Secret Sharers

"We have had incredible leaks from discussions with closed committees of the & Congress," charged Lieut. Colonel Oliver North in his testimony before the Iran-contra committees. Later, former National Security Adviser John Poindexter complained that divulging secrets "has become an art form in this city to help influence policy." One reason the Reagan Administration conducted the Iran-contra operations so secretly was its fear that if Congress learned of the activities, it would go public with them and create a national furor.

Last week the Administration thought it had found a prime example of loose tongues in Congress: it denounced the disclosure by Democrat Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, that the first Kuwaiti tankers to fly the U.S. flag would take to sea this Wednesday. Aspin replied sharply that this detail had not been classified and that Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole had also mentioned it. Moreover, both Aspin and Dole had been briefed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who made no claim that the date of the first sailing was classified.

Even so, leaking is indeed a classic tool in the hardscrabble world of Washington politics. Congressmen, who are generally given only the outlines of a covert operation, occasionally hint their opposition to a secret activity without actually exposing it. Intelligence officials, on the other hand, leak for a wider variety of motives: to support or reshape an operation (such as assistance to the Afghan guerrillas), sometimes to score points or advance their political position.

Veteran Washington correspondents report that officials in all recent Administrations have leaked classified information far more frequently than have the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, which under law must be informed of covert operations. Even Poindexter called it "pure nonsense" to suggest that all such leaks come from Congress; he cited the White House staff, the National Security Council staff and the Departments of State and Defense as other frequent leakers.

That does not mean, of course, that Congress is without sin. Republican Senator David Durenberger, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was sharply criticized in March for telling a Jewish group in Miami that the CIA had recruited an Israeli army officer to provide classified information on Israeli forces during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He made this slip during the uproar over the life-imprisonment sentence imposed on an American, Jonathan Jay Pollard, who was caught spying for Israel. In a 1983 incident, members of the Intelligence Committees commented publicly on U.S. and CIA support for the Nicaraguan contras. Administration officials had talked about the subject so often that the Intelligence Committees decided that it was no longer a secret matter.

Durenberger, on the other hand, contends that he has counted "hundreds" of Administration leaks. Notice of some 50 or more covert actions has been sent to Capitol Hill by the Reagan Administration, which has not identified a single one that was exposed.

The major leak cited by North occurred, by his account, on April 14, 1986, when two Senators went directly from a White House briefing to waiting microphones and told the nation that the President would discuss an impending U.S. attack on Libya that night. That, claimed North, gave Libya time to get its antiaircraft defenses set and led to the death of two American airmen shot down in their bomber.

North's charge sounded plausible -- until Senator Daniel Inouye neatly shredded it. One of the two Senators, it turned out, had said "No comment" when asked by TV reporters about a possible Libya raid. The other had merely advised people to tune in the President. Inouye cited a series of press stories, all based on Administration sources, that had been predicting such a strike for more than a week. So widespread were the Pentagon tips that dozens of correspondents had traveled to Tripoli to await the air strike. Moreover, the Pentagon has never established whether the F-111 bomber was downed by enemy fire or had ditched in the sea before coming in range of Libyan guns.

Ironically, the Wall Street Journal benefited last week from an entirely different kind of leak. A top national security official told the paper that "Ollie was the biggest leaker in this Administration."