"Lincoln's Surveillance State" Op-Ed NYTimes July 6, 2013

[David Lockmiller]

The Public Editor of the NY Times then forwarded the entire email that I had sent to her on Thursday, July 11. Mr. Sewell Chan, a Deputy Editor of the Op-Ed section of the NY Times responded to me early morning on Friday, July 12 . As shown below, Mr. Chan stated: "I work on the NYT op-ed page and this is the first time I've seen your complaint. We are giving it a thorough review and will respond to you shortly."

I did not hear from Mr. Chan "shortly" and so I sent the following email to him on Tuesday July 13.
___________________________________

Mr. Chan:

I have not heard from you.

This is a matter of journalistic integrity of very high importance in terms of both substance and time for response.

There is no evidence whatsoever that even Washington’s central telegraph office line was rerouted through Stanton’s office to enable him to “keep tabs on vast amounts of communication, journalistic, governmental and personal.” President Abraham Lincoln would have noticed: “Lincoln's habit was to go immediately to the drawer each time he came into our room, and read over the telegrams, beginning at the top, until he came to the one he had seen at his last previous visit.” So, unless Professor Mindich has come up with conclusive evidence that Washington’s central telegraph office line was rerouted to somewhere else in the War Department building, unbeknown to Lincoln, I would suggest that either the NY Times immediately retract “Lincoln's Surveillance State" -- NY Times Op-Ed Published July 6 (Saturday) electronic edition, or, Margaret Sullivan, the NY Times public editor, should report to the NY Times readers of NY Times management’s refusal to do so.

I am working on an analysis of Senate Bill 169 “An Act to authorize the President of the United States in certain Cases to take Possession of Railroad and Telegraph Lines, and for other Purposes,” and will report to you shortly.

But, in the meantime, I will report this much as is written in the “Documentary Source Book of American History, 1606 – 1926,” edited by William MacDonald, The MacMillan Company, page 444:

“In his report of July 1, 1861, the Secretary of War, Cameron, stated that the resistance to the passage of troops through Baltimore, the destruction of bridges on certain railroads, and the refusal of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company to transport government forces and supplies, had made it necessary ‘to take possession of so much of the railway lines as was required to form a connections with the States from which troops and supplies were expected;’ and an appropriation for the construction and operation, when necessary of railroad and telegraph lines (emphasis added) was recommended. Further specific recommendations for construction were made in the annual report of December 1. A bill in accordance with the earlier recommendation was reported to the Senate, January 22, [1862] by Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, from the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, and passed with amendments on the 28th by a vote of 23 to 12. The next day, by a vote of 113 to 28, the bill passed the House, and on the 31st the act was approved. An order taking military possession of all railroads was issued May 25.” References. – Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XII, 334,335. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 37th Congress, 2nd Session, and the Congressional Globe. The debate in the Senate is of most importance. Cameron’s report of 1861 is in the Globe, Appendix.

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller

From: Chan, Sewell [mailto:sewell@nytimes.com]
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2013 9:10 AM
To: davidlincoln@msn.com
Subject: FW: Lincoln's Surveillance State" -- NY Times Op-Ed Published July 6 (Saturday) electronic edition

Mr. Lockmiller:
I work on the NYT op-ed page and this is the first time I've seen your complaint. We are giving it a thorough review and will respond to you shortly.
Best regards,
Sewell Chan

--
Sewell Chan
Deputy Editor
Op-Ed/Sunday Review
The New York Times

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(08-02-2013 11:28 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Excellent suggestion, Liz.

Interestingly enough, I just learned this week that the founder of the NY Times was Henry Jarvis Raymond. Even more interesting is the fact that, together with Francis B. Carpenter, he wrote a book with the world's longest title (that I can't remember). It is a compilation of Lincoln's letters, messages, telegrams, speeches, etc. If interested, I can get you the full title.

Perhaps a little mention that the founder of the NY Times was an expert on Mr. Lincoln and could well have disputed Dr. Mindich's "quote" if he had seen it published in HIS newspaper might help?

