My topic tonight is a more sober one, of concern to publishers as well as editors. I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some, but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large in the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future, for reducing this threat, or living with it, there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its’ challenge to our survival and to our security, a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity. This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the president. Two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril.

I refer first to the need for far greater public information, and second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people, inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweigh the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it’s in my control, and no official of my administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to sensor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes, or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.