Twice in 1973, The Washington Post was taken to court by citizens seeking to abridge, massively perhaps, the most fundamental weapon of a free press: the right of a newspaper to keep its sources confidential. If governments or citizens can force newspapers to reveal the sources of their information, the free flow of reporting that Lippmann described as essential to freedom of the press will be seriously impaired. A news source who can be identified can all too easily be "fired or discredited," in the immortal words of White House aide Patrick Buchanan. The ultimate loser is neither the newspaper nor the source, but the public. Information withheld is knowledge limited, and a public with limited knowledge is like a fireman with a limited water supply.

In March of 1973, reporters and managing editorial personnel from The Washington Post and three other major news organizations were subpoenaed by the Committee for the Reelection of the President. The subpoenas demanded production of all documents, papers, letters, photographs, tapes, manuscripts, notes, drafts, copies and final drafts of stories about the Watergate. Freed of legalese, they wanted to know who was talking to The Post.

In October of 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew asked for virtually the same material from reporters from The Washington Post and other news organizations. He wanted to know who in government was fingering him, so he could deal with them personally or have the President "summarily" fire them.

Both efforts to subpoena Post reporters failed, but not before major expenditures of energy and money. District Court Judge Charles Richey held that the First Amendment protected reporters against even having to appear at depositions in this civil action. And the Agnew subpoenas fell with the vice president. But the fight for freedom of the press is often exhausting and always expensive. The Washington Post spent close to $100,000 in legal fees to fight these subpoenas and a dozen lesser attempts to force Post reporters to divulge their sources. (Pursuit of the First Amendment freedom in the Pentagon Papers case two years earlier cost some $85,000.) This kind of expense is not easy for many newspapers to bear.

The point to be made is neither exhaustion nor expense. The point to be made is that there is a fight, the battle is joined between those who would abridge the freedom of the press and those whose commitment to excellence finds this abridgement intolerable. During the last three years alone, prior restraint has been seriously and successfully used against the press; a carefully orchestrated and well-financed plan to corrupt the free flow of information between the press and the public has been conceived and implemented; major efforts to force journalists to reveal their sources have been prosecuted; and journalists have gone to jail in defense of this vital freedom.

This dark dossier of threats against the First Amendment by which a newspaper lives and the republic survives is the most significant trend I can find in journalism today.

BEN BRADLEE is executive editor of The Washington Post. These remarks are excerpts from a speech he delivered at the Crimson Press Inaugural Dinner in March.