FBI wants columnist's reporting materials

WASHINGTON — Jack Anderson turned up plenty of government secrets during his half-century career as an investigative reporter, and his family hoped to make his papers available to the public after his death last December — but the government wants to see and possibly confiscate them first.

The FBI says the columnist's files may contain national-security secrets, including documents that would aid in the prosecution of two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who have been charged with disclosing classified information.

FBI agents contacted the columnist's widow about a month after his death seeking access to his reporting materials, said the columnist's son, Kevin. Agents subsequently contacted Mark Feldstein, an Anderson biographer and George Washington University professor who is helping to arrange the transfer of 188 cartons of materials owned by the family to the university.

"After much discussion and due deliberation, the family has concluded that were Mr. Anderson alive today, he would not cooperate with the government on this matter," the family wrote in a letter to the FBI. "Instead, he would resist the government's efforts with all the energy he could muster."

The FBI contends that classified documents belong to the government and cannot be retained as part of a private estate. "The U.S. government has reasonable concern over the prospect that these documents will be made available to the public at the risk of national security and in violation of the law," FBI spokesman Bill Carter said Tuesday.

Kevin Anderson said that although some of the documents may be classified, they do not contain national-security secrets, only "embarrassing top secrets — hammers that cost a thousand dollars and things like that."

Anderson said it was unlikely his father had papers relevant to the AIPAC case, because he had done little original reporting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1990.

"We don't think there's anything related to the current investigation there, based on the time frame and Dad's poor health," he said. "They made it clear they want to look at everything and by the way, if we find anything classified, we'll have to remove it. I suspect that's their real intention, to get through these papers before they become public."

The FBI's attempt to seize Anderson's papers comes as civil libertarians have decried limits on freedom of information since the Sept. 11 attacks. It also follows Monday's announcement by the National Archives that it would end accords with federal agencies that want to withdraw records from public shelves.

The case also spotlights press freedoms in the post-Sept. 11 era. Journalists have been questioned and subpoenaed in the investigations of who in the Bush administration leaked a CIA officer's identity and how the media learned of the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program and CIA's secret prisons in Eastern Europe.

Feldstein said he felt "intimidated" after two FBI agents showed up at his house. They asked if he had seen any classified documents or knew about how they could be accessed, and they wanted the names of all of his graduate students who had seen the papers.

"It smacks of a Gestapo state," said Feldstein, who spent 20 years as an investigative reporter and producer for ABC, NBC and CNN.

At its height, Jack Anderson's "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column appeared in nearly 1,000 newspapers with more than 40 million daily readers.