Wedding Presents, Cigars, and Deference

...Earlier the Public Broadcasting Service had given prime time coverage to the subcommittee’s hearings about public broadcasting, an event lacking most of the elements of drama of, say, the Watergate hearings...

...With their sway over elected legislators, however, broadcasters have found an effective way to guarantee that the bonanza does not end...

...Practically all domestic politics is organized along essentially the same line, with each congressional fiefdom supporting its own world of executive branch bureaucrats, lobbyists for the affected interests, and assorted lawyers, consultants, and trade reporters...

...After enjoying being the object of an almost indecently intensive lobbying effort, Senator Pastore vowed at the NAB convention to protect the precious licenses: “It is my deep-seated conviction that public service is not encouraged or promoted by placing the sword of Damocles over the heads of broadcasters at renewal time...

...A Gross Mistake Another way in which Zapple uses his position is to make constant, petty demands of the people he deals with...

...He is clearly content with where he is and what he is, and with reason...

...License renewal protection is not the only issue in which broadcasters have used congressional committees to alter the actions of the FCC...

...This went on behind the scenes, usually at lunch or dinner, because Pastore, for reasons of his own, tried to avoid being too closely identified with the proposed legislation...

...None the less, while somewhat incestuous, the whole episode isn’t particularly surprising...

...Yet Zapple continues to be courted with a deference which borders on sycophancy...

...But it is undeniable that he has power, even if it is primarily only the power to promote the interests of an already rich and important group...

...Burch was surprised and angry that this was happening at such a late date...

...Normally they adhere as closely as possible to the language of the bill and the oral discussions in committee...

...The pattern of relationships between lobbyists and public officials is often smoothed, of course, by free meals and other perqs...

...Present at the Creation Zapple has been connected with the rise of television almost from the beginning...

...Pastore has yet to forgive them...

...The frustrating thing is that time and time again Zapple has missed the opportunity to push Pastore in the direction of serving the public...

...To the people engaged in the politics of broadcast regulation, this is a startling omission, for, to them, Zapple is a central figure...

...or perhaps it is the annual gathering of the Federal Communications Commission Bar Association...

...Zapple is one of the more anonymous holders of power in Washngton...

...We concentrate on Congress...

...It may be only a simple matter like a post office opening...

...There are times when he’s reached into the box, as it is being passed around the dinner table, to take four or more...

...He spots a familiar face...

...Partly there is the sense that such matters aren’t really news, for they simply describe the way things are...

...For instance, in the summer of 1968, one of Zapple’s daughters was married...

...But when it came time to write the report, Zapple, who had the actual writing done by someone else, attempted to have the report phrased in such a way that it, in the words of one observer, “changed the meaning of some sections 180 degrees...

...You can be sure the lobbyist mentioned earlier did not again forget to bring Zapple a cigar...

...Your agency is an arm of Congress, you belong to us...

...When the smoke clears, the true pecking ’ order is revealed, as the FCC is quickly reminded that it isn’t allowed to just wander off on its own, doing whatever it feels like...

...Not exactly...

...While it is certainly true that a staff assistant can be an important force for good, Zapple is in an entirely separate category...

...But what is wrong with that...

...Remember that and you’ll be all right...

...Originally assured of the support of the industry, Pastore discovered that one faction of cable system owners was working against him and they managed to defeat the bill on the Senate floor by one vote...

...It isn’t enough that he be given just one cigar, I’ve been told...

...These corn mittee reports, which are long and detailed documents written by the staff and almost never read by the senators, are important because they help the courts and administrative agencies interpret the legislative intent of Congress...

...But here again Zapple has been able to help the far more powerful broadcasting industry against competitive efforts...

...You oniy need contrast the publicity Nick Johnson received when he was a relatively ineffectual FCC commissioner, with Zapple, who rarely emerges from the shadows...

...The FCC has, under the prodding of Pastore, generally worked to delay the development of cable systems because of this fear...

