THE PRINCE AND THE PREPPY
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CIA-RDP90-00965R000504280001-5
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Document Creation Date:
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Publication Date:
January 20, 1986
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ARTICLE APP LAZED
ON PAGE
NEW REPUBLIC
20 January 1986
THE PRESS
THE PRINCE AND THE PREPPY
BY MICHAEL MASSING
IT'S APRIL IN BERMUDA, and the Southampton Prin-
cess Hotel is filled with institutional investors, portfolio
managers, executives from Chrysler, Martin Marietta, and
a dozen other corporations. Each has paid s2,500 for four
days of sun, sand, and off-the-record sessions with eco-
nomic policymakers from Washington. Representative
Jack Kemp and Senator Bill Bradley are on hand, plus top
officials from the Treasury Department and the Federal
Reserve. And, in the thick of it all, are the organizers of
this gala affair, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.
Evans and Novak have been together for almost 23 years
now, but never have they been so prominent. The Bermu-
da conference was but one of many political forums they
have staged in the last few years, starring the likes of
Treasury Secretary James Baker, White House Chief of
Staff Donald Regan, Walter Mondale, and Senator Robert
Dole. Every week they host a half-hour interview program
on Cable News Network, with guests ranging from Jerry
Falwell to Geraldine Ferraro. They also contribute two
CNN commentaries a week. Novak is a regular on "The
McLaughlin Group," the televised tag-team debating
match, and he frequently fills the conservative slot on
"Crossfire," the CNN discussion show. Somehow the pair
also finds time to publish two newsletters and to write
several articles a year for Reader's Digest.
Finally, of course, Evans and Novak continue to write
four columns a week, spinning out breathless tales of
bureaucratic intrigue. Here you can read about the aspira-
tions of presidential advance men, the connivances of con-
gressional aides, the interior world of deputy assistant
secretaries. Since Ronald Reagan became president, it
seems, hardly a critical memo gets drafted or a key tele-
phone call placed that doesn't show up in Evans and
Novak. They may well have better sources inside the ad-
ministration than any other journalists, making their col-
umn one of the most closely read in Washington.
Curiously, though, while their star has soared in Wash-
ington, Evans and Novak have hit on hard times in the
rest of the country. "Inside Report," as the column is
called, has lost favor with editors from coast to coast.
Anthony Dav, editorial pages editor of the Los Angeles
Times, says he dropped the column when he became con-
cerned about its accuracy. "Inside Report," which ap-
peared in more than 250 daily papers in the mid-1970s, is
carried by only 150 today. Here are some reasons why:
December 16, 1981: Evans and Novak, quoting presiden-
tial advisers, predict that "Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski will
lose his martial law gamble, leading to direct Soviet inter-
vention in Poland and perhaps costing the lives of hun-
dreds of thousands of fighting Poles."
September 21, 1984: Evans and Novak, citing CIA intelli-
gence estimates, report "suspicions of an imminent Soviet
move from Afghanistan into the northern tip of Pr ak~sta-,."
January 28, 1985: Evans and Novak, observing Konstan-
tin Chernenko on his deathbed, write that "Surprisingly,
the charismatic Mikhail Gorbachev, at 52 the Politburo's
youngest member, is no longer considered the heir
apparent."
A survey of more than 250 columns written since 1981
indicates that Evans and Novak, never known for their
moderation, have grown increasingly strident. Long
forced to sit on the political periphery, they have had
the satisfaction of seeing America come around to their
point of view. But as the nation has shifted to the right,
so have Evans and Novak. Today they champion the gold
standard and call Roberto d'Aubuisson a "democratic
capitalist." Remarkably, the more outlandish Evans and
Novak become, the more their renown inside the Beltway
grows.
As a byline, Evans and Novak have been inseparable
for years; in real life, they could hardly be more apart.
Rowly Evans, 64, is a product of Philadelphia's Main Line.
The son of a Quaker insurance broker, he attended the
Kent School and enrolled at Yale. After a year mostly
spent playing bridge, Evans dropped out of college to
work in the Chicago freight yards. After the war he re-
turned to Philadelphia and got a job with the Bulletin. He
soon went to Washington and eventually took a job with
the bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. The Trib encour-
aged Evans to write a column, but wanted it to appear six
days a week.
