"This incident proves you can't tell Congress anything without it leaking," said a senior White House aide last week, after the Washington Post reported that President Reagan had authorized unspecified covert action to help oust Panamanian Leader Manuel Antonio Noriega. Not so, said both Democrat David Boren, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and ranking Republican William Cohen. The two Senators got questions from reporters even before the committee was briefed on the finding. That, they charged, meant the Administration had divulged the information to "set up" the committee as being unable to keep secrets.
Editors at the newspaper, alerted to...
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