...Zapple claims he has been asked to become FCC chairman, but he’s turned it down because he finds his present position more important and more interesting...

...The 1974 bill was not a complete sell-out to the broadcasters...

...This sets up a tension in the relationship between Zapple and the lobbyists...

...everyone in the room already knows who he is...

...Imagine what can happen, then, when this delicate equilibrium is disturbed...

...Yet Zapple was able to undermine the bill’s more public-spirited provisions...

...One indication of this is that just one person I interviewed, a former reporter for Broadcasting, was willing to speak on- t he-re cord about Z apple...

...Broadcasting set the tone of the ensuing debate, charging that the FCC was out to “jeopardize broadcast holdings that, in the top 50 markets alone, are valued at more than $3 billion...

...There’s no need for a name card for Zapple...

...In any major city a television station can probably be sold for about $50 million...

...It’s as if Zapple wanted to be sure that the important people he deals with cut him in on the good things, yet doesn’t know quite how to respond when they do...

...Pastore was also angry at cable television because back in 1960 the industry at the last minute failed to fully support a bill he introduced to regulate them...

...It was important to him, naturally, that his daughter have a fine wedding appropriate to his station in the world...

...But although it is the FCC which draws most of the attention from the public, it is Zapple, not the FCC commissioners, who is spoken of with a mixture of fear and respect by broadcast lobbyists...

...It seems that you can’t get good meat on Cape Cod...

...He can be seen at any public hearing of the subcommittee, sitting next to the subcommittee chairman, Senator John Pastore...

...To many of those who know him, Zapple seems to keep a mental ledger, with each token of friendship neatly catalogued in place...

...While there is a good deal of validity to the charge, it also oversimplifies the process...

...At the same time, broadcasters are dependent on the FCC to retain their licenses, the government charters which assign them broadcast frequencies...

...Over the years, Zapple has demanded that industry lobbyists take him to lunch, pay for his liquor, and generally supply him with what Zapple sees as all the appropriate perquisites of an important position...

...Thus both Congress and the industry, united by a mutual fear of each other, coexist warily, like two boxers just sparring for a few rounds...

...Zapple served as a quarterback for the industry lobbyists during the 1974 attempt to push through the bill...

...It appeared that the broadcasters had finally gotten what they wanted...

...When Pastore and dozens of other legislators introduced bills to change the Communications Act to prevent a recurrence of the WHDH decision, the FCC got the message...

...Broad casters became confident that the FCC had learned its lesson and had no further interest in threatening the sanctity of broadcast licenses...

...The FCC has often been pointed to as a prime example of a regulatory agency “captured” by the industry it is supposed to oversee...

...It must seem a little unreal to an outsider, but we can’t help it...

...Oh well, he thinks, the man will never notice...

...But Rep...

...One former reporter told me: “Zapple was a good source...

...Yet when Burch left the FCC soon thereafter, nothing had been said or done about the new rules for pay cable TV...

...Much of Zapple’s importance derives simply from his control over access to Pastore on communications issues...

...What is strange about Zapple is how he has come to expect such things as his due...

...What strikes one about so much of this is the overwhelming pettiness of his demands...

...Such a permit may be an entirely artificial product, but it has very aptly been called a license to print money...

...Zapple Days Are Here Again The license renewal issue is the most important recent example of the lengths to which the broadcast industry will go to protect itself from outsiders...

...The NAB picked up the tab and Zapple never even said thank you...

...Almost automatically he reaches into his coat pocket to find the cigar he is in the habit of offering to this man...

...He was nearly infallible...

...From his position he has been a part of practically every important piece of broadcasting legislation or congressional study of the last 25 years...

...Nick Zapple has come to expect such favors as a matter of course...

...to anyone else, the session would seem boring and irrelevant...

...Against this backdrop, it is particularly disturbing when journalists from the trade press do little to overcome the closed nature of the subgovernment...

