“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”

Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.

If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be ‘gotcha’ journalism, but it’s also good journalism.

The biggest difference between Kennedy and Nixon, as far as the press is concerned, is simply this: Jack Kennedy really liked newspaper people and he really enjoyed sparring with journalists.

It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.

Generals who can write always make me nervous.

Maybe some of today’s papers have too many ‘feel-good’ features, but there is a lot of good news out there.

I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.

It’s very hard to stand up to the government which is saying that publication will threaten national security. People don’t seem to realize that reporters and editors know something about national security and care deeply about it.

Nothing’s riding on this, except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f-k up again, I’m gonna get mad.

Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they’re lazy, and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.

Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.

Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That’s just a given. And good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is.

As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free.

It changes your life, the pursuit of truth, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It’s very, it’s very exciting.

The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.

As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.