Newspaper probing role

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32861, 9 March 1972, Page 15

Newspaper probing role

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent; WASHINGTON, March 8.

The probing role of American newspapers in the political processes of the United States and the ability of the Legislature to respond to corruption charges have rarely been better demonstrated than in the uproar over alleged Administration dealings with the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation.

A syndicated columnist, Jack Anderson, last week said that there had been an improper relationship which involved settlement of an anti-trust suit against I.T. and T. in a manner satisfactory to tiie company, in exchange for pledges of financial support for the Republican convention to be held in San Diego next August. Immediately the allegations were taken up by the Senate

Judiciary Committee. Hearings on the fitness of the acting Attorney-General (Mr Richard G. Keindienst) to take up the post of AttorneyGeneral were re-opened. Each day since then the propriety of the dealings between the company, which is America’s biggest conglomerate corporation with a turnover of more than SUSIOOO million yearly, has become murkier.

Anderson holds interviews outside the committee hearing room at regular intervals. He has so far managed to link three White House aides besides Kleindienst and a former Attorney-General, Mr John Mitchell, into discussions concerning the settlement of the anti-trust case.

The hearings threaten to discredit the Administration so thoroughly that the prospects of President Nixon’s reelection, hitherto considered better than even, may be case in doubt.

Confirmation of Mr Kleindienst’s nomination to the Nixon Cabinet was originally considered to be almost a matter of course.

Democratic senators opposed to his conservative views on law enforcement had adopted the line that the President was entitled to have as a matter of right those whom he wanted in the Cabinet—a line which contrasted notably with that they had adopted towards Supreme Court appointments. But when Anderson revealed the possibility of improper dealings involving Mr Kleindienst, the committee, spurred by a sniff of possible corruption, began deep probings. It is doubtful if a Republican - dominated Congress would have shown the same zeal in pursuit of the truth. Nevertheless the fact that the system allows a taint of political scandal revealed by the newspapers to be pursued by politicians with the right to order the appearance of witnesses from outside the political arena legally, opens up investigating possibilities beyond the powers of the English or New Zealand parliamentary process.