The title of Raymond's book is: "The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States; Together With His State Papers, Including His Speeches, Addresses, Messages, Letters, and Proclamations, and the Closing Scenes Connected with His Life and Death." (Derby and Miller, Publishers, 1865)

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On Tuesday, July 16, I also wrote an email to the Public Editor because of an automatic response that I received from Mr. Chan to my email of the same day (see below)
____________________________________

Dear Margaret Sullivan,

It looks like you and I will have to wait for quite a bit of time before Mr. Sewell Chan will respond to the subject matter (see subject line of this email) that you forwarded to him. See below Mr. Chan’s automatic response to my follow-up email today.

You forwarded to him the email that I had originally sent to you last Thursday.

Mr. Chan’s response to me on the subject last Friday was:

Mr. Lockmiller:
I work on the NYT op-ed page and this is the first time I've seen your complaint. We are giving it a thorough review and will respond to you shortly.
Best regards,
Sewell Chan

Do you have any suggestions as to what to do at this point?

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller

From: Chan, Sewell [mailto:sewell@nytimes.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 8:19 AM
To: David Lockmiller
Subject: Out of Office: Lincoln's Surveillance State" -- NY Times Op-Ed Published July 6 (Saturday) electronic edition

I will be working on a project in Paris from July 14-20 and checking e-mail less frequently than usual.

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Later, that same day, Tuesday, July 16, I received a reply from Mr. Chan as shown below. I responded to his reply with the three words shown immediately below.
________________________________


I disagree completely.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chan, Sewell [mailto:sewell@nytimes.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 11:31 AM
To: davidlincoln@msn.com
Subject: FW: Lincoln's Surveillance State" -- NY Times Op-Ed Published July 6 (Saturday) electronic edition

Dear Mr. Lockmiller:

Please pardon my delay in responding. I'm out of the office for a work assignment but I have not forgotten your concern.

The sentence in question reads: "In 1862, after President Lincoln appointed him secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines."

The claim that Stanton requested "sweeping powers" is supported by the letter from Stanton requesting the authority to make unnamed changes "in the Bureau of Ordnance, and perhaps some others." Lincoln granted this request.

The claim that those powers "would include" control of the telegraph is supported by the fact that, a month later, Stanton wrote an executive order, approved by Lincoln, taking control of the telegraph.
(For the executive order, see here: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=69797)

We recognize that it was a two-step process by which the powers were requested. I also have immense respect for President Lincoln -- he is my favorite president -- and appreciate your enthusiasm for defending his reputation, but we carefully checked this essay and stand by its accuracy.

Thank you.

Sewell Chan

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Dear Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor of the NY Times,

As the Public Editor for the NY Times, the ball is in your court once again on the issue of the NY Times retracting Professor Mindich’s Op-Ed “Lincoln’s Surveillance State” (July 6, 2013). Mr. Sewell Chan and I have reached an impasse. On Tuesday, July 16, 2013, Mr. Chan ended his email to me with these words: “[W]e carefully checked this essay and stand by its accuracy.” I disagree completely. The issue is a matter of journalistic integrity for the NY Times and, therefore, falls within your jurisdiction.

Later, the same day, Mr. Chan sent another email with the suggestion I write and submit a letter to the editor arguing that “Mindich's reading of history is totally wrong and an unfair besmirchment of Lincoln's reputation.” But he followed this suggestion with an admonishment that I should “just focus on the interpretive differences [I] have with this scholar instead of using words like hoax.”

For the additional reasons stated below, I believe now even more so that the Op-Ed was a hoax (i.e., a mischievous trick by means of a made-up story) and that the NY Times should retract the Op-Ed for that reason. In my first email to you on Thursday, July 11, I concluded with these words: “Anyone genuinely interested in maintaining the integrity of the reputation of Abraham Lincoln should be outraged by the Op-Ed piece written by Professor Mindich, “Lincoln's Surveillance State,” and published by the NY Times on Saturday, July 6, 2013.”