...At almost any accessible gathering of broadcasters, especially if the wines are vintage and the cuisine dependable, Mr...

...Burch asked for a meeting with Pastore, but Zapple, performing his role of buffer for the Senator, tried to put Burch off...

...What seems to motivate Zapple is not the value of the gifts, but the recognition of importance and power they represent...

...The dispute between cable and conventional broadcasting is complicated and the issues are generally not clear-cut...

...Zapple was once caught by Jack Anderson accepting a number of gifts, including a $1,000 silver service set, from Don Burden, a broadcaster in trouble with the FCC, but that seems almost an exception to his general pattern...

...Rayburn then warned Minow to expect a lot of pressure from outsiders...

...He has been a constant disappointment to those trying to push Congress in a more liberal direction: “At first I thought Pastore was just a servant of the broadcasters and that Zapple was venal, even corrupt,” says one source who’s tried to influence legislation in the Senate...

...More than a hundred people are in the room whenever the subcommittee meets, and they may be practically the only ones in the world who find the testimony and questions absorbing...

...Burch tried to persuade him that the rules were not a serious threat to free broadcasting at all...

...For example, consider what happened when the FCC, under the chairmanship of Dean Burch, attempted to institute regulations governing the infant pay cable television industry...

...Zapple persuaded Senator Magnuson, chairman of the full Commerce Committee, to talk to Howard Kitzmiller, the FCC’s mild legislative liaison...

...During the most recent congressional effort to provide appropriations for public broadcasting, he could not resist playing games...

...Whenever the senators appear they make a point of remembering to put up their name cards-in case anyone forgets who they are...

...We firmly believe that the FCC will do whatever Congress tells it to do, and will not do anything Congress tells it not to do...

...One former member of the White House staff says that it is his impression, “Zapple has never picked up a tab in his life...

...Such idealism seems incongruous when talking about Zapple, for he is clearly a man without idealistic impulses of his own...

...None of it was noteworthy enough to make the daily newspapers, yet within the audience, carefully following copies of the testimony, were many of the people who comprise the subgovernment within which broadcasting policy is set: the seven FCC commissioners, the Commission staff, the communications lawyers who make up the FCC Bar Association, the representatives of the television networks, the lobbyists for the NAB and the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters...

...Still, license renewal hearings around the country began to attract competing applicants with annoying frequency, so the NAB continued to push for congressional protection...

...Perhaps it is part of the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB...

...His service on the committee predates Pastore, who became subcommittee chairman in 1955, by almost five years...

...From his prominent position surveys the crowd with a knowing half-smile on his face...

...Although the FCC policy statement was voided for a number of intricate reasons by the Federal Court of Appeals, the crisis was over...

...In nearly all cases these gifts have been minor...

...He did this through his position as chief counsel of the committee, which gave him responsibility for writing the committee report on the bill...

...Newton Minow, FCC chairman from 1961 to 1963, tells the story of an encounter with House Speaker Sam Rayburn soon after being appointed...

...It adopted a policy statement which had approximately the same effect as the proposed congressional legislation...

...Zapple’s reluctance to go to the Commission doesn’t come from the fear that the FCC is unimportant or ineffectual...

...The only hope of stemming the tide of anarchy seemed to be Congress...

...He solicited presents from a number of broadcasters and lobbyists for the event...

...Kitzmiller, who spends more time in Zapple’s office than in his own, dutifully warned Burch that Zapple and Magnuson were displeased...

...A number of trade reporters are aware of the practices which have been described here, but they are never written about...

...Pastore, sources say, “yelled and screamed” that the FCC was trying to ruin the public’s right to free programming...

...And while the guide contains nearly 2,000 brief biographies of important Capitol Hill staff assistants, there is none on Zapple...

...You Belong to Us’ By now it is a truism that the FCC is not the independent commission the law says it is...

...Thomas Redburn is an editor of The Washington Monthly...

