COUNTERING (MORE) THAN A CONVENTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380044-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: May 13, 1974
• Content Type: NSPR

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WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Relea a 2004A/W d -4 DP8
11 0'
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Judy Rerhruch.
NEW YORK-in the
midst of the Friday night
swirl, Daniel Ellsberg stood,
relaxed, his jacket flung
over his shoulder, sur-
rounded as he would be for
the rest of the weekend by a
gaggle o deferential report-'
ers. One of their number
asked if he had bought the
Nixon transcripts. He re-
plied that he had.
"And they're pretty
cheap," Ellsberg added.
"Only about a penny a page.
'Why I remember when I
was Xeroxing (the Pentagon.
Papers) it cost me 9 cents a
page, And nobody I gave
them to paid me a penny.
Well, yes, one"- he
amended. "After I'd sent my
last batch of papers to the
Fulbright Committee, an
aide called and asked me if
I wished to be reimbursed.
And I said, `Yes. That last
batch will cost $450.' And
the aide said, `We can't af-
ford that. We meant we'd
pay your postage.' And I
said, `Oh, keep' it.' "
He. sighed and looked out
over the [More] convention
gathering, where scores of
reporters were cramming
close to the bar at the Hotel
Roosevelt. for aid and com-
fort.
"I spent my entire life
savings on those Xeroxes,"
Ellsberg said. The reporters
nodded sympathetically.
For the third time in as
many years [More], a New
York journalism review that
takes its name, brackets and
all, from the reporter's tra-
ditional bottom-of-the-page
notation, was holding its A.
J. Liebling' Counter-Conven
tion. The journalists (the
men in slacks dressed just a
tad neater thap the women,
also in slacks) came from all
over, a vast majority of
them from the elite centers.
't'here were of course
cliques: The New York. Map-
azine clique; the Rolling
Then, at the end of the
panel, someone asked Halpe-
rin if the President had or-
dered an attack on North
Korea in April of 1969 and
was talked out of it by Kis-
singer.
Halperin refused to an-
swer. "I don't feel an obliga-
tion to report everything I
know about everything," he,
said.
One had a choice on
where to be most bored on
Saturday afternoon. Most
people (including New York
Post publisher Dorothy
Schiff) showed tip at a panel
on the editorial page, where
they could hear former col-
uninist Murray Kempton
St
h
one clique:, t
e outox gated by lticuai'u Ni m
--, of the game."
work tc levision -cli
when asked
ue and
l
ot re
ld
q
y
p
wou
n
the out-of-work newsrApprov FiorfReIease 2004/09/2, y 8 `- 1
me i .c _ c o
b
li
Th
t
i
h
l
ury
c
er
o
ese
t
ast called have come ne
que. e, ' themselves froc.i.ancers? all nor praise Caesar," he said John Oakes snapped, "There
are al
as he walked away. so, God knows, ponip-
,...'_?._,._.,
[D1~40FIL."I
a ~on~ention
had
in.
In fact, however, Hiss had
come to participate in'Satut-
day's morning panel on na-
tional security--along with
Morton Halperin, Seymour
Hersh and Paul Warlike, a
former Assistant Secretary
of Defense, and Jeffrey St.
John, a, conservative com-
mentator, who launched a
full-scale attack on Henry
Kissinger and his coverage
by the press.
"There is," said St. John,*
"a protection racket of high
political officials. Especially
the deed and conduct of
Henry Kissinger. Since join-
ing the Nixon administra-
tion, he has managed to ma-
nipulate the press to the
point where they've become
nothing more than his shoe-
shine boys."
To which Morton Halpe-
rin, who used to work for
Kissinger, added, "Well
since he (Kissinger) was re-
sponsible for the FBI listen-
ing to all my phone conver-
sations, I'm not really unbi-
ased. I would conclude that'
there is an indictable of-
fense of perjury here."
There was more. Everyone
---,especially Warlike and
Ialperin-agreed that part
of 'our problems stemmed
from secrecy. That there
was a need for a more open
government, a more de-
manding press.
It was easy to forget it
was a counter-convention be.
Cause, unlike years past, the
[More] fiesta wasn't running
counter to anything; not
counter to editors, or to pub-
lishers or to the excesses of
journalists.
It was also at time easy to
forget that it. was a journal-
fists' convention because the
real stars of the show this
year were Daniel Ellsberg,
Alger Hiss, Morton Halperin
and-, yes, Woody Allen.
Something has happened to
reporters in recent times.
They are no longer on the
outside, looking in. Or if
they are, they have the com-
fort of knowing they are not,
alone in this posture.' Even
the administration is now on
the outside, looking in.
At a time when the Nixon
administration was experi-
encing a most crucial hour,
2,000 reporters were celebra-
ting the men who felt they
had been abused by the
President.
When Alike Wallace of
CBS announced Saturday
night that Dan Rather of
CBS couldn't make that eve-
ning's panel because he had
to preside over "the death
watch," a ballroom full of
people burst into applause
over Wallace's terminology.
Seymour Hersh of The
New York Times talked
about the possibility of
"plea bargaining" at the
White House.
