overall position in the world--on its political and economic strength as well as its military power, its diplomacy and foreign trade, its alliances and associations, and on the character and quality of its internal life. Security depends in addition on the general state of international relations, upon whether or not a nation has powerful enemies, and upon the character and policies of its enemies. Security, in short, is not merely a military and technological commodity, but a combination of many elements, all of which must be taken into account in the shaping of national policy (Fulbright, 1964, pp. 48-49).
Writing in 1973, during the Cold War, Klempner notes the widening definition of national security and increase in classified documents, as well as the increasing tendency of federal employees to restrict access to unclassified documents, lamenting implications for the dissemination of reliable government information. In a memoir of the same period, Kissinger justifies American covert operations (e.g., against Allende in Chile) based on an analysi
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