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Jack Anderson

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  1. Let me tell you about the greatest victory in the history of the United States. We won World War III without firing a shot. Do you realize that? World War III had been raging for 45 years. We called it the Cold War, and we won it without firing a single shot. Who deserves credit for that? The credit belongs to a man who has been abused by the press. A president who is much greater than history is willing to portray him, because he was not their kind of guy. President Reagan did it, by establishing something that he has been denounced for. Criticized for. Castigated for. Star Wars. Star Wars was not established to shoot down incoming Soviet missiles. That was what we said we were going to do with it. That was the purpose that we announced. But that wasn't the real purpose. We had discovered that the Soviet Union was near economic collapse. We knew that we had a stronger economy; that we could out-spend them, and we knew that they were crazy enough to continue to try to keep up with us, so we started Star Wars for the purpose of crashing the Soviet economy. And we succeeded. The Soviet Union came crashing down. The citizens in the Kremlin didn't want to do it. We now know, we didn't know then. They are now a little more free with us, telling us some of the secrets that they used to keep, and their civilian leaders didn't want to do it. They said, "We can't afford it. We've got to go ahead and let the Americans go ahead and prepare for Star Wars." The military said, "No, we have the responsibility to defend the Soviet Union, so we must develop Star Wars too." They ran out of money. They went bankrupt. They collapsed.
  2. The need for the press to occupy an adversary role was clear to America's founding fathers. That is why they made freedom of the press the first guarantee of the Bill of Rights. Without press freedom, they knew, the other freedoms would fall. For government, by its nature, tends to oppress. And government, without a watchdog, would soon oppress the people it was created to serve. The experience of ascending the pinnacle of power changes the men who must exercise power. Some men can grow and be strengthened by the process. Most are diminished. When Lyndon Johnson was President, it was possible sometimes to glimpse the gangling adolescent from the Texas dirt farm. And somewhere under the brittle shell of Richard Nixon lurks the quiet, studious youngster in Whittier who wanted to be a railroad engineer. But in the White House, they no longer were the men they once had been. The aging process for all human beings tends to replace idealism with cynicism; for the powerful the change is often more pervasive. The men of the press seldom remind the leaders of their obligations, nor the citizens that they are the true owners of power. All too many who write about government have been seduced by those who govern. The press, like the powerful, often forgets its obligations to the public. Too many Washington reporters consider it their function to court the high and mighty rather than condemn them; to extol public officials rather than expose them. It is far more pleasant to write puffery about the powerful, of course, than it is to probe their perfidy. Public officeholders are usually likable; that is why they got elected. Many reporters are taken in by this personal charm, are awed by the majesty of office; and they become publicists rather than critics of the men who occupy the offices.
  3. Honest men will lie and decent men will cheat for power. Few reach the political pinnacles without selling what they do not own and promising what is not theirs to give. In the great and grueling quest for power it is easy to forget that power belongs not to those who possess it for the moment but to the nation and its people. While power need not be corrupting, it is impossible to deny that the American political system invites corruption. Men must accumulate funds to campaign for office. Those who finance the campaigns expect a return on their investment. Those who are elected must listen to the special interests while they preach about the public interest. To lead they often must follow men whose motives are self-serving. To keep the White House, Richard Nixon raised more campaign cash than it cost him originally to gain the White House. His agents systematically contacted the nation's great corporations and gave them campaign quotas for their executives to raise. Some paid their allotments hoping it would keep the government off their backs. Others, like International Telephone and Telegraph, sought to make a deal in return for a campaign commitment. Only a few, like American Motors, refused to ante up. Staggering sums were raised to reelect the President. The cost to the people of the United States, and to the free enterprise system, is still being paid in installments.
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