The Wars of Watergate

by Stanley I. Kutler

  Nixon’s suspicions and need for control of the press often came together. Around the period of his banishing the Times, the President complained to Haldeman that “K[issinger] went to L.A. Times again—Why?” A year later, he ordered Time and New Republic White House reporters Hugh Sidey and John Osborne excluded from receiving White House news summaries and cut off from interviews. Nixon claimed to have unimpeachable evidence that both reporters had said derogatory things in circles “where you really find out what the people think—the Georgetown cocktail parties.” Nixon was livid. “There is no appeal whatever—I do not want it discussed with me any further,” he told Haldeman. He ordered Haldeman to crack down on White House “prima donnas”—Kissinger?—who continued to give interviews.5

  The relationship between Nixon and the media was not confined to hostility and conflict, however. The media form a vague, amorphous entity, difficult to define precisely or clearly understand. Nixon’s papers reveal a steady torrent of his familiar diatribes against the press. No doubt they were genuinely felt. Yet leading journalists—from press lords, to television executives, to working reporters—moved easily in Nixon’s company and Administration circles. That kind of familiarity resulted in a press bonanza that newspaper owners had been unable to reap from Lyndon Johnson’s Administration.

  Competition from television, along with burgeoning costs, had resulted in the steady closings of major newspapers, particularly in the large metropolitan areas. New York City, which once had boasted as many as twelve dailies, was down to three by the 1970s. Typically, large cities had a morning and an afternoon paper, with the latter generally lagging because of its head-to-head competition with evening television news. The mounting economic woes in newspaper publishing dictated cooperative ventures, in which competing newspapers merged their printing facilities and business offices. One of the net effects was to create local monopoly situations in printing classified advertising. In response, the government brought antitrust proceedings, winning in the lower court in 1965 and in the Supreme Court four years later. Meanwhile, the newspapers sought support for a legislative exemption from the antitrust laws, which would allow them to combine and so survive.

  In June 1969, the Nixon Administration’s new Assistant Attorney General for the Anti-Trust Division, Richard W. McLaren, testified against the proposed Newspaper Preservation Act. The Democratic-dominated Judiciary subcommittee appeared pleased with the Administration’s position, but the White House had yet to hear from its friends. Richard Berlin, President of the Hearst Corporation, had neither hostility toward the newly elected President nor any compunctions about asking him to support the antitrust exemption. Berlin spoke of the matter as one of “common interest to both you and me,” and gently reminded the President that “important publishers and friends of your administration” needed the exemption. “All of us look to you for assistance.” Berlin spelled it out a bit more bluntly for McLaren. He told him that the affected newspaper publishers almost unanimously supported Nixon in 1968. “It therefore seems to me,” Berlin said, “that those newspapers should, at the very least, receive a most friendly consideration.” Finally, Berlin complained that the publishers had “become the victims and the targets” of a dated, narrow economic philosophy.

  The friends Berlin spoke of represented the publishing chains of Hearst, Scripps-Howard (which controlled United Press International), Cox, Knight, Newhouse, and Block. While the exemption involved only a few of their newspapers, these chains combined reached forty million readers. Berlin’s message came through loud and clear. Congress passed the Newspaper Preservation Act in 1969, and the President promptly signed it. The law inevitably facilitated the growth of more newspaper monopolies—and higher advertising costs. Nixon ignored advice from the Justice Department. Democrats, he knew, opposed the bill, and those who favored it, he said, “are for the most part on our side.”

  He was right. Despite Nixon’s steady assaults on their integrity, their quality, indeed even their patriotism, most newspapers throughout the United States consistently gave him a high level of support. In 1972 the major chains supported Nixon and largely suppressed Watergate news, while four years earlier, a third of the Hearst and Cox newspapers and half of the Scripps-Howard chain had backed Hubert Humphrey. In the 1972 election, these chains unanimously endorsed the President.6

  Writings on the news media alternatively have interpreted the Vietnam-Watergate years as marking the development of a new form of advocacy journalism that inevitably led to an adversarial relationship with powerholders or as years in which cooperation remained at the core of government-media relations, but in which the adversary elements became the most visible and vocal. In varying degrees, both interpretations accept the idea that government officials view the media as a natural enemy. Some emphasize governmental attempts to manipulate and intimidate, while others stress the use of the carrot and co-optation. The Nixon Administration, like all others, used a bit of both.

  Whatever interpretation is taken, clearly the 1960s profoundly transformed the White House’s relationship with the media. Until that time, the White House press corps resembled a club, observing certain rules and amenities that lent an air of formality, privilege, and amicability to their relations with the Administration. Unofficial but clear lines of mutual respect existed and were well known. White House service was a plum assignment for reporters, and they usually stayed for a long time.

  The relationship changed. Perhaps it was a matter of style, as journalists began to speak more and more of themselves as professionals. Competition between print and electronic communications heightened the pressure for the dramatic, the sensational, and the instant in the “news.” The media’s concern was for the moment, and that made it more difficult for government officials to work in obscurity and with regard for the long view. Journalism was history with a 5:00 P.M. deadline.

