The First Amendment; Dick Levitan

WGBH Boston in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communications at the School of Communication just Boston University now presents the First Amendment and a free people and examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s and now here is the director of the Institute for democratic communication Dr. Bernard Ruben. Going to be talking about the investigative reporters and editors project which investigated the murder of the reporter Don Bolles who worked for The Arizona Republic in Phoenix Arizona. The person that knows I guess the most about it in our area and maybe in the United States is Dick Levittown of W E R radio who is our guest co-hosting with me today is Robert Barron. Dick before I say another word I want to just have the listeners tune in on this tape which was accidentally made while Arup while a lawyer across the street from Don Bull's car in Arizona was dictating to his

secretary. First two. First. First. If we're able to reestablish. Some thanks to you. That was the tape the actual tape of the bomb that went off on June the 2nd 1976 under-reported Don Bolles car. He died 11 days later on June the 13th 1976 to discuss this again is Dick Levittown of W E E I radio. My co-host is Robert Barron professor and associate chairman of the department journalism at Boston University. Dick Levittown is an investigative reporter for W E I and he was the only radio member of the IRA Arizona Project as a matter of fact Dick told me he was just about the

only member of the electronic media there. It was strictly a print press function aside from from Dick. He's well versed too to qualify as an investigative reporter he's a well-known author who investigated the Marine Corps situation and reported in a in a into nonfiction books the Marine Corps book was see Paris and die which is about Parris Island. And he's also gone into the ramifications of how. Manipulations of individuals are used in business in one regard is called Sex in the executive suite He's an award winning reporter for 20 years and radio phone ins New York and the first all news anchorman in the United States Dick. Now that we've introduced you let's get right to it. What did you do when you arrived in November and December in Arizona as a member of the IRA project. The first thing probably was when we arrived when I arrived

it was a matter of arriving in November the project had already been started. And to be very honest with you it was a whole new experience for me a whole new experience for any other reporter involved you didn't know where to go who to see what to do. It was also fearful. Here we are in a town we were told Aren't you afraid to go to Phoenix you're a reporter going to pick up the the work of a man who was murdered because he was doing just the exact same thing that you're going to do all kind of apprehension. The first thing that happened was Bob Greene the fields of Prize winning editor of Newsday Long Island who was the project director. The first thing he had us do was spend well for me it was seven days. About 14 to 15 hours a day reading all the files that were in the Arizona Project that we would be looking into. The reason for that was that. Here we were the out of towners having to familiarize ourselves primarily with names. Now he use the word

familiarise he said he knew that we couldn't remember everything but at least if we ran across something during our investigations our name was mentioned or an incident was mentioned. It might strike a bell strike and it was so we could always go back to the files and least we would lose it. It would be something that would possibly be significant that we might remember or write a note about and so that was the first week and that was how we got started was getting into the reading of the file. One quick follow up question before I turn it over and over bearing the press of the United States obviously I was angry when a reporter lost his life that Wade became a very emotional thing as well as a professional thing. So sometimes there were 25 reporters. Some people say 36 reporters working out there including all the typist. If I was in all the rest of it they went out there to research not murder but to research the political situation the state situation. They went to uncover whatever the biggest story was. Is this correct.

I think that's a fair assessment. What it was is that Don Bowles had been investigated reporter for I think over 20 years. He got fed up with it a few years ago and for the past two years he had been working at the State House. But beside that he had. I'm scorched and torched I suppose you might say several of the sacred cows in Arizona. He had to expose wrongdoing political corruption organized crime graft payoffs you name it. And in all the years that he had worked there from what I understood from the people that I've talked to Don Bolles got fed up and that's when he asked for a state house assignment. He had been away from the corruption aspect of things in the exposé days and investigative reporting because he felt nothing was really being changed or or there were no reforms being made. Our job when we got there we felt was to pick up on many of those stories that Don Bolles had written about and that was where we picked up the cudgel not so much and was specific not to investigate Don Bull's

murder. We were not there as vigilante reporters. OK. Well I I think that Dick has put a foundation for us to work work on here. And what troubles me most of all Dick is the fact that I'm reminded a little bit of what I get. All right certainly that was a somewhat different story. But it was a time you remember after the wood stain break as they call it the news when a goodly number of individuals in the press and our country were patting themselves on Reddit Tauriel back and. I'm telling everybody about how marvelous they were in terms of exposure and and investigative journalism when in fact it was this a rather small group of reporters that had really done the work and this and that a goodly number of newspapers at that time even broadcast outlets were still not covering the story and anything that could be called depth. And what what troubles some of us here and is that after this collective effort by a group of very serious and professional reporters under the guidance of a streamlined talented editor