To help out, Evans enlisted Robert Novak. Novak, now
54, grew up in a Jewish household in Joliet, Illinois, the
son of a chemical engineer. He attended the University of
Illinois, then went to work for two small Illinois newspa-
pers. In 1958 he joined the Washington bureau of the Wall
Street journal and soon gained a reputation as one of the
best reporters in town.
Today Evans's elegant suits and huffed oxfords give him
the sleek look of a squire. The aristocratic air is heightened
by a high, balding forehead and stylishly long comple-
ment of hair in back. Appearances aside, Evans has a
relaxed, companionable manner that has made him popu-
lar with colleagues of all political persuasions. Three
mornings a week he has breakfast with sources at the
Metropolitan Club, Washington's stuffiest. He and his
wife, Kay, editor of the Washington Journalism Review, are
known for hosting dinner parties in their Georgetown
town house, often with a senator or Supreme Court justice
in attendance.
C&MMED
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One person rarely invited to Evans's house is Bob
Novak. The two do not often.socialize outside the office.
At dinner parties Novak likes to goad guests, thumping
the table to reinforce his case on supply-side economics
and other self-styled heresies. Those who disagree are
frequently branded "wimps." Novak also plays the heavy
on "The McLaughlin Group," the show that lets grown
men discuss big issues and act like little boys.
Such antics have earned Novak the nickname "Prince of
Darkness." The term, coined by Newsweek years ago, has
stuck, thanks to Novak's swarthy complexion and gruff
disposition. Novak revels in the role-which is exactly
what it is. In real life Novak is a schmoozer and rabid
sports fan who reads the morning line before the front
page. Appearances on "McLaughlin" to the contrary,
Novak and rival columnist Jack Germond have been good
friends for 25 years. Both belong to a generation of talent-
ed Washington reporters who came of age in the late 1950s
and early 1960s.
When they began their column, in 1963, Evans and
Novak were hardly conservative ideologues. Both men
voted for John Kennedy in 1960. Though he had no dis-
cernible politics, Evans had become friendly with Kenne-
dy and his circle while covering the Senate. As president,
Kennedy once came to Evans's house for dinner. Novak
was much more of a political animal. Then, however, his
bile was reserved mostly for the right. During the 1964
campaign, Novak frequently attacked Barry Goldwater,
and at the GOP convention he gained some notoriety by
decking a recalcitrant Young Republican. Novak was close
to Lyndon Johnson, and the first book he co-authored
with Evans, a political biography of LBJ, was full of evi-
dent admiration as well as superb reporting. The column
itself was relatively nonpartisan, mixing Evans's many
connections and Novak's political instincts to produce a
stream of scoops.
I N THE LATE 1960s, the column began to take on its
current cast. Evans and Novak detected extremist ele-
ments inside the civil rights movement and attacked Lyn-
don Johnson for his failure of nerve on Vietnam. By 1972
the column was attacking George McGovern with such
vehemence that Novak was thrown off the candidate's
plane. As for Jimmy Carter, "Inside Report" could barely
mention him without a sneer.
The columnists thus greeted the election of Ronald Rea-
gan with joy. On the day after his inauguration, for in-
stance, they confidently asserted that "never again will
the United States allow itself to be held hostage by seizure
of American citizens." Five months into the president's
term they published The Reagan Revolution, a book that put
Ronald Reagan's first 100 days on a par with Franklin
Roosevelt's.
But before long, "Inside Report" was having second
thoughts. At first, the column criticized "pragmatists" like
Jim Baker and Michael Deaver for blunting the president's
L
true instincts. The following year, Evans and Novak open-
ly blamed Ronald Reagan himself. In "Giving Up on the
Reagan Revolution," they gloomily concluded: "There is
no longer any hope that the septuagenarian president,
while joined to the right in spirit, is in any way prepared to
lead a crusade for change."
