Word: freidin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Goldberg's name surfaced first. She is a freelancer on the fringes of Washington journalism, and her participation in the caper was dismissed as a bad joke. But Freidin, 56, though never in the top stratum of his trade, is clearly in a different league from Goldberg. He marched into Prague with Patton and later served as foreign editor of the New York Herald Tribune. He is also a Democrat. Why did he become involved in so tawdry an episode...
Double Agent. The money was one factor. Freidin says that he was paid $30,000 plus $10,000 for expenses last year and a lesser amount in 1968. Actually, Freidin says, he was a double agent or maybe even a triple one. He told the Humphrey people in 1968 and the McGovern staff last year that he was working on a campaign book. While feeding information to the Republicans, he was really trying to gather material for an "inside" book about internal friction in the G.O.P. camp. He sees no distinction between what he did and the ploy used...
...distinction between McGinniss and Freidin, of course, is that McGinniss was not taking money from one party to spy on the other. It was not the first time that Freidin had accepted pay while trading information. Freidin, like some other correspondents overseas, became friendly with CIA agents in trouble spots around the world. While covering the Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe in the 1940s, Freidin was often debriefed by CIA men and got leads from them in return. Occasionally, he says, he accepted CIA money−"so little that it was laughable." To Freidin, a staunch cold warrior like many...
...Herald Tribune folded, and soon the cold war began to fade as a big, continuing story. Freidin found himself adrift, his expertise devalued, the demand for his byline sinking. It is a common situation for aging journalists who have committed themselves to one subject or cause. "I wanted to do a book on the States," he recalls, "but my problem was how I could get an angle. I went to the 1968 conventions, and at the Republican Convention I met Murray Chotiner...
Chapman's friend was soon born. Ironically, Freidin got no book at all out of the 1968 campaign. In 1972, he says, he knew "something fishy was going on" among the Republicans, but he was unaware of the Watergate secrets. After that story broke, he realized that any "inside" book he might do would be valueless. So he quit before the election and signed on with Hearst. Now, with his new notoriety, he claims to have a number of offers to write his inside book; he feels in demand again. This week he will be back in New York...