David Satter on Chelsea Manning

Dear Sir John, Elizabeth, Ramona and trustees,

I am writing in regard to the invitation to Chelsea Manning to speak at Rhodes House. Inviting a person who violated the Espionage Act and her own vows of secrecy threatens to discredit the Rhodes Scholarship completely. 

The U.S. and the U.K. are democratic countries facing authoritarian and terrorist enemies. The leaking of secret information may be overlooked in some circles if it provides gist for internal debates. This, however, is not what is important about these leaks and why they are barred by law. What matters is that they provide information to our enemies and help them to counter our defenses and neutralize our allies. The latter often means murdering them.  

In 2006, a tip prevented the bombings of ten passenger planes over the Atlantic with liquid explosives concealed in soft drink bottles. In 1962, information provided by Colonel Oleg Penkovsky of Soviet military intelligence at the height of the Cuban missile crisis helped prevent a nuclear war.

Unstable self-aggrandizers like Manning are so dangerous because they dissuade people within terrorist groups or criminal regimes from taking the chilling risk of cooperating with the West for fear that they will be irresponsibly exposed. I saw how people weighed these risks during six years as a correspondent in the Soviet Union and three decades thereafter writing about post-Soviet Russia. 

Manning is described by Rhodes House as a "technologist and former U.S. intelligence analyst" with no mention of her crimes. This is consistent with the evasiveness and reliance on euphemism which is now typical of Rhodes House communications. It's worth recalling that Rhodes Scholars were once expected to be articulate. 

There are many issues concerning the Rhodes Scholarship but, in this case, what we are discussing is honorable behavior as such. Please rescind the invitation to Manning immediately.

Sincerely,

David Satter