University of Virginia Library

Right On, Spiro

One might have expected that someone
who once said "You boys from the press
won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any
more" would make a go at that free press the
first chance he got. One might further have
seen that a man who uncovered communists
everywhere in the 1950's would find a new
charge to use on those who fail to agree with
him.

But few did, and now the paranoiac
administration of Richard M. Nixon has
reached a new height in political abuse (not
even in a campaign) by accusing the press that
refuses to buy his Vietnam exhortations of
being "restrictive" and able to control public
opinion without any sort of public will
imposed. The implication is clear: it must be
time to impose that public will on the press;
and where better place to start than by
attacking the big networks and newspapers
that disagree with the Vietnam policy?

So Vice-President Agnew, who has now
attacked the three national networks,
Newsweek, the Washington Post, New York
Times, Baltimore Sun, and a Washington, D.C.
television station by name, is garnering
inspired audiences in such places as Alabama
and Harrisburg, Pa. for his denunciations of an
"elite" group of news broadcasters and
reporters who obviously must be slanting the
news, since the news disagrees with what the
Nixon administration says it is.

The principal issue is apparently Vietnam.
The President gave his long-awaited speech
November 3, a speech that many supposed
would say something useful about the war. It
didn't, and when the TV commentators
pointed up that fact, Mr. Agnew honed his
speaking feet and FCC Chairman Dean Burch
subpoenaed the transcripts of those comments.

It was then leaked out that the
then-upcoming march on Washington would
be violent and communist-inspired, and so the
TV networks were cowed into killing their
scheduled coverage. But some newspapers,
such as the Post, felt their obligation was to
cover the march, and they did, and said the
facts: that it was at least 250,000 strong, 99
per cent patriotic and peaceful, and made such
trumped-up demonstrations as Bob Hope's
pale in comparison. The numbers were there:
at least 250,000, only 5,000 at most involved
in the violence. We were there and support the
police, newspapers, and magazines that gave
those numbers.

But the administration did not support
them, and was not likely to send anyone to see
for itself. And so John Mitchell said the next
day it was the expected things: small, violent,
communistic, unpatriotic, etc., and got
well-known experts on such things as Strom
Thurmond to support him.

The administration now had the true story,
and because that did not jibe with what the
papers said, it concluded the papers were run
by the same "liberal elite" that dictates TV
policy. Even worse, they were not accepting
Mr. Agnew's critique of the networks, and
were instead claiming free speech for them,
too. Sensing his patriotic duty, the Veep
stepped in and let the conspiracy have it, with
all his usual finesse.

So Spiro is confronting the opposition with
statements such as "More and more power
over public opinion [is] in fewer and fewer
hands," presumably because the Times, Post
and Sun are not competing in circulation with
strong rivals. But here his facts are, as usual, in
contradiction with his verbiage. The Times
competes with the right-wing Daily News; the
Post has the Star and Evening News, the
former particularly a respectable if not
big-name Republican paper; and the Sun has
to fight the tabloid News-American.

But in contrast, many papers that support
Mr. Agnew and the President on Vietnam are
the same ones who really have no competitors.
Here in Virginia the Richmond
Times-Dispatch, for example, also owns the
News Leader, the city's only competitor; in
Norfolk the Virginia-Pilot and Ledger are that
city's only papers, and they are owned by the
same corporation. The Roanoke Times and
World News, likewise owned together, even
use the same offices. All these papers are
conservative; all support the President. In
truth, where the big papers fight the
administration they do so in the midst of
competition, unlike many administration
papers.

Furthermore many newsmen for papers as
respected as the Times are far more expert in
their fields than Mr. Agnew is in any field,
except maybe in insults. They are also
frequently more anti-Nixon than their
superiors; and that their opinions are played
down belies the charge that the papers go out
of their way to make trouble.

There is an implicit amount of
editorializing in newscasting anyway: someone
must decide what has top news value. The
fact, however, that the Post thought the march
more important than the Ohio State-Purdue
game, unlike the President, is not grounds for
a statement that they are due for the type of
state censorship Mr. Agnew seems to have in
mind.

But Spiro has called for a duel. It is a duel
that says "You must not use the press to
undermine the administration," even if one
disagrees with the administration. It says "You
can have your freedom but not exercise it."
We think the administration will lose, despite
the attempt it is making; Dick Nixon will
probably now get kicked around more than
ever, get more paranoiac, and more inclined to
repress free speech. Or at least wish he could.

We hope the whole affair will scare the
great majority of moderates, liberals and those
concerned with freedom to come into the
open against this encroachment on free
speech. The Nixon administration, admittedly
seeking a consensus, has gone about it
backwards: by taking a stand first, then asking
for agreement, then silencing those who will
not agree. And the result is the open-air threat
of repression to rival that of the McCarthy
years.

Lyndon Johnson, of course, tried it too,
but quit the game early. In LBJ's time there
were differences: the United States had just
started a war, and the depth of unpopularity
was untested as yet. But everyone knows by
now that young America hates this war, and
that Richard M. Nixon was elected President
when he claimed to have the panacea for the
war in his pocket. That he failed to produce is
his fault, not the newsman's.

One commentator put it well when he said,
"This country is repressive enough without
launching a major attack on the press."
America has some great traditions, and none is
as worthy as the right to voice one's opinions.
While the Vice-President doubtless has the
right to give his, we are amazed that a national
administration would endanger that right by
trying to muzzle its opposition.