E VANS AND NOVAK found a new standard-bearer in
Jack Kemp. Kemp embodied the ideologically pure
vision that Reagan had relinquished. Most important, he
was a strong advocate of supply-side economics. Novak
had been converted in 1978, becoming one of the first
journalists in the country to adopt the new creed. Now
Evans and Novak took up Kemp's case as vigorously as
they had Reagan's only months before. In June 1982
they wrote a Kemp profile for Reader's Digest. Headlined
"Is He the GOP's Future?" the article gushed with refer-
ences to Kemp's "gutsy confidence" and "his almost insa-
tiable appetite for new ideas." Kemp's agenda, the Digest
piece claimed, "could well define the dimensions of a
future Presidential campaign." Today "Inside Report"
regularly boosts Kemp's presidential prospects while run-
ning down those of his chief rivals, George Bush and
Robert Dole.
Kemp is a regular Evans and Novak source. So, report-
edly, are Edwin Meese, Richard Perle, and Pat Buchanan.
They have provided a direct pipeline into the Reagan ad-
ministration, enabling Evans and Novak to depict its inter-
nal skirmishes in technicolor. For instance, regular readers
of "Inside Report" weren't surprised by Alexander Haig's
resignation. The column had exhaustively chronicled his
recurrent battles with the White House. "Who Hid Rea-
gan's Memo?" asks one typical column.
Outside conservative Republican circles, Evans and
Novak are often in the dark. Tom Oliphant, a Boston Globe
reporter who calls himself "an unabashed fan" of the col-
umn, adds: "In the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were
marvelous on the inside baseball of the Democratic Party.
Nowadays I get the impression that if Bob Strauss has a
cold and can't come to the phone, they're almost out of
business."
The result is frequent improvisation. A fine example
appeared on December 28, 1983, in a column headlined
"Charles Wick Retreats." The lead urgently declared: "An
attempted appeasement of Democratic critics in the Senate
resulted in humiliating political retreat for the Reagan ad-
ministration when USIA Director Charles Z. Wick signed
secret terms of surrender." The column went on to de-
scribe how "hard-driving Charley Wick" had agreed to
stop financing political seminars for foreign visitors "after
liberal Senate Democrats complained about their right-
wing orientation...." The villain: Peter Galbraith, a staff
member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
whose views "are variously described as ranging from
'left-wing' to 'moderate,' " and who was said to be work-
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ing on behalf of liberal senator Claiborne Pell.
The column was classic Evans and Novak. It had a
breathless lead, bureaucratic maneuvering, a scheming
liberal staffer, and above all, evidence of conservative ca-
pitulation. Unfortunately, it was wrong on almost every
detail. The senator most troubled by the USIA's activities
was not Pell but Edward Zorinsky of Nebraska, who is
probably the committee's most conservative Democrat.
Furthermore, the charges against the agency were non-
ideological in nature, concerning conflicts of interest and
violations of the USIA charter. Once the irregularities be-
came public, an embarrassed Wick rushed to put matters
straight.
C OME ALONG NOW for an Evans and Novak tour of
the globe. Hold on tight, though-the ride may get a
little choppy.
Southern Africa. Arriving here in September 1981, we see
the bodies of two Soviet officers, killed during a South
African raid against SWAPO military installations in
southern Angola. These are not simply two more victims
of an endlessly bloody war. Comrades Kireev and Lamon-
avich are evidence that "Moscow seeks to transform black
Africa guerrilla actions into a conventional war capabil-
ity against South Africa-controlled Namibia and eventually
against South Africa itself." The Russian plan is to inte-
grate SWAPO with the Angolan army in order to attack
South Africa. The real stunner of the column, though, is
its assertion that the Soviets "seek to divert" South Africa
from its problems in Namibia by "opening up a second
anti-South Africa front from Mozambique." The objective:
"locking up the greatest mineral storage house in the
world and controlling oil traffic around the Horn."
Four years later, SWAPO continues to struggle as a
hit-and-run guerrilla force, and the only front in Mozam-
bique consists of antigovernment Renamo rebels widely
believed to enjoy South Africa's backing. In fact, Mozam-
bique has moved progressively closer to the United States.
Argentina. It's April 1982, just before the Falklands war,
and the Soviet Union, we are told, "cannot resist poking
into fresh trouble when the opportunity arises."
Senior presidential advisers fear that if Argentina is forced to
retreat precipitously, an anti-U.S. government more national-
istic than the present military regime may take over. With the
Soviet Union then in the forefront as Argentina's new best
friend and the United States cast in the villain's role, there
arises the prospect of Soviet-Argentine friendship unimagin-
able before the Falklands crisis. As a bonus, the Soviets might
acquire naval ports in the South Atlantic, valuable help for
their growing fleet of submarines.
