JACK ANDERSON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100140086-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 86
• Publication Date: May 1, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
PROGRAM The Larry King Show STATION WDVM-TV
Syndicated
DATE May 1, 1983 11:30 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
LARRY KING: He's an old friend. He's the most widely
read columnist in the history of this country. His column
appears in over 900 newspapers. He's a muckraker in the highest
sense of that word. He is Jack Anderson.
And I thank you very much for coming, Jack.
JACK ANDERSON: Larry, it's my pleasure.
[Applause]
KING: Before I ask about anything else. What is Jack
Anderson writing a book called "Alice-in-Blunderland"? Are you
starting to flip?
ANDERSON: Oh, I've ground my teeth. I've almost cried
over the things that go on in Blunderland here in Washington.
And I decided that the thing to do is to write maybe a little
ridicule. Let's see if we can get a laugh out of it. You wind
up crying, but...
ANDERSON: Yes. It's the Alice-in-Wonderland story
adapted to Washington. It's a mixture of whimsy and reality.
And I'll defy you to tell me which is which.
KING: How did you become what you've become? What got
you interested in digging up that side of things other people in
this business don't find? Why do you gravitate that way?
ANDERSON: I started as a very young repoter. Always
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had a great curiosity. Always thought it was sort of a waste of
my time to be at a press conference because there were so many
other reporters there. Always interested in knowing what they
weren't talking about at the press conference. And that kind of
curiosity just led me to Drew Pearson after World War II. I'd
been a war correspondent during World War II.
KING: In a sense, shouldn't every reporter be that way?
Shouldn't every reporter be an investigative reporter?
ANDERSON: I think they should. But they're not. Most
of them -- most of them are reporting what the politicians tell
them. They cover the newsmakers. That might seem like the best
way to get news. But the newsmakers are politicians, and they
have politics to play. And they're not, therefore, reliable
sources.
KING: There's more, though, who've come around of late,
certainly since Watergate, to that kind of thinking, of not
believing the handout, not believing what the Senator or the
President says. There are no sacred cows anymore.
ANDERSON: Well, that's true. And they ought not to
believe them. Because, obviously, the people who govern us,
they're decent people. I don't mean that they're evil people.
But like all of us, they have their point of view. You or I,
when we get involved in something, if you get into an automobile
accident, your version is going to be different than the other
driver's. The President gets involved in his policies. He comes
to believe quite sincerely in what he's doing. That doesn't mean
he's right. And the stories that he puts out are going to be his
version of events.
I think it's absolutely urgent that we find out what's
really happening, as opposed to what the President tells us is
happening.
KING: Are you always conscious of the power you have?
You have to be careful about it, don't you?
ANDERSON: Well, power in a democracy rests with the
people. And, yes, anybody who can reach the people, I suppose,
and can influence them would have power, but only if he's able to
convince them. And that means you must have credibility. It
means that you must present the facts.
ANDERSON: In Washington, if you're investigating the
government, you know, you figure there's going to be half a dozen
law enforcement agencies four blocks behind you all the time. It
keeps you virtuous.
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KING: Off the top, Jack, what do you think of the vote
thus far? The public viewing this program, in large numbers
--well, not large. The vote is close. But 2761 say no aid to El
Salvador, 2194 say yes, aid to El Salvador. How do react off
just the top to that?
ANDERSON: I'm a little surprised. I would have
thought, from the publicity that I've seen, the stories, the
television reports that I've seen, that more people would be
opposed.
KING: But Mr. Reagan made a very effective speech this
week, did he not?
ANDERSON: I thought he...
KING: In prime time? Some said his best-delivered
speech of his presidency. Think that might have an effect?
ANDERSON: Might have an effect. And I think that,
increasingly, the American people are getting disturbed about
what's going on down there.
By the way, we'll take calls for Jack Anderson....
We've got things to talk about like grand jury reports
and drugs in government and the Soviet Union and other things
that Mr. Anderson so actively gets into.
KING: How do you stand on the El Salvador situation?
Which way would you call?
