The First Amendment; Charles Whipple

The following program is made possible in part by a grant from the courier corporation of Lowell Massachusetts. WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. Now presents the First Amendment and a free people. An examination of civil liberties and the media in the 1970s. And now here is the director of the Institute for democratic communication. Dr. Bernard Reuben. This is Bernard Ruben. Welcome to this edition of The First Amendment and free people. With me today is Carolyn Lewis of the faculty of the school of public communication at Boston University and our guest is Charles L. Whipple of the Boston Globe. He is presently the ombudsman for the globe. He's been at the Globe for almost 40 years and among many other things has been in charge of the editorial op ed page for some 14 years

until about a year ago. He's a well-known writer on uh news subjects for many years. Delighted to have him. Our subject today is the CIA and its use of journalists. An article by Mr. Whipple appeared in The Boston Globe of February 18th 19 76 is entitled CIA and media pollution of the news. Just a few words of background to give you some of the kinds of things that are appearing in the news from day to day before we get at the substance of the issue. For example we read on the 28th of January 1976 in a report from the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Remarks that said that there were 11 full time employees of the CIA posing as journalists overseas. In that same report it was stated that until 1973 five agents posed as full time correspondents with organizations that have major general news impact. It also said that some 15 news organizations had cooperated with the CIA in providing what was

called Cover for CIA operatives. In February 11 the New York Times and CBS denied the backing of the CIA in refusing to give to a government Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate the names of journalists who had worked for the agency they said they had not. Back that CIA refusal on February 13th the CIA rejected a New York Times request under the Freedom of Information Act for names of American and foreign news organizations that provided cover for CIA activities over the last 28 years. And finally February 12th bring us very close the CIA to stop enlisting agents from the press and from the church. That includes American clergymen and missionaries Well the central question is not these new stories that proliferate but I'd like to direct one question Mr. Whipple for his first answer and that is Mr. Whipple What is the balance that should be held between the national security which obviously must be a

persistent objective of government and the press which has another persistent objective in that is getting every story that it can. Well that's a very nice question, Professor Reuben I recognize and I agree with you about it, the importance of the national security angle. Ah, however I think the term is subject to very great abuse. Ah, the prime example of the abuse of it of course occurred many times during the Nixon administration. I feel that President Nixon used the excuse of national security to cover up many things which the public had a right to know. And that is still going on even though Mr. Nixon is no longer in the White House and it went on I'm sure long before Mr. Nixon entered it. It's, uh, it sometimes can be a

very fine line. I think that national security should cover such matters as a military emergency, a, uh, such as the number of troops being sent somewhere. Uh, but I think that when it gets beyond that strictly military phase, it is subject to so much abuse that, uh, I think the press should cover, be allowed to cover, many, uh, stories which really don't have this national security basis at all [Host]: Carolyn? I'm just wondering in terms of an individual reporter, Mr. Whipple, Aren't there times when a reporter is perhaps covering an area overseas and he sees something which is perhaps important for his own government to know. Uh, is there a conflict between his

responsibility as a reporter to remain unfettered and his responsibility as a citizen to perhaps keep his government informed of something that may be rather important to the national security long-term? [Whipple] Well that again is a good question, Carolyn. Uh, let me explain my own attitude to it this way. I know personally some, uh, newspaper men who have served overseas and who have come across information, which as you have just suggested could be important to the intelligence-gathering agencies of our country. I know some of these newspaper men have voluntarily, uh, furnished the intelligence agencies with information which they pick up. Uh, sometimes it's information of a nature that wouldn't, uh, make a news story. Uh, I see no objection to that whatsoever as long as it is done voluntarily and without this element of pay

from, let's say, the CIA. When you go on the CIA payroll as a newspaperman, that is where I think you cross the Rubicon and you get into the area in which news can be tainted or polluted. [Carolyn]: Isn't this a rather recent sensitivity on the part of the press? Eh, wasn't there a time in the 50s and 60s when it might have been considered patriotic to do that kind of thing? [Whipple]: You mean to report something to the FBI? [Carolyn]: Well yes to really [Whipple]: or the CIA? [Carolyn]: even. In other words, now we have this sense of them and us about our government. [Whipple]: Mm-hmm. [Carolyn]: There was a time in the 50s and very early 60s when the average American really didn't separate himself from government. It was, it was "my country". There was a sort of patriotic fervor, and now of course in the light of all the things that, that have been revealed the press is suddenly saying "we shouldn't have done that", and I'm just wondering if if if if the texture of the times haven't changed in terms of working for one's government? [Whipple]: Well, I- I have to agree that the texture of the times has changed. Uh,

