NIEMAN FELLOWS

To the Editors of The Crimson:

While The Crimson's extensive reporting of Nieman Foundation seminars in the week of November 4th was generally accurate, I should offer some clarifications lest your readers misunderstand our procedures.

1. In the interest of flexibility Nieman speakers are seldom scheduled much in advance; we grab people quite randomly as they become available or as their subjects seem timely.

2. All Nieman guests are invited to speak to our Fellows on an off-the-record basis unless they choose to stipulate another ground rule--for instance, on-the-record; or not for attribution; or off-the-record but taped, for later scrutiny and possible publication in Nieman Reports. Each of our guests in the week of November 4th chose a slightly different ground-rule.

3. The juxtaposition of Daniel Ellsberg, William E. Colby, and Victory Marchetti all in the same week (together, incidentally, with Canada's Boston Consul General, whose visit was unreported), was largely fortuitous. Colby was tentatively scheduled two months ago although his actual appearance was in doubt until late in the previous week; Marchetti was obtained by a Nieman Fellow who knew him, knew Colby was coming, and asked Marchetti to speak some time before or after Colby; and Ellsberg was booked on the day before his talk when he called me to say he was in town and I then invited him to meet with our Fellows, as he had done twice before in the past two years. I told him we would also be meeting with Colby on the following day.

Two things should be clear from the foregoing: first, whatever look of "balance" our speakers list may have acquired was accidental, though from my viewpoint serendipitous. But second, and more important, the presence of no one on that week's list "legitimize" any one else on that list, as some of your reports have suggested. Ellsberg did not "legitimize" Colby as a Nieman speaker any more than Colby "legitimized" Ellsberg or Marchetti. We don't happen to use such criteria in the selection of our guests, and we won't be held to using them in the future. James C. Thomson, Jr.   Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism