Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

Some information has to remain in the privy of the office of the Prime Minister and the ministers for the proper administration of government.

Most leaks from large bureaucracies are “good” leaks: no danger to national security, no harm to innocent people, information the public ought to know.

Sweeping privilege against disclosure is…contrary to a sound public policy…It is a small step to assert a privilege against any disclosure of records merely because they might prove embarrassing.

Interdepartmental memoranda, advisory opinions, recommendations of subordinates, informal working papers, material in personnel files, and the like, cannot be subject to disclosure if there is to be any orderly system of government.

This gentleman feels that all the members of Congress should have access to all the information which is in the hands of officials in the executive branch who deal with foreign affairs. He states that this is so in England and France. I think the gentleman must be mistaken, for it would be "agin" human nature for so many people to know a secret and keep it! Much of the information which comes to officials dealing with foreign affairs is uncorroborated, but valuable as background material. The sources of this information would soon dry up if it became the property of too many people. It seems to me that in foreign affairs, as in all matters of government, one must deal with reality, recognize human nature as it is and set up machinery to deal with real situations, not those which we wish existed.

Usually the public is better off with more information than less. That includes information the government would like to keep quiet.

Secrecy in government, in the public mind, becomes synonymous with deception in government.

Leaks usually have more value to the public at large than the harm which they occasionally do.

People in power tend to be not as enthusiastic about open records as they were before they came to power.

Can the public business be thus transacted and in secret?

In the Eisenhower days, for example, the "Top Secret" stamp was used very, very freely in order not to conceal information from the Soviets or from potential enemies, but simply to conceal it from the U.S. people and from the press. This is done again and again.

I have no disposition to withhold any information which the duty of my station will permit, or the public good shall require to be disclosed: and in fact, all the Papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain were laid before the Senate, when the Treaty itself was communicated for their consideration and advice

We should certainly declassify any information that we know that the enemy knows. At that point it is only the American people who are in the dark.

The public always wants to be told.

Our government cannot function cloaked in secrecy. It cannot function unless officials tell the truth.

Bureaucracy always seeks the path of least disclosure.

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives, asking the grounds, reasons, and evidence upon which the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and now detained as prisoners at Fort McHenry, I have to state that it is judged to be incompatible with the public interest at this time to furnish the information called for by the resolution.

The future will find one of its great problems is deciding how big a business enterprise must become before the public is entitled to know the full details of its management.

To Any Officer or Employee of the Government: Please tell Mr. Lincoln Steffens anything whatever about the government that you know (not incompatible with the public interest) and provided only that you tell him the truth—no matter what it might be—I will see to it that you are not hurt. T. Roosevelt.

Henry Kissinger never wanted the 20,000 pages of his telephone transcripts made public - not while he was alive, at any rate.

The U.K. government has a responsibility to keep secrets in some circumstances. It also has a responsibility not to abuse that power for other purposes.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

The government's instinct is to shroud itself in secrecy - to act like the office of a president instead of as a collective cabinet government held to account by the elected House of Commons.

Many state parole boards claim exemptions from state sunshine laws that would be unthinkable for other government officials.

The National Security Agency plays so highly specialized a role in the defense and security of the United States that an outsider can actually describe its activities. They are guarded not only from the public but from other government agencies as well. The Civil Service Commission, which audits all government positions, is not allowed to know what NSA employees do.