The following NY Times quote was also contained in my email to you.
“Before something appears in our pages, you can bet that questions have been asked, arguments have been clarified, cuts have been suggested - as have additions - and factual, typographical and grammatical errors have been caught. (We hope.)” (Quote from the NY Times David Shipley’s “Op-Ed” submission article to the NY Times, published on February 1, 2004, and accessed from the current NY Times Op-Ed submission instructions page)

You appropriately forwarded my email to Mr. Sewell Chan, Assistant Editor for the Op-Ed section of the NY Times, to obtain his considered response on the issues raised by me and the supporting documentary evidence that I provided. I presume that you wanted from him assurances in some form that the NY Times vetting process for publication of Professor Mindich’s Op-Ed proposal had been followed.

Prior to sending my first email to you, I sent two emails to the Executive Editor of the NY Times on Sunday, July 7 (the day following the publishing of the Op-Ed) and on the following day. (Copies of both emails were contained in the body of the email that I sent to you. Therefore, Mr. Chan had the advantage of considering the arguments and supporting evidence presented in these two emails, as well.) I never received a response from the Executive Editor to either email.

I began my July 7 email to the Executive Editor with pertinent quotes from the NY Times published Op-Ed:

“The N.S.A.'s data-mining has a historical precedent in the federal government's monitoring of the telegraphs in 1862.”

The highlights of the Op-Ed piece are as follows:

“Many commentators have deemed the government’s activities alarming and unprecedented. The N.S.A.’s program is indeed alarming – but not, from a historical perspective, unprecedented.”

"In 1862, after President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of war, Edwin Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines. By rerouting those lines through his office, Stanton would keep tabs on vast amounts of communication, journalistic, governmental and personal. On the back of Stanton's letter Lincoln scribbled his approval: 'The Secretary of War has my authority to exercise his discretion in the matter within mentioned.'"

I followed these article quotes with a logical statement of my own:

“I think that this is some sort of bizarre hoax. In the first place, to think that it was technologically possible to “reroute” at that time all the telegraph lines in the United States through to the office of Secretary of War Stanton is an absolute ABSURDITY.”

At the time (Sunday, July 7), I did not think any evidentiary support would be necessary to demonstrate the veracity of this conclusion. Now, I present the requisite evidentiary support and accompanying argument.

According to “The Library of Congress – Civil War Desk Reference” (Wagner, Gallagher, and Finkelman, Editors, Simon & Schuster, publisher), the following is factual information regarding the Railways and Telegraph Act itself:

“[U]nder the Railways and Telegraph Act, passed January 31, 1862, the president was given authority to impress any telegraph or railroad and all equipage, make regulations for the maintenance and security of these lines, and subject all railroad and telegraph officers and employees to military authority.” p. 350

“The Civil War was the first conflict in which the electric telegraph played a major role. Private telegraph companies had been operating in the United States since the 1840s. When the war began, more than 50,000 miles of wire were in place, there were more than 1,400 stations, and nearly 10,000 people were at work as telegraph operators and clerks. A transcontinental line was completed in the fall of 1861. As with existing railroad mileage, the preponderance of existing telegraph service was in the North; only some 10 percent was located in the Confederate States. During the war, the Union constructed and then operated 15,000 miles of new telegraph lines [for the military operations, mostly], compared with about 1,000 constructed by the Confederates. Both sides, however, used the telegraph to great advantage during the war.” p. 353

“[I]n October, 1861, the Union established the U.S. Military Telegraph Service and placed Stager in charge. Though it was attached to the Quartermaster’s Department, the Telegraph Service was, in fact, a civilian bureau, and its operators were all civilians throughout the war (though their supervisors were granted commissions). These operators included a number of women (telegraphy being one of the first technical professions open to females), at least three of whom were cited in various publications for conducting themselves heroically under trying circumstances.” p. 354

Professor Mindich’s Op-Ed states in his Op-Ed: “Edwin Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines. By rerouting those lines through his office, Stanton would keep tabs on vast amounts of communication, journalistic, governmental and personal.”

