Tangled Web

What if Secretary of State George P. Shultz or Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger were ordered to take a polygraph test and “failed”? That is possible, even if neither man had done anything wrong or had anything to hide. Experts have told Congress that a polygraph can do little more than detect excitement. “An innocent person would be a fool to take a polygraph test, since there is a 50% chance of being branded a liar,” said one witness, a former undersecretary of defense.

Still, the Reagan Administration remains fascinated with the polygraph. It has ordered lie-detector tests to track down news leakers, and has proposed random checks of persons with security clearances in an effort to block potential breaches of security. Now it has gone even further, as disclosed by Times staff writer Robert C. Toth.

President Reagan signed on Nov. 1 a secret directive that as many as 10,000 government officials holding the highest security classifications be routinely required to take lie-detector tests. The order presumably would apply to some Cabinet officers, although no one knows. The order remains secret.

Lie-detector tests may not be very accurate, but they can be effective--through fear. If you think that the polygraph is more reliable than it really is, and believe that it could trip you up, you might be more careful. But what of the thousands of loyal citizens, even Cabinet secretaries, who might innocently produce erratic or suspicious reactions on the graph? What sort of witch hunts might ensue?

FBI Director William H. Webster said just this week that his agency was spinning a spider web of surveillance around foreign agents. That is the way to stop espionage, not by going after our own citizens, he said. Suspicion, fear and spying on each other will lead only to entangling ourselves in our own web.