We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst -- and we will do our best.
Winston Churchill July 14, 1941
Friday, July 08, 2005
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
"The Set Up"
Edward Jay Epstein writes about Felt, Woodward, and a story they got wrong. As always, a must read. Epstein has forgotten more about the press and Watergate than the average journalism professor will ever know.
Edward Jay Epstein writes about Felt, Woodward, and a story they got wrong. As always, a must read. Epstein has forgotten more about the press and Watergate than the average journalism professor will ever know.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Wasted opportunity / looming problem
By all rights, MSNBC should own cable news. They have the marvelous combination of vast resources and low marginal costs. NBC News already has the reporters and producers on staff. Using them on MSNBC is much cheaper than the costs faced by CNN or FNC who have to support their infrastructure with only a cable audience. ISTM that MSNBC should be able to create a quality line-up, draw a large quality audience, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Instead they are mired in third (sometimes fourth place) with a line up that echoes and mimics the Fox/CNN products.
It's a puzzle. Olbermann and Carlson are distinctive personalities. That should be a plus. Their shows are sometimes funny, sometimes insightful. But both shows are fast-paced, knowing, smirky and crowded. Consequently, they are superficial even when they are entertaining. That is, they are distinctive in a way that does nothing to leverage the advantages they should have by being part of NBC.
It is possible that there simply is not a cable audience for quality news programs. Maybe those who want depth go to the internet because TV cannot compete. It probably is true that words on a screen will always do a better job at going deeper than will words spoken by a reporter. A long television story has fewer words than a short magazine piece. Yet we can read the article faster than a reporter can speak her story. Churchill warned that the ear was only one-tenth as powerful as the eye and so, speakers should never attempt the sort of intricate, nuanced arguments possible in a newspaper column.
While all that is true, I am left with an undeniable fact. GE, under Jack Welch and now Jeffrey Immelt, is usually intolerant of excuses that rely on the inevitability of failure due to the unchangeable nature of the marketplace. That just isn't the GE Way of legend, HBS case studies, and Fortune cover stories.
Whatever happened to '#1 or #2' in every market?
MSNBC's failure is a looming problem for NBC and GE. The audience for broadcast news is falling which means that big NBC News infrastructure is becoming a drag on profits. Ideally, MSNBC would pick up the slack by growing its audience and revenue. If they do not do so, GE will have two white elephants on their hands.
By all rights, MSNBC should own cable news. They have the marvelous combination of vast resources and low marginal costs. NBC News already has the reporters and producers on staff. Using them on MSNBC is much cheaper than the costs faced by CNN or FNC who have to support their infrastructure with only a cable audience. ISTM that MSNBC should be able to create a quality line-up, draw a large quality audience, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Instead they are mired in third (sometimes fourth place) with a line up that echoes and mimics the Fox/CNN products.
It's a puzzle. Olbermann and Carlson are distinctive personalities. That should be a plus. Their shows are sometimes funny, sometimes insightful. But both shows are fast-paced, knowing, smirky and crowded. Consequently, they are superficial even when they are entertaining. That is, they are distinctive in a way that does nothing to leverage the advantages they should have by being part of NBC.
It is possible that there simply is not a cable audience for quality news programs. Maybe those who want depth go to the internet because TV cannot compete. It probably is true that words on a screen will always do a better job at going deeper than will words spoken by a reporter. A long television story has fewer words than a short magazine piece. Yet we can read the article faster than a reporter can speak her story. Churchill warned that the ear was only one-tenth as powerful as the eye and so, speakers should never attempt the sort of intricate, nuanced arguments possible in a newspaper column.
While all that is true, I am left with an undeniable fact. GE, under Jack Welch and now Jeffrey Immelt, is usually intolerant of excuses that rely on the inevitability of failure due to the unchangeable nature of the marketplace. That just isn't the GE Way of legend, HBS case studies, and Fortune cover stories.
Whatever happened to '#1 or #2' in every market?
MSNBC's failure is a looming problem for NBC and GE. The audience for broadcast news is falling which means that big NBC News infrastructure is becoming a drag on profits. Ideally, MSNBC would pick up the slack by growing its audience and revenue. If they do not do so, GE will have two white elephants on their hands.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Monkey see, monkey do
Cable TV's obsession with a missing person case in Aruba is disappointing on so many levels. It confirms the fact that Fox prime time has become pure tabloid TV with no pretense of aspiring to anything higher. But who can argue with success? Their ratings crush the competition night after night.
What is interesting is that CNN and MSNBC have decided to follow along behind fox. They also devote hundreds of hours to Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, and Natalee Holloway. If Fox has Greta von Sustren, well, then, CNN must have Nancy Grace while MSNBC settles for Dan Abrams.
Doesn't anyone want to be different? Why are they so sure that there is not an audience out there for real news? Why are they afraid to try to find it?
It is easy to understand cable's obsession with this kind of journalism. These shows are cheap to produce. All you need are a bunch of talking heads who are willing to speculate about stuff they know little about.
It's still a cowardly way to do news.
Cable TV's obsession with a missing person case in Aruba is disappointing on so many levels. It confirms the fact that Fox prime time has become pure tabloid TV with no pretense of aspiring to anything higher. But who can argue with success? Their ratings crush the competition night after night.
What is interesting is that CNN and MSNBC have decided to follow along behind fox. They also devote hundreds of hours to Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, and Natalee Holloway. If Fox has Greta von Sustren, well, then, CNN must have Nancy Grace while MSNBC settles for Dan Abrams.
