from the Congressional Record: September 26, 1997
Page S10055-S10067
By Mr. MOYNIHAN:
S. 1232. A bill to provide for the declassification of the journal
kept by Glenn T. Seaborg while serving as Chairman of the Atomic Energy
Commission; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
DECLASSIFICATION LEGISLATION
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Glenn T. Seaborg is a truly great
American who for 14 years has suffered outrageous treatment from
bureaucrats and is in need of our assistance. Dr. Seaborg, codiscoverer
of plutonium, kept a journal whilst chairman of the Atomic Energy
Commission from 1961 to 1971. The journal consisted of a diary written
at home each evening, correspondence, announcements, minutes, and the
like. He was careful about classified matters; nothing was included
that could not be made public. Even as he was chairman the portions
relating to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were microfilmed
for public access in their respective Presidential libraries. Before
leaving the AEC, Dr. Seaborg got it all cleared virtually without
deletion. Then lunacy descended. Or rather, the Atomic Energy
Commission became the Department of Energy and bureaucracy got going.
Seaborg writes of all this in an article "Secrecy Runs Amok"
published in Science in 1994. It seems that in 1983 the chief historian
of the Department asked to borrow one of two sets of the journal, some
26 volumes in all, for work on a history of the Commission. By the time
the author got his journal back passage after passage was redacted,
much of it explicitly public information, such as the published code
names of nuclear weapons tests, some of it purely personal, as for
example his description of accompanying his children on a trick or
treat outing on a Halloween evening. The 26 volumes, "in expurgated
form" as Seaborg puts it, are now available in the Manuscript Division
of the Library of Congress. But where does one go for sanity? Seaborg
writes: "With the beginning of the Reagan administration, the
government had begun to take a much more severe and rigid position with
regard to secrecy." The balance between the "right of the public to
know" and the "right of the nation to protect itself" was simply
lost as, often apologetic, investigators poured over the papers of the
great Americans of the time.
Dr. Seaborg recently came to my office seeking assistance in cutting
through the bureaucracy. At this stage in his career he should not be
forced to expend valuable time and energy trying to get back what he
lent the Department of Energy. I immediately agreed to offer what
assistance I could, having had experience of such matters as chairman
of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy.
Last week, with the energy and water appropriations bill nearly ready
for conference, I thought there might be a chance to include a
provision that would require the return of the unedited journal to Dr.
Seaborg. I wrote to
[[Page S10066]]
the chairman and ranking members of the subcommittee, asking for their
help. On Tuesday, September 23, the clerk for Senator Reid, the ranking
member of the subcommittee, reported to my staff that there had been a
long staff discussion on the matter, that it was agreed the Department
of Energy had acted inappropriately, that the journal was a valuable
historical document, and that things looked promising for including the
provision in the conference report.
The report was filed today with no mention of the Seaborg journal.
This afternoon the clerk for Senator Domenici, the chairman, reported
that the Department of Energy had been consulted and that they had
raised objections to the return of the unexpurgated journal. And so,
absent the opportunity for a hearing, the provision was dropped. I
suppose doing the right thing for Dr. Seaborg in a simple, expedient
manner was too much to expect. I suppose it was wishful thinking that
the Department would do its part to rectify the situation. So, Mr.
President, I am introducing the same provision as a free-standing bill.
I look forward to a hearing on the matter, which the appropriations
staff advocates, so that at least this one egregious example of the
regulation and control of valuable public information can be brought to
light and, I trust, remedied.
I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Seaborg's article in Science be
included in the Record at this point. I send to the desk a bill
requiring the return of Dr. Seaborg's journal in the original,
unredacted form in which it was lent to the Department of Energy, and
ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record and referred to
the appropriate committee.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
S. 1232
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
(1) Whereas Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg is a truly great American
who has made indispensable contributions in the development
of nuclear energy.
(2) Whereas Dr. Seaborg is the co-discoverer of plutonium
and eight other elements and as a result of these discoveries
was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
(3) Whereas while serving as Chairman of the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC), Dr. Seaborg maintained a journal consisting
of a diary, correspondence, announcements, minutes of
meetings, and other documents of historical value.
(4) Whereas in preparing the journal, Dr. Seaborg took care
to include only information which was not classified and
could be made public.
