State Dep’t, Officers Reprimanded for Leaks, but Several Questions Remain

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger has officially reprimanded two of his closest aides involved in his Mideast diplomacy for leaking secret information to a magazine writer disclosing Kissinger’s conversations with Arab and Israeli leaders. But several questions still remain.

Are the “reprimanded” State Department officers–Alfred L. Atherton, Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, and Harold Saunders, Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research and Atherton’s former first assistant–worthy of future trust in international conferences in view of what has been termed their “mistaken judgement?” Will the U.S. now apologize to those governments whose leaders were quoted in public when they spoke in confidence?

Also, why has not the U.S. expressed its regret to Israel in view of the two rebukes that President Ford ordered the State Department to administer to Israel following “leaks” of a far lesser importance to the Israeli press by unidentified persons?

These questions are apart from the larger American national question of why Kissinger condemned leaks he attributed to Congress when the information had criticized him but only “reprimanded” his own aides when the information published by Edward R.F.Sheehan in a 2100-word article in “Foreign Policy” magazine praised him as a diplomatic genius who had achieved high success in the Mideast, including winning the affection of some Arab leaders.

Deputy Undersecretary of State for Management Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who handled the probe of the leaks for Kissinger, announced Friday that the Secretary had written letters “officially and severely reprimanding” Atherton and a somewhat lesser reprimand to Saunders. Kissinger himself had spoken with Sheehan and authorized his aides to help him on “background information,” information not attributed directly to the State Department of any official by name.

Eagleburger denied that Atherton was the “fall guy” for the disclosure and penalty. “Atherton’s motivation was above reproach and resulted from mistaken judgement and misunderstanding of the scope of instructions he had received from Kissinger,” Eagleburger said. Atherton was reported to have accepted the responsibility and said that Saunders acted at his direction.

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Joseph J. Sisco also is named as having given Sheehan information but he was not reprimanded because it was said he did not break any security rules.