Posted on 05/24/2009 10:00:02 PM PDT by re_tail20
The Watergate break-in eventually forced a presidential resignation and turned two Washington Post reporters into pop-culture heroes. But almost 37 years after the break-in, two former New York Times journalists have stepped forward to say that The Times had the scandal nearly in its grasp before The Post did — and let it slip.
Robert M. Smith, a former Times reporter, says that two months after the burglary, over lunch at a Washington restaurant, the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray, disclosed explosive aspects of the case, including the culpability of the former attorney general, John Mitchell, and hinted at White House involvement.
Mr. Smith rushed back to The Times’s bureau in Washington to repeat the story to Robert H. Phelps, an editor there, who took notes and tape-recorded the conversation, according to both men. But then Mr. Smith had to hand off the story — he had quit The Times and was leaving town the next day to attend Yale Law School.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I was at Woodstock.
So Smith is saying he’s the Michael Isikoff of Watergate?
So L. Patrick Gray, the F.B.I.’s number one guy, was leaking to the New York Times, while W. Mark Felt, the F.B.I.’s number two guy, was leaking to the Washington Post.
If only J. Edgar Hoover had lived a few more months, he would have still been director during the break in, and nobody would have leaked anything.
In news reporting, it doesn’t matter what you know and when you know it: it matters when you make it public. And it’s too late to bother about Watergate now.
Wasn’t it the NYT that thought “Deep Throat” was Marilyn Chambers?
I invented Harry Potter, but that darn Rowling woman rushed her book out first.
I could have stopped the JFK assissination, but my father made me walk the dog to the bakery and buy a dozen rolls and a pound of ham.
After that day I re-named my dog Hamlet.
I formally nominate them for an “Almost Pulitzer”.
I can ask 100 people, “What the was the objective of those responsible for the break-in?” 99 would not know. So, if the story broke early, it would still only be half the story.
Hint: According to Liddy (every lawsuit against his claims have been dismissed), it involves call-girl rings, a Democratic Party secretary who may have been a glorified madam, and the fiancee of President Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean. Maxie Wells, the former DNC secretary, kept call-girl records in her desk and arranged dates for dignitaries.
The blackmail threat to lawmakers was very real and running a prostitution ring out of the DNC headquarters seems like belongs as part of the story.
If they find the tape of the conversation, it will probably have an 18 1/2-minute gap at the crucial point.
So the Dems have run the national debt up so high we can’t pay the interest and they are talking about an event that means nothing now.
Expect Iran-Contra stories to start showing up too.
I am so sick of hearing about Watergate. A liberal brought it up last year around me. By the time I was finished educating him about John Dean’s role in the whole matter, he shut up.
Had Nixon not fallen:
Ford would not have been president and South Vietnam would have remained free.
Carter would not have been president and Iran would not have become a terror sponsoring nation.
The Soviets would not have invaded Afghanistan and Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait.
Osama bin Laden would not have been radicalized and 9/11 would not have happened.
Watergate means nothing today.
I remember hearing years ago that Dean’s fiancee Maureen was rooming with a prostitute. I’ve always wondered if the whole mess wasn’t all about John Dean wanting to find out if his intended was hooking, too, and/or cover it up in some way.
Check out this comment which just popped up on Romenesko.
http://www.poynter.org/article_feedback/article_feedback_list.asp?user=&id=164132
Maybe...
Posted by Ed Gray 5/25/2009 2:27:20 PM
As I explained to Richard Perez-Pena when he called me to verify and comment on his Phelps/Smith story, my father’s daily appointment calendar do... As I explained to Richard Perez-Pena when he called me to verify and comment on his Phelps/Smith story, my father’s daily appointment calendar does show the lunch he shared with Smith along with several other interviews with the then-young reporter at different times. During those two months after the burglary, my father gave dozens of on-the-record interviews to many reporters, including Bob Woodward. He talked at length and on the record with other New York Times and Washington Post reporters, among them Walter Rugaber and Sandy Ungar. He gave interviews to nearly every important Washington bureau reporter, many of whom are still reporting today. In not one of any of those other interviews did L. Patrick Gray pass along anything like what Phelps and Smith now claim he passed along to Smith. Readers of Phelps’s new book will have to judge for themselves why neither the young reporter nor the then-editor can explain why no story was ever written based on the “explosive aspects” supposedly passed along by Gray on this one occasion. Had my father intended to leak anything at all about Watergate or any other subject of interest to the FBI, rest assured that he would have made sure that the story got published.
As for Woodward and Bernstein, questions remain unanswered about their own sources. As I also explained to Perez-Pena, my father always knew that “Deep Throat” was a fictional composite made up by Woodward from several individual sources. Those individuals included Mark Felt, Donald Santarelli, now-Senator Robert Bennett, and others not yet named by Woodward. See my father’s memoir “In Nixon’s Web,” which I co-wrote, and our website (www.lpatrickgrayiii.com) for details.
—Ed Gray
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