A rchive Date
[ 02-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
|
[http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1797720
To the presidential mouthpiece, credibility is all
By HELEN THOMAS
Feb. 28, 2003, 8:41PM
The passing of Ronald Ziegler, former press secretary to President Richard Nixon, brought back memories of another era and the highs and lows of working in the White House.
If it weren't for the honor of the thing, many press secretaries have probably wished at times that they were somewhere else. It's a tough job speaking to the world for the president of the United States.
The job guarantees instant celebrity and a high-profile job in the future - if you survive.
Ziegler worked as a Disneyland Jungle tour guide while attending the University of Southern California. After graduation he joined Nixon's 1962 unsuccessful California gubernatorial campaign as a press assistant. He later was hired by the J. Walter Thompson advertising firm at the behest of H.R. Haldeman, who was with the company at the time.
After Nixon's 1968 presidential election victory, Ziegler moved to the White House as a protege of Haldeman, who became Nixon's chief of staff. At age 29, Ziegler was the youngest White House press secretary in history.
He paid a heavy price when he became entangled in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, even though he was not involved in the crimes that sent 19 people - including other Nixon aides - to prison.
As press secretary, Ziegler was controlled and scripted by the palace guard, including Haldeman, domestic counselor John Ehrlichman, and Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser.
Most of all, Ziegler was under the spell of Nixon himself. The president detested the press - some might say with good reason.
Everything went downhill for him after he dismissed the break-in at the Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate in June 1972 as a "third-rate burglary."
I have to admit none of us in the White House briefing room who heard his remark had any idea of its dimensions or that the incident would lead to the early demise of the Nixon presidency.
As the full story gradually emerged, Ziegler's credibility suffered and he ended up a tragic figure.
That should have been a lesson for his successors. But some press secretaries still have to learn that it's important to be privy to all the facts, even if at times they cannot repeat the truth in public.
As the scandal began to unravel, Nixon fired both Haldeman and Ehrlichman. He ended up needing Ziegler to hold his hand.
Ziegler's deputy, Gerald Warren, had to take over the podium and was subjected to highly skeptical questioning from frustrated reporters day after day. The pressroom became a lion's den.
I thought then that Watergate-educated reporters had learned that they can't take the press secretary's words at face value. I was wrong.
Today, reporters are being accused of being "stenographers," "echo chambers" and "lap dogs" of the Bush administration. Thanks to television, the public can witness reporters sparring with Ari Fleischer at his daily briefings.
Herbert Klein, a former White House communications director for Nixon, wrote in his book Making It Perfectly Clear that Ziegler's "greatest mistake was to allow himself to be duped by those who were covering up the Watergate case. He accepted too many of their answers blindly and thus lost his credibility as the spokesman for the White House."
Klein said that Ziegler's failure to realize the duplicity of his White House colleagues led to the "greatest blood letting" the White House has seen between a press secretary and reporters.
Words like "stonewalling" and "paranoia" became part of the popular vocabulary in the Nixon era. The stress and strain affected White House staffers and members of the press.
Ziegler insisted long after he left the White House that he had never lied to the press about Watergate. To give him the benefit of the doubt I would have to add "knowingly" to that statement.
It is not easy to be a White House press secretary. They are often asked questions that they are not permitted to answer. Sometimes they deliberately do not seek the answers for fear of spilling the beans.
There is always "no comment" or the more frequently used "not to my knowledge."
After they've left the job, some former press secretaries admit they shaded the truth or fudged the facts or - on rare occasions - lied in the name of national security.
I wonder these days whether Fleischer will look back one day and wonder if he leveled with the American people. Time will tell.
Thomas is a Washington, D.C.-based columnist for the Hearst Newspapers. helent@hearstdc.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|