By Ray McGovern and Robert Scheer / Original to ScheerPost
In this week’s episode of “Playing President,” Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA veteran and briefer of five presidents, continues to make sense of the world to “President” Scheer, who prepared for this role through his decades as a journalist, including in-depth interviews with five presidents from Nixon to Clinton.
In the universe of “Playing President,” however, Scheer is not a journalist, but instead plays the President of the United States attempting to navigate the geopolitical landscape of governance and media with the help of his trusty daily briefer from the CIA, Ray McGovern. This week, McGovern briefs the president on the recent release of Julian Assange, who spent the last thirteen years in prison/detainment, first in the Ecuadorian Embassy followed by five years in Belmarsh prison. While McGovern accurately describes Assange’s place as an “example” of what happens to truth tellers in society, President Scheer can’t quite grasp the concept…
Transcript
This transcript was produced by an automated transcription service. Please refer to the audio interview to ensure accuracy.
White House Intern: Mr. President, Ray McGovern is here to brief you.
POTUS: Hi, Ray. What you got?
McGovern: Good morning, Mr. President. Well, we’ve got a bunch of things here, but I’d like to start off with Ukraine.
POTUS: Yeah, before you do that, let me ask you. I keep getting all these calls in here about that Julian Assange thing and everything … I thought we had kind of worked something out there, that was going to work out and it’s getting a lot of publicity. What’s happening?
McGovern: He is. In short, Mr. President, those in favor of the First Amendment and those in favor of not prosecuting publishers – and people who write – are rejoicing today because Julian Assange is finally free on his way home to Australia. A deal was made, a plea deal, where Julian and his lawyers, plead to a very- pled to a very little charge here. One of the counts…
POTUS: Wait, wait, Ray, Ray, Ray, I don’t want to know about publishers and all that. You’re briefing me for the CIA, right? And you guys said he’s gonna plead guilty, right? He pled guilty, right? And that means that nobody can be using the secret information and getting it out there and violating our laws.
He’s guilty, right? Of violating the espionage act? Now we let him go for time served because they tell me, you know, he’s becoming a martyr and he’s, you know, suffering and getting a lot of support… You know, I don’t know what Trump’s going to make of this in the campaign, but I can always hit him with his being a, you know, ally of Putin. So he’s a little weak on this. But he pled guilty, right?
McGovern: To one charge, Mr. President. His lawyers are saying this should have no real effect on future prosecutions of publishers. The lawyers are carefully explaining all this. It will have an effect of dampened investigative reporting. After all, if they can get Julian Assange, a publisher, to plead guilty to access to sensitive information, then what reporter is going to take the risk of getting access to sensitive information? So we’ll be impoverished in terms of investigative reporting here in the United States.
POTUS: Wait, wait, wait. You’re talking like you’re one of these reporters. The fact of the matter is, we- we need to keep secrets. And we need it to do diplomacy. And now, the deal we made – I know Trump’s going to hit me on this – but fact is that, you know, he has effectively served… what… He’s been locked up in that Ecuadorian embassy, what- six, seven years?
And then now he’s been, what, in England there, five years? So he’s accepted, what, 12 year responsibility for breaking our Espionage Act, right? For breaking the law. And that, I was told, that’s gonna help us keep secrets.
McGovern: That will be an argument available to whatever judge chooses to use it.
But for the principle of having pled guilty to the Espionage Act itself, his lawyers are making a point that, “No, this was just one limited part of that, and that – publicizer- publishers and, and editors and writers should not be liable just because Julian pled guilty to this one. One part of the-”
POTUS: Wait a minute.
When I read the statement that, originally, the New York Times, Le Monde, and those others, the Guardian, I think it was Spiegel… They said, they said, “If I arrest this guy, Julian, right? Then, then I could go after them because they- they published what he released. They published it.” So, just between us, I’m not asking you to make some great First Amendment speech here, Ray.
I know your prejudices, you like that stuff. But the fact of the matter is, this should be a message to the New York Times. No, you can’t print classified material unless we give it to you, right? And then we can give it to you because we’re the ones that classified it. So we can leak it to you, you know, or not for attribution.
But isn’t the message here that if they get… Because they got the stuff from Julian Assange about our killing Reuters reporters and shooting up supposedly innocent civilians in Iraq and all this stuff, the tapes… You know, that really hurt us a lot, you know, showed us to be what- war criminals or something.
Now, now they couldn’t run that material now, because Julian Assange pled guilty to that. So we could go after them, right? I could go after the New York Times if they print embarrassing material?
McGovern: Well, Mr. President, as you know, the New York Times pretty much publishes everything that your administration and your State Department and your Defense Department give them.
The question is, how do citizens profit from this? If citizens can’t know what’s going on, if publishers are inhibited from laying things out because they got it in a surreptitious way, that’s a blow against freedom of the press, at least that’s where we’re coming from. So whether the New York Times trims its sales or not, it’s already very much trimming its sales to administrations.
POTUS: Okay but, Ray, Ray, Ray, I know you’ve been doing this a long time, right? What, 27 years or something? Let’s cut to the chase here. If- We are the ones who classify material, right?
