Several weeks afterward, the President delivered a national television speech, explaining his Vietnamization policy of turning the war over to the South Vietnamese, and expressing confidence that he had the support of the “Silent Majority.” Nixon had made a favorable impact, according to the instant polls. Still, there was anger and annoyance in the White House with the usual network “analysis” following the speech, commentary that contained a few negative remarks, such as those by Ambassador W. Averell Harriman. Sores had to be rubbed.
The President continued the metaphor when Pat Buchanan prepared a savage attack on the networks for their lack of fairness and balance. “This really flicks the scab off, doesn’t it,” the President told William Safire—and then added to Buchanan’s text a few tough lines of his own. It was a rare speech, going through only three drafts, but basically retaining Buchanan’s “white-heat vitality,” Safire remembered. The speech, eventually delivered in Des Moines on November 13, 1969, marked the unleashing of Spiro Agnew as Nixon’s bulldog against the press. Herb Klein was “astonished” when he received an advance copy—not because of its content but because he considered it a “sneak attack” on his own authority. Despite the unfavorable network “instant analysis,” Klein had received ample supportive comments from editors and broadcasters for the President’s Silent Majority talk, and he worried that the Agnew speech might shatter that fragile support.25
Believing he could preempt criticism, Klein sent out copies of the speech to various news bureaus and the networks. Why and how the networks responded as they did remains unclear, but all three decided to broadcast the Vice President’s speech live and in its entirety. It was an extraordinary, unprecedented decision. Perhaps the President was right: contempt, attack, and fear offered the right weapons for intimidating the media.
The Agnew speech in Des Moines had been nurtured in the darker moments of the Goldwater candidacy in 1964. The Vice President offered the nation, particularly its heartland, a conspiracy theory that blamed the anti-Nixon bias of the media on an Eastern liberal establishment. “A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon twenty minutes or so of film and commentary that’s to reach the public.… [They] live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City.… They draw their political and social views from … one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints.” It was time, he said, to question the power of this “small and un-elected elite.” Given the government’s role in regulating the broadcast networks, Agnew’s threat was only thinly veiled: “the people,” Agnew warned, “are entitled to a full accounting of [the networks’] stewardship.”
Agnew had struck the sensitive nerves of the media and liberal intellectuals, but he also won the hearts and minds of those who already believed the notions he espoused. They responded with passionate support for the Vice President. Antisemitic letters constituted n percent of one network’s mail, while tirades against blacks made up another 10 percent. In an ABC poll, 51 percent of the respondents agreed with Agnew.
The President was elated. But his aide Charles Colson—a self-described “original ‘hard-line’ paranoid on the press”—thought matters might get out of hand and urged Haldeman to ask the President to restrain Agnew. Haldeman and speechwriter Ray Price, perhaps sensing overkill, did so, but to no avail. Nixon ordered more speeches from Buchanan for the Vice President. A week later, Agnew told a Montgomery, Alabama, audience that the networks needed representation from “a broader spectrum of national opinion.” Pat Nixon reportedly worried that Agnew had gone too far and that his attacks would provoke further media counterassaults. They certainly provoked ridicule. “If I went on the air tomorrow night and said Spiro Agnew was the greatest American statesman since Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Hamilton … the audience might think I was biased,” NBC’s David Brinkley told an audience. “But he wouldn’t.”26
Agnew’s frontal assault resembled more a fusillade of cannon than Magruder’s carefully aimed rifle, but others in the Administration were using more precise weapons. For all his outrage at Agnew’s speech, Herb Klein himself had called local stations the day of Nixon’s Silent Majority speech to ask if there would be editorial comment. Klein claimed he called for “sampling” purposes; others noticed the move’s chilling effects. After the networks’ commentaries on the speech, FCC Chairman Dean Burch asked for transcripts of the remarks. Network executives claimed that Klein and Ziegler asked them to supply details of future commentaries. A member of the Subversive Activities Control Board, a nearly moribund agency (according to Klein, the board member “apparently needed something to do”), took it upon himself to ask local stations for samplings of their news coverage and editorials regarding Administration policies.
