LETTERS
Letters The Anderson Letters I appreciate the admiration you expressed for me in your July-August issue [“Jack Anderson and the Eagleton Case,” Brit Hume]. It is because I also admire The...
...I hope you do not think he should be criticized for that...
...As I remember it, Anderson said that he wrote articles that were favorable to J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI and was able to have access to some of the FBI’s confidential files while he was writing such articles...
...Straight’s “boss...
...If you are concerned about that point, you might check on my memory of Anderson’s statement by talking with Jack Nelson at the L. A. Times...
...JACK ANDERSON Washington, D.C...
...The point is, as he also says in his letter, he at one time “had access to the Bureau’s files...
...We would have been happy to acknowledge error, but here is the result of a query to our source...
...Secondly, I wonder why Mr...
...Several letters asked why I did not lead with, or at least better accentuate, Anderson’s statement about the Hoover arrangement...
...If it is not that, then he must be a “culprit” (your word) because the frielid from whom he does not choose to profit (Mr...
...I don’t know what arrangement, if any, he made with the late FBI director...
...At no time did I ever have any such arrangement...
...But it is your malicious inference concerning Mr...
...I might also add two peripheral but interesting points: For one, I had a good deal of mail on that story, much of it from people who actually attended the panel discussion...
...Garment is not Mr...
...You have done a shameful thing to a man whose entire career shines with honor and with disinterested service to the public good...
...That interpretation demeans Mr...
...Straight that I find most objectionable...
...I think we all have great admiration for Jack Anderson which is one reason why I was shocked at his open admittance of an arrangement with J. Edgar Hoover...
...Another, from a man in Alexandria, criticized me for not mentioning the business about Anderson’s later breaking with Hoover and the Bureau but, interestingly, did not refute my statements about the deal in the first place...
...Anderson did not contact me or The Star back when the story first appeared, if he thought it incorrect...
...The editor continues: letters to Jack Nelson...
...Unfortunately, I no longer have my written notes but I vividly recall how outraged Nelson was when Anderson spoke of this...
...He said that once he began writing articles that were unfavorable or reflected adversely on Hoover and the FBI he was denied access to those re cords...
...This was the first major expose of J. Edgar Hoover who, up to then, had been one of Washington’s sacred cows...
...Had a less wealthy government official showered his boss with such largesse,” you write, “it would be a major scandal...
...Straight...
...Nor does it D m$2u7c5h omr $a2tt.e Wr hwath emthaettre rtsh ies trheantt yalo uf itgwuirset eids Michael Straight’s generosity to an old friend into something like the buying of influence at the White House by a rich man...
...Twice you have reported that I had “an arrangement” with the late J. Edgar Hoover to “write only ‘nice things’ about the FBI director in exchange for access to the Bureau’s files...
...May I call your attention to an example on page 32 of your July-August issue, in which you comment on Michael Straight’s renting his house in Virginia to Leonard Garment of the White House staff for $275 a month...
...As I recall the evening of the Smithsonian Associates panel discussion in December, Drew Pearson was not mentioned as the drafter of the “deal,” and I think we can call it that, with Hoover...
...Gilbert Harrison is editor-in-chief of The New Republic...
...Letters The Anderson Letters I appreciate the admiration you expressed for me in your July-August issue [“Jack Anderson and the Eagleton Case,” Brit Hume...
...I said at the time that I had never written information favorable to anyone or any organization in return ,for information and that I never would...
...JACK NELSON Washington, D.C...
...An index of his columns will show that Drew was critical of J. Edgar Hoover on a number of occasions...
...Jack Nelson is on the staff of the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times...
...I wish I could tell you more that might help you...
...Garment, of course, and he is one of the few decent men near the President...
...We then sent the Dolan and Anderson My recollection of what Jack Anderson said at the investigative reporters seminar...
...sponsored by the Smithsonian associates is pretty much the same as Mary Anne Doh’s...
...It is of little importance that Mr...
...As Mary Anne Dolan reported in the Star, I was somewhat appalled by what Anderson said because I thought it involved a quid pro quo...
...As deputy chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, Mr...
...Michael Straight does not need to make money on a house in Virginia which he has not occupied for years...
...AU I can say is that I stand firmly by my story...
...The editor replies: James Fallows deals with this subject in his article beginning on page 53...
...Garment) works in the White House...
...MARY ANNE DOLAN Washington, D.C...
...GILBERT A. HARRISON Washington, D.C...
...Mary Anne Dolan is a staff writer for the Washington Star-News...
...That conclusion can only be reached by someone whom the present grubby atmosphere in Washington has blinded to all possibility of personal decency, or someone who knows nothing about Mr...
...Within four months after Drew died, I conducted a major investigation of Hoover...
...It is true that I had access to the Bureau’s files for a period while Drew Pearson was running the column...
...It is because I also admire The Washington Monthly that I didn‘t bother to correct an item that you have now repeated...
...Thereafter, Time, Life, Newsweek and other publications followed up with critical stories...
...The editor replies: Compared to the other responses to our “moral myopia’’ series, this letter was especially sane and gracious...
...Straight’s boss is the chairwoman, Nancy Hanks...
...More ‘Moral Myopia’ I note you are running a series of articles on “moral myopia...
...Neither did it strike me as important then nor does it now that, as Anderson says in his recent letter to you, he became the first to do a major expose of Hoover...
...But whether Pearson started it and Anderson carried it on or Anderson started it himself doesn’t seem to me to make much difference...
Vol. 6 • October 1974 • No. 8