McGovern: That’s right.
POTUS: I know- I know Trump is making this argument about those papers he’s got there in, his Florida place, you know, that he had the right to declassify him because as president he classified him, okay.
But there’s some truth to that. We… the government, classify this stuff, you know, and we classify stuff that, yeah, is embarrassing to us. We don’t want it out there. Bad actors who get a hold of it, use it against us, and so forth. So I was told that if I go for this deal of cutting this guy loose – this, this guy who made life miserable for everybody – you know, that, that then would send a message to the media that they could be acted against.
Right? That, that was the whole argument. That’s why we kept this guy locked up for all this time.
McGovern: That’s exactly right. Mr. President. The idea was to make an example of Julian Assange. This is what happens to people who publish information, however true, having to do with secret operations by the United States or by anybody else.
Now, you can do that, but, you know, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, and there’s a First Amendment. So, for me, viscerally, I say, well, no, you can’t do that to publishers or writers or newspapers. So, this has been a limited exception here, whether his lawyers are right in saying this doesn’t prejudice things for everyone to come, that’s a matter for lawyers to decide.
For me, and I think this is a good thing, he’s free, he’s no longer being held up as an example to what happens to people who do this kind of thing.
POTUS: But he is an example. We had him cornered there in the Ecuadorian embassy and then, in that what’s supposed to be the worst prison there in England. That’s what, 12 years out of this guy’s life.
They were saying we’re driving him crazy. You know, basically solitary confinement and stuff like that. That’s the only reason I went along with this deal. Cause I don’t want, you know, I’m having enough trouble keeping some of these Democrats, these younger people and everything. I’m getting attacked all over.
I don’t want to be, you know, I got to show them a little more enlightened than Trump. But I was told this is going to send a message that you can’t print this material that’s embarrassing to the United States government because we have a right to have our secrets and some of those secrets is we do stuff that other people don’t like, but we have to do it.
And who are you giving me these lectures about the first amendment and all that stuff? You want me to open up the CIA and show all the stuff you guys how many governments have you overthrown? How many innocent people have you killed? Well, you want that to come out there? For your buddies over there? Who are you talking for, you?
Or are you talking for them, your colleagues? They killed a lot of people.
McGovern: I was just talking for myself, Mr President, when I mentioned that I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So, the Assange adventure is over, hopefully. And we’ll just have to see how the lawyers interpret what Julian pled guilty to. And, you know, it’s a- it’s a stroke for humanity, I would say, not to keep making an example of him after all these years in one prison or one….
POTUS: All right. All right, Ray. Let me cut to the chase here. Let’s say there is a helicopter or something over there, wherever we are now, who knows where we’ll be, okay? Maybe in Lebanon or over Syria or something. And they- they killed some civilians. They didn’t know. They thought they were terrorists. They thought they were bad actors.
That happens, happening in Gaza now every day. Some of that stuff we know about. Our planes are there. Maybe one of our choppers will get involved somewhere, okay? And somebody, you know, Bradley Manning, Chelsea Manning, they get that information and they give it to the New York Times. And they have those pictures and show that.
Can we go after that government leaker who gave it to the New York Times? And can we go after the New York Times, which is in the position Julian Assange was? He claimed, you know, he’s a publisher. Can the New York Times print that video?
McGovern: Well, Mr. President, I happen to know that one of the Washington Post journalists was with that same unit. And saw that same tape of the killing of 12 Iraqis, including two Reuters journalists, and the blowing up of that, of that car, containing, two children.
He kept quiet. His name is Finkel and he rose to a great position in the Washington Post. Julian Assange decided that once he was given that information, he would make it public. It was not so much classified. As a matter of fact, it was not classified. It was military intelligence- military footage that was given to him, apparently by Chelsea Manning.
Now, in my view… It used to be, at least, that when a person was given this kind of information, he not only had a right, but a responsibility to make it public so the American people could know what was really going on. That was during the, so called, surge invented by David Petraeus and Bobby Gates, okay?
Early 2007, when 20,000 to 30,000 U. S. troops surged into Baghdad. Casualties, 1,000 U. S. troops, which is a quarter of how many U. S. troops perished in that war, and gains, zero. So if the American people need to know these things, people like- like Chelsea Manning, as a matter of conscience, try to get it out there to say, “Hey, this is what’s really going on. This is what the surge is like, okay? Going into Shia territory or getting killed.”
So. Yeah, so I guess you and I come- come about this a little differently… But seems to me that next time this happens, I would hope that the kind of plea deal, that has just been announced, will not act as an inhibitor on a enterprising reporter from reporting it so that the rest of the Americans can know what’s going on.
POTUS: Yeah. Well, what about that? I forgot about that guy. The Washington Post guy.
McGovern: Yeah. David Finkel’s his name.
POTUS: And he had the tape?
McGovern: Yeah! We wrote a book about this wonderful, wonderful unit that he was embedded in. It was, I won’t use any adjectives, Mr. President, but… he had a duty to report the same thing. He played- played safe and did not. And it rose to…
POTUS: Wait a minute, he- you say he saw the killing of…
McGovern: We know he did!
