WJR PICKS THE AIDES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640060-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: May 16, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

3 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403640060-2
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Media Notes
I
WASHINGTUA
16 May 1985
RJR Picks the Aides
By Eleanor Randolph
Wash,nptao Post sun Writer
Arriving with a thud on Capitol F.'ill~
this week were the lone issues of the
Washington journalism Review that,
among other things, ranked congres-
sional press secretaries.
As it turned out, when Capitol Hill
reporters judged the more than 500
press secretaries, they decided that
the best was no longer among them.
Thirty-five-year-old Tom C. Grissom,
who encountered the press for former
Senate majority leader Howard H.
Baker ]r., was ranked in the informal
survey of Capitol Hill reporters as
accessible, candid, honest.
God and Lyndon Johnson was a zero~d~
wouldn't say that was a good job."
. Later Matthews called back for an
addendum: "Doing Press for Tip
O'Neill is Wte doing makeup for Cath-
erine Deneuve. The best work is done
? before you get there."
At The Washington Times, editor
in chief Arnaud de Borchgrave has
said he was "swamped" with phone
calls last week after he set up a fund
to aid the Nicaraguan contras.
Lest it be suggested that such a
role is unusual or unseemly for a
newspaper, de Borchgrave posted a
note on the Times bullerin board that
included the following:
"Some of our leftwing detractors
will doubtless ask whether it is the .
role of a newspaper to kill people?
That question has no relevance to
what is being done here. Let's put the
question another way. Should the
French have aided George Washing-
ton sothe United States could come
into existence? Should we have aided
the French resistance against the Na-
zis? Should we have aided the Greek
patriots who successfully resisted~a
Communist totalitarian regime ... .
"Remember the Truman doctrine?"
Missing from -this historical mes-
sage was a similar rallying cry made
famous by William Randolph Hearst in
1898: "Remember the Marne
'-'~ of Kwitny's book at issue
in this case is a long passage quoting
verbatim from a document Love
wrote in 1960 while on a press fellow-
ship at Princeton.
In the document, Love outlines how
the ouste o amme os-
sa e t e emocraUCa y e ecte
Taman Prerruer ut ney
said this document came from the
Allen Dulles co ection o papers at
Princeton an a no copyn t mar
Kwitny contends t t s docu-
ment shows that Love was an "active
participant" in the 1953 coup, and that
this version was different from the
version Love wrote in Tfie Times.
"It is an outrage for a reporter to
have done such a thing," said Kwitny.
"The paper said [Love) witnessed
the Americans carrying off this coup,"
Kwitny said. "He directed the tanks to
Mossadegh's house. He was an active
participant in this operation."
"If he is still maintaining that, then
he is an ass," Love said.
Love said that as a Times reprorter
coveru-q the 1 3 coua a a~a not
know what the mtUals CIA stood for.
told tanks where the carnage and
bT s e was an that the snowu v
Grissom, now executive director of
the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, sighed and said, "It's not
true, not a word of it "
Walter Riker, Griscom's replace-
ment as press secretary to the ma-
jority leader, did not fare so well. Bal-
timore Sun White House correspon-
dent Robert Timberg, who wrote the
WJR article, quoted Hill reporters as
saving, anonymously, "He's not well
informed" and "He's really a clerk."
"Boy, it's a good thing my kids can't
read yet "said Riker on hearing about
the comments.
Riker added in defense of Iris team
that the new majority leader, Robert
J. Dole, does his job differently from
his predecessors and has "a record of
access that is probably unmatched in
recent Senate history "
Across the Capitol, Michael John-
son, who works for Minority Leader
Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), is ranked as
"perhaps the best press secretary on
the Hill right now:'
His counterpart on the Democratic
side, Christopher J? Matthews, is
deemed "most controversial," as well
as "brash, glib, outspoken and fiercely
partisan." .
Said one reporter of Matthews:
"you always know you'll get an out-
rageous quote."
When Matthews was called for re-
sponse to this article, here was his
first quote: "We work for them; we
don't work for the press. When Bill
Moyers left the White House, he was
own ere w ere a co d do some
goo ve said. restret very much
telling those tanks about that ... I did
e a tt a nu a tnere, ut rt
not to do wttn t e
ve, w o worked or he Times
from 1948 to 1962, told The East
Hampton (N.Y.) Star that while at
The Times, he was scrupulous in un-
covering the corruption and brutality
of the shah and was banned from Iran
the year after the coup because of
such coverage.
Love also says the paper Kwitny
quotes from so extensively was writ-
ten hastily for a course and included "a
good many things that I had learned
since I left Iran."
Love, who lives in East Hampton,
points out that perhaps the most cru-
vial passage in Kwitny's book says, in
part: "And there we have it folks, the
Iranian correspondent for The New
York Times diregting the successful
Lawyers in New York have begun
taking depositions for the bizarre case
of former New York Times reporter
Kennett Love versus Wall Street
Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny.
At issue is whether Love hel ed the
C with a coo in ran in 1953 w e
working for he imes and whether
Kwitny ilieRallv used Love's private
a rs to bolster char es a au-st
ve ut s ook n ess nemies.
Love, who has denied any connec-
tions to the .has ed suit char -
m corvn t mtnn ement and seek-
in 5 million in libel lama es.
' am aji historian and a iournalist
and my stock in trade are words and
trot ,sal ove. am a agent
and loins to my Tea ers. wno ~s going
tank attack on the home of the Iranian
prime minister, overthrowing the gov-
ernment, fining one-man rule in Iran,
and. setting off a chain of events that
would include the loss of Iranian oil to
U.S. markets and the invasion of Af- ,
ghanistan by the Soviet Union."
"I read that whenever I feel insig-
nificant"Love said, laughing.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403640060-2