Freedom of the Press, or Media Manipulation?

In the Sept. 30 editorial, “New ‘Security’ Target: the Press,” you lay the blame in this episode on the Justice Department, which could not impartially investigate leaks by the White House, or on the Chicago prosecutor named to take on the task. This is not an investigation of the press, but an attempt to identify administration officials who may have sought to sway opinion by leaking the identity of a CIA officer to a conservative journalist in the expectation that he would go to print and undermine the views of a former ambassador who believed that a part of the evidence for war later presented by the secretary of State to the U.N. was false.

As a 33-year CIA officer under cover until retirement, I do not see this as a press or 1st Amendment issue, but as a case in which a sympathetic journalist agreed to be manipulated by the White House. This was not “routine news gathering,” as you allude to in the totally unrelated 2001 case. If it is a routine for Bob Novak to leak information on behalf of his sources for political reasons, then I may have missed the last boat to freedom.

David Harper

Canberra, Australia

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I find myself very puzzled why Novak, who is the reporter who actually broke the story regarding Valerie Plame being a CIA agent, is not being subpoenaed and asked the questions they are asking of the reporters from the New York Times. Is it perhaps because he is a staunch right-wing reporter/commentator? Because he broke the story, he is the one who would know the person who leaked the story.

Myrna Hamman

Huntington Beach