A few years after working with Ted in Laos, I returned to Washington to direct the Indochina Resource Center, which sought to end U.S. bombing and other military involvement in Indochina. By 1973 one of our main targets was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who had directed a huge expansion of secret U.S. bombing into Laos and Cambodia after 1969, in a cynical attempt to avoid blame for losing the war, without taking any care whatsoever to avoid the mass murder of civilian villagers. I knew by then that Kissinger was more responsible than any other individual except President Nixon for the murder of innocents in Indochina, and would have been executed had the Nuremberg precedent for protection of civilian populations been applied to U.S. leaders. (I discussed Kissingers role in a 2001 Salon article, "Wanted: If Henry Kissinger isn't guilty of war crimes, no one is."

Ted was at that time the State Department correspondent for ABC News, and I decided to call him for lunch to talk about the six-month trip to Indochina I had just returned from -- particularly the new evidence I had amassed that the ongoing Kissinger-led bombing in Cambodia was continuing to murder civilians. Although I realized that Ted had to be circumspect regarding Kissinger's culpability for the war crimes that he had observed on the ground in Laos, I assumed we'd be in as much agreement on the horror as we had been in Indochina, and hoped he might do some stories on my new findings. I still remember the friendliness and warmth of Ted's jovial greeting when I called him up for lunch, and my awe as I entered the beautiful State Department restaurant, filled with important domestic and international dignitaries.

After 15 minutes or so of pleasantries and reminiscences, I brought up the flattering book on Kissinger that had just been published by the brothers Marvin and Bernard Kalb, who worked for NBC and CBS News respectively. Everyone I knew had been outraged by the book, which was a typical establishment journalist suck-up to Kissinger, praising him for his successes and avoiding even a mention of the mass murder that he was even then continuing to conduct. I was particularly annoyed because I had worked with Bernie Kalb as closely as I had with Ted, and Bernie also knew full well of Kissinger's responsibility for what was occurring.

I said something like "Can you believe that garbage by the Kalb brothers?" To my utter amazement, Ted suddenly drew back and said, in what was to be known years later as his full-throated "Nightline" "Voice of God": "I'll have you know that Marvin Kalb is a close personal friend of mine. And so is Dr. Kissinger, for that matter!" Ted was clearly offended, and our luncheon went downhill from there. Shocked, I tried to remind him of Kissinger's war crimes, which he had personally witnessed just a few years ago. He refused to discuss it. I tried to turn the conversation to my new findings on the ongoing bombing of civilians. He wasn't interested. We parted, not to talk again for 30 years.

I realized at the time that it was not Ted who had changed, but his institutional role. In Indochina, on the ground, face-to-face with the refugees, he had been a truth-seeking foreign correspondent. Assigned to cover Kissinger back in Washington, depending upon him for information, susceptible to the secretarys flattery and manipulations, he had become a card-carrying member of the journalistic establishment.

On Oct. 22, 2004, the N.Y. Times published an article (must be Times Select member) titled "In Calls to Kissinger, Reporters Show That Even They Fell Under Super-K's Spell," about 3,200 transcripts of phone conversations between journalists and Kissinger. "Reporters assumed the admiration and affection they expressed for Mr. Kissinger over the telephone would remain private. What they did not know was that he was having a secretary listen in and take down every word," the Times reported. Slate's Jack Shafer also reported on the love-fest between Kissinger and elite journalists.

Ted Koppel was one of those expressing what the Times called his "chumminess" with Mr. Kissinger. "It has been an extraordinary three years for me, and I have enjoyed it immensely. You are an intriguing man, and if I had a teacher like you earlier I might not have been so cynical," Koppel said. "You have been a good friend," Kissinger replied. Koppel ended by saying, "We are lucky to have had you."

To his credit, when interviewed for the story, Ted Koppel told it like it was. "Am I shocked by the notion that people were sucking up to a very powerful official they relied on for information? ... Frankly, no." David Binder, a reporter for 43 years with the N.Y. Times , was even more to the point: "The negative is that if you become too close to a guy you're covering, you become his spokesman."

It is not difficult to understand why reporters "suck up" to powerful officials, and become their "spokesmen." It is not only that official information is critical to getting a story on the TV evening news, newspaper front page, or into a bestseller. It is that the government official in question might give the information to a rival covering the same beat, the single biggest threat to a newsperson's career.

For let us remember: Reporters and officials are not merely flattering each other for the fun of it. They are trading information, the oil of Washington, a commodity that brings careers, money, Pulitzers, influence and fame to reporters, and political support to government officials to exercise the power they so enjoy. Information is literally power: the power to kill, the power to heal, the power to become rich. For all of the surface camaraderie and talk of "friendship," it is a deadly serious business.

And being a "good friend" to Henry Kissinger meant turning a blind eye to misdeeds and atrocities. Throughout Ted's tenure at the State Department, as we have noted, Mr. Kissinger was conducting mass murder of civilians in Laos and Cambodia on a daily basis, overthrowing Salvador Allende in Chile, and conducting a wide variety of other illegal and duplicitous acts. One of the key factors giving him a free hand to conduct these crimes of war was the flattering coverage given him by major journalists, and their refusal to regularly report on his violations of the Nuremberg precedent and other laws of war.

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