Doesn't anyone want to be different? Why are they so sure that there is not an audience out there for real news? Why are they afraid to try to find it?
It is easy to understand cable's obsession with this kind of journalism. These shows are cheap to produce. All you need are a bunch of talking heads who are willing to speculate about stuff they know little about.
It's still a cowardly way to do news.
So what's changed?
Back during the Schiavo case most of the MSM were pretty supportive of the courts. They were certain that a judge in Florida was the best person to decide this matter of life and death.
Suddenly, though, the courts are error prone, out of control, and a threat to freedom. Life and death for a disabled woman is one thing, but confidential sources are important.
Terri Schiavo's parents were somehow wrong for petitioning Congress to redress their grievances and Congress was wrong for responding. It is funny now to see that journalists want that same Congress to write a law to give them rights that an ordinary citizen does not possess.
I wonder if Tom Delay is in any hurry to bring that measure to a vote?
BTW, Beldar just slices the pro-reporter legal arguments to pieces here.
Back during the Schiavo case most of the MSM were pretty supportive of the courts. They were certain that a judge in Florida was the best person to decide this matter of life and death.
Suddenly, though, the courts are error prone, out of control, and a threat to freedom. Life and death for a disabled woman is one thing, but confidential sources are important.
Terri Schiavo's parents were somehow wrong for petitioning Congress to redress their grievances and Congress was wrong for responding. It is funny now to see that journalists want that same Congress to write a law to give them rights that an ordinary citizen does not possess.
I wonder if Tom Delay is in any hurry to bring that measure to a vote?
BTW, Beldar just slices the pro-reporter legal arguments to pieces here.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Shelby Foote, RIP
A writer and historian of traditional sensibility. A devoted reader of Proust who wrote a sweeping narrative of the Civil War when the historical profession was sinking into the mire of minute case studies and the miasma of narrow viewpoints and the "studies' epidemic. The astonishing thing is that he had the last laugh of sorts.
When he appeared as a commenter on Ken Burns's Civil War documentary, he achieved a fame and popularity that tenured, professional historians can only fantasize about.
There is an irony, of sorts, in that. Foote, a stubbornly old-fashioned Southern gentleman, a man who wrote his 1,500,000 word epic in longhand using a dip pen, tuned out to be a charismatic figure on television.
This obituary is from his home town paper. On Saturday CSPAN will re-air their three hour visit with him from 2001.
UPDATE: I think this is a measure of his charisma. No one can accuse Ken Burns of being a Southern sympathizer, but he knows good television.
HT: Raine in Seattle
A writer and historian of traditional sensibility. A devoted reader of Proust who wrote a sweeping narrative of the Civil War when the historical profession was sinking into the mire of minute case studies and the miasma of narrow viewpoints and the "studies' epidemic. The astonishing thing is that he had the last laugh of sorts.
When he appeared as a commenter on Ken Burns's Civil War documentary, he achieved a fame and popularity that tenured, professional historians can only fantasize about.
There is an irony, of sorts, in that. Foote, a stubbornly old-fashioned Southern gentleman, a man who wrote his 1,500,000 word epic in longhand using a dip pen, tuned out to be a charismatic figure on television.
This obituary is from his home town paper. On Saturday CSPAN will re-air their three hour visit with him from 2001.
UPDATE: I think this is a measure of his charisma. No one can accuse Ken Burns of being a Southern sympathizer, but he knows good television.
Burns said Foote gave the documentary a "sense of willing the past moment to life."
"We had planned to film 30 or 40 historians. Shelby Foote was in it 89 times or something like that. The next closest was seven or eight times," Burns said.
HT: Raine in Seattle
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
They learn nothing and they forget nothing
Thus are legends perpetuated
The South Bend Tribune is trying to explain why they sometimes use anonymous sources. Deep Throat is the big hammer that clinches the case for using them sometimes. So much easier to just repeat the legend than to look to closely at what Deep Throat, Woodward, and Bernstein actually accomplished.
Though, to be fair, their policy is not a bad one. If the managing editor does their job, a lot of bad stories will get nipped in the bud. OTOH, that can be a big "if" given the dynamic discussed here:
The rotten heart of investigative journalism
Thus are legends perpetuated
But there sometimes are good reasons for using anonymous sources, as well. The identification of former FBI official Mark Felt as The Washington Post's famed "Deep Throat" has revived interest in the Watergate scandal, perhaps the most important journalistic revelation in American history. Without Felt and a number of other unidentified sources, the lawlessness in Richard Nixon's White House might never have come to light.
The South Bend Tribune is trying to explain why they sometimes use anonymous sources. Deep Throat is the big hammer that clinches the case for using them sometimes. So much easier to just repeat the legend than to look to closely at what Deep Throat, Woodward, and Bernstein actually accomplished.
Though, to be fair, their policy is not a bad one. If the managing editor does their job, a lot of bad stories will get nipped in the bud. OTOH, that can be a big "if" given the dynamic discussed here:
The rotten heart of investigative journalism
I hope it's just temporary
I mean the pig's cute and all, but it sure isn't going to blog about barbecue.
