IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32637, 19 June 1971, Page 16

IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?

(By

WHIM WHAM)

The Nixon Administration won a temporary Federal Court order restraining the “New York Times” from publishing the-final two instalments of a series on the Vietnam war based on secret Pentagon documents, viewed by many Congressmen and commentators as proof that President Johnson took the United States into the war by stealth and deceit . . . Professor Alexander Bickel, of the Yale Law School, representing the “New York Times,” said the Government’s request marked the first time in the nation’s history that a newspaper was being restrained from publishing an article ... a classic case of censorship, forbidden by the First Amendment. —News. All the news that’s fit to print.—Old motto of the “New York Times.” Well, it was great while it lasted, And maybe it was too good, Two hundred Years of Freedom of the Press, As it stood, it stood From the American Revolution till Yesterday’s Administration Called the Law down on the Nation’s greatest Daily, Cease Publication! Print no More of the State’s private Papers, Expose no More, Governments don’t like it, and it doesn’t help To end the War, Studying how it began, the agonised Years Of Butchery and Burning, The Drug-sick, from that Hell abroad to another Home returning. All Governments are Liars (we’re not alone) But the difficult Trick Is choosing and timing the Lie, the Statesman’s Art Is making it stick. If it comes unstuck too soon and the Leak is causing An ugly Blot, Plug it, and gag it, and scrub it, will That fix it? Probably not. Did Johnson tell it True in ’Sixty-four? (The Bombs fall still.) And Little Sir Holyecho pick up the Note? (In at the Kill!) Whether or not, here’s one more acrid First-fruit Fallen from Power. Are Jefferson’s Teeth on Edge in his Grave? This Grape Is plenty Sour.