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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Q:

Was there ever an occasion you can think of where you did take embargoed information, or so-called embargoed information, and decide that it was worth the public knowing about it?

Stanton:

Well -- no. But, by probing questions, I alerted people in News to search out information that was there if they decided they cared enough to dig. So, I never took information per se and gave it to a journalist, but did I cause them to find out what was going on? Yes. I guess, in a sense, I was violating the arrangement, but I never gave any information, I simply caused them to look over here instead of looking over there, and by probing questions about, “What's going on in this particular area? Is there a story there that we're missing?” These guys weren't dummies. They knew that I knew something or had some reason to believe -- and that's the way they get information anyway, you know that.

Q:

Oh, sure. Are there any occasions that come to mind as very good examples of CBS, say, having broken a story before someone else, an important story, because of your --?

Stanton:

Well, we did a documentary on -- Howard K. Smith was the voice, or the journalist, who was used. It had to do with the state of preparedness in a number of key areas. I had gotten, through internal, high security clearance briefings, information that indicated that there were deficiencies in some of our planning. I turned that into a documentary. I didn't do it deliberately for a documentary; I simply, in a meeting with some of our key news people, said, “How much do we know about some of these things?”

Q:

What period of time was this?





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