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Mondav. September 24,1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Roll 'em, Boss
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."
In the Sixties, when that expression was picked up from the movie, "Cool Hand Luke," it was often used humorously.
In Lawrence, Kan., 1973, whether in a Saturday night TV revival of the same movie or on an editorial cover, the expression is unlikely to amuse.
As with eggs and so many other commodities, we have come to realize the high prices that result from excesses, including words in print.
That's what this page today is all about.
For some, I suspect that the intimidatingly-lengthy analysis at right will be lazily tagged "excessive."
I also rather suspect that these are the same people who care little about understanding such things as whether you press or much elicit consequence.
Then there are others who, for
countless reasons, will miss the
thoughtful humor and substantial argument contained in the letter below.
First, as the writer says, "You can't judge by looks."
For those who do choose to read it, I would amend several thoughts.
C. C. Caldwell
Secondly, one who writes with a tongue in both cheeks may leave himself open to questions regarding his own credibility.
Bursting jowls alone (or abundant hearsay and circumstantial evidence) thankfully do not constitute sufficient proof of a forked tongue to burn Richard Nixon or anyone else in this country.
Now let's hear those tapes, Mr. President.
Thirdly, to writer Stephen Miller as a fellow citizen, thanks for the time and expending the conscious effort your letter reflects.
Editorial Editor
Readers Respond No Watergate Snowball
(Editor's note: The editorial addressed in the following letter was written, writer article was published in this paper Aug. 30 under the headline "Snowball & Stump.")
To the Editor:
The Wichita Eagle on Thursday, Sept. 13 reprinted an editorial titled "Tune In Next" by Charles Rush.
So, as you are showing us by example, the dishonest opinion writer must first gloss over the main question. Once he has written off this most vital point as almost, almost unnecessary, he can follow in his reasoning. By the way, aren't most assassins minor men?
It was a delight. We have heard it said that the use of satire has fallen bad inady to us.
In writing this mock editorial, you have produced a clever parody of the unbelievably blind, bad reasoning of those writers of edittials and letters to editors encouraging people to forget about Watergate. It is really well done.
Obviously, you have closely studied the pattern of short-circled logic and exploitation of ignorance of the most apparent people in people practice to delude the uninformed.
YOU START INNOCENTLY enough by pointing out the great impact of the Senate select Committee on Presidential Election Campaign Practices hearings. They apparently have been outstripping soap operas in the daftime ratings.
They were simply working in secret to unfairly slant public opinion and remove the moral value of the product.
Then you make a sly leap into satire by tackling the big one right off. You say, "The whole investigation centers on a two-bit burglary and fruitless eavesdropping attempt by a handful of minor bureaucrats and their friends."
The deliberately neglected point here is that these minor bureaucrats were employed solely by Richard Nixon, one of the two contests in the election to the presidency. The minor "minor" men were attempting to subvert the campaign of the second contestant.
You then compare the coverup to a snowball, implying that it has been built up out of proportion as you say by lies surrounding "a small, dirty core."
IT WAS, HOWEVER, built up by lies of American officials to the American people. This
FREE ELECTIONS ARE the base of our government. This is a representational democracy. It is the people's choosing of their own representatives that makes it representative and democratic. And the president is our democracy's primary elected official.
Next, you nearly imitate those attacking the Senate hearings: "The hearings have
This final pinning of all the blame on Dean is taken up with appropriate gust: "With lying, cheating people like John Dean in court, it is no wonder Watergates develop."
From this good piece of logic, we are moved to bad logic with the implication that Dean cannot be telling the truth because his memory seems so good.
distasteful character. Now this we may agree with.
THOSE OTHER GUYS just don't have a chance, right?
Will the American people, we are asked,
"believe this fired young lawyer who, after
be broke many laws, pleaded like a coward
for immunity?" The name-calling is good.
You could have gone on to call him a card.
carrying pinko, a man who would push little chickens into the water, but you showed up in a dark room.
The end is admirable: "America cannot enjoy the luxury of political sipming by Ervin and his gang in this time of foreign and domestic crises."
This is the appropriately solemn argument typically given by titularian states to people to justify about anything. I think it will work out the constitution in Chile used it.
