Word: bernsteins
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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That criticism of the new Bob Woodward-Carl Bernstein Watergate book, The Final Days (Simon & Schuster; $10.95), is typical of the reaction of most Nixon associates. By and large: 1) they make no claims that the book contains any substantial factual errors; 2) they protest that the total portrayal is a distortion; 3) they offer criticism with the stipulation that the source of the complaint not be publicly named...
...second criticism deserves more attention. The scolding reporters and editors are right, in a sense: a reporter shouldn't put quotation marks around something he can't prove was said, seactly as he quotes it. But in this extraordinary case, Woodward and Bernstein had to choose between quoting nothing of the important drama that paralleled Nixon's disintegration, writing a version attributed to the principals in the episode (whose statements for the record were certain to be self-serving of false), or reconstructing quotes as best they could from anonymous sources, many of whom kept detailed diaries. They made...
...scenes Woodward and Bernstein sketch are by now legend, cackled over everywhere: Nixon praying on his knees with Kissinger, then pounding the carpet and sobbing; Pat Nixon spurning her husband's sexual advances- for 12 years; Nixon walking the White House halls at night, talking to portraits of former presidents...
Woodward and Bernstein took heavy flak last week for writing as they did about such things. The critics seem divided into two camps: readers who think Nixon's privacy was invaded, and reporters and editors who think it unethical to include dialogue that Woodward and Bernstein neither heard nor attributed (such as the Nixon-Kissinger exchanges...
...first criticism argues that evidence of a president's insanity is privileged information. Undoubtedly its strongest supporters are those who protested, as Woodward and Bernstein were unraveling the Watergate scandal three years ago, that it was improper to ask about a president's criminality...