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...Sometimes individuals with access information leak it to the media solely on their own initiative and violate laws when doing so. Sometimes they leak it with the acquiescence, or encouragement of their superiors, including the President. And sometimes information is made public as a result of a senior policy decision, often by the same people who have previously decried the revelation of intelligence sources and methods by their predecessors. Sometimes the definition of a "leak" depends upon where one sits in the government--Congress has leaked information to the press that the President did not want released, and administration officials have often leaked information to the press in order to influence congressional legislation. Sometimes information gathered through sensitive means becomes public because that is necessary for government officials to justify their actions, or gain approval for future actions or budgets.
There is nothing at all new about this. It was just as common during the Cold War as it is today. Students of Cold War history can find countless examples of intelligence information finding its way into the press either with or without presidential approval. Examples include the 1957 Gaither report about strategic vulnerability--whose leak infuriated President Eisenhower--to the slick Soviet Military Power reports produced by the Defense Department during the Reagan administration and used to justify the defense buildup. At times administration officials have even gotten creative. For instance, Reagan administration officials had SR-71 aircraft re-photograph targets in Nicaragua and Cuba that had already been photographed by spy satellites because the SR-71 photos were considered less sensitive than satellite photos and, therefore, could be released publicly to justify political action. (1)
In recent years the declassification of Cold War era documents has shed some new light on a relatively overlooked example of intelligence information being used to justify policy during the race to the Moon with the Soviet Union. During the 1960s NASA Administrator James Webb spoke in public and before closed door congressional hearings about Soviet space developments. In particular, he discussed the development of a new large Soviet rocket equivalent to the American Saturn V. Webb's remarks were reported in various media.
Congressional staffers and Washington journalists soon began calling this "Webb's Giant" and the "James E. Webb Memorial Rocket." Webb usually discussed the Soviet rocket during budget hearings. He never presented any evidence that the rocket actually existed, because the source of his information--reconnaissance satellite photographs of the launch facility and eventually the rocket itself was highly classified. Because the Soviets never publicly discussed this rocket, and because it was never successfully launched into orbit, many people doubted that it even existed. (2)
Within the last few years a number of highly classified intelligence reports concerning the Soviet space program and launch ranges have been made available to the public. What the reports reveal is that Webb's public pronouncements about the Soviet challenge to Apollo closely tracked with what the intelligence community--primarily the CIA--was telling the NASA administrator that the Soviet Union was doing. Webb was regularly briefed on Soviet progress and apparently allowed by the CIA to speak publicly about what he knew. As the intelligence information changed, and improved, Webb's public statements changed as well. A comparison of Webb's public statements with the contemporary intelligence reveals that Webb did not exaggerate the Soviet developments. In contrast to the public image of a NASA administrator desperate to exaggerate the threat in order to protect his agency's budget, this new information presents a more complex impression of a public official worried that the United States could lose prestige in the space race.
Furthermore, newly declassified records also indicate that by the latter 1960s, relevant congressional committees were also regularly briefed about Soviet space developments. The amount of information they were given has not been revealed, but clearly they did not have to take the NASA administrator's words about the Soviet space program at face value.
A Giant Leap of Faith
When John F. Kennedy approved the Apollo program in May 1961 he did so essentially "blind." He did not know if the Soviet Union had its own lunar program. The Soviets did not talk about landing humans on the Moon, and American intelligence assets on the Soviet space program were extremely limited. Usually, the CIA knew about a Soviet space project only after it was orbiting overhead, an unwelcome situation that happened all too frequently.
When Jim Webb became NASA administrator in early 1961 he was granted top security clearances--not only access to intelligence data, including satellite photographs, but access to the technical information about the spy satellites themselves. The relationship between the CIA and NASA had become strained under Webb's predecessor, T. Keith Glennan. NASA had been asked to provide a cover story for the U-2, which quickly fell apart and embarrassed the agency after the shoot-down of Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane in May 1960. Webb assured the CIA leadership that he wanted to work with them, and in return they granted him access to all the best information. (3)
The earliest known communication between NASA and the CIA on the subject of a possible Soviet effort to land a man on the Moon was in November 1962, a year and a...
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