Such a feat of accomplishment most certainly would encompass “vast amounts of communication.” Assuming for the moment, for the sake of argument, that Stanton was able to have the 45,000 miles of commercial telegraph lines throughout the North physically “rerouted” through to his office, there are still a number of almost insurmountable problems with this new “Lincoln surveillance program” allegedly implemented by Stanton that have to be considered. An army of telegraph operators, numbering in the thousands, would have been necessary to write down the tens of thousands of messages sent each day over these 45,000 miles of Union commercial telegraph lines. Since there were no computers at that time in which to enter all of this information into huge databases, all these thousands of messages would necessarily have to be written down on paper. Then, supposedly, Stanton would read each message each day in order to “keep tabs on vast amounts of communication, journalistic, governmental and personal” (as Professor Mindich in his Op-Ed so quaintly described this surveillance task of Secretary of War Stanton). Poor Stanton! He probably regretted the fact that he did not have database software to do keyword searches as the NSA does now.

Now, let’s return to the question of how the 45,000 miles of commercial telegraph lines throughout the North were physically “rerouted” through to Stanton’s office to accomplish Stanton’s goal of “total control of the telegraph lines.” I don’t have an answer as to how this was possible. Perhaps Professor Mindich has the answer to this question and has divulged already this information to Mr. Sewell Chan.

I was doing a Google search recently on the term “Lincoln’s Surveillance State” and I was able locate a live interview conducted on Thursday, July 11, 2013 by Vermont Public Radio with Professor Mindich on this very subject. The hyperlink to this 8 minute interview is http://digital.vpr.net/post/surveillance-lincolns-time.

Surprisingly, the very first question asked of Professor Mindich by the Vermont Public Radio interviewer, Jane Lindholm, was this: “Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, was monitoring all telegraph communications during the Civil War throughout the country. Can you explain how this program worked?”

In response to the interviewer’s question, Professor Mindich began with a 30 second reference to the actual “rerouting of telegraph lines” from General McClellan’s office to the War Department offices. This was the only statement he made in his answer regarding the “rerouting” of telegraph lines.

In my last communication from Mr. Chan on Tuesday, July 16, he wrote:
“Mr. Lockmiller, email is a terrible way to communicate. I wish we could talk by phone but I'm in Paris. If you want to write a letter to the editor saying that Mindich's reading of history is totally wrong and an unfair besmirchment of Lincoln's reputation, I will absolutely forward it to our letters editor - we welcome alternate views. But please just focus on the interpretive differences you have with this scholar instead of using words like hoax. This guy's just an academic with one reading of one episode in history. Doubtless there are other compelling interpretations. Why do these emails sound as if you're shouting? Harold Holzer is a longstanding friend of mine. I love Lincoln. We fact-check these essays really carefully. (Emphasis added) And our Civil War series, Disunion, has received acclaim from historians and popular writers alike. For goodness' sake, just please write a letter. If you send it to me I will make to flag the attention of the relevant editors.”

I wrote at the end of my email to the Executive Editor of the NY Times on the day following publication of the Op-Ed “Lincoln's Surveillance State” on Saturday, July 6:

“[T]he NY Times should retract this Op-Ed on page one of the NY Times as soon as possible with a complete explanation as to how the NY Times was so easily bamboozled into providing to its millions of dedicated and trusting readers a false representation of “Lincoln” history as a “precedent” to justify the National Security Agency’s data-mining programs in the United States and the rest of the world. . . . Lincoln’s alleged authorization of governmental intrusion into the affairs of ordinary citizens and journalists in time of war by “wire-tapping” all telegrams every day within the United States is a hoax (i.e., a mischievous trick by means of a made-up story) and it should be clearly recognized as such in the NY Times in a page one story.”

My opinion has not changed regarding what I feel is the duty of the NY Times in this matter.

The issue is a matter of journalistic integrity for the NY Times and, therefore, falls within your jurisdiction.

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller