Nixon aide Colson said The Post needed to curry favor with administration

[alp227]

Source: Walter Pincus, The Washington Post

Charles Colson, special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, suggested in January 1973 that The Washington Post fire Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, pull Watergate stories off the front page or produce "obviously friendly editorials" on the Vietnam War as ways to prove it wanted to end its warfare with the White House, according to a document released Monday by the Nixon Presidential Library.

The Jan. 15, 1973, "eyes only" memo for the file is among 280,000 pages of documents the Nixon Library made public.

It recorded a conversation Colson had had three days earlier with Robert F. Ellsworth, a former congressman and at the time a partner in Lazard Freres, a New York investment-banking firm.

The firm had helped The Washington Post Co. go public through a stock offering in 1971. Colson wrote that the bankers were concerned about the company's financial future, given its newspaper's contentious relationship with the White House.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/11/AR2010011104160.html?wprss=rss_politics

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Yet another Watergate revelation decades later; Nixon also had a vendetta against Ted Kennedy.

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R

Ex-Con and Born-again Preacher Chuckie Colson:



- From a slimy pol to slimy preacher. But always with the slime.....

[hootinholler]

4. Don't forget his work with the Family.

Just finished reading about it last night.

-Hoot

[No Elephants]

2. I wonder when administrations first started messing with the press?

Washington? Jefferson?

Thank heaven Bradlee and the then owner of the Post stood their ground.

Too bad WAPO is now in the bag for the Republicans, sigh.

These days, it's about access. "If you don't treat us well, 'No scoop for you!'"

And also about buddying up with members of the press, although that can backfire if you trust them too much.

[Kolesar]

3. Criticism of the government was "illegal sedition" in the early 19th century

That act was later struck down by the supreme court.