ANDERSON: Oh, I would say that we should help. I'?m not
pleased with the President's policies, but I think something must
be done, something urgently must be done to stop the spread of
communism in our backyard. It's our soft underbelly. I think
we're in deep and dire danger.
And I would have to add to that, though, I don't think
that the President's policies are going to solve the problem.
KING: Now let's touch some bases. This week you wrote
a rather strong article, a well-written article, I might add,
about a grand jury report, a report turned over to the --Califano
and others investigating drugs that Senator Kennedy and others
were involved on Capitol Hill. The Washington Post did not run
that column, as is their choice. They buy the column.
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They don't have to run it.
How did this all come about to you, one? And I have a
question on grand jury report.
ANDERSON: Well, it -- I can't argue too much with the
Washington Post editors. I had these names for about a year and
a half, and didn't use them myself.
KING: 'Cause these are just mentioned. Right?
ANDERSON: Because they're accusations. It's not proof.
I had held up the publication of the names even though I knew
there had been grand jury testimony.
The real reason that I went ahead with this story was
that some of the names were leaking out, some of the names were
being used. And I thought that was unfair. And I thought that
if newspapers, including the Washington Post, are going to print
some of the names, then they really ought to print all of the
names. And so I put out all of the names. And I think it's
--you can call it either way.
KING: Mr. Califan,o, though, in a story in Boston,
denied that Senator Kennedy was ever named.
ANDERSON: No, he didn't. If you read closely, he said,
"We don't have evidence that he purchased drugs." That is not
what I wrote. I didn't say that they had evidence that he
purchased drugs. I said that he was named in grand jury testi-
mony. He was named in grand jury testimony. He was in named in
House Ethics Committee testimony. And if Califano wants to deny
that, I'll give him the page numbers.
KING: All right. Larger than that, though. The grand
jury is an inherent part of the American system. And one of the
great things about the grand jury system is it is not public, so
that this board of eminent citizens selected, usually, every six
months or a year, depending on federal or local, can look at a
situation, thoroughly investigate it. The people there can come
in an testify. Conjectures are often made. Thoughts are made,
opinions. You can offer an opinion in a grand jury hearing, you
say, "I think -- I thought that was Senator Kennedy coming around
the street." It may never be offered at a trial. What's it our
business?_ Why should I want to know what's in a grand jury?
ANDERSON: There are good arguments, Lary, against
publishing material that goes before a grand jury.
KING: Ever.
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ANDERSON: On the other hand, grand juries are also used
to cover up scandals. If we hadn't published the grand jury
--and I was also the one who published the grand jury reports on
Watergate. And a week after I did so, Richard Nixon abandoned
his stonewalling and permitted his aides to testify before the
Senate. Up to that time, he'd kept them from testifying before
the Senate on the excuse, with the alibi that there's a grand
jury investigation going on, and they have to cooperate with the
grand jury.
You remember that Richard Nixon, as President, can
control the Justice Department. The Justice Department can
control what goes on in a grand jury. And his plan, quite
obvious -- it's more than obvious. It's known that his plan was
to offer up a few scapegoats, but to cover up the Watergate
scandal.
So, at this point, should you not report it?
There have been other cases, like Abscam, where the
grand jury -- I'm not too sure that it should have been done, but
it was done.
I have reason to believe that the Justice Department is
trying to cover up the narcotics probe.
KING: This Justice Department?
ANDERSON: This Justice Department.
KING: Why?
ANDERSON: Well, because for what they consider to be
good reason. They have a policy of not going after users, but
going after only peddlers. In the case of the nine congressmen
who've been identified by three or more informants, in.the case
of those nine congressmen, all of them were users or purchasers
of drugs, according to the informants. Now, all of the nine deny
it. But according to the testimony, they were users. Nobody is
even claiming that they were drug pushers. The Justice Depart-
ment has never gone after drug users. So they say they don't
want to make an exception in the case of the congressmen.
Congressmen ought not to be singled out.
-KING: Maybe...
ANDERSON: My argument is different. I say the people
who make the laws, the people who pass the laws ought to obey
them. And if you're not going to make it -- if you're going to
make it a crime to use drugs, then they ought not to use drugs.