I mean the pig's cute and all, but it sure isn't going to blog about barbecue.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Caution: Reporter at work
My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is the last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
Joan Didion, Slouching towards Bethlehem
Knowing that Sloan was always less that anxious to see them, they did not telephone ahead. As usual, he was too polite to close the door in their faces. He looked pale and defeated. he had lost weight. He uninvited them into the front hallway. The job-hunting was going badly, he said-- the taint of Watergate. Equally awful, there was no end in sight to the trials and civil depositions that were making him a professional witness at about $20 a day. They did not know how to respond. Visiting Sloan always made them feel like vultures.
Woodward and Bernstein, All the President's Men
I liked Bernstein; he was scruffy but impressed me as sincere. Woodward was stuffy. He had tried to interview my friend John Martin of the Internal Security Division about me, and Martin had declined comment.
'Nobody turns down Bob Woodward' huffed the newly baptized member of the Beautiful People.
G. Gordon Liddy, Will
Hersh came into the story in November 1972. He had learned from Bob Loomis, his editor at Random House, that there was a book going around town in which Frank Sturgis, one of the Cubans, told all, in conjunction with a free-lancer with strong Cuban connections named Andrew St. George. Loomis had seen the outline and it sounded like strong stuff, as if the Cubans were ready to tell their side of the story. St. George George, who had one been with Castro in the hills, and who had worked for both Life and Look, had fallen on thinner days as a journalist, and Hersh made a connection with him. Later St. George felt badly used by Hersh, but meanwhile he cooperated, and made a fatal mistake for any reporter: he allowed Hersh to meet Sturgis,, his prime source. Sturgis was on the make, St. George was a connection for him, but Hersh with the might and majesty of the Times was clearly a better one. Traditionally, reporters do not let their superiors or any of their colleagues meet their best sources for precisely this reason, a source may decide to trade up. Sturgis, having met Hersh, bypassed St. George.
David Halberstam, The Powers that Be
My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is the last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
Joan Didion, Slouching towards Bethlehem
Knowing that Sloan was always less that anxious to see them, they did not telephone ahead. As usual, he was too polite to close the door in their faces. He looked pale and defeated. he had lost weight. He uninvited them into the front hallway. The job-hunting was going badly, he said-- the taint of Watergate. Equally awful, there was no end in sight to the trials and civil depositions that were making him a professional witness at about $20 a day. They did not know how to respond. Visiting Sloan always made them feel like vultures.
Woodward and Bernstein, All the President's Men
I liked Bernstein; he was scruffy but impressed me as sincere. Woodward was stuffy. He had tried to interview my friend John Martin of the Internal Security Division about me, and Martin had declined comment.
'Nobody turns down Bob Woodward' huffed the newly baptized member of the Beautiful People.
G. Gordon Liddy, Will
Hersh came into the story in November 1972. He had learned from Bob Loomis, his editor at Random House, that there was a book going around town in which Frank Sturgis, one of the Cubans, told all, in conjunction with a free-lancer with strong Cuban connections named Andrew St. George. Loomis had seen the outline and it sounded like strong stuff, as if the Cubans were ready to tell their side of the story. St. George George, who had one been with Castro in the hills, and who had worked for both Life and Look, had fallen on thinner days as a journalist, and Hersh made a connection with him. Later St. George felt badly used by Hersh, but meanwhile he cooperated, and made a fatal mistake for any reporter: he allowed Hersh to meet Sturgis,, his prime source. Sturgis was on the make, St. George was a connection for him, but Hersh with the might and majesty of the Times was clearly a better one. Traditionally, reporters do not let their superiors or any of their colleagues meet their best sources for precisely this reason, a source may decide to trade up. Sturgis, having met Hersh, bypassed St. George.
David Halberstam, The Powers that Be
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Patrick Gray on ABC
It was an interesting interview, but not a blockbuster. ABC could have done more with it had they wanted to. The main problem was that they did not do a very good job of putting Gray's statements into the context of the Watergate story and Felt's role in it. They are still fixated on the "limits of loyalty" angle. As i've tried to show here, the crucial questions relate to the truthfulness of Felt's leaks and the reliability of Woodward and Bernstein as reporter/historians.
Here's a newspaper account based on the transcript ABC provided reporters.
It was an interesting interview, but not a blockbuster. ABC could have done more with it had they wanted to. The main problem was that they did not do a very good job of putting Gray's statements into the context of the Watergate story and Felt's role in it. They are still fixated on the "limits of loyalty" angle. As i've tried to show here, the crucial questions relate to the truthfulness of Felt's leaks and the reliability of Woodward and Bernstein as reporter/historians.
Here's a newspaper account based on the transcript ABC provided reporters.
Friday, June 24, 2005
"Dogs and cats living together"
I never watch the Stephanopoulos on ABC. But he was on Imus this morning to discuss his interview with L. Patrick Gray. That makes his show appointment TV this weekend. It is Gray's first interview in over 30 years. For the first time, we will hear his side of the story.
Gray is an interesting case. The Nixon insiders left him "twisting slowly in the wind." Felt and Dean made him a scapegoat and used him to justify and cover-up their own misdeeds. Reporters blamed him for things he did not do. Yet, Woodward watched him testify at his confirmation hearings and thought he "demonstrated a dangerous candor."
I never watch the Stephanopoulos on ABC. But he was on Imus this morning to discuss his interview with L. Patrick Gray. That makes his show appointment TV this weekend. It is Gray's first interview in over 30 years. For the first time, we will hear his side of the story.
