Press: Did The Ends Justify the Means?

A first-rate squabble about a second-rate book

In Scranton, Pa., where somebody evidently slipped Washington Post Reporter Nancy Collins parts of H.R. Haldeman’s The Ends of Power fresh from the bindery, life was pretty much back to normal last week. The network cameras had departed. Law enforcement officials had received no complaints of wrongdoing, and did not intend to solicit any. Collins seemed to have had her fill of notoriety and, at the end of a week spent mostly in ducking interviews, said: “This is all very nice, but I’ve got stories to get.”

In city rooms and law offices across the country, however, the publishing controversy ignited by her coup continued to rage, tending to obscure the fact that the book itself is all too often vague, unsubstantiated and poorly written. Newspapers and magazines that had bought serial rights to the book from the New York Times Syndication Sales Corp. were trying to renegotiate—or back out of—their agreements. They argued that 1) the Post’s story on Haldeman’s book had turned their expensive excerpts into damaged goods, 2) the Times had damaged them further by rushing into print after the Post’s scoop, and 3) the New York Times Co. had failed to provide adequate security against premature disclosure.

At Newsweek, which paid $50,000 down for U.S. magazine rights before being undercut by the flagship daily of its own parent Washington Post Co., executives will wait to see how well Haldeman plays on the newsstands before figuring how much of the $75,000 balance they should pay. Times Syndicate officials, who had sold serialization rights to various publications for roughly $1 million, now estimate that, all in all, their take will be reduced by as much as $600,000. Times Co. officials were not yet certain that they had sufficient grounds to sue the Post Co., and Post Co. officials were consulting their lawyers as well.

Meanwhile, the nation’s two major dailies took the dispute to their editorial pages. After a Times editorial accused the Post of “a second-rate burglary of H.R. Haldeman’s memoir of a third-rate burglary,” the Post in a lead editorial slashed back. Its coup was “first-rate enterprise,” wrote the Post, adding rather guardedly that there was no evidence that the book had been obtained by burglary. The editorial pointed out reasonably enough that when a publisher goes into the business of both “news books” and newspapers, “it is almost certain to bump into some of its most deeply held journalistic principles on the way to the bank.” But then the Post accused the Times of “managing the news” by —trying to maintain a predetermined publication date—although protecting a publication or release date is hardly what is generally understood by management or suppression of news. Even more absurdly, the Post compared its scoop to the Times disclosure of the Pentagon papers, appealing to the Constitution in the process.

“That’s absolute rubbish,” retorted Times Co. Executive Vice President Sydney Gruson. “What the Post did was an act of boyish spite, not serious journalism.” Indeed, though any newspaper has a First Amendment right to print pretty much what it pleases, most libertarians would probably have been happier had the Post reserved that defense for a more important case. Ends is hardly the Pentagon papers. Those damning Government documents might have remained a secret for decades had not the Times printed them. Ends was merely brought out a few days in advance, which may be enterprising journalism, but hardly a comparable service to the public interest.

Even among newspaper editors who support the Post’s enterprise, there are many who say that both the Post and the Times are making a mountain out of a compost heap. “Let the titans fight it out,” sniffs Claude Sitton, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer and a former top Timesman. Miami Herald Executive Editor John McMullan suggested that for the next Watergate miscreant’s memoirs, newspapers collude on a single syndication bid, not to exceed 250.

The profits of future Haldemans —and worthier authors—may indeed be crimped as a consequence of the Scranton caper. “This will blow the syndication market to hell,” says Roger Straus Jr., president of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Straus predicts that newspapers and magazines will now lower the amounts they are willing to pay for reprint rights. Even at the Post, William B. Dickinson Jr., head of the company’s syndicate and book publishing arm, frets: “There’s a question of whether there’s a balance evolving in favor of public disclosure, as opposed to copyright and property right.”

Have newspapers really learned a lesson in Scranton, or will they all come running the next time a big book is up for sale? That time is here, and the book is Richard Nixon’s memoirs, to be published in May by Grosset & Dunlap. The Times Syndicate also has Nixon in tow; and reports that it has signed some 50 publications in the U.S. and abroad. So far, none have backed out as a result of the Haldeman fiasco. Though security precautions are said to be even tighter than for, the Haldeman book, New York magazine last week disclosed Nixon’s opening sentence (“I was born in the house my father built”).

Will the Washington Post strike again? “That’s an iffy question. I’ll duck that,” says Post Publisher Katharine Graham. “In general, papers should find news as much as they can. If they find it, they should publish it.” Has she told her Post editors not to pursue the Nixon book? “Heck, no,” said Graham. Besides, as Post Ombudsman Charles Seib wrote only half-jokingly in his press commentary last week, the paper now has a reputation to uphold. Said he: “It is obvious what the Post must do if it is not to lose face.”