POTUS: …those reporters and those people and those kids, yeah?
McGovern: Yep.
POTUS: So what, should I give him the Medal of Freedom?
McGovern: Well, uh, that’s your decision, Mr. President.
POTUS: That means protecting our security, sometimes we have to kill, right? Children and reporters and so forth, you know that.
McGovern: I don’t think so, Mr. President
POTUS: No, could be too honest to give him the Medal of Freedom, huh?
McGovern: Well, these Apache helicopter shooters…
POTUS: Well, if Julian Assange is a traitor, and he’s… I don’t know, he’s not American… But he’s been committing espionage, or betraying our Espionage Act… he’s the bad guy. So then that reporter from the Washington Post, who saw the killing of those people but knew it was an honest mistake, right? He didn’t report it.
So, he’s the true patriot, right? He lied to protect the American people from information that would have made them uncomfortable.
McGovern: Mr. President, if you review that tape, you’ll see that it was not illicit operation. Those- those guys were just really out to kill a bunch of people.
And the camera that they interpreted as a rifle looked nothing at all like a rifle. And the people that were picking up that almost dead man to take him to safety, that van that was shot up, that was, there was no military necessity for that. And the very conversation of those Apache helicopter shooters and pilots betrayed what happens when you wage that kind of war; when you brutalize not only the enemy, but your own soldiers.
That’s my opinion, Mr. President. Maybe we ought to go on.
POTUS: Well, before we go, the last word. Man to man, okay? I mean, I’ve known you a long time, that’s why I still put up with you. You know, but really, it’s just two human beings. Who’s the- who’s the villain and who’s the hero here? The guy from the Washington post who saw these civilians being killed.
You say he saw it actually in real time?
McGovern: He saw the tape.
POTUS: So he saw the tape…
McGovern: Not in real time but he saw the tape.
POTUS: Okay. And then he didn’t use it cause he wanted to protect his government, our government. Or Julian Assange, who’s not even an American, but he wanted to expose us. Who’s the real hero here? The Washington Post guy or Julian Assange?
McGovern: Well, that’s a matter of opinion, Mr. President. I certainly…
POTUS: Or Bradley Manning, Chelsea Manning, who revealed that tape.
McGovern: Yeah, there was nothing in it for Bradley Manning or Chelsea Manning. Other than a matter of conscience, and the same with Julian Assange, who had created this very sophisticated way to get this information up and out.
They wanted to show what was going on. David Finkel wanted to hide what was going on. Moral of the story, Julian Assange spends 14, 15 years in prison. David Finkel gets promoted by the Washington Post.
POTUS: Let me ask you, Ray, you were in, what military branch were you in before you were in the CIA?
McGovern: I’m sorry?
POTUS: Before you were in the CIA, you were what, in the Army? Air Force?
McGovern: Army Infantry Intelligence.
POTUS: Right. So at a time back there in the 60s, when other people like you in college at Fordham University, they were protesting against Vietnam War and everything. You joined the military, right?
McGovern: I did. I was an ROTC.
I joined it in 1958, so before, before Vietnam even started. I was commissioned in 61, again, before Vietnam started.
POTUS: Okay, but you stayed with it, you stayed with the military, and then you went to the CIA.
McGovern: Correct.
POTUS: Yeah. And, and you must… So what’s happened to you because you must have believed- You, you know bad stuff happens in war, but you- you cover it up, you know. Of course it’s gonna hurt the good guys, your government, your people, right?
You gotta lie. When, when did you learn something else that you’re not supposed to lie? If the CIA stops lying, we’re going to be in a whole lot of trouble here. They start revealing everything.
McGovern: Mr. President, think of My Lai in Vietnam when Sy Hirsch exposed that. I think that was necessary to have that exposed.
Think of Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Sy Hirsch exposed that as well. Our country sponsoring and participating in torture. And Obama saying, “Oh, yeah we tortured some folks.” Those things need to be exposed in my view, and that’s why we have a First Amendment. I just hope that the First Amendment hasn’t been damaged beyond repair by this plea bargain made by Julian Assange.
POTUS: Yeah, well, you can’t blame him, though. We would have had him for, how long were we trying to charge him? 100 years or something?
McGovern: Well, yeah, 135 years or something like that.
POTUS: That’s what we threatened Ellsberg with. Well, we never got that guy.
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Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27 years as a C.I.A. analyst included leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and conducting the morning briefings of the President’s Daily Brief. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer, publisher of ScheerPost and award-winning journalist and author of a dozen books, has a reputation for strong social and political writing over his nearly 60 years as a journalist. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications nationwide—he was Vietnam correspondent and editor of Ramparts magazine, national correspondent and columnist for the Los Angeles Times—and his in-depth interviews with Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and others made headlines. He co-hosted KCRW’s political program Left, Right and Center and now hosts Scheer Intelligence, an independent ScheerPost podcast with people who discuss the day’s most important issues.