Good piece in Foreign Affairs about the long history of news leaks. The author would like to see less of them:

Some leaks are meant to be a straightforward pitch for or against a public policy. Leakers often pass along closely held documents, like that “confidential” McChrystal assessment of troop needs for Afghanistan, which found its way into Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s eager hands. Other leaks are meant to settle grudges. But most simply satisfy the leaker’s sense of self-importance. Washington is full of people who love to pass along a good tale.

Yet annoying as they may be, it is rarely worth the effort to plug the leaks. Reagan learned that the hard way after the leaks in his administration turned into a flood. “Reagan Ordered Sweeping FBI Probe of Staff for Source of Leak,” the Washington Post’s front page read on Nov. 23, 1983. But just a few weeks later on Dec. 13, the Post reported, “Justice Probe Fails to Disclose Source of Leak.” What went wrong? Turns out, many presidents are more leaked for than about. The latter piece quotes a White House official noting, “there is no evidence that reporters were told anything we didn’t want them to know.”

Some go as far as to say that leaks are beneficial. Political scientist Richard Neustadt, an advisor to John F. Kennedy’s and Lyndon B. Johnson’s administrations, elevated leaks to “a vital role in the functioning of our democracy.” After all, aren’t these “informal communications” through the media a faster, more nuanced way for the secretary of state to let the secretary of defense know what’s really bugging her? It’s certainly simpler than negotiating through the bureaucracy.

I’d love to buy this, but I can’t. My own case studies show leaks to be too episodic and subject to multiple interpretations to be a useful way of communicating from one agency or individual to another. Still, we do learn things that we might not have otherwise known (and there are times when what we imagine are leaks are merely clever reporters carefully putting the various pieces of a story together).

The good news for presidents is that there is little evidence that leaks have endangered U.S. national security. Mostly, they cause embarrassment. Even Kissinger, not a man to shrug off embarrassment, ultimately concluded, “Most of the leaks — if you are philosophical about it — go away. I mean, they’re unpleasant, but so what? If you ignore them, most of them are not of that huge significance.” Obama must surely hope as much.