I go further than that. Everyone who uses drugs
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contributes to organized crime, because organized crime controls
the drug racket in this country. And congressmen ought to know
better.
KING: But you're not going to change someone's habit
telling them that.
ANDERSON: Well, I'll tell you, that's the most serious
-- one of the most serious things facing this country, the fact
that drug purchases go into a multibillion-dollar fund for
organized crime, a multibillion-dollar fund that organized crime
uses to corrupt our society and to corrupt our government.
KING: Then why not legalize it?
ANDERSON: It would be beter than what's now happening.
KING: We will take phone calls for Jack Anderson right
after these words.
KING: We'll start with calls for Jack Anderson in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
MAN: ...How intimate should the press's coverage of the
President's life be? What do you think about that?
KING: How intimate should we cover a President's life?
How much should we know about his wife or what his son is doing?
ANDERSON: Oh, that's a hard one to call. I tend to
believe that a person's private life ought to be left out of the
public spotlight, unless his private life somehow affects his
public conduct. And it's a difficult one to call. But the
trivia that we read about the President, I think, probably is
their business and not to be ours.
KING: Have you ever printed something you wish you
could take back?
ANDERSON: Oh, certainly. Oh, certainly. Investigative
reorting is high-risk journalism. We're the first on the scene.
We don't see -- we see only the tip of the iceberg. So we're
writing about what we see. When time goes on and more of the
iceberg is seen, it begins to take a different shape, a different
dimension than we originally anticipated. And then you wish you
hadn't've written it or that you'd known more at the beginning.
Yes, that happens.
KING: Saranac Lake, New York.
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MAN: You claim to use a-n intricate network of sources
in your work. Who are they, where are they, and how do you work
with them? By that I mean is it up front or do you meet in dark
alleys? And do you consider yourself thick-skinned?
KING: Tell us your sources.
ANDERSON: Well, all right, I will, without naming them.
My sources are the professionals. My sources are the people who
tell the President what's happening. I decided 35 years ago that
politicians weren't reliable sources. But I know, and I found
out very quickly, that the politicians get their information from
professionals, from experts. These are the people who tell the'
President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State
what's happening.
KING: Why do they tell you?
ANDERSON: Well, I try to convince them to tell me. The
information that goes to the President is classified, for the
most part. So I'm dealing in classified information. This
classified information -- it's classified, really, to censor it,
so that the President can selectively release only those things
that he wants us to know. And I thought we ought to know the
other side of the story.
When the President goes on television, for example, to
illustrate his Star Wars speech and shows top secret documents
and top secret information, either he should be impeached for
giving information to the enemy, or else why was it classified in
the first place?
Now, my sources are themselves security experts.
KING: Do you have to be thick-skinned?
ANDERSON: Well, yes. Of course.
KING: Is it tough when you've got to break a story on a
ANDERSON: Yes, but you've got to do it. It's just
absolutely essential. Because if you start -- politicians, by
their nature, are charming. That's how they get elected. And if
you're going to allow them to charm you, then you're not going to
be able to write about any of them.
KING: Arlington, Virginia.
MAN: ...I'd like your opinion of the massive U.S.
defense buildup. What do you think of what the U.S. Government
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and the Pentagon have to say about the size of the Soviet threat,
of global communism?
ANDERSON: Well, the Soviet threat is real enough.
There's no question that they're ahead of us in most military
areas.
But the real threat, in my, opinion, is the low-cost,
low-profile, low-risk threat. What they do is they go into a
place like El Salvador or Guatemala or some other Central
American country, and they take out malcontents, malcontents who
have charisma, leadership ability. They bring them back to the
Soviet Union, to East Germany, to Hungary, they give them
training, training that lasts up to four years. They go back
thoroughly indoctrinated, form cadres. These cadres then seize
upon legitimate grievances, absolutely real issues, and then they
recruit non-communists, they recruit anti-communists, they build
up a whole rebel movement. They promise everything. It's always
easier to promise than it is to provide, much easier for them to
say what they're going to do than it is for the government
actually to do it.
And it costs the Soviets very little. And yet, it's a
very real threat to us.
KING: Dawson, Georgia.
