The Silencing of a General : Dugan’s firing was inevitable but nonetheless worrisome

The unfortunate Gen. Michael J. Dugan is to serve no longer as the Air Force chief of staff because of his unauthorized disclosures to reporters from The Times and The Washington Post.

Those disclosures included tidbits about U.S. bombing options targeting President Saddam Hussein, his family, his palace guard and even his alleged mistress, plus wide-ranging comments about the Persian Gulf standoff.

Furious, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, backed by President Bush, took offense and assessed Dugan’s remarks as misconduct serious enough to compel the chief’s dismissal.

There’s no question about the primacy of the President and his delegated assistants to speak with one foreign policy voice, especially in the circumstances of a knife-edged military confrontation, must be upheld. And the tradition of civil control over the military must always be observed, in peace or in war.

But it is nonetheless sad to witness a long and distinguished military career so abruptly and painfully terminated. It is also a bit discomforting to have a military man so severely admonished for conduct that on one level is not much more heinous than the crime of excessive candor.

The surprising openness of U.S. military commanders with the press corps in Saudi Arabia has probably been nipped in the bud.

That’s unfortunate because the cleverly controlled public information policy of the Bush Administration sometimes makes the White House of the Reagan Administration look amateurish and even casual by comparison.

Policy pronouncements are held by such a tight cluster of officials that, while leaks are undoubtedly minimized, the free flow of information is also slowed to a trickle.

For those Americans who remember how inadequate the public debate was preceding the huge buildup of American forces in Vietnam, the silencing of a general is no occasion for rejoicing.