that after all this work of digging and reporting that so many newspapers and especially broadcast outlets in the country and giving us what might be called tokenism at best with a few exceptions and that the Associated Press are exalted great wire service is treating it as though someone just discovered that measles is a disease that I think you kind of post it on the button the way I feel to be very honest. It has also been my assessment. Take Boston for example the globe running this thing very heavy because they were a member of it but not even one word in the Herald. Not one word that this investigation has even conducted not even the criticism I assume the feeling over the Herald is that if we say one word all we're doing is selling Globes. Maybe that's their feeling and I think. I point that out because I think that is my opinion of what has happened or happens invariably on any major story are of an investigative nature where

somebody has to do with a lot of digging and work. Competition is the key rather than the exposing of wrongdoing or the protecting of the rights of the people. That seems to take us back many a year it seems that we're back in New York with an aged Pulitzer and a young William Randolph Hearst refusing to admit that the other existed in sending their reporters out merely because it was something different. This strikes at the very heart of a First Amendment issue does it not that editors don't rise above the parochial business interests that they represent. Oh I think that's definitely true. So how did you feel about the actual reports. I notice that a good deal of the 23 part series is not smack dead but skirts. It says things like there's some of these reports were on Barry Goldwater the senator from Arizona that he had connections with through

family. Yet one doesn't say that he himself was personally connected. There is implication indeed innuendo or is that a distortion of the reporting in part. I think it's fairly correct with maybe a few just minor corrections. Number one that it isn't 23 reports it's 23 days and the difference is that there are two in three reports for each day. In some cases. Number two. Not to say that we in the reports of the final results in the stories themselves are not connecting Barry Goldwater directly into organized crime but it's by innuendo I don't think it's by innuendo. I think when we say that when Barry Goldwater and his brother Robert were social friends of Gus green bomb Willie be off and others we have more than said I

mean we can't hit the listener or the reader over the head. This is what the relationship was that he socialized with Will he be often known hoodlums from from the east that he originally said that he was unaware because Mr B off use the alias William Nelson after he learned that William Nelson was truly William B off he still socialize with him after Gus Greene bombed who was a notorious hoodlums was murdered along with his wife when he had his throat slit because he had stolen money in skimming from the top from the Las Vegas gambling places. But Senator Barry Goldwater went to his funeral that when Willie B off was bumped off as well in a gangland execution that Senator Goldwater went to his funeral. I did not know that was a function of senators. And my feeling is that how much do we have to hit anybody over the head to say that is a relationship. And if somebody says that we have not tied Senator Goldwater into anything and there is nothing wrong with that relationship then that's the way our country I guess will have to be run.

I think it's tainted. I think it stinks. I see. What I would say the adjective fits. Sadly sadly. What about the question of the coverage and the broadcast medium. Almost all the reporters there with with your exception and perhaps with the exception of one TV reporter came at the end and whose station I understand did nothing with the material represent of the broadcast medium in this country which I think is a shame to begin with. But what about their use of this material it has been not nonexistent but it has been it seems to me just paragraphing other than perhaps some of the things that you're doing yourself. And how about other CBS stations in radio at least what the country what are they doing with your material. As far as CBS is concerned I was sent out there by W E I. They paid the whole bill for my expenses and the total responsibility for my acts and actions. All the network did now send you. At that time they did not however.

All of my local reports that are appearing on radio here which are I have not eliminated one report as a matter of fact. I am running. I think it's the CB forty six reports a.m. and p.m. That's two a day different. Plus I have written 15 sidebar stories stories that I have been involved in things that I worked on things that I have followed up since I'm still writing stories that will be appearing next week. I'm still doing my investigation. I haven't stopped because I am doing follow ups. I have interviewed Boston people who were taken by some of the land scammers in Arizona and were running those stories of all the CBS owned stations. That is seven radio stations in the major markets in the country. All the way up to Los Angeles and San Francisco Chicago St. Louis Philadelphia New York WTOP in Washington it while it's not one of the CBS own stations is also running all of these reports every single one of them. The CBS network

each day they have an editorial board meeting or a board meeting or an editorial judgment on whether or not they want to take that particular day's story and then they put an order in with me and I write them a shorter version usually one story or a longer feature which is fed to 250 radio stations around the country. I have been out of the first 10 days I have been on the world news roundup in the morning the CBS World News Roundup five times five days they have run stories. So I think CBS is doing a very good job as far as coverage of the main events I don't think that a network excuse me should be obliged to carry all radio. CBS radio right. As far as television again that's another question I think we can get into that. As far as the broadcast media overall. They are using primarily United Press International and Associated Press dispatches which is like the critique each morning. I don't know if you've seen any of the original

dispatches that are coming over the a wire Associated Press number one breaks our embargo every day. They feed it out by stealing a rewrite story because they don't have the original scripts from the Indianapolis Star. And in it it says according to the Indianapolis Star and Wednesday edition for example which was on the streets at 11 o'clock Tuesday night they put this in the. This is the lead paragraph. Reports say. That there is say for example corruption in Arizona. However this is in the lead paragraph now. They then go ahead and do the debunking of the story immediately. They critique it to say for example there were no major revelations in today's report. Most of what is said in this dispatch to date was already said before the number one they were not reading from our reports they're reading already from an edited version from a newspaper in Indianapolis a newspaper in Indianapolis by the way which is owned by the Pulliam family passed by the IRA which is the same as the