(5) Whereas before leaving the Atomic Energy Commission,
Dr. Seaborg submitted the journal to the AEC's Division of
Classification for review.
(6) Whereas Dr. Seaborg's journal was cleared by the
Division of Classification, virtually without deletion.
(7) Whereas twelve years later, in 1983, the chief
historian at the Department of Energy asked to borrow a copy
of Dr. Seaborg's journal in order to write a history of the
AEC.
(8) Whereas when the journal was returned to Dr. Seaborg
three years later, passage after passage was redacted,
including explicitly public information, such as the
published code names of nuclear weapons tests, and purely
personal material, such as his description of accompanying
his children on a "trick or treat" outing one Halloween
evening.
SEC. 2. DECLASSIFICATION OF SEABORG JOURNAL.
The Secretary of Energy shall return to Dr. Glenn T.
Seaborg his journal which he prepared while serving as
Chairman of the AEC. The journal shall be returned in the
original, unredacted form in which it was lent to the
Department of Energy in 1983.
____
Secrecy Runs Amok
(By Glenn T. Seaborg)
Publishing information on scientific projects related to
national security requires resolution of the conflicts
between the "right of the public to know" and the "right
of the nation to protect itself." A recent experience of
mine in regard to the declassification of historical material
may illuminate the problems that can arise.
During my years as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) (1961 to 1971), I maintained a daily journal. The core
of the journal was a diary, much of which I wrote at home
each evening. (This continued a habit I had started at the
age of 14.) The diary was supplemented by copies of
correspondence, announcements, minutes of meetings, and other
relevant documents that crossed my desk each day. Both in the
diary and the supporting documents rigorous attention was
given to excluding any subject matter that could be
considered classified information under standards of the day.
My purpose was to provide for historians and other scholars a
record that might not be available elsewhere of what occurred
at high levels of government regarding the AEC's important
areas of activity.
Illustrative of the general recognition that my journal was
unclassified was the fact that in 1965 the AEC historian
microfilmed for public access in the John F. Kennedy and
Lyndon B. Johnson libraries portions that correspond to those
presidencies. To assure myself further that the journal
contained no classified material I had it checked by the AEC
Division of Classification during the summer and fall of
1971, just before my departure from the AEC. It was cleared,
virtually without deletions. (Unfortunately, I received no
written confirmation of this action which is perhaps
understandable because of the obvious unclassified origin of
the material.) A copy, which I will refer to as copy #1, was
then transmitted by the AEC to my office at the University of
California in Berkeley. Also, at about this time, the AEC
tansferrd another copy of the journal, referred to
hereinafter as copy #2, first to my Berkeley office, then to
the Livermore laboratory, and, soon thereafter, to my home in
Lafayette, California. It was known that neither my Berkeley
office nor my home had any provision for the protection of
classified material, and the fact that the AEC saws fit to
ship the journal to those places is a clear indication
that the AEC regarded the journal as an unclassified
document.
The office and home copies of the journal remained
accessible to scholars for the ensuing 12 years. Then the
problems began. In July 1983 the chief historian of the
Department of Energy (DOE) asked to borrow a copy for use in
the next phase of the History Division's long-term project,
the writing of A History of the United States Atomic Energy
Commission. Volume IV of the History was to be devoted
largely to the years of my chairmanship. The historian
promised to return the journal within 3 weeks as soon as
copies had been made. I sent him copy #1, the one in my
Berkeley office. When the University of California historian,
John Heilbron, learned of this transaction, he warned me that
the DOE was likely to find classified material in the journal
and to hold it indefinitely pending a complete classification
review. Relying on past history during which the journal had
been treated by the AEC as a wholly unclassified document, I
told him I was not worried that this would happen. But, as
Heilbron may have been aware from his own experience, times
had changed. With the beginning of the Reagan administration,
the government had begun to take a new, much more severe and
rigid position with regard to secrecy.
Despite my repeated entreaties, the historian's office did
not return the journal in 3 weeks, nor in 3 months, nor in a
year-and-a-half. Nor was any explanation ever offered to me
for the delay. Finally, just as Heilbron had predicted, I was
informed in February 1985 that the journal had indeed been
found to contain classified information. Accordingly, DOE
ordered its San Francisco Area Office to pick up copy #2, the
one that I kept at home, so that it also could be subjected
to a classification review. At first I said I would not allow
this. But then I was told that, legally, the journal could be
seized and that I could be subject to arrest if I resisted.
