Several days later, having regained his composure, the cardinal finally met with Contreras and denied receiving any CIA money. But Contreras told me that Obando's denial was unconvincing.
Newsweek drafted a version of the story, making it appear as if we weren't sure of the facts about Obando and the money. When I saw a readback of the article, I went into Thomas's office and said that if Newsweek didn't trust my reporting, we shouldn't run the story at all. He said that wasn't the case; it was just that the senior editors felt more comfortable with a vaguely worded story.
We ended up in hot water with the Reagan administration and right-wing media attack groups anyway. Accuracy in Media lambasted me, in particular, for going with such a sensitive story without being sure of the facts (which, of course, I was).
Thomas was summoned to the State Department where Abrams heaped more criticism on me though not denying the facts of our story. (After the disclosure, the Sandinistas did nothing to Obando, who gradually evolved more into a figure of reconciliation than confrontation.)
Lessons Learned
In general, the lessons that I have learned from three decades of dealing with these kinds of stories is that you should be careful to minimize risks to specific individuals whenever possible. However, the real-life dangers cut both ways.
There have been plenty of cases in which tolerance of government secrecy has gotten people killed, including U.S. soldiers. Former senior Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg berates himself to this day for not leaking the Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War earlier, when the revelations of government lying might have saved the lives of countless Americans and Vietnamese.
Journalists also bear a profound responsibility to the American people, who represent the sovereign power of a democratic Republic. The United States is not a monarchy or a dictatorship where government secrets are the possession of a king or the dictator.
Information is not only the lifeblood of the democracy but it belongs to the democracy. That has been a fundamental principle of American self-governance for more than two centuries despite delusions of grandeur among some recent presidents, like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush who believed they owned their White House secrets and could even bequeath them to their descendants.
In 2009, on his second day in office, President Barack Obama struck down some of his predecessor's more grandiose notions about owning American history. However, Obama also has tried to demonstrate his toughness on national security by cracking down on unauthorized leaks.
Without doubt, there are legitimate secrets that the public doesn't need to know and that would cause grave dangers if released (such as how to construct nuclear weapons). But what I have seen time and again is that the government over-classifies information, either from an exaggerated fear of hypothetical risks or from political expediency.
My rule of thumb is that journalists who come into possession of classified material must lean toward sharing the information with the people while exercising common-sense restraint to avoid unnecessary harm. Granted, that is not a perfect solution. It is not without risks, but nothing is.
As for the Afghan War and the WiliLeaks documents, there remains a powerful case that the release has already served an important public good by focusing renewed attention on the many failures and frustrations that have surrounded the nine-year-old American-led occupation.
The New York Times, which was given an embargoed set of the 92,000 documents, devoted five to six pages of Monday's edition to an in-depth examination of the Afghan War. Scrambling to catch up, the Washington Post also led its Monday editions with the disclosures.
If the release of these documents serves to ignite and inform a public debate about the Afghan War and how to end it then Secretary Gates and the Pentagon might not be happy with that, but the lives of many Afghanis and American soldiers may be spared.
