Scholars Find Reagan’s Administration the Most Secretive Since WWII

When Gordon Adams of the Defense Budget Project, a private watchdog group, returned last October from a visit to Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., he wanted a copy of the materials used in a briefing he attended there on the defense budget’s economic impact.

He wrote Offutt asking for the materials--none of which was classified. Amazingly, he recalled, officials responded that it was Air Force policy not to release briefing scripts or graphs. Instead, officials said they could give him the sources for the presentation and he could look up the data himself.

Adams, puzzled why information he had already seen and heard could not be released, filed a Freedom of Information Act request--which was subsequently denied.

Told to Pay for Copies

He appealed, and was eventually told the materials could be released but that he would have to pay copying costs. Adams said his organization--a “low-budget, nonprofit group”--could not pay and requested a fee waiver. After additional delay, the waiver was granted.

Finally, in May--seven months after his original request--Adams received the materials.

To Adams and other Reagan Administration critics, incidents such as this capture in a microcosm the Administration’s attitude toward open government.

According to many political figures, scholars, scientists, librarians, journalists and public interest organizations, the Reagan Administration is the most secrecy-obsessed in memory and has gone to extreme lengths to curtail the release of government information.

Frequently, critics charge, the Administration has used executive orders, regulations, budget cuts and other mechanisms to restrict the flow of information relating to domestic concerns such as civil rights, worker health and safety, energy, the environment and nutrition.

In none of these areas, the critics say, can President Reagan or the Administration make a valid claim that the national security requires limits on public access to information.

Overstates the Risks

In addition, they maintain that even in areas where national security may sometimes be a legitimate concern--such as foreign policy, defense and science--the Administration almost invariably overstates the risks in attempts to keep its policies from being scrutinized.

“The Reagan Administration came into office with the intention of controlling information to the greatest extent possible, to prevent information that is not flattering to it from getting to the public,” said Rep. Glenn English (D-Okla.), chairman of a House Government Operations information subcommittee.

The critics acknowledge that previous administrations had more than their share of secrecy abuses. But the consensus of those who regularly seek information from the government or monitor its activities is that the Reagan Administration is the worst since the advent of the atomic bomb in World War II, and that the subsequent Cold War caused many areas of federal activities to become shrouded in secrecy.

“One could certainly argue that previous administrations also tried to control information, but the Reagan Administration has gone to far greater lengths than any other to achieve those ends,” English said.

“This Administration has a demonstrated contempt for the Freedom of Information Act and operating in the open,” said Katherine Meyer of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, a public interest legal organization founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

‘Extreme Secrecy’

“All of the strains you see in the Iran- contra affair of extreme secrecy, of keeping the public and Congress in the dark, reflect the basic attitude of the Reagan Administration toward public information,” said Quinlan Shea, special counsel for the National Security Archive, a private research institute and library.

“If this Administration had its way, it would get the government out of the business of collecting and disseminating information,” said Shea, who formerly headed the Justice Department’s office on privacy and information appeals.

“The same Administration that produced the Iran-contra scandal wants to curtail the Freedom of Information Act,” said Allan Adler, legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re limiting press access to public officials. Government employees are threatened with prosecution under various provisions of the espionage laws if they leak information.

“The Administration has an obsession with technology transfers to the Soviet Bloc,” Adler continued. “They try to limit the dissemination of unclassified information by scientists, and censor what can be presented at scientific meetings. They use a national security rationale to cover just about everything.”