Daniel Schorr, who died yesterday, is being remembered for his remarkable, decades-long career as a print, radio, and television journalist. I’m familiar with one small slice of this story: I did an intensive study of his coverage of the intelligence beat for CBS News from 1974 to 1976 – coverage that ultimately cost him his job. I came away from my research and from my interview with Schorr profoundly impressed by his commitment to disclosure and democracy. Schorr was true believer in the public’s right to know, and the historical record is richer for it.
It was not easy to get Schorr to talk with me about the most painful incident in his career. In the early 1990s, I began researching my dissertation on the congressional and journalistic investigations of the intelligence community after Watergate. Both the Church committee in the Senate and the Pike committee in the House included several members who fought hard to disclose information to the public, despite an intense and savvy campaign of resistance from the Ford White House (a campaign coordinated by deputy chief of staff Dick Cheney). But though there were many congressmen who fought for disclosure, I soon discovered that the category of “journalists who investigated the CIA after Watergate” was limited to two people, Seymour Hersh (then with the New York Times) and Schorr of CBS. The rest of the press was too easily intimidated by the Ford administration’s claims of “national security” to break any stories of significance.
Schorr played a dramatic role in the revelations of CIA abuses in 1975 and 1976. He was the first to disclose that the CIA had tried to assassinate foreign leaders, and that the agency’s plots against Fidel Castro might have played a role in John Kennedy’s assassination. “An arrow launched into the air to kill a foreign leader may well have fallen back to kill our own,” he said in his report. The revelation forced the Church committee to restructure its agenda and to write its comprehensive report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.
Schorr also obtained a copy of the final Pike Committee report, which the House had voted to suppress. He did some stories for CBS on the highlights of the report, but he wanted the public to read the entire report, not just hear excerpts on the TV news. He talked to his bosses about arranging publication. “We owe it to history to publish it,” he said. When CBS refused to publish the report, Schorr secretly arranged for the Village Voice to run it. This provided the defenders of government secrecy with a tremendous opportunity. The contents of the report were potentially devastating to the CIA, but its unauthorized release allowed the Ford administration to divert attention from what it said to how it was disclosed. Schorr was hauled before the House Ethics Committee, where he refused to name his source. CBS fired him over the scandal.
To evaluate CBS’s coverage of the intelligence scandals, I watched every story that aired from 1974 to 1976 that mentioned the FBI or CIA. It added up to eight hours of stories, most of them by Schorr. Standing out amid the blandness of television journalism, Schorr was known for his literate pieces (he had begun his career as a print journalist) and for his rumpled appearance (a magazine profile described him as “gray, grouchy, and pouchy, looking like a refugee from an Alka-Seltzer ad”).
As I watched the clips, I became impressed by two points. First, Schorr’s stories were many times better than anything on the television news in the 1990s: he was smart, he made connections between events, he understood history, and he wasn’t afraid to challenge government claims of secrecy. Second, his stories were also much better than the ones by his colleagues at CBS in the 1970s. It wasn’t that a golden age in television news had come and gone: he was unique, even for the time.
Since many of the actors in my dissertation were still alive, I had an opportunity many historians lack: I could try to answer my questions by asking my sources directly. I planned a ten-day trip to Washington to talk to as many public officials, intelligence agents, and reporters as I could. Surprisingly, it was one of the journalists who proved the most unwilling to sit for an interview.
I sent a letter to Schorr, explaining my project and asking for a short interview, but heard nothing back. So I sent another. When no reply arrived, I started calling. I left polite messages on his voicemail at NPR, describing my project and my need to interview him. One day, I got a response from his assistant, saying that Mr. Schorr had received my messages, and would get in touch with me if he had time. It was not a complete refusal, so I continued to leave messages on his machine.
I should point out that I was not nearly so pushy with any of the former senators or congressmen I interviewed. But I was trained as a journalist, and I knew that journalists understood the importance of talking to sources. I was reopening a painful chapter in his life – the man had lost his job – and he had every reason to want to forget all about it. But I gambled that Schorr would be grudgingly impressed rather than annoyed by my persistence.
And I was right. On my last day in Washington, once again I started to leave a message on his machine, but this time that familiar voice interrupted me. “Well, Miss Olmsted, you’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” he said. “You have 20 minutes. Go.”
In the end, he gave me much longer than 20 minutes, and he answered all of my questions, except, of course, the name of his source for the Pike Committee report (I didn’t expect him to tell me, but I had to ask). He was pleasant and courteous, and asked me to notify him if I ever published anything.
