SaturdayAugust 14, 1976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Seven The Nixon Assault' revisited ASSAULT ON THE MEDIA: THE NIXON YEARS, by Wil- liam Porter. Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan Press, 3 ,l pp., $11.95. By JIM TOBIN WILLIAM PORTER could have written a textbook on the Nixon administration's relations with the media, but he did not. He could have writ- ten a scornful, one-sided dia- tribe against Nixon and his sub- ordinates, but he did not. What he has written instead is a careful work, scholarly but pointed, which rests between those two extremes without in- cluding the excesses of either. Porter, a professor in the Uni- versity's journalism department, writes with a combination of deep-seated concern for the me- dia and a full measure of fair- ness to Nixon and his crew. This is sometimes confusing, or frus- trating at any rate, for Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years is neither pure reporting of one aspect of an administration nor partisan propaganda. It is some- times difficult to tell where Por- ter draws the line between these different motivations of his. But if the book has an attitude, it is always fair, and an unshak- able piece of journalism is the result. Porter is cautious. While he has no love for Nixon, he is careful to put the work in the context of "the Nixon years," for it is apparent that the sus- tained siege of 1969-74 on the great newspapers and networks was not caused by a single dia- bolical strategy of the Nixon administration or the leader himself. It was more the result of an attitude, a perception of government which allowed for only positive reinforcement, a rather random series of attacks made by Nixon subordinates and their imitators who knew the boss's contempt for the me- dia and capitalized on it. )ORTER puts the complex combination of attitude and action into an effective analogy: "The situation as the Nixon ad- ministration moved against the media is somewhat comparable to a well-organized military force moving to occupy an area where there is suspicion and resentment but no organized re- sistance. The force has a com- mander who is clearly in charge. The orders he sends out are obeyed and carried out without question. Porter first sets down the background for Nixon's attitude toward the media - from his early congressional days when he actually received quite fa- vorable treatment from the New York Times and The Washing- ton Post; through the infamous Checkers speech, and through his "last press conference" aft- er being defeated in the 1962 California gubernatorial elec- tion. It is interesting that the author's summary is a descrip- tion not just of Nixon's media relations but of the major - events of his political career as well. THE BOOK also includes a detailed group of documents and memoranda relevant to Nixon - media relations; and, looked at as a compilation in Nixon's mind and memory, the history of those relations be- comes the mold for the way in which his administration was to handle the. Riding the tide of one of the greatest poitical comebacks in American history, Nixon had learned his lessons- Holding up Spiro Agnew's fe- rocious harangues against the press and the networks as in- spiration. the Nixon forces miov- ed in on three fronts "raising the larger question of objectivi- ty and ethics in the media as an institution," in lI.. Ialde- mans words; using the Federal Cnommnssications Co m m ission and the .tustice Department to intisidate and harass the net- works and communications con- gloterates; and isolating Nixon and his staff almost totally from media access. With particular cittcern Por- ter documents the new 'public relations" trend in executive branch media relations. It came with ad-men Haldeman and Ron Ziegler, and Porter fears that it is still around, emphasizing the good toints of its presiden- See THE MEDIA, Page 10 I i"T Tai, is Co-Dirt-c/ar of te Fiorial Page. Nixon and the press Fallaci's newest: History, back-stage AN INTERVIEW WITH HISTORY, by Oriana Fallaci. New York: Live- right Publishing Corporation, 376 pp., $10.95. By ANN MARIE LIPINSKI ONE WOULD do well to think twice before consenting to an interview with Oriana Fallaci. Ask Henry Kissinger, Yasir Arafat or Nguyen Van Thieu. You see, the unremittingly unscrup- ulots Fallaci decided one day a long, long time ago that she didn't like power or anyone charged with exercising it, so now she tmakes it her business to ask nasty questions of those who do this thing she hates. And, oh, how she hates. Fallaci, the celebrated international correspondent for the Milan journal L' Eiropeo, has been landed as one of the most brilliant interviewers of our time - a sometimes deserving appraisal. True, she is equipped with a passion and a skill for dissection and probing which serve her well. Like a human X-ray ma- chine, Fallaci expertly penetrates be- neath the skin of her subjects - some- times - victims, exposing the most pri- vate of fears and dreams. But - and Fallaci would rapidly list this as one of her