Nixon, Linden & Clawson on Journalism ethics and Press relations

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Morning, sir.

Good morning, sir.

Hi, Frank.

How are you?

I'm glad to see you, sir.

Well, anybody that's gone through the agony of writing a book, I'm glad to see you.

Well, I'm glad to be right by you this time, sir.

I'm Frank Bunker, actor number three of the three.

Great.

Well, talk about that first movie.

Here is the special edition, which I'm sure is a credit to you.

This movie, huh?

especially bound in leather, for us at Luke's company.

And actually, this, I think, is probably going to be like a second or third year library.

I'm not even sure.

I think it's just super inscribed.

Let's see if we can cut it out.

Oh, yes, it is.

Good.

Didn't forget it.

Here's another one we thought we might want to have.

I imagine you mark books when you read them.

So you can just go ahead and mark them on all of them.

That's right.

Have a good time.

I was very careful to separate columnists and commentators and reporters.

I said a columnist or a commentator should be biased.

That's his job.

He's got to do it.

But when a guy reports, he's got to say what the facts are and shouldn't be a columnist.

I always use Bert Andrews.

He's his famous statement to the effect that back in

He wrote me one Pulitzer Prize for articles on some of the State Department people.

Yes, I remember very well.

Before that, before the pumpkin papers, when he got on the wrong side as far as the locals were concerned, he wrote me one Pulitzer Prize for

dashes and investigations of the State Department personnel on the logger charges and so forth where he took the side of the State Department and he only got the prize.

That's what he reported in his case in his former French, Austrian side of the country.

And they took him back later because he was an Englishman at all.

Anyway, the trouble with most people, mostly my friends, my reporters who cover the State Department is

And instead of writing about the Secretary of State, they write as if they were the Secretary of State.

That's a very good point.

It's a very good issue.

I understand.

Everybody has this right.

I mean, you have a clutter writer, a computer, a cigar, or something.

I know what they do.

But the point is, if they put it in a column, if they put it in a,

you know, in a, say, opinion or analysis, then they can do anything they want.

But God damn it, when they put it in the news story, they have an obligation to be reasonable, reasonably accurate with facts.

That's about all.

What do you think?

I don't know.

I think, you know, these people, it reminds you to them that you are a sports reporter.

It's your obligation to say who won the game and exactly what the score was.

That's right.

Who made that block?

That's right.

Or like, for example, a hockey game, you don't give the credit for a guy who didn't make the pass.

I think that's an excellent way to say it and the facts of what we want to say is true in writing this book.

We know, as your friend Ray McHugh of COPPA said in his review of it, he said, well, how many of those books are coming out in the campaign time?

And some people are going to say it's partisan.

He said, read it.

He said, read it, and you'll see that it is the story.

Of course, what the president done with Israel, he's a leader in the book.

But these are facts people need to know.

And thanks to you and Bill Rogers and Henry Kissinger and General Haig, we do have a lot of material.

We understand that.

And don't be concerned about reviews and that sort of thing.

No book will ever be written.

It does not affect the people.

The Orioles never, you know, you show them off.

Chiang Mai-shek look as great as the Japanese.

I don't think they have a name, but when you look at the Irish as a group, they're that way.

Generally speaking, the German doesn't do it.

He stands up better.

And basically, like you mentioned, while we sort of keep it on the religious thing, you talk about the Semitic peoples.

It doesn't affect them because basically they don't preach so much.

I mean, you find very few of them that are hoosiers, but if you take Teddy Kennedy, he would look great, but if you continue, and Bill Bombay, who also described, he said, he once said, this was a couple years ago, he said, you know, I thought about Teddy, and of course, he, of course, was for Jack Kennedy, he was a professional captain, and not for Bobby, couldn't take that, but he said the trouble with Teddy is he's a best learner in one of the boxing drafts.

But he has one liability that neither Bobby nor Jack had.

He cannot resist another drink.

There's a question.

I don't mean that the drink's designed to have an effect on how it affects his conduct.

But I mean how it affects the person's appearance.

I don't know much, but you've got to be dead careful about that.

You've seen some of your colleagues in the press come right apart, haven't you?

Oh, yeah.

Right in your eyes.

That's right.

They just collapse.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

But it's that kind of follow-up.

Nixon, Linden & Clawson on Journalism ethics and Press relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on September 21, 1972

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