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Archivist Challenges Cheney
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Monday 24 December 2007
A National Archives official reveals what
the veep wanted to keep classified - and how he tried to challenge the rules.
J. William Leonard learned the hard way the perils of questioning Vice President
Dick Cheney. The veteran National Archives official challenged claims by the
Office of Vice President (OVP) to be exempt from federal rules governing classified
information. His efforts touched off a firestorm - and a counter-strike
by Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, who tried to wipe out Leonard's
job. (Addington did not respond to requests for comment on the subject.)
Now, Leonard is quitting as director of the Archives' Information Security
Oversight Office (ISOO) - the unit that monitors the handling of government
secrets. He tells NEWSWEEK that his fight with Cheney's office was a "contributing"
factor in his decision to retire after 34 years of government service.
Leonard-described by National Archivist Allen Weinstein as "the gold standard
of information specialists in the federal government"-spoke to NEWSWEEK's
Michael Isikoff. Excerpts:
Newsweek: Explain how all this happened.
Leonard: Up until 2002, OVP was just like any other agency. Subsequent to that,
they stopped reporting to us…At first, I took that to be, 'we're too busy.'
Then we routinely attempted to do a review of the OVP and it was at that point
in time it was articulated back to me that: 'well they weren't really subject
to our reviews.' I didn't agree with it. But you know, there is a big fence
around the White House. I didn't know how I could get in there if somebody didn't
want me to.
So how did matters escalate?
The challenge arose last year when the Chicago Tribune was looking at [ISOO's
annual report] and saw the asterisk [reporting that it contained no information
from OVP] and decided to follow up. And that's when the spokesperson from the
OVP made public this idea that because they have both legislative and executive
functions, that requirement doesn't apply to them.…They were saying the
basic rules didn't apply to them. I thought that was a rather remarkable position.
So I wrote my letter to the Attorney General [asking for a ruling that Cheney's
office had to comply.] Then it was shortly after that there were [email] recommendations
[from OVP to a National Security Council task force] to change the executive
order that would effectively abolish [my] office.
Who wrote the emails?
It was David Addington.
No explanation was offered?
No. It was strike this, strike that. Anyplace you saw the words, "the
director of ISOO" or "ISOO" it was struck.
What was your reaction?
I was disappointed that rather than engage on the substance of an issue, some
people would resort to that…
What rules were they saying didn't apply to them?
The ones that tell you how you mark [classified documents], how you declassify,
how you safeguard them, how you store…
Ultimately, the White House said the president never intended that
the vice president would have to comply. This had to have been frustrating -to
have been publicly thwarted for doing what you saw as your job?
Well, you know, that I've had 34 years of frustration. That's life in the big
city. I also accept that I'm not always right….But this was a big thing
as far as I was concerned.
A number of people have noted that the vice president's office stopped
reporting to you and complying with ISOO in the fall of 2003 when the whole
Valerie Plame case blew up. Do you think there was a connection?
I don't have any insight. I was held at arms length [from that.] But some of
the things based on what I've read [have] given me cause for concern. A number
of prosecution exhibits [in the Plame-related perjury trial of I. Scooter Libby,
Cheney's former chief of staff] were annotated, 'handle as SCI.' SCI is Sensitive
Compartmentalized Information, the most sensitive classified information there
is. As I recall, [one of them] was [the vice president and his staff] were coming
back from Norfolk where they had attended a ship commissioning and they were
conferring on the plane about coming up with a [media] response plan [to the
allegations of Plame's husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.] That was one
of the exhibits marked, 'handle as SCI.'
These were internal communications about what to say to the press?
Let me give you some the irony of that. Part of the National Archives is the
presidential libraries….So we're going to have documents [at the libraries]
with the most sensitive markings on it that isn't even classified. If I were
going to do a review [of OVP], that would be one of the questions I would want
to ask: What is this practice? And how widespread is it? And what is the rationale?
How do we assure that people don't get this mixed up with real secrets?
Is too much government business conducted in secret?
One of the things I've reflected on lately is that I truly believe we need
to introduce a new balancing test. In the past, we've looked at it as, 'we have
to balance national security against the public's right to know or whatever.'
My balancing test would be national security versus national security: yes,
disclosing information may cause damage, but you know what, withholding that
information may even cause greater damage… And I don't think we sufficiently
taken that into greater account.
The global struggle that we're engaged in today is more than anything else
is an ideological struggle. And in my mind….that calls for greater transparency,
not less transparency. We're in a situation where we're attempting to win over
the hearts and minds of the world's population. And yet, we seem to have a habit - when
we restrict information, we're often times find ourselves in a position where
we're ceding the playing field to the other side. We allow ourselves to be almost
reduced to a caricature by taking positions on certain issues, oh , we simply
can't talk about that.
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(Note: Asked for comment, Lea A. McBride, spokeswoman for Cheney,
pointed to recent comments by Cheney in an interview with the online publication,
Politico, on his office's dispute with the National Archives. In the interview,
the vice president specifically referred to his position that, because he serves
as Secretary of the Senate, his office was not an "entity" in the
executive branch governed by the executive order relating to classified information.
"I'm aware of the kerfuffle here a few months ago - is
he or isn't he; is he part of the executive branch, part of the legislative
branch?" Cheney said. "And the answer really is, you've got a foot
in both camps. I obviously work for the president. That's why I'm sitting here
in the West Wing of the White House. But I also have a role to play in the Congress
as the president of the Senate. I actually get paid - that's where my
paycheck comes from, is the Senate. So I try to keep lines open to both sides
of the Congress, both the House and the Senate.")
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