A few days after Agnew’s talk, Klein appeared on Face the Nation, and said that Agnew’s charges raised “a legitimate question.” Ritualistically voicing objections to governmental “participation” in such questioning, he said that in “any industry—if you look at the problems you have today and you fail to continue to examine them, you do invite the government to come in.” Klein quickly added, “I’d like not to see that happen,” but too late. Few listened to the disclaiming tag line, and Klein found himself lumped with Agnew and Burch as persecutors of the media. What was wrong was the identification of the persecutors. The President had sponsored Agnew’s speech, and it was later revealed that Colson instructed Klein to have Burch make the request of the networks. Colson rarely acted on his own initiative; his deeds, like Haldeman’s and Ehrlichman’s, correlate with his notes of his regular meetings with the President. At the end, Klein best understood that there really had been no victors.27
Several months later, in July 1970, the Administration continued its efforts at intimidation after CBS introduced a series entitled The Loyal Opposition. Democratic National Committee Chairman Lawrence O’Brien appeared on the show and scored the Administration for its alleged failures in fighting the war on crime, in stimulating the economy, in advancing civil rights, and in ending the Vietnam war. In September, Colson visited various network presidents to complain about their companies’ anti-Nixon bias, and in a memo to Haldeman he bragged about his success. “The harder I pressed them,” he wrote, “the more accommodating, cordial and apologetic they became.” Colson was convinced that the executives were “very much afraid of us.” His memo became public during the Senate’s Watergate investigation. Network executives contended that Colson had exaggerated their eagerness to oblige. What was not in dispute was the fact that the Administration had dispatched an envoy to voice its complaints directly to the news media. Moreover, the chosen representative was not Herb Klein, who had folded “liaison” with the media into his job description; instead, it was Charles Colson, a man known for his rough tactics and his closeness to the Oval Office—the same man who had flown to New York to congratulate New York Times pressmen engaged in a wildcat strike to protest the printing of an antiwar ad, an action that Klein acknowledged had “antagonized even the strongest Nixon friends in the news corps.”
Although the President reflexively continued to talk about his enemies in the media, White House officials believed that their assault had had positive effects. The way to change opinion, Nixon told Haldeman, “was to make it less unfashionable to be with us.”28 The campaign fit Nixon’s personal, proven formula for contempt and intimidation, to force the “enemy” to bend over backward to appear fair—the same tactic that worked in the 1968 campaign.
Sometimes the Administration’s attacks on newsmen had both comic and chilling overtones. Most television reporters were treated benignly compared to their brethren in the print media. But CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr seems to have been singled out for special attention. Allegedly on the grounds that Schorr was being considered as Assistant to the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, Haldeman requested an FBI check o
f his background in August 1971. The FBI questioned Schorr himself as well as the CBS Washington Bureau Chief and officials in the CBS New York headquarters. Sometime after answering questions, Schorr asked that the check be terminated, telling the FBI that he was not interested in any government position. After receiving a preliminary report, the White House also asked the FBI to stop, claiming it did so on its own because it no longer was interested in hiring Schorr. Ziegler also said that the report had been destroyed. The whole affair was bizarre. Schorr, of course, as the President subsequently admitted, was not being considered for any position. “We just ran a name check on the son-of-a-bitch,” the President told aides. Haldeman later acknowledged that it was a “fair assumption” that the President would use any unfavorable material.29
Schorr’s tale is notable for the Administration’s clumsiness and heavy-handedness. John Hart, Schorr’s CBS colleague, was victimized by a process far more subtle, and perhaps more pernicious. He, too, had caught the President’s eye. Hart, Nixon told Haldeman, had been “a violent, anti-Administration commentator for years.”
Hart had spent six months in South Vietnam in 1966–67. He then returned to the United States and covered Robert Kennedy’s 1968 primary campaign. After Kennedy’s death, he was assigned to Nixon for the nominating convention. He followed Nixon through the campaign but then became host on the network’s Morning News. During that stint, Hart went to North Vietnam in September 1972. In Hanoi, he realized that his hosts staged events for him and carefully supervised his schedule. Despite repeated requests, he could not see American prisoners of war. Still, Hart went on reporting and filed twenty-two stories in a three-week span. His reports were earmarked for Walter Cronkite’s Evening News broadcasts, but unknown to Hart while he was abroad, Cronkite stopped carrying them at about midpoint.
Hart was convinced that the bombing of the North was fruitless and would not change the fanaticism of the North Vietnamese, whom he labeled “Calvinist Communists.” When he returned, he planned to do a documentary on his visit, but Richard Salant, head of CBS News, “cross-examined” him at length over his inability to get more information on the POWs and his failure to report more unfavorably on the North. Instead of doing a documentary, Hart appeared on only a few late-night spot reports. He believed that he had lost the confidence of his bosses. He later realized that he had covered the story as a journalist, not as an “American journalist.” One of his colleagues emphasized how important it was to preface or conclude his reports with reminders that “these people were Communists.”
On October 16, 1972, Hart received a letter from Frank Shakespeare, Director of the United States Information Agency—on official stationery and with a franked envelope—complaining about his lack of objectivity. Shakespeare specifically cited Hart’s reports from North Vietnam of having heard “frequent laughter,” praising the people’s “richness of hospitality,” describing the full attendance at a Catholic mass, noting the display of “forgiveness” toward American pilots, filming bomb-damaged hospitals and churches, and describing North Vietnam’s Premier Pham Van Dong as a man of “energy and wit.” “Where, John, was the balance?” Shakespeare demanded. Why hadn’t Hart talked about the invasion of the South, the refugees in the South, the dictatorship in the North, the North Vietnamese troops in Cambodia and Laos? Why did Hart thank his hosts for their hospitality and kindness? Shakespeare’s assault wavered between being comical and sinister. He berated Hart for being “technically factual” while not playing it “straight.” There was no fairness, he thought; indeed, Shakespeare thought it wrong to report at all from the enemy’s capital. Why, Shakespeare concluded on a chilling note, was Hart so careful not to criticize the Hanoi government?