A few years later, after the book version of my dissertation came out, I came home one day to find that voice on my answering machine. He left a long, positive message about the book, talking about what he described as our mutual interest in informing American citizens about what secret government agencies do in their name. I popped the tape out of the machine to save it. It was the best review I ever got.
25 comments
July 24, 2010 at 11:57 am
kid bitzer
your account makes me think far better of him than i had.
i’m sorry to say that my impression of him over the last two decades (say clinton-era to now) is that he became another smug villager, almost as smarmy as his nice polite republican colleagues juan williams, scott simon, and cokie roberts.
it’s to his credit that this was not always so.
July 24, 2010 at 12:22 pm
nick
Re: Kid, sometimes folk get beaten down by the world and as they age, opt to buy in rather than end up destitute and forgotten. Sad, but it happens.
And as to Schorr, I imagine he would have approved of wikileaks.org as they have basically carried on his tradition, but in a much grander scale and amidst as much or more resistance than Schorr himself encountered in his career fighting for truth.
July 24, 2010 at 12:45 pm
ari
Great post. You should consider sending a link to his family. Or, if you don’t have access to them, send a note to NPR with a request that the link be forwarded to the family.
July 24, 2010 at 12:58 pm
NM
Wonderful post. I think Ari’s right.
July 24, 2010 at 1:04 pm
kevin
Terrific post, Kathy. And yes, Ari’s right — this is something that his family and his colleagues at NPR would certainly appreciate.
July 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm
kid bitzer
sure, nick; i know from beaten down with age. i’m all over destitute and forgotten.
that said–kathy, you should yank my comments here before you send on the link to schorr’s family. they’ll have to read enough venom from the right without jerks like me piling on from the left. seriously–my willingness to be an anonymous jackass stops at the borders of family grief.
July 24, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Beautifully done, Kathy.
July 24, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Jessica
My mother always said “squeaky wheel gets the grease.” There are many lessons to be gleaned from this post. I may just call Gary Sick.
July 24, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Charlieford
Great story. I’m not sure if the death of any journalist will leave me feeling as bereft of a wise voice out there as that of Daniel Schorr.
July 24, 2010 at 5:02 pm
JPool
Being a bit younger, I fell in love with Schorr’s work as a commentator for NPR during the Reagan era. When so much of the press was willing to give a pass to Reagan’s murderous and illegal activities, Schorr was always there to underline what was actually going on and what was at stake. From the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors to the funding of murderous regimes around the world, to the terrifying brinkmanship with the Soviets, Schorr was willing to ask the hard questions (and risk being seen as a leftist loony) rather than accept the objective nonsense of official accounts.
I would agree with kid that his commentaries over the last 15 years have faded into a kind vague gloss rather than the keen eye and sharp critique of years past. Maybe this was the conservatism of age, or maybe just the desire to stay involved without the energy to push deeper that he once had. In any case, as Kathy attests, his heroic legacy was secured many years ago.
July 24, 2010 at 5:24 pm
kathy a.
this is a wonderful account, and wonderful tribute.
July 24, 2010 at 5:45 pm
PorJ
Ah, once again: the truth is more complicated than it appears.
Dan Schorr threw Leslie Stahl under the bus. He was not fired from CBS News because he leaked the report. As you note above: CBS News ran a few pieces on the Pike Report – pieces that, although summaries, were enough to send somebody to jail.
Dan Schorr was fired because after the piece appeared in the Village Voice he told his boss that Leslie Stahl leaked the secret report (scroll up a few pages to start of story). It was a cowardly act for which, 1. He never apologized, 2. Could have ended up Leslie Stahl thrown in jail, and 3. He admitted regretting years later:
By the way: there is some dispute about even *this* version of the conversation between Socolow and Schorr. Why does Schorr say above: “Forget what I said yesterday” when he says it was Socolow who came up with the whole Stahl story?
Schorr was a great reporter. There is no question about that. His series on Watergate right before the election of 1972 might have been the most important series of stories to air on an evening newscast in American history. But he also tried to end the career of a colleague, and nobody at CBS News would work with him after that.
July 24, 2010 at 5:46 pm
human
Kathy, how did you get those CBS news clips? Were they indexed?
July 24, 2010 at 5:50 pm
PorJ
Another oddity about Schorr’s version (above):
I went into Sandy Socolow’s office and said forget what I said yesterday. Stop looking for who it was.
The news that Schorr leaked the report was on page A1 of The Washington Post that morning. He didn’t need to walk back what he said – offer an apology, maybe.
