A: Yeah, very definitely. And I think it has to be that way. I don't see how I could get out and publicly advocate causes.
Q: Yet you did express reservations about the Vietnam War.
A: Yeah, I have. On freedom of the press issues I speak out--that's on the basis that if we don't, who's going to? On the Vietnam War, that was a conscious decision. There was a feeling on everyone's part that, all right, you're going to lose some credibility and some people are not going to agree with you, but it has come to a time when being, quote, The Most Trusted Man, perhaps you can tell the people, lay it on the line, just how it looks to you.
We were just thinking about doing that at the time that Tet broke, then I came back and did the series which had the effect we thought it would--it had a tremendous impact. The company didn't know that I was going to do that; I'd been kinda for the Vietnam War up to--not '68--it didn't last that long--up to '65, when the buildup took place with the American people not being told the truth. We were being told there was a 165,000 ceiling when I went to Cam Rahn Bay and I saw them building a facility capable of taking a million troops. I knew darn well that it had gone beyond everything that I personally could support. I felt that the people needed to know the truth. But by '68 I did this series, and no doubt that it had an effect, according to those who were around him, on Lyndon Johnson.
Q: Did you admire Lyndon Johnson?
A: Well, admiring Lyndon Johnson was sometimes hard to do...except for that massive mistake in Vietnam and the way he personally handled it--the secrecy, not leveling with the people--it's hard to forgive him for that. If you can get over that hurdle, then I think he's a man of admirable qualities.
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Q: There are rumor that ABC intends to go the route of happy talk, fat salaried show-biz type newsmen.
A: ...If the pressure is there long enough then something might give...I hope not. ABC has held the line very well so far...Everyone of us sitting at the desks out here knows that we could do to double our rating overnight. No problem at all; easier than what we're doing. Costs less and would produce twice as many numbers as what we're doing.
We haven't gone that route--that's responsibility...reflected by management who hasn't put any pressure on us to go that route. Journalism today, newspaper as well as television, is more responsible than it's ever been in our history. With all this examination we're going through today, the soul searching, part of that reflects the responsibility. I can't imagine a newspaper editor of 50 years ago, or 30 years ago, worrying for one goddamned minute what anybody said about his newspaper.
Q: Do you believe The Final Days? Do you have reservations about the journalistic technique used by Woodward and Bernstein?
A: I have reservations, quite severe reservations about their technique. Now these journalists have apparently done a superb job and it's a damned good book, in the sense that nobody yet has contradicted it or even tried...they must have it pinned down very very well. But obviously you're not getting a totally factual report on all these conversations. The problem with this is, if this is successful and we don't raise objections, the next guy to come along and do that may not have anything like that responsibility and then what do we do?
Q: What's the origin of "that's the way it is"?
A: Well, that's kind of a hangover of my being stubborn. I thought when the half hour began that there'd be plenty of time to do a little irony of fate piece at the end of the broadcast...then came the assassinations and the war and to hell with the irony of fate pieces. It just sort of hung on.
Richard Smith '75 is a free-lancer who writes for the Real Paper and will work on The Washington Post this summer.