we found out a very great deal in the last few years about a lot of things in our government. Uh, it's fashionable now to say most of it is bad. Er, I'm sure that a lot of it was good. Uh, but there has been this change in climate, and there has been an increasing, uh, willingness to criticize the government. I'm not saying I agree with all the criticism but that change has occurred. The climate of political discussion today is very, very different from what it was, well, during the Senator Joe McCarthy period or much earlier during the Depression of the 30s. [Host]: From the point of view of the psychological background to the thing, we're at a, a new plateau where we have to discuss openly the First Amendment issues involved. Uh, I can remember not too long ago when the American public was startled to find out that, uh, Radio Free Europe was subsidized, uh that uh radio in the American sector of Berlin

was subsidized, that uh the National Student Association, if I recall that title correctly, uh, that its officers on occasion were sent overseas to Prague and other places to, uh, to be os- ostensibly independent. We were shocked at that. We were shocked to find out that some books published at a nearby university through a research center were actually published with CIA money. But then came, uh, Vietnam. [Whipple]: Mm-hmm. [Host]: This crushing psychological overall problem which persisted for year after year after year, and then of course Watergate, and then after that, uh, we keep getting jabbed. Mr. Nixon the other day in a statement released through his lawyers uh said, uh, that there are, uh, i-, I'm paraph- paraphrasing now, "There are certain crimes which are done by the ordinary citizen, uh, would be illegal if done by the sovereign, which is a very peculiar turn of phrase-" [Carolyn]: Not for Mr. Nixon [Host and Carolyn laugh] [Host]: "-would not be, would not be illegal", and therefore my question is, uh, don't we all have to take a fresh look at, uh, just as if we were writing the

Constitution as Constitutional framers at where we want the First Amendment and the Constitutional Bill of Rights to, what, wh- where we want it to be, what we want it to mean today? [Whipple]: Yes, I- I think we undoubtedly should take a fresh look at that First Amendment and try again to figure out what it means and how far it can be applied. I, uh, have to say, I have a, call it a prejudice if you will, uh, but an opinion that as much latitude should be given, uh, should be given and en-, uh, to and enjoyed by the press in printing facts about the government as possible. Uh, we almost came to the point during the legal fight over the Pentagon Papers where a precedent would have been established to the effect that newspapers could be and could be put under prior

restraint, could be barred from printing something, whereas the old legal principle had always been that, uh, under the First Amendment a newspaper of course enjoyed no special privileges in such matters as libel, but it could not be kept from printing something. It could print something and then pay the penalty, which is an important distinction, even under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Those editors were often put into jail. But that was around 1800, 1798, uh, to 1800. But they were put into jail not for something they were about to print. They were put into jail for something they already had printed. Here was a much greater application of this censorship. Uh, the Pentagon Papers prosecution, and thank the Lord, uh, that it turned out the way it did. But now we're seeing, I think, in Washington uh further attempts to

restore the Nixon position in the Pentagon Papers case and if some of the moves that are now under foot in Congress succeed, I am very much afraid that if uh another Pentagon Pa- Papers case arose, uh, it might have a different uh outcome. [Host]: In your view, uh Mr. Whipple, is the press, uh, now we know there's a rash of gag laws on, on cases involving various crimes, and the and the judiciary seems to be, seems to be stepping forward. We know that the National News Council is trying to present some sort of an idea of how this could be handled fairly f- fair, fair trial and free press. But on the whole, do you think the press has reacted sufficiently vigilantly as a [Whipple]: Sufficiently what? I'm sorry. [Host]: with sufficient vigilance as an industry, or are they reactive in the main? [Whipple]: Well, I think some sections of the press, uh, have reacted, uh,

quite correctly and strongly. I don't think most of the press has. As you look across the country and get a chance to travel and and pick up these papers across the country, I think the papers on the West Coast and the East Coast, uh, uh, do take a strong position. I'm not so sure of the papers in the Midwest. And, well, I'll drop it right there. [Host]: Is that is that perhaps the reason that Barry Goldwater in not thinking about this wanted to saw off the eastern coast- [Whipple]: Exactly. [Host]: -at one point and let it float out to sea? [Whipple]: Exactly. [Carolyn]: Mr. Whipple, getting back to the CIA question- [Whipple]: Yeah. [Carolyn]: -the fact of reporters working for government agencies, I wondered, um, what all this publicity is doing in terms of public trust of the press and also, uh, the relationship of the press to sources? Uh, I-, I've, er, in my years in Washington I, I remember there was always this, this, this rather great strain if

