The Word from Washington
The Word from washington Emile Zola, writing at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, suggested that a prudent citizen might swallow a live toad every morning in order to prepare himself for the official...
...The weekend afternoons hang heavy at the White House...
...The Greening of America (Armed Forces Division) : A few years ago, when Cesar Chavez's farm workers were trying to win union recognition— and a living wage—from California grape growers by means of a nationwide grape boycott, the Army discovered that its troops had suddenly developed an inordinate fondness for grapes...
...Lightning didn't strike...
...Meanwhile, if anyone wants to open a live toad concession in the Capital, we can promise him a lively volume of business...
...Give thy servant an understanding heart...
...Relations between the President and the press have deteriorated to the point where even the White House Correspondents' Association has been stirred out of its customary lethargy...
...He cited Walter Lippmann's comment that the Presidential news conference, however imperfect, is "not a privilege but an organic necessity" in American government...
...Accordingly, the Pentagon increased its grape purchases for U.S...
...Defense Department records show that lettuce purchases are rising rapidly— particularly purchases from the Salinas Valley growers who are the prime targets of the union's boycott campaign...
...We await the presentation of the Government's case, while wondering if a fair trial will be possible, given the massive investment that Hoover and Agnew have made in the presumption of guilt...
...That doesn't sound like more press conferences to us...
...Last year alone, the Senator reports, the two stations received secret CIA subsidies totaling $30 million...
...Let us have an understanding heart in our relations with other nations and in the relations between races and parties and generations here at home...
...Anderson's principal point was that the guilt or innocence of the Berrigans ought to be established in a court of law, not in headlines created by the offhand remarks of the director of the FBI before a House appropriations subcommittee...
...That was the weekend when the whole world tried to pierce an American news "embargo" to find out what was going on in Southeast Asia...
...Nixon told reporters...
...We assume that military intelligence is on the job, keeping close tabs on Chavez's future plans—not with any intent of spying on the union, but merely to help the Army's nutritionists ascertain what kind of produce the troops are likely to be craving next year...
...Some weeks ago, however, the Association decided to take President Nixon up on his December 10 request for "suggestions from members of the press as to how we could make better use of the news conferences without dominating the television too much...
...The Association's involvement in professional journalistic problems has been about as significant as the USO's involvement in the formulation of defense policy...
...The Association's current president, Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Daily News, wrote to the President in January, suggesting a series of steps including return to the past practice of regular weekly meetings between the President and the press...
...These, he said, were under "careful consideration," and he promised "continued efforts to maintain and improve news policies which are of mutual benefit to the public interest, the President, and the press...
...According to Senator Clifford Case, New Jersey Republican, the return from the public is "apparently less than $100,000" in contributions...
...The pitch is for contributions to Radio Free Europe, whose powerful transmitters in Munich, West Germany, keep "The Truth" flowing into Eastern Europe...
...He has introduced legislation that would authorize $30 million for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in fiscal 1972 under the U.S...
...He was right...
...Where was Agnew's finely honed sense of justice and fair play when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover pronounced the Berrigans guilty weeks before they were even indicted by a grand jury...
...It also raises the intriguing question of where Radio Free Europe obtains the bulk of its rather substantial operating costs...
...Nixon's press secretary assured the White House reporters that they could rest easy: There would be no news...
...Nixon toasted his "young and forward-looking" country...
...There are limits, of course, to what an understanding heart can do...
...The new chief of Internal Security, Assistant Attorney General Robert C. Mardian, is a zealous rightist who is likely to bring much enthusiasm to the prosecution of political crimes...
...There has been," it said, "a recent gratuitous statement by a high Government official that criticizes the head of the FBI, calls for nationwide demonstrations against the indictment, and characterizes the defendants as heroes...
...Those who know the Catholic pacifists—including Representative Anderson—find it difficult to believe that they would contemplate any resort to violence, but they acknowledge that America's criminal war in Southeast Asia has driven other good people to ugly extremes...
...It was a marvelous visit, Mrs...
...Vice President Agnew's press release carefully avoided mentioning Anderson by name...
...The rest is tedium—the widening war in Indochina, the continuing crisis in the Middle East, no progress at the strategic arms limitation talks, persistent unemployment, inflation...
...The Congressman had, indeed, criticized the head of the FBI—an offense that Agnew identified with "a recent trend that unjustly downgrades law enforcement officers...
...Most correspondents believe, Lisagor noted, that "many of the problems associated with format would be eliminated by more frequent and regular news conferences...
...There is more interest in the picture of the President seven years dead than in the stewardship of the President who now lives in the White House...
...The Word from washington Emile Zola, writing at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, suggested that a prudent citizen might swallow a live toad every morning in order to prepare himself for the official outrages he was likely to encounter in the course of the day...
