[PEN-L:5142] If it's secret, it's legal

["Dale Wharton" <dale@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

BLANK CHECK : the Pentagon's black budget

by Tim Weiner, 1956-. NYC: Warner Books, 1990; 273 pages. Endnote
references, annotated bibliography, index. ISBN 0-446-51452-7, USD22.
   --reviewed 1995 05 18 by Dale Wharton, Montreal <dale@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of
Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the
Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from
time to time." Thus states Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the US
Constitution. The Framers meant for those 38 words to give citizen
taxpayers the right to know. How else could democracy work?

For 150 years, those words helped keep federal spending fairly visible
to taxpayers. Then in October 1941 came the Manhattan Project--the War
Department's crash program to build the atomic bomb. The White House
seemed to fear public outcry at the cost. So it turned to a secret
pool of funds, as if the Framers did not know the sacrifices of war.
The former colonists had just fought free of the divine right of kings
to secrecy and privilege! By 1787, some were voicing dread of tyranny
at home. George Mason warned, "The purse and the sword ought never to
get into the same hands, whether legislative or executive" (p. 215).

Author Tim Weiner won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his series on the
black budget. He was a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer (he now
works in the Washington bureau of The New York Times). Part I of BLANK
CHECK is four chapters about secret weapons. They include the B-2
Stealth bomber (whose hangars alone will cost $1.6+ billion), the
Advanced Cruise Missile, and the MILSTAR Military Strategic Tactical
And Relay nuclear war program. Part II of the book is five chapters
about secret wars--in Asia, Central America, and  Africa. The author
straightway reveals his own secret. "The best way to find out what the
government is up to is to read the documents that show money flowing"
(p. 2). Later he confides that 42 insiders granted him interviews.
These sources were officials (some retired) of the CIA, Departments of
State and Defense, and Drug Enforcement Agency.

The black budget became a White House fixture in 1947 when President
Truman created the CIA. Two far bigger spenders now dip into the
hidden till: National Security Agency (telecommunication taps), and
National Reconnaissance Office (spy satellites). The Pentagon conceals
the black budget in compartments they call "special access programs."
Weiner says no one at either the Pentagon or the Congress (the would-
be appropriations Branch) seems to know how many programs there are.
Military officers spend hundreds of millions of dollars without any
accounting. They flout the Constitution they once swore to defend.

By keeping taxpayers in the dark, the black budget invites white-
collar crime. Weiner names seven repeat offenders on unclassified
programs. All do black-budget work as well: Rockwell International,
Lockheed, General Dynamics, General Electric, Boeing, Northrop, and
TRW. A "nickel job," routine among aerospace subcontractors, means the
purchasing officer gets a five percent kickback. "Courtesy bidding"
means suppliers quietly agree not to compete. Instead, they extend the
courtesy of exaggerated bids until their turn to tender the winner.

Weiner says private analysts reverse-engineer the Pentagon budget.
They deduct unclassified items and sift what remains. The author
believes that by 1989 the black budget peaked at $36 billion a year--
close to $100 million a day. The spending did not end with the Cold
War. Last fall, Weiner wrote a news story about the black budget for
1995. He said the amount was made public, twice, by mistake. It is $28
billion. The CIA's cut--$3.1 billion--is half again as much as the
State Department budget! (New York Times, Nov. 5, 1994, p. 54)

Presidents can plausibly deny having approved offshore adventures, but
their underhanded ways exact a price. "Secrecy now [1960s] enveloped
the government's most ambitious policies, and the White House had to
[lie] openly to keep the secrets....the American political system
began breaking down....Millions of people simply stopped voting. They
declined to follow leaders who misled them" (p. 127).

It came out in 1967 that the CIA was furtively bankrolling
organizations in the USA: student associations, trade groups,
publishers, etc. The reports shocked William Richardson, who lived in
Greensburg, PA. He was an insurance lawyer who had served in military
intelligence. Richardson wrote to Washington and demanded a copy of
the CIA budget. When the government refused, Richardson brought suit.
He argued that to conceal federal spending is to violate the
Constitution. His case reached the US Supreme Court, where it lost.
Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote the (5-4) majority opinion in 1974.

In 1975, James Jesus Angleton "...was asked why the CIA had disobeyed
a direct order from the White House to destroy the Agency's stockpile
of poisons. His interrogators heard 25 years of CIA history in his
reply. `It is inconceivable,' he said, `that a secret arm of the
government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government.'
This doctrine placed the CIA outside the law" (p. 139f).

Blank Check was the codename of a clandestine communication system.
Adm. John Poindexter, National Security Adviser, set it up for two
people--himself and a National Security Council staffer, Lt. Col.
Oliver North. They used it to develop a neat idea. They would evade
Congress by selling arms to Iran in order to finance Nicaraguan
contras. The two joined a cohort of officer-class lawbreakers, a
troop led at one time by a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Has the US military slipped civilian control?

Weiner pins down "...the covert creed: `If it's secret, it's legal.'
Or, as Richard Nixon once explained: `When the President does it, it
is not illegal'" (p. 210). The book offers an authoritative and
sobering view of recent US history. Students of the social sciences
can find here insights into the power relations, industrial policy,
and Realpolitik of the national security state. ##

%A  Tim Weiner, 1956-
%C  New York City
%D  1990
%G  ISBN 0-446-51452-7
%I  Warner Books
%K  aerospace accounting appropriation CIA Constitution defense \
    espionage information military nuclear policy satellite secret \
    security war weapon
%O  Endnote references, selected bibliography/syllabus, index, \
    hardcover USD21.95
%P  273 pages
%T  Blank check : the Pentagon's black budget
##