Faced with this disagreeable prospect, I acceded to a
compromise plan (the best of several unsatisfactory
alternatives) whereby DOE provided me with a locked storage
safe, complete with burglar alarm, so that I could continue
to have access to the journal, which I was at that time
preparing for publication. It was no longer, however, to be
available for use by scholars.
Then in May 1985 I was contacted by DOE's San Francisco
Area Manager. He said that he had been instructed by DOE
headquarters to institute a classification review of copy
#2 at my home. He added that the consequence of my not
agreeing to this would be that the FBI would seize the
papers under court order. He said that the weakness of my
case, if I chose to resist, was that there was no record
of the journal ever having been declassified by the AEC.
Thus, I could be accused of having illegally removed
classified material when I left the AEC. He noted that if
legal proceedings were instituted, I could, of course,
hire a lawyer to defend myself, but that he knew of no
case like this where the government, with all its
resources, had lost.
Under this ultimatum, I agreed to the classification review
with the understanding that it would be completed within 10
days. The reviewer started work in my home on 9 May 1985,
kept at it for several weeks (not the promised 10 days), and
came up with 162 deletions of words, phrases, sentences, or
paragraphs, affecting 137 documents.
Then in May 1986 I learned that copy #1, the one borrowed
by the DOE historian, was also undergoing a classification
review. This review was complete in October 1986 and led to
deletions from 327 documents. In addition, 530 documents were
removed from the journal entirely pending further review by
DOE or by other government agencies.
At the same time as reviews of my complete journal were
being undertaken in DOE and in my home, a further review was
taking place in the Bethesda, Maryland, home of Benjamin S.
Loeb, who was then collaborating with me in preparation of
the book, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson
Years, which was to be published in 1987 (1). Copies had been
sent to Loeb of just those portions of the journal that
related to
[[Page S10067]]
arms control. Beginning 10 July 1986, as many as six DOE
Division of Classification staff members sat around his
dining room table for a few days, selecting a large number of
documents which they then took with them back to DOE
headquarters in Germantown, Maryland. In due course, most of
these were returned with deletions, except that a number of
documents that required review by U.S. government agencies
other than DOE, or by the United Kingdom, were not returned
until August 1990.
But there was more. In October 1986 I was informed that the
DOE classification people wanted to perform another review of
copy #2, the one in my home, in order to "sanitize" it, a
euphemism for a further classification review of the already
reviewed journal. I was informed that the sanitization
procedure would take place at Livermore, that it would last 3
to 6 weeks, and that it would involve from 8 to 12 people.
Copy #2 was duly picked up at my home and delivered to
Livermore on 22 October 1986. When the sanitized version
was returned almost 2 months later, it had been subjected,
including the prior review, to about 1000 classification
actions. These included the entire removal of about 500
documents for review by other U.S. agencies or, in a few
cases, by the British. Over my objection, an unsightly
declassification stamp was placed on every surviving
document.
Finally, the DOE sent to the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory a
team of about 12 people to begin a "catalog," that is, an
itemized listing, of all the personal correspondence I had
brought from the AEC and of the contents of my journal and
files for the prior 25 years of my working life before I
became AEC chairman. Beginning on 29 April 1987, the team
spent about 2 weeks at this task. In March 1988 another DOE
group visited me for about a month in order to complete the
catalog. The motives of DOE in undertaking this task were not
clear. They may well have intended to be helpful to me.
Before they finished, however, the two groups uncovered some
additional "secret" material.
My grammar and high school and university student papers
stored in another part of my home, overlooked by the DOE
classification teams, have so far escaped a security review.
My journal was finally reproduced in January 1989 (2) in 25
volumes, averaging about 700 pages each, many of them defaced
with classification markings and containing large gaps where
deletions had been made. In June 1992 a 26th volume was
added. It contained a batch of documents initially taken away
for classification review and subsequently returned to me,
with many deletions, after the production of the other 25
volumes in January 1989. (Many other removed documents have
still not been returned.). All 26 volumes are now publicly
available in the expurgated form in the Manuscript Division
of the Library of Congress.