you were working, uh, doing underground peace groups, covering underground peace groups or underground civil rights groups, there was always this slight suspicion of "Were you a spy for the authorities?" Now, is this suspicion going to be deepened now, with with with the reports of exposures of of some reporters actually working for the government? [Whipple]: Well, I would doubt if the uh practice of reporters working for the government is is all that widespread- [Carolyn]: Mm-hmm. [Whipple]: -for one thing. But I do think it is important that to the extent it has existed or does exist, that it be given a full disclosure. That is not only to try to protect the good name of the press but also to protect the general public which I think uh doesn't want to have its news polluted, uh, by anyone, uh even, even by a government that may be right. Uh, so I think that's a fact that you've got now

of course this strange case of Dan Schorr going on, uh. And uh it's already been pointed out that the Congress in trying to force him to divulge the source of his leak of the House Intelligence Committee report, uh, that Congress is spending just about as great a sum to track down that leak as it uh spent in compiling and amassing this whole report itself. Uh, I think that's going a bit far. I defend Dan Schorr absolutely up to the hilt in that episode. And uh- [Host]: This is the episode, just for our listeners, of the of the giving to the Village Voice- [Whipple]: Right. [Host]: -of the House Committee's report. [Whipple]: Right. [Host]: Um, how do you feel about this, again I don't want to put you on the spot because these questions that we're dealing with today, they really don't have answers. I gather that most people want the national security and they want freedom of the press, they want a really vigorous press.

But what do we do about a question of the reporters, we'll say, who worked for the CIA in the past. Now, there is a strong demand for their names- [Whipple]: Right. [Host]: -from the 50s and and and 60s. [Whipple]: Mm-hmm. [Host]: Uh, how do you feel about that? [Whipple]: I feel very strongly and I know I wrote to this effect in that article to which you were referring. I feel very strongly that the names should be made public, not necessarily in any, any, uh, sort of a witch hunt procedure, at all, but rather for the protection of the press itself and for the purpose of clearing the good names of some very notable people who have been named, such as Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor. They immediately denied that they had ever worked for the CIA. But the charge had been made. I think, myself- [Host]: B- by Sam Jaffee. [Whipple]: Right, and I s- have a strong suspicion that could have been a, a

plant by one of the intelligence agencies to muddy up the waters. But I think, well, Cronkite is on record as wanting the names made public, if, if only to clear his own name. [Carolyn]: Well, why do you think then that the news organizations are reluctant to do that? [Whipple]: Well, Carolyn, since I wrote that piece I've come across some information which makes me think that uh, it may not have been entirely the way I wrote it. I did refer there to the New York Times management, which had a conference with George Bush, the CIA director now, and the indication I picked up from a story in The Washington Post was that, uh, the New York Times management was pretty much going along with the CIA and might not press its, uh, its action, appealing from a Bush rejection of the proposal from the Times to make public these names of former C- or present CIA agents.

I now hear from John Oakes, who was the editor of the editorial page at the New York Times, that while they have not decided to uh, uh, decided whether to make that appeal under the Freedom of Information Act, uh, they have taken a good strong position. In a related matter, I want to read this paragraph uh because it will help to set the record straight and incidentally show also where an ombudsman like myself can go wrong in picking up something that has appeared in print. Mr. Oakes writes: "On the substance of your column, the only comment I'd want to make on the meeting with George Bush et al in Mr. Saltzburger's office on February 4th, is that the published report that any of the Times people there had condoned the CIA's employment of journalists in the past or a fortiori in the present or future is absolutely false. We in no sense gave the CIA a

green light on this subject as implied in the Washington Post story." Um, incidentally on the question of appealing, under the Freedom of Information Act, it's quite possible uh that even if the Times decides not to appeal in order to have the names made public, other newspapers or news-related organizations may appeal. They certainly, I was informed last week in Washington, have the right to, under that Act. [Carolyn]: Would it possibly endanger the lives of these people who did work as agents, considering what happened overseas too? [Whipple]: I don't think there's the remotest possibility of that. Sure, it's, it's true that that poor Mr. Welch was murdered after his name was made public, the ambassador. Uh, but that name was made public quite some time previously in papers with relatively limited circulation, I believe in in Latin America. But, uh, I don't think that's a factor here uh with these newsmen uh.

I don't think there would exist any strong motive to take such a means of retaliation. [Host]: As I've suggested, there are, uh, the CIA has used certain professors. Uh, I don't know who they are, but I'm sure that they [lighter flicks] have and uh an amusing incident happened to me uh in this regard. In what is called "The Company"--uh, they don't say the "The" uh "CIA" overseas in our diplomatic missions, they sometimes say "The Company"--and uh I was invited to deliver a lecture at our embassy in Jakarta about 6 months ago and I chose the subject um uh Foreign Policy and and Modern Communications. Uh, I have never been attached, nor would I be attached to any secret organization. I wouldn't even given a thought, it's just beyond me. But um it was published in The Jakarta Times and virtually the entire diplomatic corps came to my professorial lecture because they assumed that anybody that would give such a lecture at the American Embassy had to be a member of The Company and therefore there was going to get some, some hidden information. So having them in my in my hand I, I out-Kissingered