Of course, Argentina's precipitous retreat in the Falk-
lands led to the abrupt collapse of the military junta, bring-
ing to power a democratic government that has since
worked to exorcise the scourge of nationalism. Needless to
say, the Soviets are nowhere to be found.
China. "China's Chill," appearing in June 1983, de-
scribes the deteriorating relations between Beijing and
Washington. The column scornfully dismisses the "New
China Hands" in the U.S. Embassy who counsel a policy
of accommodation. The real cause for estrangement, we
learn, has "less to do with policy in Washington than with
the nature of the Chinese communist state." The column
warns of growing rapprochement between China and the
Soviet Union. Among the pieces of evidence: the sight of
"a Russian and several important-looking Chinese cadres
in protracted conversation, punctuated by periodic laugh-
ter, at Peking airport's waiting room." Such cordiality
sends a clear message: "the intimate link envisaged by the
New China hands is beyond reach." Seven months after
the column appeared, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang visit-
ed the United States, and four months later Ronald Rea-
gan visited China-initiating a love affair between the two
countries that is still aflame.
Iran-Iraq. You may not have heard of Basra, but in April
1984 Evans and Novak wrote that an upcoming Iranian
campaign aimed at the Iraqi town was "assuming the rare
importance of a latter-day Battle of Thermopylae." The
campaign, they asserted, "is now perceived as more chill-
ing to American interests than any other single event in
the Middle East since World War II." The scenario went
like this: a successful Iranian offensive would lead to the
setting up of an "Islamic republic" in southern Iraq. This
would force neighboring Kuwait to capitulate, followed in
turn by Saudi Arabia, "the impotent oil sheikdoms," and
the two Yemens. "Brutal harassment of Americans, not
excepting murder, would follow."
I N FACT, the Iranian offensive fizzled, and the flag of
the "Islamic republic" never flew. And, at last check,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the sheikdoms, and the Yemens
were still there.
Grenada. Three days after the U.S. invasion, Evans and
Novak attributed the murder of Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop-which had precipitated the invasion-to Bish-
op's meeting the previous summer with American Nation-
al Security Adviser William Clark. They wrote that Bishop
had been killed because of the "fear of fellow Grenadian
Marxists, shared by Moscow and Havana, that he was
deserting to the West." This was the boilerplate analysis
offered by the Reagan administration. But later the line
changed. In 1984 the State and Defense departments pub-
lished a collection of documents seized in Grenada that, in
the administration's analysis, showed no "strong diver-
gence of views between Bishop and those who replaced
him; rather, the struggle appears to have been almost
exclusively personal." It said there was "no evidence" that
Cuban or Soviet dissatisfaction--or the meeting with
Clark-played any role in Bishop's removal. Evans and
Novak were left high and dry.
Nicaragua. Their greatest scoop came in October 1981.
"Bridge Over the River Lempa" began:
Between 500 and 600 troops of Cuba's "quick strike" special
forces flew surreptitiously to Nicaragua last month-with Cu-
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ba's ambassador to Nicaragua aboard the last flight-in a
move that may be aimed at setting up a revolutionary Marxist
government in eastern El Salvador. .
Fidel Castro's gall and self-confidence in transporting a con-
cealed strike force ... for combat in beleaguered El Salvador
has shocked the highest officials in the Reagan administra-
tion.
The evidence for this "Cuban foreign intervention" was
said to come from "unimpeachable Latin American
sources." According to these sources, the strike force had
arrived "exactly" 26 days before the recent destruction of a
bridge over El Salvador's Lempa River, connecting the
eastern third of El Salvador with the rest of the country.
Castro was expected to direct his force in Nicaragua "to
occupy, without possibility of military resistance, the east-
ern third of El Salvador, establish a Soviet-backed commu-
nist government and use it to rally world support for the
so-called Democratic Revolutionary Front." The column
added that the imminence of Cuban intervention posed a
"critical choice" for the Reagan administration: "to tell
the world the truth about the advanced stage of Castro's
Soviet-backed plan to seize control of El Salvador and meet
it head-on; or to continue fudging the issue in hope that
some miracle will make it go away."
