We're not only enjoined from publishing that article. But I cannot discuss its specific contents. I cannot buy confirmation or denial of other published materials. provide any clue as to those specific contents This has made it a little difficult for us to explain in public what this case is all about. a few weeks ago for example the Milwaukee Sentinel send a reporter named Joe Manning. Into the public libraries of Milwaukee and Waukegan, Illinois, which happens to be where he lives? You spend one week researching an article. about thermonuclear weapons paper published that article he had no contact with us. In fact, we were Totally unaware of what he was doing until it appeared in the Milwaukee Sentinel. Under the terms of the court order as that has been carefully explained to us by the lawyers. I'm not even allowed to tell you whether that article was accurate or inaccurate. But I can tell you that we thought it important enough. To introduce as evidence in behalf of the Progressive in our appeal of Judge Warren's preliminary injunction. there have been similar Publications elsewhere both before and since we were enjoy. There has been in fact in the last couple of weeks such a rash of awkward and embarrassing disclosures from the government point of view. That the justice department attorneys. Inow of making it known to the press that they don't much care for the case and would like to be out from under. But they say their client insists on pressing it and their client of course is the Secretary of Energy, mr. Schlessinger. a few days ago the justice department signed and submitted to the court. a stipulation regarding 1 government document that has been on the public shelves for several years. What the government stipulated was and I'm reading now from the stipulation one. UCR l528. Oh, that's the designation of the document reveals in a thermonuclear weapons context the three concepts, which the government has described as the essential secret of the h-bomb too. If a competent scientist read UCR 05280 he or she would derive no significant additional information or benefit from reading the Moreland article and diagrams. 3 A notice of declassification before you crl 5280 was issued in December 1973. The declassification marking is dated July 13th. 1975. In May 1978 the document was removed from the Public's tax and placed in the area reserved for classified documents on May 16th. 1979. The document was again, Mark classified. Bo4. Of some six years this document which the government acknowledges to contain more so-called Secrets then are suppressed article was on the public shelves. I already made for more than six years. It was Declassified and for at least three years. It was on the public shelves down at the library in Los Alamos Dimitri wrote the researcher who found this and other documents while doing some research for the American civil liberties Union in connection with our case told us that the reason that the librarian The Standard Los Alamos recognized him instantly was because he's not a foreigner. Given this kind of document given the extensive other. disclosures of information in the public domain I guess there are two questions. That I want to address before giving you an opportunity to ask me about whatever aspect of this interest you. First question is why in the world we want to publish Howard moorlands article. And the second is why the government wants to stop us from doing so. I can speak reasonably authoritative lie about why we want to publish it. Obviously I can only speculate. As to why the government wants to suppressant. A year ago just about a year ago. We set out to take a look at the question of secrecy. in the US nuclear weapons program It was not a new subject for the progressive. In fact, we carried an article on that subject in our September or October 1953 issue. That article was by former editor. In fact, the first editor of the bulletin of the atomic scientists Michael a Marine. And in that article back in 1953, he suggested that the secrecy which then and from the beginning of course had enveloped the whole nuclear program. Had choked off the bait in public about that program. About the policies nucleya policies pursued by the United States and had in effect turned over decision making all the decisions making this by Clarion public concern to a small group the show called. Keepers of the secrets for the keepers of the so-called see that was a 1953. my last year that process of secrecy and not only persisted it had intensified to the point where If it was insane, it was irrational one of the things that prompted us to pursue the subject was an incident that befell a member of Congress representative Ron dellums of California. Who sent the series of questions to the Department of energy inquiring why the government was substantially increasing its production of plutonium? He said is this because you're making more bombs is it because you're making a bomb that requires more plutonium the neutron bomb say and appreciate it too as several more questions in that vein wanting to know exactly why there had been this substantial increase in the government's procurement of plutonium. He received a reply from secretary Schlesinger, which said your questions are classified not the answers. but the questions and that letter containing those questions is now locked up in a safe and I suppose that in telling you or in at least paraphrasing what some of those questions were here tonight. I have violated the atomic energy Act of 1954, which fortunately as was observed no longer carries a death penalty only 10 years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. There are other things that made us want to look at the question of secrecy in the nuclear weapons program. in Honolulu The US Navy is building some underground storage bunkers. 