This, then, is a summary narrative of the rocky voyage of
my daily journal amid the shoals of multiple classification
reviews. Those interested in a more detailed account can find
it among the daily entries in my journal for the period after
I left the AEC. This is available in the Manuscript Division
of the Library of Congress, and has fortunately not yet been
subjected to classification review.
What is to be concluded about this sorry tale? One
conclusion I have reached is that the security classification
of information became in the 1980s an arbitrary, capricious,
and frivolous process, almost devoid of objective criteria.
Witness the fact that the successive reviews of my journal at
different places and by different people resulted in widely
varying results in the types and number of deletions made or
documents removed. Furthermore, some of the individual
classification actions seem utterly ludicrous. These include
my description of one of the occasions when I accompanied my
children on a "trick or treat" outing on a Halloween
evening, and my account of my wife Helen's visit to the Lake
Country in England. One would have to ask how publication of
these bits of family lore would adversely affect the security
of the United States. A particular specialty of the reviewers
was to delete from the journal many items that were already
part of the public record. These included material published
in my 1981 book (with Benjamin S. Loeb), "Kennedy,
Khrushchev, and the Test Ban" (3). Another example concerned
the code names of previously conducted nuclear weapons tests.
These were deleted almost everywhere they appeared regardless
of the fact that in January 1985 the DOE had issued a report
listing, with their code names, all "Announced United States
Nuclear Tests, July 1945 through December 1984" (4). A third
category of deletions concerned entries that might have been
politically or personally embarrassing to individuals or
groups but whose publication would not in any way threaten
U.S. national security. In fact, I would go so far as to
contend that hardly any of the approximately 1,000
classification actions (removals of documents or deletions
within document) taken so randomly by the various reviewers
could be justified on legitimate national security grounds.
Consistent with this belief, I have requested repeatedly
throughout this difficult time that a copy of my journal as
originally prepared, that is, before all the classification
reviews, be kept on file somewhere. I had in mind that there
might come a day when a more rational approach to secrecy
might prevail and permit wider access, especially to
historians, of the complete record. There are indications
that, especially with the end of the Cold War, such an era
may be at hand or rapidly approaching. While the DOE has made
no commitment to honor my request. I am informed that DOE's
History Division does maintain an unexpurgated copy for
its own use. Perforce, it is handled as a classified
document.
I would like to emphasize that I received fine and
sympathetic treatment from many in the DOE who made it clear
to me that they were not in agreement with the treatment
accorded me and my journal during the process recounted
above. In fact, more than one person in DOE has told me
informally that evidence does indeed exist verifying that my
journal did indeed receive a clearance before my departure
from the AEC in 1971.
The problems posed by classification and declassification
of sensitive materials are major ones and require wise people
who must make sophisticated decisions. It requires a range of
individuals who, on the one hand, have vision in regard to
the whole range of scientific and national security policies,
and on the other hand, have the time to read pages of
detailed descriptions in a wide range of areas. Sometimes
this complex goal gets derailed by those who see the trees
and not the forest. Those in charge of classification should
have an appreciation of the need, in our open society, to
publish all scientific and political information that has no
adverse national security effect (realistically defined).
Although I have in general received sympathetic treatment,
I cannot help but note that this treatment has produced quite
different conclusions at different periods in the country's
history. Actually, the AEC, from its beginning in 1947,
initiated and executed an excellent progressive program of
declassification with an enlightened regard for the need of
such information in an open, increasingly scientific society.
By the 1960s, this program was serving our country well.
Unfortunately, during the 1980s the program had retrogressed
to the extent of reversing many earlier declassification
actions. Fortunately, the present situation is very much
improved so we can look forward to the future with
considerable optimism.
references
1. G.T. Seaborg and B.S. Loeb. Stemming the Tide: Arms
Control in the Johnson Years (Free Press, New York, 1987).
2. G.T. Seaborg. Lawr. Bork, Lab. Tech. Inf. Dep. Publ.
PUB-625 (1989).
3. G.T. Seaborg and B.S. Loeb. Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the
Test Ban (Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1981).
4. U.S. Dep. Energy Rep. NVO-209 (revision 5) (1985).
____________________