Secrecy: The American Experience

by Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the bipartisan Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, here presents an eloquent and fascinating account of the development of secrecy as a mode of regulation in American government since World War I―how it was born, how world events shaped it, how it has adversely affected momentous political decisions and events, and how it has eluded efforts to curtail or end it. Senator Moynihan begins by recounting the astonishing story of the Venona project, in which Soviet cables sent to the United States during World War II were decrypted by the U.S. Army―but were never passed on to President Truman. The divisive Hiss perjury trial and the McCarthy era of suspicion might have had a far different impact on American society, says Moynihan, if government agencies had not kept secrets from one another as a means of shoring up their power. Moynihan points to many other examples of how government bureaucracies used secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and got into trouble as a result. He discusses the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, and, finally, the failure to forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union, suggesting that many of the tragedies resulting from these events could have been averted had the issues been clarified in an open exchange of ideas. America must lead the way to an era of openness, says Moynihan in this vitally important book. It is time to dismantle the excesses of government secrecy and share information with our citizens and with the world. Analysis, far more than secrecy, is the key to national security.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Espionage

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 1998

About the author

Daniel Patrick “Pat” Moynihan was an American politician and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the United States Senate for New York in 1976, and was re-elected three times (in 1982, 1988, and 1994). He declined to run for re-election in 2000. Prior to his years in the Senate, Moynihan was the United States' ambassador to the United Nations and to India, and was a member of four successive presidential administrations, beginning with the administration of John F. Kennedy, and continuing through Gerald Ford.

Reviews

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan spent more years at the top levels of government than most of us have spent doing anything, so I expected him to speak with some authority about the subject matter of this book. He does, but the quality of analysis is surprisingly weak. Much of this book is a history of secrecy in the US federal government. He also deals with loyalty programs and our long checkered history of opposing perceived threats from enemies of the state within our borders. Much of this will be old news for anyone who knows much American history.

At the beginning of our country there was a lot of secrecy, a tradition inherited from European countries that considered statecraft to be none of the public's business, but then throughout the nineteenth century, we developed a tradition and practice of openness that began to change only with the first world war. It was downhill from there, going from world war to world war to cold war, our government began to keep more and more under wraps in the name of national security. There have been multiple pushes in the direction of openness, most notably the Freedom of Information Act, but bureaucratic inertia ground inexorably along in the other direction, leading to ever increasing levels of unnecessary secrecy, so that today, more than twenty years after this book was published, we continue to have problems cause by excessive secrecy from Edward Snowden to the Trump debacle with the documents seized at Mar El Lago.

I firmly believe that Mr. Moynihan is right in saying that there is too much secrecy, that excessive secrecy has unintended negative political repercussions, that it damages the quality of available information, that it fosters conspiracy theories, and that it allows bad guys in government to cover up their mistakes. I also agree with his conclusion that we have developed an unproductive culture of secrecy that is reinforced by natural tendencies of bureaucracy. I'd even go along with his pejorative conclusion that "secrecy is for losers". We'd all be better off with zero secrecy in government than the current system. However, there are also places where I part ways with him. He starts off the book with the idea that secrecy is a form of regulation. You could call it that, but it's just not, and I find that label to be unhelpful in getting to the real issues. My other principal complaint is that he says that some political issues that we had wouldn't have occurred without the entrenched system of secrecy - no communist witch hunts if the government had disclosed the Venona project which revealed the true extent of Soviet espionage, which was significant but limited; no arms race if all of the overestimates of Soviet strength had been exposed to the light of day for critical analysis. I don't know. I think that he may be finding causation when there is only correlation. There were certainly other issues beyond excessive secrecy that were also causal factors in creating these problems. We can never know, but I do think that Mr. Moynihan weakens an argument that would already have been convincing without some of his more sweeping conclusions about problems of the modern era that he blames on excessive secrecy.

In any case, the problems discussed here continue to haunt us today. Almost nothing in government should be secret, certainly nothing more than a couple of years old. There should be a strong presumption against secrecy in all internal matters and in anything that is not of current military, diplomatic or intelligence significance. And it should have to be direct immediate relevance to something that that materially impacts important plans. The idea of being able to invoke executive privilege or national security at will and to avoid disclosure by applying those labels to anything is wrong and contrary to the principles of a free press and well functioning democratic government.

