Security Classification of Information: Table of Contents

Copyright (c) Arvin S. Quist

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION

Although changes, both minor and significant, have been made in all chapters of this revised edition, the major additions are in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5. Chapter 2 contains extensive new material on the security classification of information in the United States, Britain, and France during the period between the Civil War and World War I. The initial United States classification system, established during World War I, borrowed heavily from the British and French systems, especially the British system. The author is grateful to Prof. Andrew Patterson, Jr., of Yale University, for providing a copy of his draft unpublished manuscript, "CONFIDENTIAL" - The Beginning of Defense-Information Marking. Professor Patterson's manuscript contains extensive information on British and French classification systems prior to World War I.

Chapter 2 also contains much new material on U.S. Army and Navy classification regulations from World War I until the start of World War II. The first Executive Order on security classification of information and the system for classifying atomic energy information were derived from those classification regulations. The author is indebted to Dr. Edwin Alan Thompson of the National Archives for providing a copy of a draft unpublished manuscript, Origin of Defense-Information Markings in the Army and Former War Department, prepared for the National Archives by Dallas Irvine. Most of the Chapter 2 details of the Army and Navy classification systems prior to World War II came from information in that manuscript and its appendices.

The major additions to Chapter 3 concern Executive Orders 9182 and 12958. Executive Order 9182 of June 13, 1942, established an Office of War Information (OWI) whose functions included security of information. Classification of information regulations issued by OWI were applicable throughout the government and were the basis for subsequent Executive Orders on classification of information. Executive Order 12958, issued in 1995, is the currently applicable Executive Order on classification of information and is described extensively in Chapter 3.

Changes to Chapter 4 include a discussion of unclassified information controlled by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended. Revised Chapter 5 includes more information on atomic energy declassification review programs since 1954, including those that occurred under the Department of Energy's "Openness Initiative" (1993-2001). Information on problems resulting from large-scale document-declassification review programs was also added to Chapter 5.

Most of the revisions to this document were made prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and on the Pentagon. Consequently, only brief mention is made of increasing broad-based national support to declare as classified or "sensitive" much information that might aid terrorists in planning or carrying out attacks on U.S. civilian and military personnel, facilities, and other interests. In the decade prior to September 11, 2001, the national consensus was to strictly minimize the information that was declared classified or "sensitive."

The author would like to thank Roger Heusser, retired Director of the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear and National Security Information, for supporting this revision.

On to Preface to the First Edition.