C.B.S. suspends man behind leak

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34086, 25 February 1976, Page 21

C.B.S. suspends man behind leak

(New Zealand Press Association —Copyright;

NEW YORK, February 24

Daniel Schorr, the Columbia Broadcasting System journalist who leaked a document about the Central Intelligence Agency to a newspaper in defiance of a Congressional order, has been releived of all reporting duties for an indefinite period, C.B.S. News has announced

Mr Schorr has admitted giving the “Village Voice.” a Left-wing New York weekly, a copy of a House of Representatives subcommittee’s report on its investigation into C.I.A. activities, in spite of the fact .hat the House, as a whole, had ordered the report to be kept secret until after it had been censored by the White House.

The House Ethics Committee is due to begin hearings today on how the report came into Mr Schorr’s hands, and on his role in giving a copy to the “Village Voice," which printed the material in two parts.

Hie president of C.B.S (News, Mr Richard Salant. (said yesterday: “C.BS. will (provide Mr Schorr with legal (counsel insofar as investigations relating to his C.B.S. (News activities are concerned. C.B.S. will fully support Mr Schorr against attempts to require him to reveal the source through which he obtained the report. These aspects of the matter involve fundamental issues of press freedom. “in respect to his subsequent actions in arranging for publication of the renort, Mr Schorr acted as an individual and, he states, as a matter of individual conscience.

“In order, however, not to preiudice the important principles involved in the acquisition, and reporting on, the report, we shall postpone

further C.B.S. News action relating to Mr Schorr until all Government proceedings have been resolved.”