All this is to say:
I would argue it is *precisely* this story that made Schorr reticent to discuss the Pike Report with you.
July 24, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Kathy
Human: See the Vanderbilt Television News Archive:
http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/
There is an index.
PorJ: Yes, OK. The Lesley Stahl thing: not good. But still, Schorr advanced the CIA story like no one else in the business, except possibly Hersh. And yes, I would argue that CBS fired him because of the Pike report leak, and because he had the temerity to criticize the CBS management repeatedly for their timidity in covering the national security state.
July 24, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Josh
See the Vanderbilt Television News Archive
You can find all sorts of interesting things in that archive.
July 24, 2010 at 7:09 pm
ari
I heart you, Josh.
July 25, 2010 at 3:07 am
kid bitzer
someone should examine the kerning on that ratatouille.
July 25, 2010 at 6:57 am
jroth95
I actually have thought that kid bitzer-esque complaints about Schorr have been overblown in the blogosphere. While I do think that he developed a pretty MSM sense about new media and propriety, he was still one of the most liberal and non-orthodox voices on NPR (which is, perhaps, damning with faint praise). I didn’t hear him more than 1 or 2 Saturdays in a month, but at least every third or fourth conversation featured him saying something much closer to what liberals in the blogosphere felt than what any Villager would have said (not surprisingly, most conspicuously wrt the security state and torture). No examples, of course (I don’t take notes on Saturday morning radio), but I recall being pleased by his take on things more often than not.
One thing I’ll say, though: I think that the more topics covered in a given conversation, the less likely that he’d say anything outside the CW. There’s all sorts of reasons for that to be the case, and I can’t help but suspect that the producers were aware of that dynamic.
July 25, 2010 at 9:10 am
rmg
“….and I can’t help but suspect that the producers were aware of that dynamic.”
Actually, I can virtually guarantee that the producers of those Schorr commentaries and conversations were NOT thinking about the relationship between the number of topics covered in a given segment and the likelihood that Schorr would say something controversial. Certainly not consciously. Producers think about the stories of the week that fall generally into Schorr’s area. They think about what’s been big in the news and therefore should be taken up in one of these week-in-review type discussions. They think about how much time they have for the piece and whether they can cut the answer down to fit without having to remove an entire Q&A from the final product. In fact, what you may be hearing is that, in heavier news weeks when more topics are discussed, there isn’t time in the finished segment for everything interesting that Schorr said, and so the editor and producer are choosing to cut “non essential” material which, as it turns out, is also what you would have found most controversial and interesting.
July 25, 2010 at 9:41 am
mrearl
It often seemed to me there was another explanation for Schorr’s resort to the CW on NPR: boredom. Many of the things All Things wanted to talk about were to him trivial, and not even new. Dan Schorr had been there before.
As he reminded us often. But I think we can indulge an old man that vanity. I hope we all live that long.
July 25, 2010 at 12:22 pm
jroth95
Thanks for the insight, rmg. The nuts and bolts of broadcast news is a lot like the sausage-making of legislating, but I think the public/news consumers have a much worse sense of what goes on.
That said, part of my point is that I think it would have been more interesting and valuable for everyone to pick 2-3 interesting/timely topics and let Schorr talk at a bit greater length/depth on them. There’s no value-added in more CW about some stupid Politico-friendly pseudonews, and besides, that’s what Cokie’s there for.
July 25, 2010 at 8:30 pm
nick
Speaking of D. Schorr, not two days after his death Wikileaks blows the lid off the truth in Afghanistan: ‘Hidden US Afghan war details’ revealed by Wikileaks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10757344
The best part is the exact same excuses used against Schorr were trotted back out for this.
July 26, 2010 at 7:10 am
CJColucci
In the old days I had a rule, which, unfortunately, I can no longer use, that a TV journalist was presumptively useless unless ugly. I could always take Schorr, Irving R. Levine, and a few others seriously. Now, no one like them couldn get on TV at all.
July 27, 2010 at 5:12 pm
rmg
@jroth95 — Yeah, I think you’re quite right. It would have been better to choose fewer topics and let him talk at greater length. Most segments of that variety actually have a set formula, e.g. we always do 3 topics, we always do 2, whatever. It’s interesting that Schorr’s didn’t, and I don’t know how/why/when that decision got made.
Broadcast news–especially these q&a type things–is often absolutely like sausage making: producers crank out the pieces one after another after another, and all the cuts and scraps that went in along the way are (or should be) totally invisible in the final product. It’s part of what can make radio so compelling, but it’s also part of what can make it a particularly easy medium to exploit.