Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frank StantonFrank Stanton
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 755

Stanton:

Everything. They wanted the record of telephone conversations -- It was a fishing expedition of the first order. And I think they finally settled for wanting the outtakes that we didn't use and the reporters' notebooks and things of that kind. It didn't reduce our stand but it made -- by narrowing the demand -- it more difficult in the eyes of the public, many of whom said, Why can't you give them this material to them? All they want to do is look at it. It was the principle of the government coming in to your newsroom that bothered me. I guess it was the first stand of that magnitude that any broadcast organization had ever taken. The man who headed the fight ultimately in Congress against me was Harley [O.] Staggers who was a Congressman --

[PHONE INTERRUPTION]

Q:

Harley Staggers --

Stanton:

Staggers was a senior committee chairman and had a lot of seniority in the Congress. I think he was one of the top two or three most senior committee chairmen. And committee chairmen are a club unto themselves in the House. And Staggers was a powerful committee chairman and a very religious man and he just wouldn't take no for an answer. And I angered him by my persistence and my position. And I didn't make any friends in some other parts of the committee who thought that they would vote along the chairman's political line. I tried to get help from the Republican side and the Republicans said they would take their guidance from the White House. And the White House was yes and no because [Richard M.] Nixon, I think, was not unhappy that I had my sleeve caught in the gear box and was about to -- It probably isn't fair to say that he wouldn't have cared if I went





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help