Such a miracle did occur: Evans and Novak stopped
writing about the planned invasion, and it went away.
M Y INTERVIEW with Rowland Evans took place at
the Metropolitan Club, in a huge sitting room with
wood paneling, ornate windows, and elegant chandeliers.
We sat facing one another in leather armchairs-the only
two people in the room. I asked Evans about the River
Lempa piece. "This very rarely happens," he told me. "I
got a call from a very high official at State, who said, 'I
have an interesting intelligence report that we're con-
vinced is true.' So I went over to the State Department,
and the information was so sensitive that he would only
read it to me. I found it very difficult to prove it or check it
out. I asked at the Pentagon, the Agency, but nobody
really knew." Nonetheless, Evans said, he decided to go
ahead with the story. "In my defense," he added, "I'd say
the thrust of the column was accurate. There was a force
that arrived, disguised as teachers. But it was a less signifi-
cant force than I'd been told. The intelligence information
did not convey the full story. There were inaccuracies in
it." Months after the column appeared, Evans says, his
source apologized to him. No correction ever appeared,
however.
I also asked Evans about the prediction that Gorbachev
had been passed over as Chernenko's successor. This
time, he said, the source wasn't at State but at an-
other "clearly identifiable" government agency. Going
with the story "was a very, very close decision," he
said, and in the end, "it was wrong." As an afterthought,
he added, "I don't care whether it's Gorbachev or Grishin
[another contender]. They're all sons of bitches."
He went on: "I think a reporter who's got a reputation
for decency and honesty has every right to print this as a
probable thing. You might ask, 'Why didn't you check it
out at State, the CIA, DIA, people in Moscow, Britain,
and France?' That's a valid question. The answer is, you
can't-you don't have time. By the time you checked it all
out, the idea would be dead and buried. A reporter in this
town, especially one who writes on deadlines four times a
week, always has a very, very difficult question of judg-
ment. The only fair way to judge a reporter is by taking the
body of his work. I challenge you to take the full body of
our columns and see where they come out."
M Y INTERVIEW with Robert Novak took place in the
Evans and Novak office, a block from the White
House. I was ushered into a small, functional room filled
with torn vinyl furniture. On the walls were photos of
Evans and Novak consulting with the leading political
figures of our time-Johnson, Humphrey, Kissinger, Nix-
on. "Support Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters," declared a
bumper sticker on the door; a poster bearing the CBS eye
proclaimed, "Rather Biased."
I asked Novak about the falloff in the number of papers
carrying "Inside Report." "We're the oldest major syndi-
cated column in America," he replied. "We've been
around for a long, long time. People get tired of it." He
added that "the whole future of the syndicated column is
clouded. You can see that by counting the number of new
columnists who have come on the scene in recent years.
It's a feat for us to have continued as long as we have."
Besides, he said, "We're controversial and abrasive."
The Prince of Darkness sounded tired. He had arrived in
town early that morning on the red-eye flight from Califor-
nia, then joined Evans to tape a TV interview with Gary
Hart. He also had to write an extra column in anticipation
of Thanksgiving. In fact, Novak was going to cancel our
interview until I told him on the phone, in a voice thick
with disappointment, that I had just traveled 200 miles to
interview him. "All right, come on over," he said. "I can
give you ten minutes." We ended up talking for half an
hour. The phone rang constantly throughout our conver-
sation. At the end, as he hurried back into his office,
Novak apologized for being so rushed. As I left I heard
him plaintively call out to his staff, "Would somebody get
me my own bathroom key?"
Bermuda, CNN, "McLaughlin," Gary Hart-Evans and
Novak have come a long way from the days when they
covered Capitol Hill. Along the way something has gone
out of their work, however, and that's the capacity to
outrage. It's no fault of their own. At one time, columns
about second fronts in Mozambique, Soviet incursions
into northern Pakistan, and Cuban strike forces would
cause people to protest, fume, and mutter about how
those guys were at it again. Today nobody looks twice.
After all, their columns don't seem much different from
what comes out of the Reagan administration. In fact,
that's where they get most of this stuff. ^
Michael Massing, a New York writer, is former executive
editor of Columbia Journalism Review.
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