...There are probably two or three genuine celebrities present, but most of the people are broadcasting network executives, owners of television stations, lobbyists for the industry, communications lawyers, and a few government officials involved in broadcast regulation...

...Although the evidence suggests that Pastore never had any doubts about supporting the funding request, Zapple’s maneuvers created such furor among the public broadcasting executives that they courted Zapple shamelessly...

...What is often forgotten is that occasionally the FCC breaks out of its lethargy and does something unexpected, creating an uproar among all those broadcasters who depend on a docile Commission...

...Consequently I could go in and talk to him on a not-for-attribution basis for 20 minutes and emerge with one or two good stories...

...Johnson’s power to enlist the press was important, but ethereal, quickly fading away like the smoke from a gun...

...When he said, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ it happened...

...A broadcast lobbyist is wandering through the crowd...

...Perhaps these institutional arrangements arise from what the public really does want, or at least will tolerate...

...Zapple seems to relish such opportunities to wield his power and to keep those who must deal with hm on edge...

...Although the Communications Act explicitly holds that stations are granted no legal property right to their licenses, the unwritten code of the FCC was that licenses would only be revoked for high crimes and misdemeanors...

...This time, however, he discovers that he has run out...

...Over a year’s time the FCC went through the long administrative procedures leading to the writing of new rules...

...In 1974, with congressional elections near, the House passed a new license renewal bill providing broadcasters with a number of protections against challenges...

...Paul Comstock, former vice president of the NAB, has said: “Most of our work is done with congressional committees...

...No small wooden chair set against the back wall for him...

...as “Congressman X announced the opening of a new post office...

...As one communications lawyer told me, “For those of us who work in this world, from the way we talk and act, you’d thnk there was no one more important than Nick Zapple...

...Congressmen also know that broadcasters have a great deal of latitude when it com.es to how politicians are presented on news programs...

...It all appears far more important for its ritual content than for the gifts themselves...

...Theoretically, the Commission has the right to assign these valuable commodities elsewhere...

...Still, you don’t have to be a Marshall McLuhan devotee to realize that television has had some fairly profound effects on our lives and that the question of control of such a medium deserves to be considered among a far wider public than it is now...

...What has Zapple’s role been in these efforts...

...The Senate followed suit with a slightly different bill...

...They circle each other uneasily, both afraid to strike a serious blow...

...or a celebration to kick off a new television program...

...This may help explain Zapple’s reluctance to assume the post of FCC chairman...

...You could also see reporters for the trade magazines like Broadcasting, Television Digest, and Variety...

...The Congressional Staff Directory lists him merely as one of 21 staff counsels for the Senate Commerce Committee...

...In retrospect, Minow says that “what he didn’t tell me was that most of the pressure would come from Congress itself...

...At times he can carry thmgs too far...

...Among other things he asked one group to supply the champagne, another to bring a turkey...

...In January 1969, for example, the FCC voted to take away the license of TV station WHDH in Boston and award it to a competing applicant...

...In his mind, they go with his job...

...Since the value of the station’s tangible assets probably do not exceed $3 million, the $47 million remaining is the real value of the government franchise, the broadcasting license...

...Despite an occasional success by outsiders in pushing the broadcasting subgovernment in a more liberal direction, it is still true that most of the questions concerning industry policy are decided by a small and close-knit group...

...Broadcasting, the mouthpiece of the industry, even felt called upon once to mention Zapple’s outstanding ability for sponging: “He is generally conceded to be the most knowledgeable man on Capitol Hill when it comes to broadcast regulation...

...Pastore has divided impulses between a populist streak and his softness toward business interests...

...He has acquired a store of information by assiduous research...

...What is odd about the whole affair is that even in the one instance where he was on the right side, Zapple could not help acting in his traditional fashion and promoting his own imp or t an ce...

...In mark-up sessions, Zapple surprised some observers by taking “a public interest line...