[Jonathan White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balances research, anecdote, analysis, and history.

Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was the best kind of ideological. He had chosen principles by which he tried to live his life, but subjected those principles to scrutiny from every angle.

This book explains the cultural and political impact of the system of information control that we've implemented in this country since the first world war.

It took me four attempts to finally make it through the entire book. The introductory essay by Gid Powers does a great job of distilling the argument of the book. DPM then goes through various stages in American history, explaining how we got to the system in place today (or, rather, the 90s, when the book was written). The reason I ended up petering out the first three times was my knowledge of history just wasn't good enough. I kept getting distracted and exhausted by all of the names and events I was having to look up. Still, it's a testament to the importance of his arguments that I kept picking it up again.

[Todd Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

As true 20 years ago as it today. Secrecy as a form of federal regulation is an interesting argument and not a perspective I had taken.

I appreciated the history and the many references to the events along the journey. As we review the works of secrecy in our decisions when those histories are made available; we except future policy can adjust based on the evidence. It might come to pass less money need to be spent in the regulations that are resulting in less accuracy. Might be those resources can could better target the investments that resolve the roof of the problems.

This book made it to my reread list.

[Chris Huncho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise and analysis. The introduction author was distractingly right-wing and at points polemical (why did he downplay COINTEL?). DPM is such a compelling character, but his reverence for institutions clocks him as an old head.

I wish he went further with analysis at many points, for example, he seemed to dance around how corruption is endemic and intentional and seemed like he prescribed those ailments to simple bureaucratic fixes. Brother, our government wants to kill everyone in Congo to help 3 companies. Needs a lot more change than amending classification processes. Frustrating at points for this reason.

Hoping to check out more of DPM’s writing.

[Scott Milliken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of reviews here seem to be missing the point. Moynihan doesn’t use this book to pass judgments on different policies, he uses it to highlight how secrecy neuters good policy and makes bad policy exponentially worse. And many reviews here only serve to highlight the introduction’s point that the (equally in every way to its opponent) hysterical anti-McCarthyism has now become the dominant narrative. Commies totally suck far worse than anything the US did during the Cold War.

[Charlene Mathe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since the publication almost 20 years ago of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's expose on government secrecy, who would argue that any progress has been made in correcting the problems?! Hillary Clinton's secret server housing confidential state documents and her (so far) successful defiance of congressional demands for those documents demonstrates the toothlessness of Senator Moynihan's expose. Moynihan believed that EXPOSURE and PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE would remedy the errors of judgment and corruptions hidden by government secrecy. But he did not look further to identify the PLAYERS these secrets protected... the establishment power brokers who are able to neutralize push-back from the people and those they elect to represent them.
We live today in a time where many secrets ARE exposed, and nothing comes of it--because the players are able to influence the media, spin the story, run out the clock, and bury public concern under yet another outrage. For instance, everyone knows that government will withhold reports until Friday afternoon. And FBI Director James Comey exposed many of Hillary Clinton's violations of state security, but dismissed the violations as "unintentional." We-the-people have been confused and neutralized to the point that we may elect the Hillary Clinton, poster-girl of government secrecy, to be the President of the United States of America!
Moynihan believed that the McCarthy era was an over-reaction to a secrecy-spawned exaggerated estimate of Soviet strength. As a result of this, he concludes that great sums were spent unnecessarily on the military-industrial complex. And, "As for the enemy within, by 1950 or thereabouts the Communist Party was essentially neutralized" (p.154). Ironically, it was this very vanguard of Communists infiltrated deeply throughout the government bureaucracies created by the New Deal that generated the inflated analysis of Soviet strength in the first place. It is reported that military bureaucrats withheld the Venona transcripts from President Truman, lest some OF THEM be exposed. (The Venona transcripts of secret messages between Russia and communist infiltrators in the U.S. government surfaced during the Truman administration, but were not made public until 1995. By that time, who cared? Even Senator Moynihan did not connect the dots on the Venona transcripts, though he discusses them in his book. Indeed, Moynihan was instrumental in their release.)
I want to highlight two particularly useful quotes from the book:
"The government's obsession with secrecy creates a citizen's obsession with conspiracy." (Moynihan quoting Paul McMasters on p.218).
"Departments and agencies hoard information, and the government becomes a kind of market. Secrets become organizational assets, never to be shared save in exchange for another organization's assets....In the void created by absent or withheld information, decisions are either made poorly or not at all." (p.169) This is the very problem cited for the failure to intercept the 9/11 terrorists; the problem that the Homeland Security super-agency was supposed to solve. But all the effort to correct inefficiencies of bureaucratic secrecy hoarding has been neutralized by the imposition of political correctness--imposed by the establishment power players, still under the influence of the infiltrators McCarthy was scorned for "exposing."
It is interesting to read "Secrecy" for what it reveals and for what it fails to reveal or to recognize. For a recent, thoroughly documented analysis of the times and the issues Moynihan address, I highly recommend Diana West's 2013 publication, "American Betrayal: the Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character."

