Making Government Clam Up

Reagan's leak rules open a fierce debate about censorship

The Administration's latest effort to clamp a lid on Government secrets would have been a secret in itself if its designers could have had their way. A national security directive authorizing wider use of lie detectors to plug leaks and ordering senior federal officials to clear speeches and articles about classified topics for the rest of their lives was signed by President Reagan late on a Friday last March. That is when bureaucrats head home for the weekend and Washington correspondents relax their vigilance. When the order was discovered by reporters—Congress had been...