MAN: ...Of all the stories you've done, which one
shocked you the most?
KING: Good question.
ANDERSON: Yes, it is.
I suppose the one that shocked me the most, and the one
that was the hardest to dig out, was the story that our CIA was
using Mafia killers to try to knock off Fidel Castro, that we
were dealing with the underworld to kill a rival head of state.
KING: Our guest is Jack Anderson.
KING: We go to Lockhaven, Pennsylvania.
WOMAN: ...I'd like to know, why hasn't the press been
as tough on Reagan as it was on Carter?
ANDERSON: I think that Reagan is harder to attack.
He's got more charm. He had a longer honeymoon. It was extend-
ed, unfortunately and unhappily, because of the shooting.
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At this point, I think t-hat the press is bearing down
rather hard on him. And I don't think he's going to get off any
longer. I think that the press is watching down his throat right
now.
KING: Do you think he'd have had a lot more grief, if
not for the shooting, earlier?
ANDERSON: Oh, yes. It would have started much earlier.
KING: Clinton, Connecticut.
MAN: ...Jack, did you ever fear for your life or
livelihood during the Watergate era?
ANDERSON: Not exactly. I didn't find out until later
that two of the -- two people on the White House payroll were
actually thinking of knocking me off. One was C. Gordon Liddy,
the other E. Howard Hunt. They discussed it. They actually
talked to a CIA doctor about getting some kind of poisons or
drugs to use against me. And C. Gordon Liddy has admitted this
in his book.
KING: Liddy told...
ANDERSON: But at the time, I didn't know about it?
KING: Is it true Liddy said to you, when you met him --
and we obviously now know the man would have killed you, and
threatened to kill you. Is it true he said to you, "Don't take
it personally"? Nothing personal?
ANDERSON: Essentially, that is right. It was a
professional matter with him, he said.
KING: Miami, Florida.
MAN: I'd like to know what type of influence does the
Moral Majority have these days in Washington politics.
KING: Yes. Mr. Falwell was here last week. What is
their influence here?
ANDERSON: I think that they have a negative influence
here. I think that they do influence the President. I think
they have influence at the White House. But I think it's
probably a negative influence on Capitol Hill. I think the image
of the Moral Majority has been tarnished. Their effectiveness in
the congressional elections was poor. And I think that probably
they do not frighten Congress.
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KING: Gaffney, South Carolina.
WOMAN: Mr. Anderson, I just wondered if you have as yet
published a retraction and an apology to Senator Strom Thurmond
concerning the bribe which you said he took, but which the FBI
has now found to be incorrect.
ANDERSON: No, the FBI hasn't found it to be incorrect.
And there has been no retraction. What we reported was that
there was grand jury testimony that he had accepted a bribe.
This grand jury testimony by a man named W.W. Pierce -- I think
it was on February 10th. We were reporting an event. This event
should have been reported. I think other newspapers would have
reported it if they'd have been able to get ahold of the grand
jury information.
We also reported in considerable detail Strom Thurmond's
So, what the Justice Department said was that they had
no evidence to convict -- that they could use in court against
him. Well, they had the testimony of one witness, testimony that
was taken under oath. They should either send Mr. Pierce to jail
for perjury or they should go ahead with the investigation of Mr.
Thurmond.
KING: Let me get in one more quick call from Medford,
Massachusetts.
MAN: Mr. Anderson, I'd like to get back to the question
concerning your sense of governmental censorship. And I'd like
you to comment on Reagan's new limits on the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act, and also the attempt to treat supposed classified
information by former governmental workers [unintelligible] on
speeches. And do you think it'll pass?
KING: Well, they want former government workers to sign
that they will not write about what they did in government. And
they're trying to put some sanctions on the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act. Is it going to work?
ANDERSON: Just outrageous. It won't work. It should-
n't work. We have freedom of speech and freedom of-the press in
this country. It ought to apply to government workers. It ought
to apply to anyone. We cannot permit the government to tell us
what we can do and say and read and write. That is --that's
absolutely sacred. The government should keep its cotton-
pickin' hands off of it.
KING: Thank you, Jack.
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