Arizona Republic which is not running any of us nor is the Arizona Republican running the stories you told me before the program that CBS Television was a television affiliate KOAT radio and TV radio and TV and TV in Phoenix has a very cool attitude on this. What was the reception editorial. What do the only think their editorial debunked the reports and debunked are a project of course they had never read and they admitted in the editorial that they had not read them. Well that's like well that's the classic way that people look at pornography do and reach their conclusion. Less pornography. Tell me what was the reception that you got. I know before you went out there with the rest of the project group members there was some deep bunking to use that word again. Her journalism group journalism people had you down for the count of nine before you hit the street. What was the attitude of the local press the local press.

There are two really two attitudes one I'm afraid to say is of the press management the higher echelon and the decisions were on that level to say I think they saw it as an embarrassment of us coming in and saying we're going to do a job to Bob Greene kind of soften the problem by going out there and telling the people of the Arizona Republic we're not here to embarrass you. We're here to help you. And he. Got a terrific relationship going with the Arizona Republic. On the other hand and as well the reporters the reporters for The Arizona Republic they were three of them assigned full time to our project. Now the Arizona Republic says we merely supplied liaison. I have to tell you that that liaison if that's all it was was certainly outstanding because John winters one of their fine investigative reporters for The Arizona Republic side of the desk next to me. He wrote the same number of memos I did. He sat in cars on tailing of a

judge he helped me investigate the governor of Arizona. He shared in the same responsibilities that I did and we both did the same work. Now if that's just being a liaison then that's what. If they want to call it that's well it sounds like the relationship that Roosevelt Franklin D had with the people who owned the newspapers and the reporter there were two relationships very friendly with the reporters and and not very friendly with what he called the fat cat newspaper owners. Robert I think it's a shame that the press of the nation. Perhaps because I'm being a little naive here hasn't not only has failed to attack as it should. The corruption that some knew existed but didn't realize existed as such depth in Arizona but has not attacked one of its own members of the club of the republic for failing to cover what clearly is one of the major stories in the within the last year if not within a decade and certainly of most unusual operation from the viewpoint of

journalism at large and the statement by the Republican that referred to the series when they said that they were unable to obtain sufficient documentation and proof to justify publication and I'm quoting directly. I mean clearly if a political figures said that with as much material that had been gathered and had been put put at the disposal of a newspaper I would I would think that the newspaper that was covering that political figure would devote perhaps only three quarters of a front page to that in addition to an editorial. And I would like to make. I think just one more point and that is that. When a newspaper fails to take action such as that one has to look at it in terms of its past record as well. And I think that one can say without a contradiction that the Pulliam papers are not necessarily what you would term the strongest editorial advocates in the country. I would I would say that if they took a an editorial position against West it was mother's

skirt held the length that that would be considered rather strong. But for them to avoid a story in their own ballpark such as this is this would be a different kind of people with her for this hero. You know the irony is they could have a $25000 reward for the apprehension of dongles killer. You know they said that they couldn't asset Republik so that they couldn't ascertain the facts or Conetta tain the accusations. There are two sets of files from the IRA the original set and one copy. And when I say file I'm talking about two full file cabinets filled with the documents that we had to back it up. The other set it was to seven drawer file cabinets. To seven file cabinets were given by Bob Greene from the Arizona Project of iare the day it closed down on March 3rd to the publisher of The Arizona Republic and said This is what our basis of our information is in the stories. Everything we've got is in there. Much of

it is even written by three of your own reporters. This is why I say it's a sham. I mean for the Republic it may be easy to overlook but it's also easy to stumble over not amounting to. To paraphrase a line from a book of not long ago a comic book I would say Where did you go out. What did you do something what would you say if a group of reporters came to sacred game Boston and said you were certainly above any taint. And so on and so we'd like to investigate what's been going on here now Dick Levittown. I've heard you for the last three years certainly outside of every school where there's been trouble it's been declared a town at seven o'clock in the morning doing investigative reporting about the school buses in the mayhem in Roxbury and South Boston and the rocks that were thrown the people being being beaten up and so on. What would be your attitude if the Iare project investigative reporters and editors said it's high time we help dear old dame Boston I