Gray is an interesting case. The Nixon insiders left him "twisting slowly in the wind." Felt and Dean made him a scapegoat and used him to justify and cover-up their own misdeeds. Reporters blamed him for things he did not do. Yet, Woodward watched him testify at his confirmation hearings and thought he "demonstrated a dangerous candor."
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Watergate: The Dean Story and the Standard Account
In the spring and summer of 1973, Watergate reporters knew that the big stories were going to come from John Dean. Liddy was reveling in his Spartan silence. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, and Mitchell were hanging tough with their modified limited hangout. McCord, Sloan, and Magruder were not high-ranking enough to shed much light on what had happened inside the Oval Office. Dean's story was the only game in town for those who wanted the next front page headline.
Even before Dean went on the record before the Ervin committee, he and his lawyers were using reporters to get their spin on the story. They were in a strong bargaining position. They could pick and choose among reporters. Those they liked got just enough facts to break a story. Obviously, they had no incentive to select journalists who asked too many hard questions about Dean's role or who tried to verify his account by going to 'hostile' sources.
In his book The Powers that Be , David Halberstam details how this worked. This incident is typical:
[Dean] was very good with the Washington Post. He cut out the New York Times for quite a while because the Times seemed to him to be reflecting the Chuck Colson anti-Dean line. Finally there was a breakfast between Scotty Reston and Bob McCandless [Dean's lawyer]. Reston wanted to know how the Times could get back in on the John Dean industry and it was decided that if the Times did not actually call for immunity for dean, it would nonetheless say that people should start listening to him. Shortly after that, Seymour Hersh was assigned Dean by the Times and soon after that, the Times's coverage was right up there with that of the Post.
Maybe I am naïve, but this sounds like the Times willingly, eagerly participated in discussions with John Dean that were part of John Dean's personal cover-up. In their pursuit of a "big story" the Times agreed to vouch for a Watergate conspirator before they could check his story.
The Times was not alone in this. As Halberstam makes clear, all the big dogs on the Watergate beat played this game. The Watergate narrative that took shape was compromised by their reliance on John Dean. The reporters and their editors had been co-opted. The outlines of the Standard Account of Watergate had to follow John Dean's story.
The co-option, in some cases, was severe and persisted long after the Summer of '73. In the acknowledgments for All the President's Men , Woodward and Bernstein include Taylor Branch among those who "contributed their time, energy and counsel to the preparation of this book". Branch was also the co-author of Dean's first Watergate book, Blind Ambition . Hays Gorey, who was a key reporter for Time magazine on Watergate was the ghostwriter for Maureen Dean's memoirs. The Dean camp not only manipulated the first draft of history in 1973, they managed to shape the second draft as well.
In 1973-74, the pace of events made it impossible to revise the evolving narrative. The reporters who were the "Watergate experts" were locked into the Dean version of the crime and the coverup. No untainted outsider had time to master the details and independently verify them. Moreover, some of the most crucial facts were unavailable. Dean did not admit that he destroyed the Hunt notebooks until after the Ervin hearings were finished. Liddy did not tell his story until 1980.
By the time new evidence became available, Watergate was old news. Even worse, it had acquired the mythic properties. The David and Goliath story of Nixon versus Woodward and Bernstein (better yet, Redford and Hoffman) was more than mere history. It was too powerful to be analyzed and too well known to be investigated anew. There was also the undeniable fact that Nixon had committed crimes and deserved to be impeached. What did the why's and how's matter?
Of course, the same case could be made for teaching the fables of Parson Weems to our junior high students. After all, George Washington was a great man, so what does it matter if he never said "I cannot tell a lie" after chopping down a cherry tree? The pundits of the MSM would pour scorn on any school board that made such a ridiculous argument. So why are they so happy to repeat the Watergate fables?
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Watergate Silences: Gaps in the historical record
Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting two-part question in this New York Observer article:
1. Did Nixon order the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate?
2. Why haven't journalists and historians pursued this question with more energy?
Rosenbaum thinks the answer to #1 is 'yes" which leaves him struggling to answer #2. And he most definitely does think it deserves an answer.
I think that Rosenbaum is right to argue that we need close this gap in Watergate history. But I think that there are other gaps as well-gaps that call into question Rosenbaum's certainty about question #1. However, these gaps are troublesome because they raise troubling questions about the Standard Account of Watergate: brave press and investigators bring down evil Nixon and his Praetorian Guard.
First off, though, let's say that Rosenbaum is right. Nixon had potentially scandalous dealings with Howard Hughes and was afraid Larry O'Brien (DNC chair) would use them against him. A big question immediately comes to mind: why was Nixon and crew so certain that O'Brien had this information? Had they unearthed evidence that someone had collected evidence for the DNC or that someone there was attempting to use it?
They must have been certain because the break-in was not a routine matter. The Nixon White House had many enemies but they sent out Liddy and Hunt only a few times to do black bag jobs. Why were they so certain that the evidence was in that office at that time?
If the evidence was in the Watergate it certainly did not arrive via a public-spirited citizen. Too much digging around in this matter might bolster one of the Nixon camp's first defense-"everyone does it." If the Plumbers just got carried away in a game of political "Spy versus spy", then Watergate loses its moral clarity. The mythic power of the Standard Account is best maintained by focusing on the cover-up. Only one side could misuse the power of the Presidency so there was less danger of moral ambiguity.
