Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Friday luncheon
Clinton: I want open government
‘There is too much secrecy,’ he says, but stops short
of supporting Moynihan bill; America’s youth should study, stay off drugs
and get to know ‘people different from you’
By Peter G. Johnson
Too many government secrets are being kept from the public for too long.
"We have to do something about it," President Clinton told newspaper
editors.
"Generally, I think there is too much secrecy in the government, and
I think too many people have too much unfettered discretion just to declare
documents secret," said Clinton, responding to a question about a federal
commission’s report on government secrecy.
The bipartisan commission chaired by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.,
found that 2 million federal officials and a million people in industries
working with the government were authorized to keep documents and data
secret.
It proposed a law that would authorize classification of information
only when there was "a demonstrable need" to protect national security.
It also called for the creation and financing of a National Declassification
Center to oversee such matters. Most classified information would be made
public after 10 years, and all would be made public after 30 years, except
where it would cause "demonstrable harm" to an individual or a continuing
program.
President Clinton did not say whether he would support such a law. But
he said, "I believe we ought to unearth more documents and not keep so
many secrets for so long."
Clinton also told editors that newspapers must play a key role in helping
America overcome extremist hatreds and heal divisions over race, ethnicity
and religious beliefs. Newspapers, he said, should lead the way by advancing
the dialogue and by diversifying their own staffs.
In the 21st century, Clinton said, America will be the "most multiethnic,
multiracial, multireligious democracy in human history."
"How we handle it," he said, "may be the biggest determinant of what
we look like 50 years from now and what our position in the world is and
what the children of that age will have to look forward to."
The president’s comments on the challenges of diversity were sparked
by an editor’s question on what advice he would offer today’s youth to
prepare them for the next century. Clinton responded that "first and foremost,"
he would tell them to be good students.
"Learn all you can. And stay out of trouble. Don’t do something dumb
like get involved with drugs or alcohol or something that will wreck your
life."
Second, he said, "get to know people who are your age but are different
from you — people of a different racial or ethnic group, people of a different
religion."
Third: "Learn as much as you can about the rest of the world because
it will be a smaller world, and you will need to know more about it."
And fourth, "Start to take the responsibilities of citizenship seriously
and find some way, even at the age of 10, to be a service to your community."
In his speech to editors, Clinton spoke of the blurring distinctions
between domestic and foreign policy and the need for the United States
to sustain its position of world leadership to remain strong at home.
"Our success at home clearly depends on our strength and willingness
and our ability to lead abroad," he said.
Clinton argued for U.S. leadership in breaking down economic barriers,
fighting terrorism and the drug trade. He pressed for the Senate to ratify
the chemical weapons treaty, as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had
the day before. He also made a pitch for continued "fast-track" authority
to negotiate international trade pacts. Every president since 1974 has
had such authority, and Clinton urged Congress to renew it for him.
"We cannot shrink from the challenges of leadership in a global economy,"
Clinton said.
"The decisions we make in the next few months will set America’s course
for the next 50 years. We have to make them together, and they must be
the right ones."
Johnson is night managing editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
