Its 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 remember that in eighteen fifty one New York
Carol Tribune, under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its
London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Carl Marx. We are told
that foreign correspondent Marks 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 five dollars per installment, a salary which he an ingalls ungratefully label
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 to the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism Revolution, and the Cold
War. If only this capitalistic New York newspaper hetched had treated him more kindly,
If only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different.
And I I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next
time they receive a poverty stricken appeal from 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 colleagues,
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 he had a night 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 twenty million 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 correspondence. 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 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 the local golf courses which 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 been
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 in 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 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
the 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 to day, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed
society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even to day, 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
to night as an excuse to sense of 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, But I do
ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to re
examine 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
times of clear and present danger, the courts have held that even the privileged
rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.
To day, 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 business man or labor
leader and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a
monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covet 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
wartime 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, the count of 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 one case, the publication of details concerning a SEAKO mechanism whereby
satellites were followed, required its al oration 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. That 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 bail and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if
I did not command and 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 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 endustry in this country to
re examine 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 interests of 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 this same exacting
test. And should the Press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of
specific news steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate wholeheartedly
with those recommendations. Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no
answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open in 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
newspaper is to support an administration, but I am asking your help in the
tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence
and the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed. I
not only could not stifle controversy among your readers, I welcome him. This
administration intends to be candid about its errors, for as a wise man once
said, an error doesn't 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 sol decreted a crime for any sin 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 us 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 effort to live together. The evolution of gunpowder to its uliment limit has
one 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,