Rosenbaum does not address one of the big reasons for this puzzle about the break-in. That is that the Standard Account took shape based on only a few sources. In the critical year-1973-the big Watergate disclosures came from James McCord, John Dean, Jeb Magruder and Deep Throat.
Now we know that all four were self-interested and often dishonest in crafting their stories. Dean, for example, could not reveal the details of the break-in authorization because he maintained that he was not involved. By deflecting attention from himself, he sent investigators and reporters down blind alleys that led to dead-ends. Similarly, Dean shifted responsibility for the loss of the Hunt notebooks to Patrick Gray, which helped obscure Dean's pre-break-in culpability while also making Nixon and Haldeman look more guilty.
Journalists are understandably loath to dig into the evasions of Dean, Felt and McCord. Any serious attempt to do so takes some of the shine off the boys of Watergate summer. It's hard to sustain a myth about heroic reporters when the heroes get conned by their sources and help them concoct false, misleading stories in pursuit of plea bargains or promotions.
Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting two-part question in this New York Observer article:
1. Did Nixon order the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate?
2. Why haven't journalists and historians pursued this question with more energy?
Rosenbaum thinks the answer to #1 is 'yes" which leaves him struggling to answer #2. And he most definitely does think it deserves an answer.
This is the real scandal for journalists: Amidst the orgy of nostalgic self-congratulation that the Mark Felt revelation has prompted, it seems to have been forgotten that journalists have abandoned the most basic crime-reporter responsibility-pin down whodunit. As in who ordered it. None of the official investigations, the Senate Watergate Committee, the House Impeachment Committee, the Special Prosecutor's report were able to pin it directly on Nixon. As a result, as Mr. Greenberg attests, in most mainstream biographies and histories of Nixon and Watergate, Nixon gets a pass. He lied about everything else, but on this one thing-the initiating act of the fall of a government-we should just take his word; he's telling the whole truth.
I think that Rosenbaum is right to argue that we need close this gap in Watergate history. But I think that there are other gaps as well-gaps that call into question Rosenbaum's certainty about question #1. However, these gaps are troublesome because they raise troubling questions about the Standard Account of Watergate: brave press and investigators bring down evil Nixon and his Praetorian Guard.
First off, though, let's say that Rosenbaum is right. Nixon had potentially scandalous dealings with Howard Hughes and was afraid Larry O'Brien (DNC chair) would use them against him. A big question immediately comes to mind: why was Nixon and crew so certain that O'Brien had this information? Had they unearthed evidence that someone had collected evidence for the DNC or that someone there was attempting to use it?
They must have been certain because the break-in was not a routine matter. The Nixon White House had many enemies but they sent out Liddy and Hunt only a few times to do black bag jobs. Why were they so certain that the evidence was in that office at that time?
If the evidence was in the Watergate it certainly did not arrive via a public-spirited citizen. Too much digging around in this matter might bolster one of the Nixon camp's first defense-"everyone does it." If the Plumbers just got carried away in a game of political "Spy versus spy", then Watergate loses its moral clarity. The mythic power of the Standard Account is best maintained by focusing on the cover-up. Only one side could misuse the power of the Presidency so there was less danger of moral ambiguity.
Rosenbaum does not address one of the big reasons for this puzzle about the break-in. That is that the Standard Account took shape based on only a few sources. In the critical year-1973-the big Watergate disclosures came from James McCord, John Dean, Jeb Magruder and Deep Throat.
Now we know that all four were self-interested and often dishonest in crafting their stories. Dean, for example, could not reveal the details of the break-in authorization because he maintained that he was not involved. By deflecting attention from himself, he sent investigators and reporters down blind alleys that led to dead-ends. Similarly, Dean shifted responsibility for the loss of the Hunt notebooks to Patrick Gray, which helped obscure Dean's pre-break-in culpability while also making Nixon and Haldeman look more guilty.
Journalists are understandably loath to dig into the evasions of Dean, Felt and McCord. Any serious attempt to do so takes some of the shine off the boys of Watergate summer. It's hard to sustain a myth about heroic reporters when the heroes get conned by their sources and help them concoct false, misleading stories in pursuit of plea bargains or promotions.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Deep Throat: The irreconcilable differences between image and fact
William Safire traces the origins of Watergate back to the wiretaps placed on White House staffers and reporters beginning in 1969. However, this domestic security operation plays a very small role in the Watergate narrative of All the Presidents Men. Now that we know who Deep Throat was, this blind spot is revealing and raises troubling questions about Felt's motives and the price reporters pay for using anonymous sources with personal agendas.
Woodward and Bernstein did not break the wiretap story. Its outline first appeared in Time magazine in February 1973. Deep Throat kept this operation secret from his young reporter friend. Mark Felt knew about the bugging because it was a national security operation authorized by the Attorney General, blessed by J. Edgar Hoover, and conducted by the FBI.
When the story came out in Time, Woodward met with Deep Throat to ask about the wiretaps. His source fed him lies. He laid the blame on Liddy and Hunt. "There was an out-of-channels vigilante squad of wiretappers that did it." The leaders were "ex-FBI and ex-CIA agents who were hired outside of channels."
More telling, Deep Throat laid down a warning about following Time's story too hastily:
Deep Throat had protected the FBI by deflecting blame to the White House and CREEP. He shielded Kissinger and Haig who had been involved from the beginning and had helped select the targets for the tapping.
