Wicker Says News Reporters Mishandled Agnew Inquiry

Tom Wicker last night told over 1200 participants in the Ford Hall Forum that in the last few months the American people had for the most part seen the American press at its best and worst.

Wicker, associate editor of The New York Times, said the early years of the Vietnam war were a low point in the history of reporting.

The press's treatment of the Agnew investigation has also been among the worst coverage in journalistic history, he said.

"The press has relied almost entirely on official spokesmen who may have their own interests--interests in tapping the excitement of Watergate and interest in relieving the political pressures on Nixon," Wicker said.

In a question and answer period at the end of the talk, Wicker explained that he thought Agnew was the "victim of a [White House] campaign of vilification...for reasons that are not clear to me, but are certainly not attractive."

Wicker said the coverage of Watergate, on the other hand, has shown "the press at its best."

"...[with Watergate] the press has justified on a wide scale its reputation as a watchdog," Wicker said. "There has been no reliance on official spokesmen. The press has shown a great deal of imaginativeness and boldness--after a brief period of initial hesitation."

Mainstream Connections

He also praised the press for keeping a number of very confusing and varied happenings connected with the mainstream of events. He cited the reporting of the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist as an event that the press successfully related to Watergate.

Wicker said the importance that the investigation of Agnew is receiving in the press is an example of how "an institution that is supposed to be a watchdog can be used by those with the power to do so."

"A few weeks ago we were discussing the impeachment of Nixon...now we are discussing the impeachment of Agnew," Wicker said.

However, Wicker said he disagreed with those who said that there was "a great Eastern liberal press" that was dictating policy.

"It wasn't the press that sent troops to Vietnam or burglars to Watergate--it's those who came to you and say that the power of the press must be curtailed," he said.

Watergate Rapture

Wicker said that the greatest problem facing the press in the future was self-censorship. "This was relieved somewhat by the euphoria of Watergate...but I know from experience that this will not last." He condemned the reporters who felt themselves too much of a "friend or an enemy of their sources to report accurately in the interests of greater causes."

He added that he felt that the press remains one of the "greatest tools against the overriding power of the state--[despite] all the deficiencies you [the audience] may have noticed."

Wicker, a frequent speaker at Harvard and author of a new novel, Facing the Lions, addressed the Ford Hall Forum audience in Boston.