  The times themselves fostered a critical, cynical regard on the part of the press for official statements and policies. For many journalists, the Vietnam war operated on a level where reality clashed with the creation of official illusions, even deceptions. The 1960s brought reporters a heightened perception that the interest of government was too easily identified with the interest of a political man, an interest that then could be rationalized as in harmony with the public’s. Again, Richard Nixon had inherited an unwanted legacy of media skepticism; but once more, it was a legacy to which he brought his own special baggage.

  Press attacks on the presidency were not new, of course. Truman and Johnson, in recent years, had suffered enormously, but Nixon thought he was uniquely victimized. Revealing both his phobia and his self-pity, he told a correspondent in March 1971: “It is true that of all the Presidents in this century, it is probably true, that I have less, as somebody has said, supporters in the press than any President.” Nixon thought it was important not to be captured by the Washington “elite crap.” He scorned the Washington press and party scene, noting that “I’m one of the most hated” presidents by the Washington establishment—particularly the media. He thought this amusing because “they know I’m one of them, but I’m not captured by them.” Nixon never shared the confidence and luxury of Dwight Eisenhower’s observation at his first press conference that “I don’t see that a reporter could do that much to a President, do you?”7 The times and the President had changed.

  Four years after what had seemed to be a humiliating defeat in the California gubernatorial election, a defeat followed by the famous “last press conference,” Nixon saw the reversal as fortunate. “California served a purpose,” he said. “The press had a guilt complex about their inaccuracy. Since then they’ve been generally accurate, and far more respectful.” He acknowledged that he had been too “serious” about the press, but “now I treat it like a game.” For the next several years, Nixon purposefully preyed upon that guilt. The “game plan”—to use a term favored by the President and his courtiers—was designed to put the media into a “let’s be fair to
Nixon” mode. Nixon’s 1968 victory gave him the power and resources to settle old scores and to turn the media to his advantage.8

  Nixon deliberately sought to foster a public perception that he cared not a whit for his image, even while he anxiously reached out for public support and acceptance. In March 1971, he appeared for a two-hour interview on the Today television program. Emphasizing the “enormous responsibilities” of the presidency, Nixon insisted that the Chief Executive “must not be constantly preening in front of a mirror, wondering whether or not he is getting across as this kind of individual or that.” He had no truck with the public-relations types “constantly riding me, or they used to in the campaign, and they do now. ‘You have got to do this, that, and the other thing to change your image.’ I am not going to change my image, I am just going to do a good job for this country.” The facts were otherwise. Nixon was constantly concerned and preoccupied with image; and it was the President himself, not “spinmakers” and public-relations men, who set the agenda for this concern. Just prior to his Today appearance, Nixon told Haldeman that it was time to use a “full-time PR man to really convey the true image of a President to the nation.”9

  Five days after his inauguration, Nixon had advice for the “Five O’Clock Group,” a task force created to manage the news flow. He told Ehrlichman that he wanted someone to do “an effective job on the RN come-back theme. Some way I just don’t feel we have adequately presented this case and that we have generally been too defensive on our whole PR approach.” Ten days later, he reminded his staff that he wanted the “best, brief, affirmative” comments about his inaugural address “properly distributed.” The President even supplied some quotes. He also suggested projects for the Five O’Clock Group, such as an organized letters-to-the-editor campaign and calls to television stations. He thought this would give campaign volunteers a continued involvement and that it would give him “what Kennedy had in abundance—a constant representation in letters to the editor columns and a very proper influence on the television commentators.” Nixon had a detailed plan for the letters campaign, suggesting that individuals express enthusiasm for the “RN crime program in Washington, the RN press conference technique and the Inaugural, and the general performance since the Inauguration.” Letters also had to be written when columnists and editorialists “jump on us unfairly.” He cautioned against sending a public “blunderbuss memorandum” to hundreds of people; instead, he suggested “a discreet but nevertheless effective Nixon Network [be] set up.” The President repeatedly urged that the staff mount an organized letter-writing campaign. He suggested that Kissinger, Buchanan, Safire, and Moynihan describe their work in personal letters to “15 or 20 or maybe 50 people” across the country. By November 1969, Nixon was urging that there be no letup in that campaign. Apparently, he thought that the public-relations group had been too content following Nixon’s earlier world trip and the moon landing, “when we [were] … doing rather well in public opinion.”

  The President recognized the need to monitor and counterattack criticism. Paul Keyes, a speechwriter and formerly the writer of a leading television humor program, had suggested to Nixon that television entertainment programs be monitored for deliberately negative comments about the Administration. Keyes specifically targeted the Smothers Brothers program on CBS. Apparently, the President saw one sequence in which the comedians said that they found nothing to laugh about when considering the news about Vietnam or the cities but then added: “Richard Nixon’s solving those problems,” and “that’s really funny.” The President was not amused. He wanted such programs monitored, and he wanted supporters to write objections to the producers, stressing that the criticisms were ill-taken, “particularly in view of the great public approval of RN’s handling of foreign policy, etc. etc.” He told Ehrlichman “ad infinitum” that Kennedy’s people regularly did this.

