Sheehan Springs a Leak

A Harvard research fellow's publication of confidential quotations from Middle East negotiations involving Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger '50 in an issue of Foreign Policy magazine this week raised more issues than the adhoc and seemingly duplicitious quality of Kissinger's negotiating techniques documented in the article.

The article also brought out the question of how Edward R.F. Sheehan, research fellow for the Center for International Affairs, obtained classified memoranda of the negotiations, and aired the issue of Kissinger's possibly self-serving pretense of investigations of a State Department leak.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the State Department announced that Kissinger has "severely and officially" reprimanded Alfred Atherton, assistant secretary of State for Middle and Far Eastern Affairs, for discussion classified memoranda of conversations compiled during the Middle East talks.

Lawrence Eagleburger, Under Secretary of State for Management, said Kissinger's letter of reprimand will be placed on Atherton's personnel file, and that a department official under Atherton, Harold Saunders, has also been reprimanded for reading classified memoranda to Sheehan at Atherton's direction.

According to Eagleburger's statement, furthermore, Atherton made the decision on his own as to what information he disclosed to Sheehan and how he disclosed it. Kissinger originally gave him only general approval to give Sheehan background briefings on the Middle East talks, Eagleburger said.

However, in a New York Times oped column published Monday, William Safire wrote that Kissinger must have known exactly what information Sheehan received. And Warren D. Manshel, editor of Foreign Policy, said this week Kissinger's statement Sunday that the article left him "thunderstruck" was "really a lovely expression." And in a statement yesterday, Sheehan said he used "many sources" for the article. He said he regrets "it has been necessary to identify two of them."

Meanwhile, the State Department statement does not account for the leaks of all conversations contained in Sheehan's article. Eagleburger said any reports used by Sheehan about conversations with Middle Eastern leaders involving President Ford and President Nixon did not come from the State Department.

These conversations contain some of the controversial assurances to Arab leaders that contradict official U.S. policy toward the Middle East. In one quoted talk, Ford told Egyptian president Anwar Sadat that the U.S. supports a return to pre-1967 war borders in the disputed Israeli-occupied territories.

A press official for the State Department said yesterday Kissinger and Eagleburger expect that the reprimands and a directive to government officials to prevent unauthorized leaks will suffice in this investigation. Meanwhile, however, where the presidential quotes' came from, and whether Safire can be proved wrong, remains unanswered.