And The Times' Anthony
Lewis replied when pressed,
that yes, he thought that
Richard Nixon was "a war
criminal."
There was a good deal of
breast-beating about the
way the press had allowed
itself to be used by the ad-
ministration. But in a curi-
ous way, a discomfiting way,
it seemed that entire [More]
convention was being or-
chestrated by Richard
Nixon.
Alger Hiss, who once went
to jail after being lnvesti-
panel on homosexuals called
"The Hidden Minority."
Here one could listen to
author Merle Miller de-
scribe the fortuitously ab-
sent movie critic Pauline
Kiel as "The New Yorker's
answer to Lucrezia_Borgia."
And attend a simultaneous
panel on crime coverage
where a. reporter named
Willie Hamilton belabored
his audience with a 20-
minute recital of how he was
beaten up by the police. And
liter yet another panel on
kidnaping.
"Wasn't it hoping," sighed
Alger Hiss as he was re-
leased from the editorial
page room.
"Yes it was damn bloody
boring wasn't it?" admitted
Alexander Cockburn, media
critic of the Village Voice,
after his stint on the kid-
naping panel.
"I'm telling you," said
Kempton on his way out,
"I'm never going to one.of
these things again. I guess I
really don't like John Oakes.
Journalists are so pompous."
Well, of course that was
one of the problems. And it
was discussed, too, at various
panels at various junctures:
Every o n e sa-d journalists
;could not be smug, should
not he pompous just because
a few people had worked on
a story that shattered a na-
tion's complacency.
But at the party Friday
night, J. Anthony Lugas, a ir._-
senior editor ' at (MOR.E)
said, "I for one am delighted
that Robert Redford is play-
ing one of us." Redford in-
tends to portray The Wash-
ington Post's Bob Woodward
in the - Watergate. movie.
"And," Lukas continued, "I
would like to be played by
Omar Sheriff,"
"God," cried Dick Pollak, y_.
editor of (MORE), "You're
cutting your own throat."
"I'm sure," replied Lukas,
indicating the reporter, "she
will report exactly how I
said that."
Lukas said that with a
smile. But there was an un-
mistakeable gleam in his
eye. The phrase "star re-
porter" suddenly assumed
all sorts of new meaning
On Saturday night three
awards were presented. One,
a student award, went to
Richard Wechsler of Rich-
mond College for press criti-
cism. Another, the L.J. Lie-
bling award, went to The
Washington Post's Morton
000$DO38 .4 all for being
his own Alan." The third was
a tribute to Eugene Smith, a
STAII
 photographer, who wasc rov~4~}`~a`t~ r P9/28 : CIA-RDP88-013148000300380044-4
verely beaten in Japan
he documented with Pic- Lrczim Machine" and televi-
tures the effects of mercury pion reporter Joel Siegel
poisoning; emitted by a and some other successful
chemical company in Mini- people, was going to speak
mata. to the assembled about fail-
Smith, who wore dark ure.
glasses since he is still! in Unfortunately, as the
the process of regaining his comic and satirical film di-
sight and his health, showed rector stated, he "hadn't re-
slides of tire mothers cra-' ally thought about it a lot:
dling deformed children, You know," he said, cover..
.hands twisted from mercury ing his mouth with his
poisoning, and company offi? hands, "you know, I'm al-
cials confronting the pa- ways being asked if my sue-
tients. cess in my work affects my
private life, and it really is
At last year's counter-con- true. As I become more
vention, there was a well-known, I strike out
counter-counter convention, with a 1 better class of
held by women . who felt women."
they weren't being ade- And so it went. When a
quately represented. This vote was taken, a majority
year there were two panels of the reporters present de-
devoted to women's ques- cided they did not want to
tions. "Can you imagine continue 1f teiiing to that
that?" asked Nora Ephron of beyond the appointed time.
New York magazine, who '~aybe it was because the
was ? part of last year's Qbject struck too close to
counter-counter and the dome.
moderator this year. "Last The reporters were high
year when I complained on their own successes.
about the lack of women on When it came to self-criti-
panels, the (MORE) people cism, they brought in Woody
said, But Nora, we already Allen..
asked Mary McGrory and
she couldn't come.'
There. were very few
blacks either on or off the
panel at this year's conven-
tion. (MORE) people when
asked about this, said that
blacks never came to
[MORE] conventions in
large numbers.
There in vociferous fash-
ion were members of the
National Caucus of Labor '
Committees, a . new New
Left left-wing group. Before
a number of panels some of
their number formed the
habit of whipping through,
babbling words unintelligi-
bly and then leaving. One of
them presented something
that looked like a subpoena
to Seymour Hersh arid
Warnke who was, he said,
going to be tried by a inter-
national tribunal "For their
complicity in providing a
spectacular whitewash of
CIA complicity in the Penta-
gon Papers,"
In the last hour of the last
day, Sunday, Woody Allen
slumped into the conven-
tion, his eyes half hidden by
in khaki hat, his right flank
protected by Louise Lasser, .
one of his ex-wives. Woody
Approved For Release 2004/09/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380044-4