Felt's silence and subsequent lies are revealing for several reasons. First, it undercuts the idea that his Watergate revelations had an altruistic motive. The man who helped bring down Nixon had no problem with the FBI bugging reporters and White House staffers. He kept the NSC wiretaps secret for over three years. That is hard to square with his image as a patriot trying to defend the Constitution. Second, Felt's actions demonstrate that his relationship with Woodward was pragmatic with no hint of benevolence. He hid a big story from a young reporter, he minimized its scale as the story began to surface, and he flat out lied when the cover-up broke down.
It is perplexing, then, to read Woodward's accounts of his thought after that February meeting:
Skip forward to May 1973. The month begins on a high note for both the source and the reporter. The hated L. Patrick Gray was forced out of the FBI on April 27. On the 30th Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kleindienst, and Dean resigned. Woodward and Bernstein wrote a story on 3 May that reiterated that the NSC taps were a Liddy/Hunt/CREEP operation. But Deep Throat was fighting a read-guard action. With so many investigations underway, the truth about the FBI wiretaps were bound to come out. Matters soon came to a head.
On 14 May FBI director Ruckelshaus revealed that the NSC wiretaps had been an FBI operation. On 15 May, Sy Hersh revealed in the New York Times that Henry Kissinger himself had worked with the FBI to select which staffers would be bugged.
The next night (16 May) Woodward met with Deep Throat. By any reasonable standard, the reporter should have been angry and skeptical. After all, his friend at the FBI had misled him for three months. The Post had been scooped by the Times and Time magazine because he had believed Deep Throat. How many other lies had been told, and how many other false stories had Woodward and Bernstein written?
Instead, Woodward meekly "listened obediently" to Deep Throat's next yarn. He was not allowed to ask questions as his now unreliable source held forth.
This is a moment of high drama in All the President's Men. Woodward goes back to apartment and calls Bernstein. When his partner arrives, he does not speak. With music playing in the background (more on that in a later post), they communicate via typewriter and scrawled notes.
What spills out of the typewriter is the outline of a conspiracy so immense it defies belief and sends stabs of fear down everyone's spine. Nixon was using the CIA. Surveillance was everywhere. Howard Baker was in the tank. The cover-up was not about Watergate but a much bigger plot.
What follows is several days of clandestine adventure. They go to Bradlee's house for a meeting on a "half-dark street that ends at 4.00a.m. Editorial meetings are held outdoors or in vacant offices.
It makes for a fine story and a better movie, but it does not sound like good investigative reporting. How can two respected reporters be so trusting of a source that lied to them? If we believe W/B, then we must conclude that the reporters were gullible. They were so enamored with their secret source that they had taken leave of their critical faculties. They were not hard-bitten skeptics. Instead, they behaved like brainwashed cultists who accept any outlandish claim made by the trusted master.
The key thing is that Deep Throat's behavior torpedoes his image as a tortured patriot. His behavior is understandable but reprehensible nonetheless. He used the Washington Post to protect the FBI. He shifted blame for the wiretaps to two convenient targets (Liddy and Hunt) who he knew were innocent. He lied for bureaucratic advantage.
This story, it seems to me, must be the starting point for evaluating Mark Felt. It explains why he leaked instead of going to Congress as an honest whistle-blower. He leaked because he wanted to lie. In this case, he could not go to Congress because the truth hurt the FBI, not L. Patrick Gray.
William Safire traces the origins of Watergate back to the wiretaps placed on White House staffers and reporters beginning in 1969. However, this domestic security operation plays a very small role in the Watergate narrative of All the Presidents Men. Now that we know who Deep Throat was, this blind spot is revealing and raises troubling questions about Felt's motives and the price reporters pay for using anonymous sources with personal agendas.
Woodward and Bernstein did not break the wiretap story. Its outline first appeared in Time magazine in February 1973. Deep Throat kept this operation secret from his young reporter friend. Mark Felt knew about the bugging because it was a national security operation authorized by the Attorney General, blessed by J. Edgar Hoover, and conducted by the FBI.
When the story came out in Time, Woodward met with Deep Throat to ask about the wiretaps. His source fed him lies. He laid the blame on Liddy and Hunt. "There was an out-of-channels vigilante squad of wiretappers that did it." The leaders were "ex-FBI and ex-CIA agents who were hired outside of channels."
More telling, Deep Throat laid down a warning about following Time's story too hastily:
"Don't jump too fast."
Deep Throat had protected the FBI by deflecting blame to the White House and CREEP. He shielded Kissinger and Haig who had been involved from the beginning and had helped select the targets for the tapping.
Felt's silence and subsequent lies are revealing for several reasons. First, it undercuts the idea that his Watergate revelations had an altruistic motive. The man who helped bring down Nixon had no problem with the FBI bugging reporters and White House staffers. He kept the NSC wiretaps secret for over three years. That is hard to square with his image as a patriot trying to defend the Constitution. Second, Felt's actions demonstrate that his relationship with Woodward was pragmatic with no hint of benevolence. He hid a big story from a young reporter, he minimized its scale as the story began to surface, and he flat out lied when the cover-up broke down.
It is perplexing, then, to read Woodward's accounts of his thought after that February meeting:
"It was enough to know that Deep Throat would never deal with him falsely."
