United States: the day a 13-year-old girl brought a folder with state secrets to school

Seeing the incredible episodes that are taking place in the United States these days around the discovery of secret documents in the possession of Donald Trump, as well as Joe Biden, one might be tempted to think that This is an unprecedented incident in the history of the country..

However, nothing could be further from the truth, and it is enough to dig a little to discover that the rulers who have released confidential documents are many more than one might imagine.

One of the best-known incidents of this kind occurred one winter morning in 1984 at a Pittsburgh elementary school, when a briefcase full of confidential government documents they appeared to be in the hands of someone who certainly did not have the authority to own them.

It was Kristin Preble, 13. She brought newspapers to school as a curious project that she wanted to show her eighth grade class. their father he had found in his hotel room from Cleveland several years earlier and had brought them home as souvenirs.

The long road to a portfolio with state secrets

The documents, which belonged to Jimmy Carter’s government, came into the hands of the young woman through a path certainly wavy.

Two days after the 1980 debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, businessman Alan Preble found the documents in his Cleveland hotel room. Apparently, they got there because of an oversight by the press officer deCarter, Jody Powell.

Preble took them to his home in Franklin Park, where he stayed for more than three years Like an unappreciated memory.

“We’d had a look at them, but we didn’t think they were important,” Carol Preble, Kristin’s mother, said at the time, seemingly unimpressed by the signs that she was classified material. Kristin, however, “thought they would be very interesting” for her social studies class.

“I thought they’d be great too,” Preble completed.

On January 19, 1984, the girl went to Ingomar High School with a locked briefcase.

To Professor Jim DeLisio his eyes popped out when he saw the warnings in the documents inside. Between them, Classified, Confidential, ExecutiveY US Government property.

“I really didn’t want to watch it,” she said later. “I was too… scared. I didn’t want to know.”

Curiosity got the better of him. That night, he said, his wife and daughter pored over the documents, which contained “everything you want to know from A to Z” about US and world events. One folder was marked with “Iran”. Libya was also in the fray.

The next day, unable to reach Kristin’s family by phone, DeLisio called the FBI, who quickly recovered the documents.

A Justice Department official you spoke to Associated press on condition of anonymity said the package of documents it was 10 centimeters tall.

Despite returning the secrets to their proper place, DeLisio was reprimanded by school officials for calling authorities before reaching out or reaching the Preble family.

The discovery fueled a larger investigation by a Democrat-led congressional committee into another set of classified Carter administration documents obtained by the Reagan campaign prior to the Reagan presidential debate. an episode known as discussion.

Both the eighth grade incident and the discussion involved the misuse of confidential documents that Democratic President Jimmy Carter used to prepare a discussion with his Republican rival Ronald Reagan in Cleveland on October 28, 1980.

In the latter case, the Reagan campaign obtained — some said it stole — Carter’s briefing materials for the debate.

Reagan’s Justice Department rejected the committee’s requests to appoint a special counsel on the matter. A judicial process to force that appointment failed and no criminal proceedings were initiated. The discussion The concern about the rulers’ handling of confidential documents has faded, but not.

As for Kristin, she got an A in history and an 8 in her school project.

Source: AP