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cogent and concise history of government secrecy in the United States.

Moynihan argues that secrecy is a form of goverment regulation with a slim statutory basis and little visible track record -- unlike regulation of domestic affairs, with publication of everything in the Federal Register. He also argues that secrecy is a form of bureaucratic currency and that, generally and in specific instances, secrecy has harmed the country. 

Moynihan shows how Woodrow Wilson, somewhat surprisingly, was the prime mover behind the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the two principal statutes dealing with secrecy. Wilson felt that pooitical and labor unrest at home were being stoked by foreign powers -- particularly Germany and Russia -- and that the government needed additional powers to quell this dissent in time of war. Trouble was, as Moynihan points out, the exercise of these powers required the build up of institutions, which in turn led to a growth in bureaucracy, whch is famously sticky:

"Annd so the modern age began. Three new institutions had entered American life: Conspiracy, Loyalty, Secrecy. Each had antecedents, but now there was a difference. Each had become institutional; bureaucracies were established to attend to each...." (98)

Moynihan recounts the history of Communist sympathizers / Soviet agents in the United States during the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s to show that the government was not simply fear-mongering when it alleged a sizeable espionage threat to the country. However, Moynihan concludes that the actual harm that resulted from the Soviets' extensive espionage efforts was negligible. The government push for secrecy, therefore, had more to do with bureaucratic proclivities than with national security. 

[Vasil Kolev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Въпреки че има доста какво да се желае от превода (може би няма и как да се получи и трябва да я прочета пак в оригинал), идеите на книгата са доста ясни - колко е вредна прекалената секретност, какво е довело до нея, последиците и няколко идеи каква е правилната посока. Въпреки, че книгата е писана през 1998, дори скорошните събития около различните leak-ове на засекретени данни и т.н. нямат много какво да добавят към нея, освен да потвърдят написаното в нея.
(всъщност, в последните години съм слушал не една или две ��екции, повтарящи същите идеи)

[Tim Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good mini-overview of government secrecy in the United States, plus some warnings over intelligence failures brought about by the very agencies who depend on such secret intelligence. One of the most surprising reveals is the CIA's utter surprise that the Soviet Union was headed for economic collapse in the late 1980s, despite an analyst offering this projection decades earlier.

The nearly 60-page introduction by Richard Gid Powers is also an excellent commentary on secrecy and rounds out Senator Moynihan's own presentation.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moynihan's tenure in government makes him competent to tackle the topic. He doesn't say there is no need for secrecy, just not as much as there is in America. It's now so tightly controlled by the president that it serves only to immunize him from any checks and balances.

The Sovietization of America; Secrecy is dangerous in the hands of a fool.

[Matthew]

An interesting book on why there is so much secrecy in the US government, and some of its effects. Interesting, still, Moynihan buys into a whole lot of typical Washington bullshit.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite simply, every American citizen should read this. 'The 9/11 Commission Report' is also in this category for me.