Skip forward to May 1973. The month begins on a high note for both the source and the reporter. The hated L. Patrick Gray was forced out of the FBI on April 27. On the 30th Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kleindienst, and Dean resigned. Woodward and Bernstein wrote a story on 3 May that reiterated that the NSC taps were a Liddy/Hunt/CREEP operation. But Deep Throat was fighting a read-guard action. With so many investigations underway, the truth about the FBI wiretaps were bound to come out. Matters soon came to a head.
On 14 May FBI director Ruckelshaus revealed that the NSC wiretaps had been an FBI operation. On 15 May, Sy Hersh revealed in the New York Times that Henry Kissinger himself had worked with the FBI to select which staffers would be bugged.
The next night (16 May) Woodward met with Deep Throat. By any reasonable standard, the reporter should have been angry and skeptical. After all, his friend at the FBI had misled him for three months. The Post had been scooped by the Times and Time magazine because he had believed Deep Throat. How many other lies had been told, and how many other false stories had Woodward and Bernstein written?
Instead, Woodward meekly "listened obediently" to Deep Throat's next yarn. He was not allowed to ask questions as his now unreliable source held forth.
This is a moment of high drama in All the President's Men. Woodward goes back to apartment and calls Bernstein. When his partner arrives, he does not speak. With music playing in the background (more on that in a later post), they communicate via typewriter and scrawled notes.
"Everyone's life is in danger."
What spills out of the typewriter is the outline of a conspiracy so immense it defies belief and sends stabs of fear down everyone's spine. Nixon was using the CIA. Surveillance was everywhere. Howard Baker was in the tank. The cover-up was not about Watergate but a much bigger plot.
What follows is several days of clandestine adventure. They go to Bradlee's house for a meeting on a "half-dark street that ends at 4.00a.m. Editorial meetings are held outdoors or in vacant offices.
"For several days afer Woodward's meeting with Deep Throat, Bernstein and Woodward hehaved cautiously. They conferred on street corners, passed notes in the office, avoided telephone communications."
It makes for a fine story and a better movie, but it does not sound like good investigative reporting. How can two respected reporters be so trusting of a source that lied to them? If we believe W/B, then we must conclude that the reporters were gullible. They were so enamored with their secret source that they had taken leave of their critical faculties. They were not hard-bitten skeptics. Instead, they behaved like brainwashed cultists who accept any outlandish claim made by the trusted master.
The key thing is that Deep Throat's behavior torpedoes his image as a tortured patriot. His behavior is understandable but reprehensible nonetheless. He used the Washington Post to protect the FBI. He shifted blame for the wiretaps to two convenient targets (Liddy and Hunt) who he knew were innocent. He lied for bureaucratic advantage.
This story, it seems to me, must be the starting point for evaluating Mark Felt. It explains why he leaked instead of going to Congress as an honest whistle-blower. He leaked because he wanted to lie. In this case, he could not go to Congress because the truth hurt the FBI, not L. Patrick Gray.
Friday, June 17, 2005
The other side of Deep Throat
Ralph de Toledano provides a particularly interesting view of Mark Felt. He was Felt's ghost writer and a long-time friend and supporter of Richard Nixon. He wrote up some of his recollections in the 4 July issue of The American Conservative.
Ralph de Toledano provides a particularly interesting view of Mark Felt. He was Felt's ghost writer and a long-time friend and supporter of Richard Nixon. He wrote up some of his recollections in the 4 July issue of The American Conservative.
Contrary to legend, J. Edgar and Richard M. thoroughly disliked each other, though they kept their feelings under wraps. Following his usual custom of trying to keep new presidents off-balance. Hoover sent Mark Felt to investigate trumped-up charges by political gossip columnist Jack Anderson that John Ehrlichman, a Nixon adviser, was a homosexual. Ehrlichman was cleared, but from that moment Felt had him in his pocket, and the president had it in for Felt.
When Hoover died, Felt served for one day as acting director. But when it was suggested that Felt take over Hoover's job, Nixon was emphatically against it. Felt was "a bad guy," Nixon said. "I don't want him. I want a fellow in there that is not part of the old guard." Instead, he appointed L. Patrick Gray III, a Justice Department official. When the scandal began to build, Bob Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, complained, "the FBI is not under control because Pat Gray doesn't exactly know how to control it." Felt was running the investigation, and it was "leading into some productive areas" and getting much too close to home. Every thing that FBI agents were turning up was in Felt's hands. Moreover, Haldeman suspected, and he was correct, that Ehrlichman was reporting White House cover-up activities to Felt, and he had been told that Felt was leaking to the Washington Post and to Time.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Woodstein gets played: Deep Throat, Gray, and Hunt's notebooks
In light of the previous post, you have to wonder: How did L. Patrick Gray get tagged as a big fish in the Watergate cover-up?
It turns out that John Dean lied about him to divert attention form dean's own involvement in the Watergate burglary and cover-up. Deep Throat helped by feeding incorrect information to Woodward when the story broke.
After the arrest at the Watergate, Dean went through Howard Hunt's White House safe. He eventually turned over most of the material to FBI investigators. He gave two folders to Acting Director Gray. He himself kept two notebooks in which Hunt recorded the details of the spying operations and his covert career.
In October 1972, Hunt's lawyers filed a motion for the government to produce the notebooks. The prosecutors and FBI did not have them and feared that their disappearance could result in a dismissal of the case against Hunt.
In December, the prosecutors met with Dean and pressed him about the contents of hunt's safe. He pleaded poor memory when it came to the specific items found there, but insisted that he turned everything over to the FBI.