greatest assets - she has the disconcerting habit of bringing to her interviews a lifetime of political biases and beliefs which she refuses to hide or even quiet. "ON EVERY professional experience I leave shreds of my heart and soul;" Fallaci admits, "and I partici- pate in what I see or hear as though the matter concerned me personally and were one on which I ought to take a stand (in fact I always take one, based on a specific moral choice.)" In Fallaci's latest book, somewhat pre- tentiously titled Interview with History, the Italian journalist offers an impres- sive sampling of interviews which she conducted with world political figures from 1969-1974. Dedicated to her mother "and to all those who do not like power" the book is a collection of fourteen very pointed and powerful interviews-a "doc- ument straddling journalism and his- tory," according to Fallaci. The interviews are clever and ab- sorbing, due to Fallaci's ability to ex- tract the inextractable. She has a repu- tation for garnering information from her subjects which other reporters have failed to undrape. But how much of Fal- laci's winnings have come to her, like an inheritance, merely because she is the venerable Oriana Fallaci? How of- ten have even the most unapproach- able of political figures agrees to an audience with Fallaci simply because a, interview with her spells instant publicity? "Every journalist dreams of being summoned at least once by those who, when you go looking for them, run away or spy no," Fallaci says. And, to be sure, the powerful have hunted Fallaci tit, requesting to be interviewed, offer- ing to make that "dream" a reality. PAKISTANI Prime Minister Ali Bhutto, for instance, invited Fallaci for an interview in 1972 quickly following re- lease of the fact that Fallaci had inter- viewed Indira Gandhi, the political op- position. Fallaci dismisses the hypo- thesis that Bhutto had intended to em- ploy her as a courier, of sorts, and in- stead maintains that Bhutto simply "in- tended to let me interview him." Bhut- to, however, wasted little time during the interview in responding directly to accusations Gandhi had made in the published interview with her, and then in launching his own personal attacks against the Indian leader who had chas- tized him. Furthermore, after Gandhi read the complete text of the interview with Bhutto and angrily canceled a scheduled peace agreement signing with the Prime Minister, Bhutto again called upon Fallaci to deny that the interview had ever taken place. "Miss Fallaci, you must understand," he pleaded, "the lives of six hundred million people de- pend on you, they're in your hands." "I cursed and told him to go to hell," she writes. Such arrogance, such pomposity, such power does not serve a journalist well- a journalist who has been known to walk out on Almirante, the reconstructer of the Italian Fascist party, when he an- nounced his love for Mussolini. 'I refuse to stay one second more," she reported- ly told him. "This bullshit -- you don't think I'm going to publish this!" If Fal- laci's intent is truly, as she claims, to record history in the making, she should, like a true historian, set her own pas- sions aside to allow others to air theirs. 'CiI SIitORTCOMINGS, however, can- not detract compIetety from Fal- lacis pure interviewing ta-k-n, her abil- ity to place herself in the trust of her subjects and hence win their confi- dence. Witness the following exchange bet-.re, Fllaci and Golda Meir: Fallaci: Mrs. Meir, that sense of guilt that you feel toward your children, did you also feel it toward your husband? Meir: Let's not talk about that . . . I don't want to talk about it . . . I never talk about . . . Well, all right, let's try. The most stunning display of Fallaci's talents in the book are found in her in- terview with Kissinger, a man whom she called "an eel icier than ice." Kis- singer, upon completing an answer to a question concerning Vietnam says to Fallaci, "And don't make me talk about Vietnam anymore, please." "Don't you even want to talk about the fact that, according to many, the agree- ment accepted by you and Nixon is prac- tically a sellout to Hanoi?," Fallaci quickly inserts. "TIHAT'S ABSURD!" Kissinger replies before offering an expanded ans- wer. "But really that's enough talk now about Vietnam," he later adds. "Let's talk about Machiavelli, about Cicero, anything but about Vietnam." "Let's talk about war, Dr. Kissinger," she says, soon adding "And what do you have to say aibout the war in Vietnam. You've never been against the war in Vietnam, it seems to me." Kissinger answers, then again pro- tests, "it are we still talking about Vietnasssn?" "Yes," Fallaci ssys. "And still steak- ing of Vietnam . . And so the inter- view contined. A con artist? Maybe. But such is the stuff giood detectives and reporters alike are mode if. A pity Fallaci's talent for drawing out her sibjects' fears and pre- judices has been tainted by her inabil- ity to ignore her own. Ai Mari Lipiski is a Daily ni ht idilor and C( Al/or of/;he rosh Sup- plm/nt.