UNFORTUNATELY, THIS statement reminds us of the rather badly chosen comments by Bob Dole, who recently remarked that he thought the people of Kansas generally were more interested in shortages of beef, baling wire and newsprint and in inflation than in Watergate.
I think Kansans generally are smart enough to realize that 50 years from now, people are going to be more concerned about whether the government abandoned democracy in 1973 than about the price of eggs that year. Of course, in order to make a change, we need government and the government has not been much help in that area lately either. So they worry.
Following this, you include the familiar jab at Senator Ervin: "The hearings are grandstanding, masterfully led by the prototype pompous senator Sam Ervin, with able assistance from such screamers as Lowell Weiler." This is choice.
revealed nothing except the extent to which partisan and ideological politics can so do.
Republicans and Democrats have been in nearly total accord on the hearings. It was important here for you to not mention that the committee had unanimously to establish the committee.
"This is a mudball."
At any rate, I liked your little joke—a piece of nonpareil propaganda. But I think I should say in passing that I hope you realize there is some danger that a few
There is a profitable business to be made in this world from selling bad used cars to the people who judge Sam Ervin to be a fool. You need to find someone with natural and deliberate down-home style.
YOU CAN'T JUDGE by looks. He is a
constitutional lawyer. Even President
Nixon could not judge him.
Your next sentence, "Some people are deceived," is a pearl. You say some think John Dean a "brave, truthful man." Then you point out actually he's a ratha
WATERGATE HAS BEEN the subject of a lot of comedy, but there are certainly some people who take it so seriously they find it difficult to laugh.
people are not going to get it
There is a chance some potential students could be severely turned-off as well. I hope you can stay safe.
Kansans probably do not follow The University Daily Kansan too closely, but they do respect the University of Kansan. You could certainly be in for a few embarrassing moments if too many people assumed you were serious.
Can you think of their reaction if they failed to see the arch humor in your words?
Still, you knew the risk, and it would not be nearly as effective satire if you published
Stephen Miller
1863 S Bleckley
Wichita
The news media have been both celebrated and vilified for their role in exposing the political espionage and subversion that fall under the rubric of
BY EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN
Special to the Los Angeles Times
The Press & Watergate
You people are cunning if nothing else.
Government Substantiates Press
WAS THE PRESS chief responsible for exposing Watergate? Was the press generally accurate? Were the charges it made substantiated by subsequent evidence, really, was the press "fair" in the sense that it reported all sides of the controversy?
For example, in his Aug. 22 news conference, President Nixon strongly suggested that the continuing crisis of confidence over Watergate was due in large part to politically biased journalists strongly opposed to his administration.
inus while Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., applauds the press for revealing the scandal, Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis, pillories the same press for "grossly unfair" journalism and "McCarthyistic destruction" in its reporting of essentially the same subject. Even after the collapse of the coverup last March and the subsequent collapse of the investigation that found out televised hearings of the Senate Select Committee, considerable confusion persists on the question of the reporting of Waterate.
All this evidence was passed on to the grand jury and eventually presented in the trial last January of Hunt, Liddy and the Waterate five.
A SECOND INVESTIGATION took place in Florida where four of the burglaries resided. Within a matter of days after the break-in, Martin Dardus of the state's attorney's office had subpoenaed bank and telephone records that revealed the source of the break-in. The Mexican connection—and the association of Hunt and CREEP with the burglaries.
To answer these three questions, I reexamined the clippings of the publications that took the brunt of the credit and criticism—the Washington Post, the Star News, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and Newsweek.
Although there are moments of brilliant and insightful reporting on Watergate, the assumption that the press was responsible for breaking the case and all that followed is not borne out by the sequence of events established in the senate testimony.
The treasurer of CREEP, Hugh Sloan Jr., admitted a few weeks later that the funds for the operation came out of a secret cash fund that was authorized by John Mitchell, the campaign director, and Jeb Stuart Magruder, his assistant.
Within a week after the break-in at the Democratic party headquarters in June, Almost all of the pertinent facts were in the hands of the FBI and federal prosecutors. The $100 bills found on the Watergateburgers were traced in five days to the Republic National Bank in Miami and funds provided by the PS-ID Hawaii finance bureau, the Watergate bank, and books and receipts found in searching the burglar's premises indicated that a White House consultant, E. Howard Hunter Jr., was associated with the burglar's.
