New York, April 2—I don’t know when perspective is going to set in, but until it does, read me, pray, out of that fraternity of self-adulators who surround Woodward and Bernstein as the exemplars of a new journalism fired by ethical concern. I haven’t seen the movie, but it is an ironic master-stroke that it should star Robert Redford. The last time out on the boards, Redford was a CIA agent who was finally revolted by his profession. Now he is born again, unburdened of doubts: I Was a Spy for Woodward & Bernstein, and Found Out All about Pat Nixon’s Sex Life.
Attempt, for a moment, to recapture perspective. A gang of over-zealous Republican pols decide they should find out what is going on in Democratic headquarters, and to that end organize a team to burglarize those offices and bring out information that might be politically useful. The end result of that attempted invasion of the professional privacy of Lawrence O’Brien was a dozen people in jail, and the resignation of a President of the United States, for the first time in history.
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