WASHINGTON — Jack Anderson turned up plenty of government secrets during his half-century career as an investigative reporter, and his family had hoped to make his papers available to the public after his death in December -- but the government wants to see, and possibly confiscate, them first.
The FBI believes that 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. They have been charged with disclosing classified information, and the bureau asked the family to turn over the documents.
On Tuesday, the family's lawyer, Michael Sullivan, sent a letter to the FBI refusing the bureau's request.
"The family has concluded that were Mr. Anderson alive today, he would not cooperate with the government on this matter.... To honor both his memory and his wishes, the family feels duty bound to do no less," the letter said.
The columnist's son, Kevin N. Anderson, put it more succinctly: "He would absolutely oppose the FBI rifling through his papers at will."
Though some of the documents may be classified, he said, 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 that his father had papers relevant to the AIPAC case, given that he had done little original reporting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1990.
The FBI contends that, because it believes the documents contain classified material, they 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.
Anderson said he was told by the FBI that the agency would remove anything that was classified from the papers, which have not been cataloged. Confiscated documents then would be reviewed by the originating federal agency before being declassified and returned to the family, which has promised the papers to George Washington University.
The FBI's attempt to seize papers of the Washington muckraker, first reported Tuesday by the Chronicle of Higher Education, comes as civil libertarians have decried expanded limits on freedom of information since the Sept. 11 attacks. It also follows Monday's announcement by the National Archives that it would end agreements with federal agencies that want to withdraw records from public shelves.