IN ADDITION, Alfred Baldwin III, a former FBI agent who operated a "listening post" for the conspirators, turned states' evidence. Baldwin described in great detail the burglary and wiretapping operation and identified Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, counsel to the Justice Department, to Reefen the President, a leader of the conspiracy, and said that CREEP officers were receiving the fruits of the wireset.
In another parallel investigation, the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, traced the campaign financing involved in Watergate.
It was it thus governmental agencies, not the press, that developed information about Watergate. What the press did between the break-in in June and the trial in January was to leak the case developed by the CIA and Florida prosecutors to the public.
WHILE THE PRESS, and especially the Washington Post, performed a valuable service in disclosing elements of the Watergate conspiracy before the trial and election, it can be called "investigative reporting" only in a very limited sense.
A number of news organizations deserve credit for this: the Associated Press revealed that government documents showed that one of the burglaries, James McCord Jr., was on the payroll of CREEP: police and FBI investigators had hunt's name in another burglar's address book; the New York Times reported that some of the money used by the Watergate burglaries had been "laundered" in Mexico, while, on Aug. 1, the Washington Post had come from Dahlberg. Both of these stories came from the Florida State Attorney's Office.
For example, in advancing the myth of investigative reporting New York magazine can anceinture that had a Washington Post report on Hillary Clinton's vettigative files in Miami, then finding a clue—the Dahlberg check—that the prosecutors had overlooked, and doggedly it down until he discovered that Dahlberg was a Republican campaign chairman.
Florida prosecutor Dardis, though highly respectful of Bernstein's "superb report" that his office had traced the check and identified it as from Bernstein had come into his office, and that
se personally had apprisd Bernstein of the import of the check.
THE ONE NOTABLE exception in which the press rather than government investigators uncovered evidence involved the case of Donald Segretti and the attempts to sabotage and confuse Democratic primaries.
Although the FBI learned of the role of Segretti as an agent provocateur early in its investigation, the prosecutors decided not to continue to investigate this matter because it was not directly connected to Watergate. (The money came from a different source and these activities took place earlier than the break-in.)
The Washington Post, however, pursued the few FBI leaks and found a series of acquaintances of Segretti who described abrogate attempts in considerable detail.
Press Action Still Sporadic
In most other instances, the press failed to go beyond the prosecutor's case. The coverup, which involved cash payments to the plaintiffs, was clementy and perjury subservient, was hard touched on by the press until McCord, dramatically told his story. Again, this revelation was not induced by interpellations but by a federal judge, John Sirica.
McCord was able to give only heary evidence, however. The full story of the case is that McCord was a counsel John Dean III told the federal prosecutors of his prior knowledge of the planning that led to Watergate, his coaching Magnitude in prison, and his efforts to prevent it.
The White House "horror stories"—including the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, the "enemy" lists and the 1970 intelligence plans—were revealed by a team of investigators then leaked to the press. Although as early as August, 1972, Time disclosed that Hunt and Liddy had been part of the secret White House investigating group known as the "plumbers," the press in general failed to mention the Watergate until after Dean's revelations.
IN SUM, IT WAS the investigative agencies of government and individuals working in the government, not the press, that broke the case. To be sure, elements of the press, and in particular the Washington Post and Time magazine, did an excellent job in keeping the public's attention, yet even here the press cannot be assigned exclusive credit.
Other institutions played a not insignificant part in turning Watergate into a hole.
Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., and his running mate, R. Sargent Shriver, harped on Watergate through the campaign. (Their involvement, involved no new factual disclosures.)
—The Democrat party filed a civil suit, did common Cause, which resulted in a landmark decision.
The senate confirmation hearings of L. Patrick Gray III as FBI director drew attention to the role of the White House staff—and John Dean—in Watergate.
And, the Senate Select Committee gave
Walter gate hundreds of hours of exposure on
the floor.
Press Upholds Its Accuracy
On the question of accuracy, the press acquitted itself remarkably well. In the 15 months since the watergate break-in, literally hundreds of charges and assertions were filed against the bandit have been substantiated in the hearings of the Senate Select Committee. This high degree of accuracy is particularly impressive because many of the allegations were made in the heat of a bitter controversy that lasted for an insistent denials by the Nixon administration.