Kissinger, and delivered a major foreign policy address of my own, which nobody paid any attention to by the way, and deservedly so. But I think this shows how deep the emotions go around the world that the CIA lurks everywhere. [Whipple]: Yeah, mm-hmm. [Host]: Uh, Mr., Mr. Whipple uh uh is the press uh which uh it is reported that many stories have been placed by the CIA through stringers and others about foreign policy. And yet uh uh since these disclosures have come out there've been other stories that the amount of foreign news in leading American newspapers is declining. Is that a proper reaction of the press to, to foreign news in general? Are they aggressive enough when it comes to foreign news? [Whipple]: Well again that's, that's a good question I would like to see more coverage of foreign news, uh not less. If the amount of space given to foreign news is declining, I would suspect that the reason is simply that with a recession on, and therefore advertising volume being less, the

total space given to news--uh, what we call the news hole--uh is shrinking also and there's less space overall, and so you have to cut down um. Once you cut down on your space, it means that you you have to omit some stories that otherwise would be printed and should be printed. [Carolyn]: How sensitive though do you think foreign correspondents are to the possibility of so-called contamination, which is possibly CIA-planted stories overseas that are picked up and then uh then locally published? Is that something that, that newspapers like The Globe for example would be particularly sensitive to and and try to uh warn foreign, foreign correspondents about that? [Whipple]: Well a good, a good overseas news correspondent, of course he has to watch the local papers. Uh, and he will or should. A good one will check and verify a story that he is gr- that he wants to pick up and

use. Uh, bear in mind though, and I think this is quite important, the overseas, overseas correspondents, uh, do get a great deal of information from our embassies. Uh, they are given to those correspondents as news stories. [Carolyn]: Well, wasn't that the trouble in Vietnam too- [Whipple]: Exactly. [Carolyn]: -to a great extent? [Whipple]: Exactly. [Carolyn]: Yes. [Whipple]: I myself think there was a great deal of untrue propaganda put out from our embassy in Saigon, which the press honestly and dutifully reported as news. Some- often times these stories would be emanating from some undisclosed source, but it would be an embassy official, not named. Uh, those stories I think should have been checked and verified a lot more carefully. Instead they were sent back home as news stories but basically they were handouts. [Host]: Well, sometimes the um, the the press referred to uh, to

the uh 5 o'clock news briefing as the "Five O'Clock Follies". [Whipple]: Yes, I was at some of those when I was in Saigon. [Host]: Tell us uh uh for a moment about those. What was your impression? [Whipple]: Well, there was the most amazing performance of uh of uh attempting to manipulate the press that I have ever seen in my life. They were held probably at five o'clock in this big army building in Saigon, and the press officer of each of the Armed Forces, the branches, would give a report of that day's military activity, and it was all the official version. What made it so laughable was that by 5 o'clock that evening when they were held, the foreign correspondents from America would have returned to Saigon from out in the field, where they had been getting stories on actual combat, and they would stand up and tell these military press officers just how and where they were wrong. And that's

really why they were calling the Five O'Clock Follies, because there for once you had the press present, having been an eyewitness to these very things that the military was now releasing. And the press was absolutely convinced that the military was not reporting its news accurately. [Host]: The South Vietnamese government found out how this was done, American-style. They had the 4:00 Foll- [Whipple]: Right. [Host]: -so that you could go to either one. [Whipple]: I was at those too. [Carolyn]: I'm always astonished though uh how the press can so easily um be manipulated. I mean, is there something wrong with the with the mentality that that, that we'll accept this kind of thing. Havin- having seen with one's own eyes and yet continue to report the official line is just, to me, so against the grain as a reporter that... What what was going on there that that anyone would do that? [Whipple]: I'm afraid what was going on probably was laziness. I don't think it was corruption.

Um, but the press just didn't get out enough and check enough on what the government was handing to it. I think basically that's it. [Host]: Well, I'm going to piggyback on Carolyn's question and say that we too are manipulated because we're manipulated by the constraints of time. Our time has run out. I want to think Carolyn Lewis for joining me in this interview with uh Charles L. Whipple of the Boston Globe, the ombudsman of the Boston Globe. The subject was the CIA use of journalists. And we pressed forward on a very difficult question, which uh is going to get more difficult as days go on. Thank you very much, Mr. Whipple. Good night. [Whipple]: Thank you both. WGBH Radio Boston, in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University, has presented The First Amendment And A Free People: An Examination of the Media and Civil Liberties in the 1970s. This program was recorded in the studios of WGBH Boston and was made possible in part by a grant from the Courier Corporation of Lowell, Massachusetts.