Mr. Chairman, ladies and
gentlemen:
I appreciate very much your
generous invitation to be here tonight.
You bear heavy responsibilities
these days and an article I read some time ago reminded
me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present
day events bear upon your profession.
You may remember that in 1851
the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and
publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London
correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl
Marx.
We are told that foreign
correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill
and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and
managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his
munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which
he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest
petty bourgeois cheating."
But when all his financial
appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means
of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his
relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents
full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the
seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold
war.
If only this capitalistic New
York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx
had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have
been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this
lesson in mind the next time they receive a
poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the
expense account from an obscure newspaper man.
I have selected as the title of
my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some
may suggest that this would be more naturally worded
"The President Versus the Press." But those are not my
sentiments tonight.
It is true, however, that when
a well-known diplomat from another country demanded
recently that our State Department repudiate certain
newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary
for us to reply that this Administration was not
responsible for the press, for the press had already
made it clear that it was not responsible for this
Administration.
Nevertheless, my purpose here
tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the
so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent
months I have rarely heard any complaints about
political bias in the press except from a few
Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or
defend the televising of Presidential press conferences.
I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000
Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to
observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent
and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington
correspondents.
Nor, finally, are these remarks
intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which
the press should allow to any President and his family.
If in the last few months your
White House reporters and photographers have been
attending church services with regularity, that has
surely done them no harm.
On the other hand, I realize
that your staff and wire service photographers may be
complaining that they do not enjoy the same green
privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.
It is true that my predecessor
did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing
skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he
ever bean a Secret Service man.
My topic tonight is a more
sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.
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 publics'
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
