The H Bomb Case

Responses to the Dropped Case

This section presents some responses, both pro and con, to the H-Bomb case after the government dropped its legal proceedings against The Progressive. First, some responses in the press:

Sacramento Bee:1 Had the publication in this case been the Washington Post or New York Times, the press undoubtedly would have been much quicker to apprehend the danger [of government censorship]. Since it involved a relatively small…magazine, the government case appeared to be much more credible. The Progressive case demonstrates once again that when any publication is threatened with censorship, all of us are at risk.

Dayton Daily News:2 In the name of protesting censorship, a few newspapers have won a victory for the right to act foolishly and dangerously, to no good public purpose….The U.S. government was trying to be responsible by containing, as best it could, even general knowledge about making an H-bomb, and there is nothing sinister about that motive.”

Syracuse Herald-Journal:3 Members of the public…can now find out—if they can absorb the technical jargon—what our might-be enemies have known since the 1950’s. And teachers of physics can duplicate assignments that teachers of history have handed out for years such as telling students to go to the library, find the necessary documents, [and] study them…”

Rockford Register Star:4 The Hansen article is hardly a home workshop text on H-bomb construction, but it is a very serious allegation of major and serious government security failures. It would appear that the government in trying to block publication of those articles was much less interested in protecting any national secrets than in hiding its own critical failures….There appears to be reason to suspect the government was trying to use censorship to hide its failures, in direct violation of the First Amendment.”

Chicago Tribune: The overall picture suggests appalling incompetence and complacency in the Department of Energy and other agencies charged with protection of nuclear secrets and materials. Nuclear fuels plants have “lost” bomb-grade uranium, in one instance having it wind up in an Israeli A-bomb.5 There has been complacency, too, on the part of the press and public. We trusted the guardians so much that we refrained from examining the shroud of secrecy they were presumed to maintain. Now, we see the shroud shot through with holes.6

Columbia State:7 The government couldn’t keep its secrets, so it tried to resort to the prior restraint tactic and failed. For a responsible press, it has been a “no-win” situation from the beginning. We’re glad the prior restraint issue was not sent to the Supreme Court in a bad case. And we just hope that the information now released is not as damaging as the government fears.

Some individuals raised particular concerns:

Hugh DeWitt: I am appalled by the use of secrecy for political purposes as I saw it happen during the Progressive case. The incredible events of that case should frighten everybody, and make it clear that in a democracy…the government has no business suppressing privately generated scientific information. The Atomic Energy Act in its present form is hopelessly outmoded, and in clear conflict with the First Amendment. Genuine technical documents written inside the weapons labs about nuclear weapons can and should be kept reasonably secret, and out of the hands of non-nuclear nations aspiring to obtain a nuclear arsenal…In my view, however, the only hope for slowing or stopping proliferation of nuclear weapons lies in negotiated control and reduction efforts such as the SALT II Treaty. I think the U.S. will gain far more from a negotiated Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with Russia than it ever will from a stringent and stupidly applied Atomic Energy Act.8 It is apparent that secrecy and classification are more often used to keep important information from the American people than to keep real technical information out of the hands of potential adversary countries.9

Rep. Paul McCloskey, R-Menlo Park: We need to revise the Atomic Energy Act to make use of public domain material legal and to require the government show a “bad” intention to punish a private citizen for any violation of the AEA.10

Chuck Hansen: In the beginning, the government had every reason to believe it would win and get the legal precedent supporting the “born secret” doctrine it so badly wanted. It had a “soft” target (an unknown, financially struggling left-wing political magazine barely able to keep alive even without crushing legal expenses), a highly-inflammatory subject (the most fiendish weapon of mass destruction ever devised by mankind), an ignorant, friendly and easily-manipulated press (who could be swayed by high government officials half-truths and lies11), a nervous and uneducated American public, and a biased, conservative, and gullible judge in Wisconsin. It took a lot of work on the part of the government to lose the case. But the real irony is this: The prolific export of technical know-how and raw materials for bomb-building our own government provides to foreign countries is far more injurious to our national security than any magazine article or book. For example, between 1955 and 1979, the AEC and DOE trained 13,456 foreign scientists in advanced nuclear technology, 3,532 of whom were from countries that had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Our government also sold tons of enriched fuel to foreign countries like India and Israel bent on developing nuclear weapons.12 Both of those countries now have nuclear weapons, not because of the Progressive, but because of the U.S. government. As a result of this case at least the government declassified the “three concepts” and returned to its pre-1977 policy of “no comment” on privately generated nuclear weapons designs.

Notes

1 October 24, 1979.

2 October 10, 1979. Similar sentiments were expressed by the Washington Star, Oct. 21, 1979; Toledo Blade, Oct. 19, 1979; and Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 19, 1979. Several newspapers condemned the motives of Knoll, maintaining he was on a crazy mission to increase subscriptions to gain personal fame. See, e.g., Pittsburgh Press, Oct. 22, 1979, Birmingham News, Oct. 19, 1979; St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 19, 1979; Worchester Evening Gazette, Oct. 21, 1979. Some criticized Knoll for failing to publish first and worry about the consequences later. See, e.g., Charleston Evening Post, Oct. 20, 1979.

3 October 20, 1979. Similar sentiments are expressed in Minneapolis Tribune, Oct. 19, 1979; Nevada State Journal, Oct. 21, 1979; San Jose News, Oct. 19, 1979; Ann Arbor News, Oct. 20, 1979, New York Daily News, Oct. 19, 1979; and Detroit Free Press, Oct. 19, 1979.

4 October 20, 1979.

5 The Albany Knickerbocker News, Oct. 27, 1979, reported more than 200 pounds of fissile material was unaccounted for.

6 October 24, 1979.

7 October 27, 1979.

8 DeWitt, p. 20.

9 DeWitt, “Moral Issues Faced by Scientists in Nuclear Weapons Work,” a paper presented at the 40th Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, Sept. 15-20, 1990, in Egham, United Kingdom.

10 See, e.g., Peninsula Times-Tribune, Dec. 5, 11, 1980, Feb. 4, 9, 28, and May 16, 1981. The Peninsula Times-Tribune was one of the papers that published portions of Chuck Hansen’s letter while still classified.

11 For example, the official declaration that they did not know of classified information in the public domain is a documented falsehood. See Hansen, p. 8.

12 Hansen, p. 12.