THE LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380061-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 19, 2006
• Sequence Number: 61
• Publication Date: January 30, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

LOS ANGELES TIMES
Approved For Release 2006i941JAP*DP88-01314
he liberal Establisllrn
licans and the moderate Democrats.
'MY NICK B. WILLIAMS
One of the curious allegations against extremist elements of both parties are
norities, usually within each party an
the press is that there exists in its bosom most always in the nation.
a "liberal establishment." The "liberal establishment" newspa
It is even more curious that none of thus tend to reflect the predominating
the newspapers alleged to be party-to the ter, presumably the "common people,"
"establishment" have made a noticeable ef- always with complete accuracy and n
fort to demonstrate that the allegation is ways uniformly throughout the na
and the press as a whole- tends to re
in fact poppycock. They seem, on the con- rather than to decide the political attic
trary, to be mildly proud of it, as if in of the people, although it is the press
eluding them among an "establishment" .takes the blame most often from a
were some kind of badge bf quality. politicians and government function
But the allegation is not intended by Extremists by definition tend to
vehemently among their kind, '~
those who make it to he an honor. The pur- moderates equally by definition ten
pose, instead, is to imply a sort of elite con- disagree within a broader spectrum.
,spiraey that seeks in unison to thwart the is the weakness of the moderate cente
will of the "common people." also its strength, permitting as it doe
The concept of a "common people" is sil- compromise of disagreements. And
ly to begin with, but the allegation is not this capacity for compromise that enc
silly, and its repetition is no sillier than the extremists of both major parties.
Goebbels' formula that.a lie repeated often Political endorsements by those nev
enough will be believed. The purpose of pers often listed in the."liberal estal
the allegation is to weaken and if necessa- ment" are not a definitive analysis of
ry to destroy the independence of the press moderate capacity to disagree, but a
--to achieve by propaganda what the Con- at them, from 1952 to 1065, does see
stitution forbids'by law. dissipate the myth of a tightly aligned
conspiracy to thwart the will of the
mon people. A workable conspiracy, e,
Those who speak of the "liberal estab- workable philosophy, requires more
.lishment" now seem most often to include formity.than the record shows. The ob-
in it The Los Angeles Times, the New vious explanation is that with the single
York Times, the Washington Post, the Bos- exception of 1960, when Sen. Barry Gold-
.ton Globe and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. water was the. Republican nominee, the
In Georgia they list the Atlanta Constitu- candidates of each major party were near-
tion, in I{ lorida the Miami Herald, in Ken- er to the center than to its extreme, near
Lucky the Louisville Courier-Journal. In enough in fact that newspapers with
Chicago it is the Sun-Times; in Baltimore, strongly similar principles could disagree
the Sun; on Long Island, it's 'Newsday. on which candidate they endorsed.
And there are others listed from time to It seems plausible, in the labeling game,
time, depending on what they are saying that Adlai Stevenson was more liberal
about current political issues. than Dwight Eisenhower, yet according to
Each of. these newspapers tends to reflect Editor and Publisher magazine, here is
the sociological and economic best interest how the "liberal establishment" newspa-
of the area in which it is published, and to pers chose to endorse in 1952:
that extent each of them differs in details For Eisenhower: The Los Angeles Times,
from the editorial attitudes of the others. the New York Times, the Washington
But all of them do have two major char- Post, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun.
acteristics in. common-the characteristics Times and the Baltimore Sun. Long Island
which inspire the allegation of an "estab- Newsday was not listed. It also should be
lishment." Their editorial policies are basi- noted that in 1952, the Los Angeles Times
Bally independent and basically moderate. was not described by anyone as part of the
Those who allege an "establishment" "liberal establishment."
For Stevenson: The St. Louis Post Dis-
would find it difficult to decide which is patch, the Louisville Courier-Journal and
more reprehensible, independence or the. Atlanta Constitution. The. Boston
moderation. But probably the latter, for . Globe made no endorsement. In the entire-
moderation is anathema 'to extremist parti- ty of the press, Stevenson was supported
sans. What does not seem to matter is that, by 14;0, Eisenhower by 67%, the rest not
endorsing,
taken as a whole, the predominating cen In 1056; Stevenson's percentage of en-
ter of the "common people" is itself com- dorsement by the entirety of the press
climbed only to 15,,, while Eisenhower's
percentage declined slightly to 62'0. The
Williams' was editor of The Times from "liberal establishment" divided this way:
1958 until his retirement last year.
water ran against Lyndon Johnson. Then it
was a regional thing, the "Eastern liberal
establishment." But since then the mvth -
has acquired a national connotation. Of the
newspapers currently described as partyr
to the "establishment" 'only The Los An-
geles Times endorsed Goldwater, who re-
ceived 356 endorsements from the press as
a whole compared to Johnson's 440, with
250 declining to endorse. The landslide re-
sult of the election showed the "liberal
establishment" to be reflective of the elec-
torate.
In 1968, Mr. Nixon won the endorsement
of 634 dailies, actually fewer endorsements
than he had in 1960 when he ran against
Kennedy, while Hubert Humphrey with
146 endorsements had fewer than support-
ed Kennedy in 1960. The "liberal' establish-
ment" newspapers again divided about as
they did in 1960.
For Nixon: The Los Angeles Times, the
Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun-Tim?s, the
Approved For Release 2006/12/19: CIA-RDP88-01314R000300380061-5