In the middle of the meeting, Dean pulled Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson aside and told him that he gave the most sensitive items directly to gray. "If there are missing documents, he's got them."
This is from Dean's own account in Blind Ambition.
At a stroke, Dean (falsely) implicated Gray in the Watergate cover-up. He bought himself time and turned attention away from his own actions.
Dean claims that he destroyed the notebooks in January 1973.
What Gray actually received from dean were two pieces of "research" Hunt had worked on at the White House. One concerned JFK and the Diem assassination. (Hunt may have been trying to forge cables that would implicate JFK in the assassination of Diem.) The other was a dossier on ted Kennedy. They were sensitive because they were proof that Hunt was involved in political intelligence for Nixon and may have been gearing up for some very dirty tricks. However, neither file related to the Watergate burglary.
In December, 1972 Gray burned them.
On 26 April 1973, the New York Daily News broke the story of Gray's destruction of the files. By this time Dean had cut a deal with prosecutors and his narrative was the impetus for the "revelation". He did not mention at this time that he had retained the notebooks and destroyed them himself.
Woodward reports that he called Deep Throat soon after he heard about the Daily News story. Deep Throat confirmed it was true. He added that gray had been warned by the White House that the material was "political dynamite" and "could do more damage than the Watergate buggings themselves". He also stated (inaccurately) that Gray destroyed them within a week of receiving them.
It is impossible to determine how much of the distortion in Deep Throat's account was from Dean and how much was Felt putting the knife to the hated outsider who was his boss. In any case, Gray had the misfortune to wind up in the crosshairs of two willful men with personal agendas and a deficit of character. Woodward, Bernstein, and the rest of the press ended up carrying water for the bad guys in this case.
Dean did not admit that he destroyed the notebooks until after he cut his deal with prosecutors and became their star witness. This was after he testified to the Ervin committee. His gripping testimony in the summer of 1973 was a part of his own, personal, cover-up.
The April revelations were a deathblow to Gray's chances of being confirmed to head the FBI. With the fate of Hunt's notebooks still a mystery, his destruction of the two files seemed more sinister than it was.
Felt, however, did not gain from Gray's troubles. Nixon nominated another outsider to be FBI Director (William Ruckelshaus) and Felt would soon leave the bureau.
In light of the previous post, you have to wonder: How did L. Patrick Gray get tagged as a big fish in the Watergate cover-up?
It turns out that John Dean lied about him to divert attention form dean's own involvement in the Watergate burglary and cover-up. Deep Throat helped by feeding incorrect information to Woodward when the story broke.
After the arrest at the Watergate, Dean went through Howard Hunt's White House safe. He eventually turned over most of the material to FBI investigators. He gave two folders to Acting Director Gray. He himself kept two notebooks in which Hunt recorded the details of the spying operations and his covert career.
In October 1972, Hunt's lawyers filed a motion for the government to produce the notebooks. The prosecutors and FBI did not have them and feared that their disappearance could result in a dismissal of the case against Hunt.
In December, the prosecutors met with Dean and pressed him about the contents of hunt's safe. He pleaded poor memory when it came to the specific items found there, but insisted that he turned everything over to the FBI.
In the middle of the meeting, Dean pulled Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson aside and told him that he gave the most sensitive items directly to gray. "If there are missing documents, he's got them."
This is from Dean's own account in Blind Ambition.
At a stroke, Dean (falsely) implicated Gray in the Watergate cover-up. He bought himself time and turned attention away from his own actions.
Dean claims that he destroyed the notebooks in January 1973.
What Gray actually received from dean were two pieces of "research" Hunt had worked on at the White House. One concerned JFK and the Diem assassination. (Hunt may have been trying to forge cables that would implicate JFK in the assassination of Diem.) The other was a dossier on ted Kennedy. They were sensitive because they were proof that Hunt was involved in political intelligence for Nixon and may have been gearing up for some very dirty tricks. However, neither file related to the Watergate burglary.
In December, 1972 Gray burned them.
On 26 April 1973, the New York Daily News broke the story of Gray's destruction of the files. By this time Dean had cut a deal with prosecutors and his narrative was the impetus for the "revelation". He did not mention at this time that he had retained the notebooks and destroyed them himself.
Woodward reports that he called Deep Throat soon after he heard about the Daily News story. Deep Throat confirmed it was true. He added that gray had been warned by the White House that the material was "political dynamite" and "could do more damage than the Watergate buggings themselves". He also stated (inaccurately) that Gray destroyed them within a week of receiving them.
It is impossible to determine how much of the distortion in Deep Throat's account was from Dean and how much was Felt putting the knife to the hated outsider who was his boss. In any case, Gray had the misfortune to wind up in the crosshairs of two willful men with personal agendas and a deficit of character. Woodward, Bernstein, and the rest of the press ended up carrying water for the bad guys in this case.
Dean did not admit that he destroyed the notebooks until after he cut his deal with prosecutors and became their star witness. This was after he testified to the Ervin committee. His gripping testimony in the summer of 1973 was a part of his own, personal, cover-up.
The April revelations were a deathblow to Gray's chances of being confirmed to head the FBI. With the fate of Hunt's notebooks still a mystery, his destruction of the two files seemed more sinister than it was.
Felt, however, did not gain from Gray's troubles. Nixon nominated another outsider to be FBI Director (William Ruckelshaus) and Felt would soon leave the bureau.
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