4 nuclear warheads igloos, they're called. Up to 1200 Warheads will be stored in them. And it's wisdom. The Navy has chosen to put those bunkers a mile and a half from the main Runway at Honolulu International Airport. There are some residents of Honolulu who are troubled by that location. And in searching around for how to get a handle on what they thought might perhaps be a problem to them. They decided that the Navy or to file an environmental impact statement. You wanted to know what would happen if a plane crashed at that particular point? the Navy sent a classification expert to Honolulu to testify that it could not discuss those questions or file an environmental impact statement or provide any other information about this exercise because to do so would violate the requirements of National Security And I'm sorry to say that a federal district judge in Honolulu upheld that contention on the Navy's part. And so those igloos are now being constructed without further impediment. Our hypothesis was our working hypothesis in the article. We assign Moreland to do. It was just possible that this mistake of secrecy was all the front was a sham that there weren't any secrets there to be protected. Battery was awfully convenient for the government of the United States. Whenever anyone raised any questions in this area the kinds of questions raised by Congressman dellums, the kinds of questions raised by those residents of Honolulu kinds of questions that any of us might ask regarding nuclear weaponry regarding the arms race or for that matter regarding nuclear energy because the atomic energy Act of 1954. and its secrecy provision Defiance restricted data not only with respect to Weaponry, but with respect to all nuclear materials and their used in the production of energy and all data according to that law not just government data all data pertaining to these subjects are classified unless they have specifically been Declassified by the government of the United States. And its proceedings against us the government has defined This legal concept with the fetching phrase data restricted at Birth. I miss the government's contention that any information that comes in to be. pertaining to nuclear materials nuclear weapons or nuclear energy is automatically classified when it comes in to be data restricted at Birth even if you and I dream it up if we sit at a table in this room and doodle it on a piece of paper under the terms of the atomic energy act as construed by the government. We may not impart that information to anyone. We may not possess it. Without violating the terms of the law. And we may not publish it unless the government has Declassified. The department of energy alone in the area of nuclear weaponry alone classifies 20,000 documents a year. I don't know how many declassifies nobody knows that's one of the ancillary discoveries. We've made in the course of this court proceeding. The process of classification is sweeping and massive. The process of declassification is random and haphazard. I would venture to say that we've learned in recent weeks that some things get Declassified. That should not be. Many things get classified. That should not be. In any event Howard Moreland had no difficulty at all in proving that our hypothesis was a sound one. Because although he has no background. He's a freelance writer of former. Airplane Air Force pilot forum a commercial pilot his background includes to college undergraduate physics courses. in 6 months of work He discovered what the government calls its basic secret of thermal nuclear weaponry. He discovered it on public library shelves. He discovered it in encyclopedia articles. He discovered it by going around on a guided tour set up by him for him by the department of energy. He discovered it as a reporter working as a reporter identifying himself at all times as a reporter never receiving any off the Record or background information never looking at a classified document. And he concluded and stated in the article. He wrote for us, but this so-called Secret. Is known to thousands and thousands of people around the world is readily accessible to anyone who goes looking forward and is the shabbiest than most fraudulent of pretexts for the government's refusal to provide us and all the American people with information when we're a specific points about some of the risks dangerous Hazard problems political Health Etc involved in the whole nuclear program. Some of the scientists who have read New Orleans article are contemptuous. Of the fact that it took him six months to put it together. Play one of them said in a sworn affidavit. That any competent physicist reading. Dr. Edward Taylor's article on the hydrogen bomb in the encyclopedia Americana could arrive at the same information in a matter of hours. this is what we wrote. This is why we called our article the h-bomb secret how we got it why we're telling it. Why will the government go to such extraordinary lengths? Even to the point of subverting in the most drastic way in the history of our Republic the First Amendment. Surely it's not to protect any so-called secrets in moorlands article because the government has not asked if you liked it. But those Secrets have been available. Why then I don't know Perhaps. It is sheer bureaucratic. Stubbornness incompetence Perhaps it is a passionate devotion. I took the notion of classification and secrecy. My own conjecture for what it's worth. Is that the secret that really threatened? Those who are responsible for restraining and in joining us. What is the secret that there is no secret. The secret that there is no basis for the mistake of secrecy. The secret that the deception and secrecy practices the beginning of the nuclear age is founded not on National Security but on a persistent effort to keep our own people from knowing the full facts the full of risks associated with the nuclear age. That the proliferation that the government was concerned about was not the proliferation of weapons or weapons designs, but the proliferation of information in around media to around people. And that this man so much. To the hierarchy in the department of energy and whoever else may be involved in this exercise that they were willing to trample our first amendment rights. Perhaps to some we were a a tempting Target in 1971 in the Pentagon papers case. the government moved against two of America's great newspapers the New York Times The Washington Post and it was thoroughly and definitively rebuffed. By the courts perhaps there was a Feeling. That moving against the progressive obscure struggling political left-wing magazine off The Boondocks in Madison, Wisconsin. The government could achieve what it could not achieve against those two great newspapers could obtain a viable Court precedent for prior restraint one that could be applied at other times and other circumstances. If that was the intent. We're determined very determined. Not to allow that to happen. We will sustain the