...whatever was happening in Indochina kept on happening...
...forces in Vietnam by about 350 per cent...
...Let that be our prayer today," the President intoned...
...Potomacus...
...A few weekends ago he packed biographies of Melbourne and Disraeli and betook himself to the Virgin Islands to catch up on his serious reading...
...Aristotle Onassis brought her children to see the new White House portraits of their father, the late President Ken-nedy, and their mother...
...The figure provides an interesting commentary on the power of advertising and a handsome tribute to the good sense of the American people...
...Mr...
...Prince Juan Carlos of Spain, Generalissimo Franco's chosen heir, dropped by for a formal visit, and Mr...
...The President does his best to while away the hours...
...The answer, says Senator Case, is that the Central Intelligence Agency has been covertly financing Radio Free Europe and its twin station, Radio Liberty, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades...
...grimfif Like many millions of his fellow citizens, President Nixon finds himself with time on his hands now that the football season has temporarily abated...
...Now Chavez's union has shifted its focus to the California lettuce fields, and by a remarkable coincidence military appetites have shifted too...
...The same old stuff...
...Talk about "gratuitous statements" and "popping off...
...The Vice President's attack on Anderson may herald a new Administration drive to root out not only dissent and "subversion," but even the effort to assure due process for dissenters and "subversives...
...Radio Free Europe is among the worthy causes sponsored by the Advertising Council, and receives between $12 million and $20 million in free advertising space and time each year...
...The tourists argue about them as they emerge from the East Wing of the Executive Mansion...
...Attorney General John N. Mitchell has hinted that the Administration may endorse some of the anti-subversive bills that have long languished in Congressional committees...
...Senator Case hasn't said...
...The Kennedy portraits—spectral, "controversial"—are the new highlights of the White House tour...
...Tastes change, of course, and an army, as the man said, marches on its stomach...
...Its staff has been substantially increased, and its jurisdiction has been enlarged to encompass many cases formerly handled by the Department's Criminal Division...
...Zola's prescription came to mind one recent morning when we received a press release containing Vice President Spiro Agnew's denunciation of Representative William R. Anderson, Tennessee Democrat...
...Senator Case proposes to bring these subsidies out into the open...
...The implication is that the Government, in bringing the charges, is repressive and irresponsible and in some way aligned against the very people who elected it...
...But why should the taxpayers continue to underwrite these Cold War propaganda exercises at all...
...The morning papers offer little of interest: an occasional story about a player trade or the firing of a coach...
...Information and Educational Exchange Act, with the added provision that "no other" Government funds could be provided...
...The television screens are blank...
...You've seen or heard those heart-wringing commercials: a little child, somewhere East of the Iron Curtain, being ruthlessly brainwashed by a slogan-shouting, freedom-hating commissar...
...Nixon extended his invitation after increasingly voluble complaints from correspondents about the virtual abolition 6f the Presidential press conference and about the inadequate information provided at the few conferences that are held...
...Whether the Berrigan case itself represents an attempt to discredit the peace movement by means of trumped up charges remains to be established by the evidence...
...Replying in behalf of the President, White House Press Secretary Ronald L. Ziegler managed to restrain his enthusiasm for the correspondents' suggestions...
...The President entertains...
...Congressman Anderson, as we observed in these pages last month, managed to upset many of his colleagues in the House of Representatives by saying a few words in behalf of the Berrigan brothers, the Catholic priests who are now serving prison sentences for destroying draft records and who stand accused of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger, the President's national security adviser, and to blow up Washington's heating system...
...Nonetheless, Agnew accused Anderson of "popping off for political advantage prior to the trial...
...Anderson had not called for nationwide demonstrations, nor had he characterized the Berrigans as heroes although, he says, "history may ultimately so judge them...
...Nixon's director of communications, Herbert G. Klein, says the President would like to meet with the press more frequently, but wants to do so only "when he can be pretty candid about things and not appear to be dodging...
...After years of inactivity, the Justice Department's Internal Security Division, a vestige of the Joe McCarthy era, is suddenly enjoying a renaissance...
...The Vice President's unsolicited comment was issued, one of his aides explained, because "when an issue of public moment requires some sort of response he addresses himself to it...
...The bill would, for the first time, provide Congress and the public with an accounting for these expenditures and a measure of oversight over the stations' operations, and in that sense it doubtless constitutes a step in the right direction...
...In the past, the Association has confined itself to two basic functions: the issuance of engraved membership cards to correspondents, and the sponsorship of an annual dinner featuring pop entertainment and a Presidential speech...
...The President returned to Washington in time to lend his presence to the Reverend Billy Graham's annual prayer breakfast, where he modestly assumed the mantle of King Solomon...
Vol. 35 • March 1971 • No. 3
