- Sep 26, 2000
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/washi...html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, April 18 ? The F.B.I. is seeking to go through the files of the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson to remove classified material he may have accumulated in four decades of muckraking Washington journalism.
And for the kiddies who never heard of Jack Anderson here's what Wikipedia says:
Anderson feuded with former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s, when he exposed the scope of the Mafia, a threat that Hoover had long downplayed. Hoover's retaliation, and continual harassment, lasted into the 1970s.
Anderson grew close to Joseph McCarthy, and the two exchanged information from sources, but when Pearson went after McCarthy, Anderson reluctantly followed at first, then actively assisted with the eventual downfall of his one-time friend.
In the mid-1960s, Anderson exposed the corruption of Senator Thomas J. Dodd, which could well have earned him a Pulitzer, as could his finding of a memo by an ITT executive admitting the company paid off Richard Nixon's campaign to stymie anti-trust prosecution.
Anderson collaborated with Pearson on "The Case Against Congress," published in 1969.
In 1972, in an overlooked nadir of American political history, Anderson was the target of a Mafia-style hit ordered in the White House. Two Nixon administration conspirators admitted under oath they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from a top aide to the President. White House "plumbers" G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging. The conspirators were never ordered to proceed, and the plot aborted, when the plotters were arrested as a result of the Watergate break-in. Nixon had long been angry with Anderson, blaming the columnist for his loss of the 1960 presidential election, because of an election-eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother.
Anderson's unorthodox methods of obtaining news stories were influenced by his Mormon faith, viewing investigative reporting as a noble calling from God.
Among Anderson's "legmen" ? reporters who actually went out into the field and gathered the information, forwarding it on to writers such as Anderson ? was Brit Hume, later a reporter for ABC News and Washington managing editor for Fox News Channel.
There once was a time when we had reporters who went after the truth. Now we have Jack Andersons protege Brit Hume as a mouthpiece for the Republican party.
And of course Hume hasn't said a word about the governments wild chase to search a reporters records with no proof or evidence.
Sad, sad, sad.
WASHINGTON, April 18 ? The F.B.I. is seeking to go through the files of the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson to remove classified material he may have accumulated in four decades of muckraking Washington journalism.
And for the kiddies who never heard of Jack Anderson here's what Wikipedia says:
Anderson feuded with former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s, when he exposed the scope of the Mafia, a threat that Hoover had long downplayed. Hoover's retaliation, and continual harassment, lasted into the 1970s.
Anderson grew close to Joseph McCarthy, and the two exchanged information from sources, but when Pearson went after McCarthy, Anderson reluctantly followed at first, then actively assisted with the eventual downfall of his one-time friend.
In the mid-1960s, Anderson exposed the corruption of Senator Thomas J. Dodd, which could well have earned him a Pulitzer, as could his finding of a memo by an ITT executive admitting the company paid off Richard Nixon's campaign to stymie anti-trust prosecution.
Anderson collaborated with Pearson on "The Case Against Congress," published in 1969.
In 1972, in an overlooked nadir of American political history, Anderson was the target of a Mafia-style hit ordered in the White House. Two Nixon administration conspirators admitted under oath they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from a top aide to the President. White House "plumbers" G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging. The conspirators were never ordered to proceed, and the plot aborted, when the plotters were arrested as a result of the Watergate break-in. Nixon had long been angry with Anderson, blaming the columnist for his loss of the 1960 presidential election, because of an election-eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother.
Anderson's unorthodox methods of obtaining news stories were influenced by his Mormon faith, viewing investigative reporting as a noble calling from God.
Among Anderson's "legmen" ? reporters who actually went out into the field and gathered the information, forwarding it on to writers such as Anderson ? was Brit Hume, later a reporter for ABC News and Washington managing editor for Fox News Channel.
There once was a time when we had reporters who went after the truth. Now we have Jack Andersons protege Brit Hume as a mouthpiece for the Republican party.
And of course Hume hasn't said a word about the governments wild chase to search a reporters records with no proof or evidence.
Sad, sad, sad.