effort. We will somehow publish a magazine every month despite the amount of time and attention and energy that we have to devote to this case. We believe it is a urgent importance and despite the burdens that we have. We're grateful to the government of the United States. We're grateful for providing us with an opportunity to carry the fundamental questions involved here too far more people than we could ever. Hope to reach through the pages of our magazine. I hope that because the government has been foolish enough to pursue this action. There are now hundreds of thousands of people around the country who are thinking about questions of secrecy and censorship and prior restraint and suppression and thinking about the nuclear issues home. We could never have reached without this unfortunate intervention on the government's part. We're glad to have the opportunity to raise the issue. But we are determined to win in the courts and we think we will. And to win it with the decision. That will not only leave us. At Liberty to publish Howard moorlands article, which after all this exertion is bound to come as a great anti-climax to all of us, but that will also leave a president that at the very least inhibits rather than encourages the government from pursuing again this kind of dangerous and potentially ruin has course if the government is allowed to mount this kind of offensive against the First Amendment, even if the effort is ultimately rebuffed by the court the government will prevail it will prevail first in the delay now, we hope that moreland's article will be as useful if we publish it next month or next year. As it would have been if we had published it in April of this year when we intended to we hope that is the case but there are other articles and everyone here can think of examples where the immediate publication is a matter of urgent public concern where publication might prevent this nation this government from embarking on a tragically mistaken course where it's not a matter of stopping the presses for 3 months. Or a couple of years but we're six hours delay might be of the essence a tragic president has already been set on fortunately in and joining us from publishing for 3 months and 5 days. Is that president is allowed to stand every publication in America, but what's worth worse every citizen of this nation is in Desperate trouble because it will mean that the First Amendment will have been effectively flush down the tubes. We are absolutely determined not to let that happen Jerry peel the publisher of Scientific American Magazine who had a similar encounter with the government in 1950. But unfortunately an to his regret knuckled under at that time. Makes the point that actually to provide anyone with the kind of Spectra specifics that might indeed be helpful to somebody wanting to build a thermonuclear device would take in his words carloads of blueprints and computer printouts. Obviously, that is not what we provide and it's not the kind of magazine. We published some of you I hope I've seen it one time or another the progressive. It is not Popular Mechanics. It is not a how to do it magazine. It is not a technical magazine there. No specification is there are no scientific details of that kind or mechanical details of that kind of what we're talking about here are scientific Concepts. And I might tell you their scientific concept that I could impart to you here tonight in a sentence of approximately 20 words containing no technical terms. They are scientific contacts that have been known for 30 years. That have been taught to and learned by. More than a generation now of college physics students graduate physics students all over the world. I know we don't we don't give anybody the kind of mechanical information. You're talking about the best analogy I can provide. Is that moreland's article is to the construction of a hydrogen bomb? What an article about the workings of an internal combustion engine would be to the construction of an automobile. If you have ever read an article a non-technical article about how an internal combustion engine works if you could read that article and then go out and build an automobile, then you probably have the capability. If you also have a hundred billion dollars and the requisite materials to build a hydrogen bomb for reading more of those are first of all, you will understand as a citizen. What it is that we're talking about now, not everyone in America wants to know or needs to know how a doorbell Works how a television set Works how an automobile Works. However, if you happen to be a citizen who is deeply troubled about air pollution and you probably like to know a little bit about how an internal combustion engine works and what it puts into the air. It is about of that magnitude of technical specificity moreland's article with would reach and it is that degree of helpfulness that it would impart to you as a concerned citizen. It would help you better understand issues in which you as a citizen might want to be involved and example Are there has been pending for a long time now the notion of a comprehensive Test Ban Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States treaty that would ban underground nuclear testing. We all know that underground nuclear testing pose a certain risk certain hazards that the pest vent from time to time and clouds of radiation escape and do damage to human lives. The reason that that treaty has not been consummated is that the weapons makers here and perhaps in the Soviet Union to incest that they need to keep testing why what are they testing? Why do they need to keep doing? We have 30,000 nuclear warheads now of cataclysmic destructive capability. What is it that they're testing refining? And is it really necessary? We don't have the answers to those questions. We've never been told that so we are asked to decide. I hope as Citizens or to have some input into the decision of whether or not they're like to be a Test Ban Treaty, but how can we decide that question if we don't know what the testing is all about? Violence article happens to tell us what the testers are testing for what they're hoping to achieve. I wish I could tell you. I hope I will be in a position. That's the kind of information that I think that we think you are to have if you want it that you're entitled to have and that the government has no shame reason for withholding funds.