Buckley's Prank

TOP SECRET blared the red cover slash on last week's issue of William F. Buckley's right-wing National Review. Below, in bold black letters: THE SECRET PAPERS THEY DIDN'T PUBLISH. Inside, spread over 14 pages, were memorandums "not published by the New York Times and the Washington Post, leaked to National Review." The memos were signed by, among others, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Admiral Arthur Radford, onetime chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They recommended draconian measures. One memo suggested a "demonstration drop" of a "nuclear device" over North Viet Nam, to be followed by "the use of nuclear bombs and devices where militarily suitable," if Hanoi did not respond and make peace. Another called for "employing atomic weapons whenever advantageous."

Scenting a sequel to the Pentagon papers, wire services, newspapers and networks gave the memos wide publicity. Associated Press and United Press International moved major stories on the Review's disclosures. The Washington Post front-paged them; Voice of America broadcast them round the world, and they received prominent play in the daily news summary prepared for President Nixon. The New York Times was more cautious, but quoted Rusk to the effect that, although he could not remember exactly, it was "entirely possible" that he had written a memo attributed to him. In Washington, officials started searching old files for the documents.

With Ellsberg. Editor Buckley managed to be out of town when the story broke, leaving word that he was "hiding out where Daniel Ellsberg is." But he quickly returned to New York City with a smirk and a prepared statement that the National Review's papers had been "composed ex nihilo" (out of nothing). In short, it was all a hoax, which had "sprung full-blown in my mind like Venus from the Cypriot seas." The authors' "most arduous challenge was to emulate bureaucratic prose."

What was the point of it all? Buckley explained that he had meant to show that "forged documents would be widely accepted as genuine, provided their content was inherently plausible." Indeed, some of them contained excerpts from the real Pentagon papers as published in the Times The phony memos jibed with Buckley's basic beliefs on Viet Nam: that the U.S. would have had to hit harder and faster to win, and that the nation would not stand a long war. He admitted that he had "proceeded in something of an ethical vacuum," adding, "The New York

Times has instructed us that it is permissible to traffic in stolen documents, but they have not yet instructed us on whether it is permissible to traffic in forged documents."

None of these remarks furnished any sensible explanation of what Buckley was trying to prove. The National Review, with a 111,425 circulation and chronically losing money, has long been useful as a generally urbane and articulate exponent of conservative views, a field in which it has all too little competition. But its reputation will hardly be enhanced by last week's strange exercise, which in the end looked like little more than an elaborate schoolboy prank.

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