311. Note From the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Eagleburger) to Secretary of State Haig 1
Jon Howe and I met with Fred Ikle on the problem of leaks about weapons deliveries to the British. As a result, DoD will tighten up its procedures by restricting drastically the number of persons with access to the daily list of outstanding and prospective requests.2
It is hard to be sanguine, despite these steps. The number of people involved at one stage or another in processing each request is substantial, especially at the physical handling end. Compartmentalization will reduce the dangers of leaks about the entire flow of material, but not about individual items. And, of course, we cannot exclude that someone from the now-smaller circle with access to the full list has been the chief culprit all along.3
- Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, Files of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., 1981–1982, Lot 82D370, (3) Falklands Crisis 1982. Secret. Haig initialed at the top of the note, indicating that he saw it. A stamped notation also indicates that Haig saw it.↩
- Haig underlined the phrase: “list of outstanding and prospective requests.”↩
- Haig underlined the last two sentences and wrote at the bottom of the page: “Too late to leap said the little frog!”↩
- Eagleburger initialed “LSE” above his typed signature.↩