Deep probe
Sir: Paul Johnson is right (23 May) that a lot of journalists, particularly those whom 'politicians fawn over', are pompous fools. But they are usually the ones who themselves 'fawn over' politicians rather than those who do original reporting work as Woodward and Bernstein did at the beginning of the Watergate saga. It is ludicrous, even alarming, for Johnson to berate, without offering any evidence, the American press for its Watergate coverage and to claim that `the entire episode is beginning to look like a shameful witchhunt'.
Whether or not Deep Throat existed, there is no evidence that Woodward and Bernstein got very much wrong. What they did was ask questions when few others were doing so, Most of the crucial Watergate evidence was developed not by the press but by the courts and the Congress. Some of it was eventually confessed by Nixon himself. Nixon resigned not because of a witchhunt by the press or by anyone else but because a rather conservative bunch of Congressmen decided (in many cases reluctantly) that there was overwhelming evidence that he had flouted law and constitution, and because he knew conviction by the Senate was a certainty.
Nixon attempted to subvert American institutions; it is to the credit of those institutions, including but not only the press, that he was not allowed to get away with it. 'Watergate' was a great victory for 'law and order' in its proper sense; how odd that Johnson does not understand that.
William Shawcross 17 Parkhill Road, London NW3
Previous page