  Nixon’s repeated emphasis on justifying his image concerns with Kennedy precedents offered a familiar refrain, but it also underlined his conviction that he confronted unique opposition. He instructed Haldeman to emphasize in his “PR activities” the fact that the Nixon Administration “had unprecedented opposition of the press but also that we had an opposition Congress to work with which has been the case for the first time in a President’s first term since Buchanan [sic].”10

  The modern President and the media have a symbiotic relationship. The President carries a publicity train in his wake; he needs a flow of information to his public constituency. Media workers are conduits, sometimes allowing free flow, sometimes selecting, sometimes adding their own gloss. Meanwhile, White House announcements and printouts gush like a torrent, inundating the recipients with more information than they or their reading and viewing public can possibly absorb. Every presidential remark, every move, is recorded and logged for the historical record. The presidential annals also are dispensed for immediate consumption—often to the point of trivialization.

  President Nixon’s China trip is a case in point. During his first visit in 1972, Nixon made the obligatory trip to the Great Wall. Like others before and since, he found it awe-inspiring. Ron Ziegler told a friendly reporter that the President would have a comment if asked what he thought of the Great Wall. Perhaps the reporter thought this was to be a historic moment. He dutifully posed the question. Nixon indeed was ready with a detailed response praising the wall. But at the end, he solemnly noted: “I think that you have to conclude that this is a great wall.” Correspondents carefully recorded the remark. Just in case any of them missed it, the White House Traveling Press Office Xeroxed copies and distributed the statement. Perhaps Nixon wasn’t sure of himself, for he turned to Secretary of State William Rogers and asked for confirmation of the Wall’s greatness. Rogers readily agreed. But the President needed to check one more source: he asked the reporters, and like a well-rehearsed chorus they replied, “Yes, Mr. President.”11

  The media are not always so in accord, especially among themselves. Obvious partisan, even ideological, differences characterize them. Then, too, the print and television media are vastly different in form, quality, and appeal. Television’s focus on images, of course, sets its products apart from newspaper and radio reports of the news. A New York Times account of a presidential or governmental action might use 2,000 words; even the wire-service story, which typically dominates the nation’s newspapers, might carry 600–800 words. Television meanwhile will offer perhaps several sentences. All three accounts probably will rely on an official handout, but television will use the officially prepared summary points, while newspapers might print more explanation. Nothing sinister here; nothing more than the costs and demands of network time and the abiding fear of displaying a mere “talking head” dictate television’s choice of news. They simply are in the nature of the medium. What also has been inevitable is the steady growth of television’s dominant position as the chief medium for offering news. No wonder, then, that President Nixon and his aides focused much of their attention on the networks and their reporters.

  The manner of news manipulation attempted by the Administration pointedly recognized the media’s vulnerabilities in laziness and the lack of resources to probe for deeper meanings to events. Haldeman instructed his aides that every presidential statement should be accompanied with a summary. He was blunt as to the purpose: “We will get better coverage if we write the press’ story for them, and … we should always do this rather than leave it up to them to find the salient points in our release.” Years later, Haldeman blamed the press for “an obsession” with covering every aspect of White House affairs, which in turn caused the President and his staff to respond in detail, thus making it appear that the White House was “obsessed with getting all this out.” Original sin was in the eye of the beholder.12

  Dealing with television involved the more rewarding prize, and the easier task. First, government regulation complicated relations between the Administration and the television industry. Spiro Agnew’s famous Des Moines assault on
the media only made the implicit threat of oppressive regulation more explicit. Second, the Administration could focus its efforts more with television than with newspapers, as it could negotiate directly with the few important network executives.

  After the New York Times commented on his “bitter” response to the Senate’s rejection of his nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court, Nixon told Haldeman that he had received scores of letters from people who had seen him on television and did not think that he appeared at all bitter. “This had led RN to the conclusion,” the President told Haldeman, to have all future press conferences televised. Nixon thought “the TV guys will like it and the press guys will shape up a little better.” He recognized that television reporters must be more restrained, tied as they were to the image they displayed on the screen.

  In this particular instance, the President was anxious to make public certain facts of his travel costs. He thought that it would be best to give the story exclusively to one of the network reporters. “Obviously, a major television coverage would be more important than having it appear in some column or even on a wire service,” he told Haldeman. Nixon respected television. When the President directed the staff to monitor such entertainment programs as that of the Smothers brothers, he noted that this was a far more important activity than sponsoring letter-writing campaigns in newspapers. Nixon had confidence in using television; his effectiveness was “remarkable,” a Haldeman aide reported, in words that again probably came from the President himself.13

  The presidential press conference has come to be the most visible point of public contact between presidents and the media. It is often said that this is the closest American approximation to the British parliamentary practice of periodically questioning government ministers. The comparison pales. The British system is institutionalized and works on a regular basis, operating between assumed equals in status, if not quite in power. All questioners are members of Parliament, standing in deference to their monarch but not to the Prime Minister. The questioners stand forth openly as political opponents, with the opportunity to coordinate and focus a series of questions designed to secure political advantage for themselves. Above all, parliamentary examination is a vital component of ministerial accountability. Presidential press conferences simply have lacked those qualities of tradition and institutionalization.