The most prominently attacked story in the Post was one published less than two weeks before the election (Oct. 25) that carried the headline "Testimony Ties Top Nixon Aide to Secret Fund." The story asserted that Hugh Sloan had testified against President Ronald Reagan. He and President Nixon's chief of staff then, was one of the individuals authorized to disburse payments from a secret cash fund used for political intelligence.
SLOAN IMMEDIATELY denied he testified that Halderman was connected with the fund, and White House spokesmen called him a conspirator in press in general for false and politically biased reporting. Other newspapers, such as the New York Post, then the Newspaperly than the original story.
Only a half-year later did it become clear that whereas the Post had made an error in attributing the story to Sloan's testimony, the substance of the charge itself was basically true: Hadamard did control a bank that was eventually used to finance the coverup.
The only repeated charge that the Post made that was never substantiated was that Baldwin had identified three officials of CREEP, Robert Odele Jr., J. Glen Sedan Jr. and William Timmons, as people to direct transcripts of the Watergate wiretaps.
WHILE THE POST may have been informed by one of its sources in the prosecutor's office that Baldwin probably had delivered the transcripts to one of these three or more of his associates as a fact that Baldwin had implicated all three in his testimony.
Another serious charge that has not been
substantially was the charge by Time and the Washington Post (April 30, 1975) that federal prosecutors were told in April that a former special counsel to President Nixon, Charles Colson, knew of the "Watergate" controversy and advance and urged that they be expited.
Time, in breaking the story, reported that Magruder had said that Cobson made a telephone call to him in February, 1972, asking, "when the hell are we going to get this bugging plan approved and into operation?"
Under the headlines, "Ades say Colon Approved Bugging," the Post further asserted that both Magruder and Frederick were accused of high GREEP official, confirmed the story.
IN THEIR TESTIMONY before the Senate Select Committee, neither Magruder nor LaRue held that Colson had had advanced knowledge of the Watergate bugging—or that he had specifically referred to it in itsnas February telephone call. He did not refer to the police there, in the February telephone call, to give a further hearing to Hunt's plans for political intelligence, but not that he used the expression "bugging plan."
Whether Colson had advance knowledge is a question that has not by any means been conclusively settled, but apparently Time and the Washington Post stretched to some extent the statements made by Magruder and LaRue to the federal prosecutors.
In all of the above cases, there is no reason to presume that the error—or unassistent substantiated charge—reflected either from a reporter or from the newspapers involved. Both Time and the Washington Post were reporting leaks from sources that had apparently been accurate in the past—and in these few cases the sources simply erred or exaggerated.
Scoop Results In Inaccuracies
The only questionable exercise of journalism I found in reviewing 14 months of coverage was the advance reports in Newsweek predicting what Dean would testify to in his appearance before the Senate Select Committee.
It was a clear attempt by Newsweek to "scoop" the daily press. For example, Newsweek reported as a fact that Dean would testify that White House officials had given Panama's head of government, Omar Torrijos, because of his uncooperative attitude.
Although the Newsweek story was circulated in a press release, and picked up
and repeated by hundreds of newspapers,
the sensational story turned out to be untrue-
or at least not substantiated by Dean's testimony.
IN HIS APPEARANCE before the senate committee the next week, Dean did not mention anything about an assassination plan. He specifically testified that the Newsweek interview had occurred in the presence of his attorney and, as a groundbreaking witness, he had refused to discuss any of the substance of his impending testimony.
It thus appears, if Dean and his lawyer are to be believed on this point, that Newsweek fabricated large parts of an interview—or made it appear that various rumors and stories floating around him had been stated in an interview by Dean.
In any case, such journalistic practices showed up only very rarely in the Watergate coverage, and the general impression is one of extreme accuracy in reporting a complex and politically explosive event.
Finally, the question of fairness cannot be assessed without first positioning certain standards. In accusing the press of being "unfair", White House spokesmen pointed to the fact that the press was publishing "hearsay" and "innuendo."
IN OTHER WORDS, the White House applied the standards of the court to the press. But since the courts and press have manifestly different functions, it seems both inappropriate and unproductive to public judicial standards to daily journalism.
For example, most of the stories in the press were based on "hearsay"—or accounts from persons other than actual witnesses to the described events—but reporters do not have the power of compulsion (which counts and prosecutors are often required to direct statements, especially incentivizing ones, from witnesses themselves.
