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I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events
of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions
of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be
for the future for reducing this threat or living with it there is no escaping either
the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security a challenge
that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to
the press and to the President–two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone,
but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer,
first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for
far greater official secrecy.
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people
inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.
We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts
far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little
value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even
today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do
not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased
security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of
official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that
it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or
low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor
the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and
the public the facts they deserve to know.
But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own
standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government
and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to
prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the
courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to
the public's need for national security.
Today no war has been declared and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be
declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves
our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger.
And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles
have been fired.
If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline
of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to
our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can
only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more
imminent.
It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions by the government,
by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are
opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily
on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence on infiltration instead of invasion,
on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night
instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources
into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military,
diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its
dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret
is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy
would ever hope or wish to match.
Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security
and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are
to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.
For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring
through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft,
bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the
enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe
alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons,
and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and
other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at
least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites
were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.
The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning.
Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such
items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism
and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional
tests should not now be adopted.
The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you.
No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing
in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and
all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your
attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.
On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said that
these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They
call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the
common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business
consider themselves exempt from that appeal.
I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow
of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security
classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not
seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and
the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the
degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which
that danger imposes upon us all.
Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest
is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I
hope that every group in America unions and businessmen and public officials at every
level will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the
same exacting tests.
And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific
new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those
recommendations.
Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma
faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion
of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But
this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an
obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American
people to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them
as well the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes
understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are
necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking
your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have
complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers I welcome it. This Administration
intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not
become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility
for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed and no republic
can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to
shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment
the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution not primarily
to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply
"give the public what it wants" but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers
and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and
sometimes even anger public opinion.
This means greater coverage and analysis of international news for it is no longer far
away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding
of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at
all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information
outside the narrowest limits of national security and we intend to do it.
It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions
already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the
links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the
world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one
world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned
mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.
And so it is to the printing press to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his
conscience, the courier of his news that we look for strength and assistance, confident
that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.