Columnist Cleared Of Senator’s Charge

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31923, 26 February 1969, Page 17

Columnist Cleared Of Senator’s Charge

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, February 25. The American newspaper columnist, Drew Pearson, has won a Court of Appeals ruling effectively clearing him of charges of invasion of privacy and conversion of documents, which had been brought by Senator Thomas Dodd, arising from six articles the columnist wrote in 1967.

The Court of Appeals has held that Mr Pearson neither invaded the privacy of the senator, nor wrongfully converted documents obtained from his Senate office files. Senator Dodd had earlier dropped a SUSSm libel suit. Mr Pearson and an associate, Jack Anderson alleged in an article that Senator Dodd had been influenced by foreign lobbyists and engaged in activities which made him unfit to be a member of the Senate. The accusations led to a

move by the Senate to tighten its code of ethics, but a motion to bar the Democrat Senator from Connecticut was not introduced. The Lower Federal Court had decided that the columnist could be held liable for wrongfully converting property belonging to Senator Dodd. But the Court of Appeals ruled that, by receiving photographs of private documents secretly copied from original papers in the senator’s files by former staff members, he did not wrongfully convert the property.