Thus in the case of Watergate, in which almost all the witnesses to the illegal activities were either hostile to the press or guilty of obstructing the news, newspapers could not have reported most developments in the case without relying on indirect, or "hearsay", evidence. As far as journalism is concerned, the crucial question is not whether a charge would be admitted from a reliable source, and is therefore accurately reported and labeled.
ON THIS CRITERION, as has been demonstrated, all but a few of the charges have proven valid, and the press can hardly be deemed "unfair" for repeating them.
Although in a court there are very strict rules of evidence that specify what may or may not be suggested in the presence of a jury, journalists have no equivalent witness. Whenever a fact is selected and presented will curry some suggestion or "innuendo."
McCarthyism Vs. License
The question of fairness rests again not on whether 'innuendo' or fact suggestion was used—it is unavoidable—but on whether being suggested corresponds to reality.
On this criterion, Newsweek's story suggesting that the White House considered assassinating its opponents abroad would be clearly unfair because it had no contact with reality; while the press stories tacitly suggesting that there was more to Watergate than was being admitted by police in the 1970s, the news in the Washington Post—would have to be considered fair ones because the suggestion turned out to be perfectly valid.
The question the press addressed itself to was not a legal one—who is guilty?—but a political one: to what degree was the Nixon administration responsible for attempts to subvert the election? If the press is to serve as a watchdog and expose malfeasance in government, it could hardly be expected to suppress the reports of political abuses that have occurred. It would be judged "unfair" for not delaying these reports. In short, judicial standards, though convenient, cannot be simply transposed to journalism.
THE MORE APPROPRIATE question is whether the press was "fair" in presenting both sides of the story and gave as evidence that the stories and denials as to charges and allegations.
Even the Washington Post, which was most viciously and unfairly attacked by White House and CREEP spokesmen, almost always printed the rebuttals and denials—and often these were given almost instant placement as the original charges.
The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Evening Star often gave more prominence to the ad-hoc rebuttal's rebuttal than to the original charge.
THE CHARGE OF McCarthyism, which has been leveled against the press (ironically by some former supporters of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt for subversives in government), is far more difficult to evaluate.
Mcarthylis, as it applies to the press, involves publishing sensational charges of misconduct. It must demonstrate the veracity of the source of the charge. Numerous reputations in the early 1980s were sullied because newspapers without checking them outless charges without checking them on
The press was quite aware of this danger in the Watergate case. Benjamin Bradley, editor of the Washington Post, said he required the all allegations about it to be out by at least two independent sources before they could be published.
Yet two sources corroborating a charge might only mean that a rumor was widely circulated. And the fact that extremely many people believed about five different individuals (Ode, Timmons, Sedan, Colson and Halademan) later proved to be unsubstantiated by the main source indicates that this "double" rumor has been verified and certified charges from being made. Other newspapers avoided this pitfall by refraining from publishing allegations that could not be thoroughly checked out—and that would fewer disclosures about Watergate.
THAT PRESENTS A real dilemma: almost all journalistic honor are awarded for making exclusive disclosures, not for resisting publishing unproven allegations. Washington Post, not the New York Times, that won the Pulitzer Prize for Watergate.
Do journalists make disclosures even though the secret nature of the material makes it impossible to evaluate allegations in them? If the charges prove groundless or fraudulent, the burden will be demilitated in the eyes of their readers and an innocent reputations may be tainted.
In the case of Watergate, the coverup might have been more effective if it had not been for the Washington Post's willingness to take some risks on stories. But perhaps it is impossible to draw in advance the line between such risk taking and McCarthyism as a final disposition of the charges. Almost all charges proved groundless, while most of the allegations about Watergate proved to be valid.
If, on the other hand, the story is not punished, the guilt might escapc public expression.
in sum, on almost any reasonable criteria, in the paper showed a consistent—and unequivocal—conclusion.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily publication, *The Kansan,* except on holidays and examination periods. Mail application to a summer, $10 a year. Second class postpaid package may be sent with a $15 annual fee; **price:** $1.25 a summer ampered in student activity fee. Advertiser offered to all students without regard pressed are not necessarily those of the University. Press is not necessarily those of the Universi-
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