I told every newspaper in this city the same thing and asked all of them to keep that information off the record.

Cranston gave me the information off the record.

I believe this because I knew enough KGB agents during my time and got enough bits and pieces of information off the record to give me a picture of the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s that's very different from what you'd read on the front page of the New York Times.