Novel Way to Keep Information Secret

The Defense Department is taking an interesting approach to trying to stop the dissemination of a former intelligence officer's memoir on the war in Afghanistan that it says reveals classified information: It is seeking to buy and destroy the first 10,000 printed copies of the book.

The New York Times reports that the book, Operation Dark Heart, by Anthony A. Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, initially passed Army review. Later, though, officials at DIA and other intelligence agencies reviewed the manuscript and said they found more than 200 passages that could contain classified information.

The problem is that by then, review copies of the book had already been sent out to several dozen people, and others were on their way to online booksellers.

Now lawyers for Shaffer and his publisher are nearing an agreement with the Pentagon to redact information deemed secret in future editions of the book. And the two sides are still discussing whether the military will buy up the remaining copies of the first edition of the memoir, which are currently stored in a Virginia warehouse.