...Congress’ relationship with the FCC is complicated by the awareness on the part of each legislator that he is dependent on local broadcasters for his access to the voters...

...But I don’t think so anymore...

...Ray burn, exuding friendship, put his arm around Minow and said, “Just remember one thmg, son...

...But this insularity of interest is exactly what gives the comparative handful their influence...

...For instance, at the annual FCC oversight hearings in April, Richard Wiley, the FCC chairman, read a 31-page summary of all the Commission’s activities over the past year...

...The steaks were ordered from Bolton and Smart, a meat company in Boston, but by mistake Zapple was sent 12 boxes of 12 steaks each...

...Zapple is to be found collecting expertise and often disseminating it...

...But only a few days before Burch was to depart, with rumors flying in the trade press, Gordon Rule and Leonard Goldenson of ABC went to Zapple and demanded that something be done to prevent the FCC from acting...

...He still has a flat-top out of the 1950s, like H. R. Haldeman before he grew his hair...

...Almost the central figure...

...Finally Burch managed to see Pastore by going directly to the Senate without an appointment...

...More important, though, is the manner in which reporters are frequently drawn into the net by their dependence on people like Zapple...

...This is where Congress enters the picture...

...Burch pledged to finish the job before he left the FCC to join the sinking White House...

...For instance, Zapple once asked Doug Anello, then general counsel for the NAB, to send a dozen steaks to him at his home on Cape Cod...

...It is a small world, of which Zapple is a central part, that revolves around the Federal Communications Commission (FCC...

...But in this case, Zapple tried to use his position to go beyond the legislative intent of the Senate...

...But in the minds of the broadcasters, the WHDH decision destroyed this delicate understanding...

...Everybody Knows My Name Nick Zapple is the man who brought all these people together...

...Peevishly, he refused to appoint conferees and the bill died at the end of the session...

...Where’s my cigar...

...Such behavior leads some lobbyists to disdain Zapple for his boorish habits...

...Isn’t that just democracy in action...

...There are seven senators on the subcommittee, but at most hearings the other six wander in and out, asking only an occasional question...

...Harley Staggers, chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, was angry at the broadcasting lobby for forcing through a provision extending the license period from three to five years...

...A majority of congressmen regularly use free time offered by these local broadcasters to report to their constituents...

...demands Nick Zapple...

...I didn’t have the time to chase all over town...

...The reasons for the decision were complex, the circumstances unusual, but the decision touched off a firestorm since this was the first time ever that the FCC had failed to renew the license of a television station...

...The local newscaster can say just as easily, “The Postal Service announced the opening of...

...Zapple’s importance derives from his position as chief counsel (and virtually the %only professional staff) of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications...

...A Seattle television station sent h s daughter a color television set...

...The shock waves of the losses would be felt by thousands of big and small stockholders alike, threatening the financial underpinnings of the broadcast industry and possibly swamping many small broadcast groups...

...What Zapple did was to create the impression that Pastore was wavering in his support for the money the public broadcasting system was asking for...

...Another example involves cable television, which the broadcasters see as a threat to the preservation of their markets...

...What drives fear into the soul of a broadcaster is the realization that periodically these licenses must be renewed by the FCC...

...He sits next to Pastore, occupying one of those high-backed, overstuffed, leather chairs normally reserved for elected legislators...

...It is difficult to say how different television would be if these arrangements were transformed...

...He met with broadcasting representatives frequently to plan approaches to individual senators...

...The Commission, after holding hearings, oral arguments, and the like, was finally prepared to issue the rules in early 1974...

...But he’s wrong...

...He, more than most people, is aware of the crucial part the FCC can play in regulating the television and radio industries...

...A cigar may not seem like much, but on the face of it, neither does h s job...

...Zapple himself knows the advantages of relative anonymity-he does not need or crave the limelight...

...Nothing makes this clearer than witnessing a typical subcommittee hearing...