no idea of knowing whether this document was one of those transferred to the Hill, and I'm not pointing my finger at the Hill at all. I'm pointing it clearly at people in the Executive Branch of the Government.