Nat Hentoff: National Security versus Press Freedom

Hentoff gave a talk on the interplay of national security and the press freedoms guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.

Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media, who writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal.

Hentoff has formerly worked as a columnist for Down Beat, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher, and Free Inquiry. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker, and his writing has also been published in The New York Times, Jewish World Review, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Commonweal and in the Italian Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo.

Nat Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media, who writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal.

In this video from a Free Press Association awards banquet in 1986, Hentoff gave a talk on the interplay of national security and the press freedoms guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. He stressed the importance of protecting leakers and whistleblowers within government, citing the Samuel Loring Morison case and self-​censorship of the press when they discovered the CIA-​affiliation and true purpose of the Glomar Explorer drillship.