think would be terrific. That's one of the problems in any community. We don't have enough. I'm sure the global spotlight team you select a target you select the subject. But how many other Mike Ludlum the news director of W E I this morning the other day called me into his office and said When you finish this what's what we're going to have a meeting about our next topic I said you know I've been throwing notes into a box and the box is full. I got hundreds of things I want to do. I don't know what to set as a priority. The budgets have been reduced. The economy is being cut back so we're losing some manpower. Be that as it may we still have to keep going on our investigative material our subjects. The thing is there are there are there is more. Mark to be raked in any community that no matter how many reporters came in to look at it there's a nuff for everybody to find. I can do my project somebody else can do another one. And maybe each person doing their own might

do a good job to clean up. To put people on the toes for example this past week the Globe Spotlight Team I have been meaning to send a letter over there I think they would have done a fantastic job and I don't always agree with the stuff the spotlight team has done. Why. I think some of the stuff has been pretty bad but this one they've got the people with their hands in the cookie jar. The taxes of the people are paying for people to be on jobs. I saw That's the kind that's the meat and potatoes of our business. So you know we call it. There are a few of us that call ourselves investigative reporters I think I would like today to stop calling myself an investigative reporter reporter saying I'm a reporter right. And then don't put us on a pedestal or make any kind of big deal out of it. Sometimes it's very boring to go into the state house and sit for two or three days at a time and get headaches looking through records and looking at signatures and using a little chart to start an adding machine to figure out if somebody was beating the state of the city out of some contract. That's the nuts and bolts of it all. You know they put this thing you have me here

today. There are hundreds of investigators so-called reporters out there that probably deserve to be interviewed about the things they're doing not just on the Arizona Project on bills but just the little stuff. I met a young fellow 23 years old Brunswick Maine radio station. The kid did a fantastic job he had a story three weeks ago that he was telling me about. He's got the name of the woman who is supplying the money to the terrorists that blew up the Suffolk County Courthouse. The story hasn't been heard anyplace except Brunswick Maine. I said my God you've got a big story. And he worked on it for three weeks just to get that and he's got evidence. These guys are all out there as well that hears about is not a darn sham of the New York Times The Wall Street Journal. Two of the great publications and i country you like to think of themselves as the publications that expose the wicked. I mean felt that this wasn't even worth answering in terms of sending their own reporters. And I don't believe that they have played this by any means strongly enough or

in any way what you would call reasonably honest. Has the Wall Street Journal has The Washington Post has the New York Times been out to Arizona on their own for vacation I would say. Yes. They said that they couldn't do it as a group packed journalism that they could do a better job. Where are they. Where have they been. What have they done. Nothing. Do you think that you know you know with an all news station all news stations frankly are not known for too much reporting. But for an awful lot of reading. But nevertheless and I'm not casting aspersions on your fine station because it's one of the best. But do you think that your experience might give some courage and vigor to two managers of such stations who will say you know look we in radio news are journalists not radio people but reporters we need to send more people like to live in town. I sent a letter when I was in Arizona to Mike Ludlum again our news director all enthused about when I came back what I would like to do. He in turn sent that letter to Mr.

Sam Diggs who was president of CBS radio division. I have not spoken to Mr. Diggs nor has he spoken to me directly. But I understand that as a result of my efforts out there and what I did when I came back I formed an investigative team in the first month. We ended up with at least four people indicted in the combat zone and we uncovered quite a bit of wrongdoing there. It led to a bribe offer of me and a threat on my life to show the severity and the significance of what we were doing in the in the combat zone. You were in hiding for a while or for watering several I think several several weeks. My wife and I were holed up in a hotel under an assumed name. That threat is over with and the stories continued on. But as a result of that the CBS oh no stations across the country are forming these investigative teams. And I think it's because of our participation in Arizona it's giving a lot of impetus to doing more of a bigger job. Well it seems to me if I may make a very trite statement that until this comes back to what you said

earlier until the publishers on the print medium until a general managers and vice presidents for news and public affairs in the broadcast medium decide that they've really got to do something in this field and not cover up after it's done that we can we can talk and always come back to if I may paraphrase it is that old saying that you know you can bribe or twist a publisher. Our journalist but seeing what you can do without the two why bother. Well did Levittown and I'm going to say that we're putting a gold star by you as a as a first rate reporter we're delighted to have you on the on the program and I think you've told us a fantastic story that should be an inspiration to all other reporters I want to thank you. And I want to thank Robert Baer my co-host and I use generalist language that's 30 for this edition. Of. WGBH radio in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic

communications at the School of Communications at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and a free people and examination of civil liberties and the media. In the 1970s. This program was produced in the studios of WGBH Boston.