The same day the Internal Revenue Service wrote to Hart, saying that his tax returns would be examined. When he later called the IRS as requested, they told him they had never notified him that they would scrutinize his returns.
Hart also responded to Shakespeare, sending him complete transcripts of his broadcasts and politely noting that he regarded the criticisms as serious. Indeed, they were, Shakespeare retorted—and the transcripts, he said, left him only “puzzled and depressed.” He charged that Hart had offered a “skewed impression” of both North Vietnamese and American actions.
Meanwhile, Richard Salant wrote to Shakespeare, defending Hart. Whatever Salant’s immediate support, however, Hart received less as time went on. At one point, Salant reportedly told him he needed “rehabilitation.” Was Salant under pressure? Perhaps Shakespeare, a former CBS vice president, still had influence at the network. Certainly, Shakespeare’s belief in the bias of television news could be traced back to the 1968 campaign. In any event, frustrated with his lack of work, Hart left for NBC in 1975.
John Hart later interviewed Charles Colson, who admitted that he had been in contact with CBS executives regarding the correspondent’s broadcasts. Colson recalled that the White House was “up the wall” over the reports. He told Hart that he “was bitching and moaning” to the network’s leaders, “and they were kissing my ass.” Hart’s conclusion was obvious: the Administration’s pressures had played havoc with his position at the network, which was never the same afterward.30
Jeb Stuart Magruder’s memo on influencing the news media suggested that the Anti-Trust division of the Justice Department be used to intimidate broadcasters. In April 1972, the Justice Department filed suit against the networks, claiming they had monopolized the production of prime-time entertainment programming. The networks responded that the suit was without merit and would have the effect of turning control of television programming over to advertising agencies and motion-picture producers. The timing of the suit seemed to fit the Administration’s ongoing antimedia drives and seemed particularly appropriate to the onset of the 1972 campaign.
The Anti-Trust Division had a longstanding concern with various network practices, particularly the networks’ attempts to control original productions for their programming schedules. Would they broadcast only programs which they had produced or in which they had a financial stake, or would independent, outside producers have access to programming slots? Clearly, the networks preferred to use their own shows as much as possible, but how much of that pattern of preference constituted monopoly? Enough, apparently, to satisfy the Anti-Trust Division. It had been investigating the questioned network practices since the 1950s, years before Magruder’s memorandum and wholly apart from the Nixon Administration’s political agenda. Herb Klein and other Administration officials realized the downside potential of the suit. But the Anti-Trust people had their way—undoubtedly supported by key Administration officials who could only see an upside to the controversy.
The networks predictably based their case on political reprisal and demanded access to Nixon’s papers in order to substantiate their charges. As the litigation unfolded, however, the defendants found that the government could not make the President’s papers available, and on November 26, 1974, a federal judge dismissed the suit without prejudice. But once the papers could be perused for evidence, Attorney General William Saxbe reinstituted the action several weeks later. The case dragged on, and eventually, in May 1980, the networks signed consent decrees limiting their control over production and agreeing to change their practices. In short, the allegations of antitrust violations had merit.31
That the government’s suits against the networks in 1972 might have merit was a fact overshadowed by the powerful evidence of the Administration’s hostility toward the media. That image was the message. The suit, not the accompanying recitation of charges and evidence of network management wrongdoing, was what made an impact.
The Nixon Administration’s war on the media was more than image, however. In October 1972, before real assaults distracted him, the President directed his aides not to talk to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, or Newsweek—the Los Angeles Times still was acceptable, but that soon changed—and to exclude their reporters from social functions.
Heavy artillery was also put in play. In the heady days following the President’s November 1972 electoral triumph, Clay Whitehead, the Director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, boldly called on local television stations to refuse to carry “biased” news accounts from the networks. He warned local managers that dissemination of news involved their greatest responsibility; in this light he asked whether “station licensees or network executives [would] take action against this ideological plugola?” The question was more than rhetorical: failure “to correct imbalance or consistent bias from the networks” would make local broadcasters “fully accountable” at license-renewal time.32 As the President moved to his second term, he had every intention, it seemed, of continuing the media war.
Richard Nixon’s presidency paralleled the rising importance of the media. As a young politician, and later as President, Nixon always understood the necessity of using the media for his success. Use meant control—control not only of the flow of information, but of the nuances and conclusions drawn from that information. Such total control was impossible, however, given the fragmentation and disparity among the media. And the inability to wield control only frustrated the President and alienated him the more.
Did the Nixon Administration conspire to discredit the press? Did the President and his aides foster the “us-against-them” mentality with respect to the news media that eventually boomeranged with such devastating results for the President in his second term? Did the President himself encourage and direct the campaign against the media? The President’s friend and former aide, William Safire, long ago concluded that the answer to all the questions “is, sadly, yes.”
The Wars of Watergate Page 27
