"Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, began his morning briefing at the White House by charging that 'stories are being run that are based on hearsay, innuendo, guilt by association...[I]t goes without saying that this Administration does not condone sabotage or espionage or surveillance of individuals.' That same afternoon, Clark MacGregor, who had taken over from John Mitchell as Nixon's campaign chairman, held a press conference in which he took no questions but read a prepared statement. He said that the Post's
'...credibility has today sunk lower than that of George McGovern.
Using innuendo, third-party hearsay, unsubstantiated charges, anonymous sources and huge scare headlines, the Post has maliciously sought to give the appearance of a direct connection between the White House and the Watergate--a charge which the Post knows and half a dozen investigations have found to be false.
The hallmark of the Post's campaign is hypocrisy--and its celebrated 'double standard' is today visible for all to see.'
This and Ziegler's turned out to be only two of the salvos in a broadside against us."
That's a quote from page 466 of the book "Personal History," the 1997 autobiography of Katharine Graham.
What if the Washington Post had capitulated? What if it had sought to protect itself by apologizing, by withdrawing support for its sources, by retracting everything that it had published about Watergate, only to be hit by lawsuits and the criminal charges with which it was threatened by the White House? What if it had allowed its reporters' careers to be ruined?
Why the Washington Post done to another publication what the Post was threatened by?
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, June 12, 2016 @ 5:11 p.m.
