NPR's Cornish reinforces myth of Thompson as Watergate hero

Summary: Reporting on Fred Thompson's Republican presidential campaign, National Public Radio's Audie Cornish cited the"renown[]" Thompson acquired for his role as Republican counsel on the Senate Watergate committee during Watergate, but her report did not mention Thompson's own admission that he provided crucial information to President Nixon's lawyer without authorization.

In a September 3 report on the expected official launch of former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson's Republican presidential campaign, National Public Radio's (NPR) Audie Cornish left out a significant admission by Thompson himself that tarnishes what Cornish described as the "renown[]" Thompson acquired for his role as Republican counsel on the Senate Watergate committee.

Cornish reported:

CORNISH: When Al Gore gave up his Senate seat in 1992 after being elected vice president, Thompson decided to go for it. Armed with his film celebrity, years as a Washington lobbyist, and renowned for his work as a GOP attorney during the Watergate scandal, Thompson hit the campaign trail, but his first steps were wobbly.

Cornish's reporting echoes that of The Washington Post's John Solomon, who, as Media Matters for America noted, wrote on July 26 that Thompson "gained fame in the early 1970s as the 30-something lawyer who helped Republican Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee pursue Richard M. Nixon's misdeeds during the Watergate hearings."

But in his Watergate memoir, At That Point in Time: The Inside Story of the Senate Watergate Committee, Thompson acknowledged that he provided crucial information to President Nixon's lawyer without authorization from Baker or anyone else. In a July 4 article, Boston Globe reporter Michael Kranish, citing Thompson's memoir, wrote:

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight - asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

As Media Matters also noted, the website for Thompson's presidential exploratory committee, like Solomon's and Cornish's reporting, does not mention Thompson's leak to Nixon, asserting only, "He gained national attention for leading the line of inquiry that revealed the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office."

From Cornish's September 3 report on NPR's Morning Edition:

CORNISH: Prior to 1994, Fred Thompson spent the decade furrowing his brow as a character actor playing authority figures in movies like The Hunt for Red October and In the Line of Fire -- films in which he mostly fought off overpowering musical scores and similarly suited bad guys.

[...]

CORNISH: When Al Gore gave up his Senate seat in 1992 after being elected vice president, Thompson decided to go for it. Armed with his film celebrity, years as a Washington lobbyist, and renowned for his work as a GOP attorney during the Watergate scandal, Thompson hit the campaign trail, but his first steps were wobbly.

—M.K.