Helen Thomas: Interview #2

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Q: I just have a few follow-up questions, and then some new ones. When we left off, we were talking about your parents, and how they were unusually, I guess you would say, liberal, in the way that they brought you up. Or since, as you were saying, you were third from the bottom, you seemed to have escaped certain directives, such as no one ever telling you that you should marry. There was no pressure from your parents.

Thomas: No.

Q: I just wonder, since you didn't marry until quite late, whether you had wanted to have children, and what you feel you may have given up for the sake of your career.

Thomas: I don't feel I gave up anything. I pursued my own life and my own career, and that was what I wanted. I don't have any regrets in that respect.

Q: When you were speaking with First Lady Nancy [D.] Reagan, she had said that she wanted to just take care of Ronnie. And you said that you felt that that, in fact, was a wasted opportunity for her.

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Thomas: Absolutely. Why else?

Q: Well, I was going to say, or did it also come out of your feminism, which you alluded to yesterday.

Thomas: Well, of course. I've always thought that we should have equal rights, from the day I was born, but I wasn't trying to press that on her. I honestly thought that you don't live in a vacuum, and when you live in the White House, you can wave a magic wand.

Q: Okay. I was wondering if we could talk about Hillary [R.] Clinton as a First Lady. What do you think accounts for why she was so disliked?

Thomas: I think she was a very dynamic, strong woman, and she came in with this total sense of the aftermath of the Reagan era, still. This country is still very conservative, and the whole idea that was spread that she wanted to be co-president -- I think this was fair game for the ultra-conservatives. So they thought she was not going to fit into the traditional pattern, and they went after her. She certainly did not fit into the traditional. She didn't want to be typified that way either, and I think she missed a lot of great opportunities. Because if she had performed more as First Lady, she would have met a lot more people, and made a lot more people happy. When you're in the position of opening the doors of the White House to the multitudes, you can do so much.

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Thomas: Well, obviously, the best defense is offense, and they're masterful in the White House at turning the tables on you. So I think they ran up against the very skilled people who know how to manipulate, in politics. But I think their story was legitimate. There may still be some developments in it, who knows? Some day.

Q: You spoke of the mantra that was repeated over and over again, to go after Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein, after 9/11.

Thomas: Repetitive -- to repeat something over and over again. Of course. You try to sell it to the people.

Q: You also mentioned the name of the Nazi, Goebbels, as a kind of technique.

Thomas: Well, everybody knows that that was the technique. This was very well known; that if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it. And it turned out not to be true. But by that time, they had public-opinion polls. They still thought Saddam Hussein had a lot to do with 9/11. So it was a very effective technique.

Q: You also mentioned, when I was asking you about the McCarthy era -- which, you explained was a much smaller offensive that affected far fewer people than the kind of punitive administration we have today; that the McCarthy era was a fascistic era. There are people who feel that Bush is really synonymous with big corporations and big oil. Do you think that the neo-cons are fascists?

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Q: In discussing the Valerie Plame case, and Judith Miller, you had blamed her editors for not asking how many sources she had and who they were, the editors of the Times.

Thomas: Well, at some point somebody should have found out where she was going and whether she was relying on one person, one defector. They always have a motive, obviously.

Q: I was just wondering what your relationship, over the years, has been with your editors, at UPI.

Thomas: Screaming and yelling. [Laughs] Pretty good. Very good. I love being edited and I hate being edited, if that's possible. I know they're doing the best thing they can, and maybe saving you from your excessiveness, and so forth. But, at the same time, as a writer, you're always resentful. In the end product, you're glad they've looked it over because I don't think, really, I can read my own copy. I think I should have somebody else reading it, for sure, maybe two other people. But I've always had great rapport, in the sense of when the day is done, you have the camaraderie of the people you work with.

Q: When you were at UPI you were doing news. So now that you're at Hearst, and you're writing a column, how is the writer and editor relationship different?

Thomas: Well, I do have an editor, and he's very, very tight in the sense of very, very -- you have to be very explicit and describe everything. I like to broad-brush

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Thomas: Well, it's only the things that I think could enter the national scene that I have some sort of acquaintanceship with, something I'm covering at the White House, and so forth. I think it has a lot of relevance on the national scene. Once in a while I think they like a personalized column. I don't know if they do or not, but most columnists finally bare their soul that way. But I stick to the main issues, the national issues.

Q: When you've gotten the most opinionated letters as a result of your column, what was it that you wrote that caused --

Thomas: I criticize the president for going into a war without any validity. I think we went into the war under false pretenses. I think there's no question about that. No weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaeda, and everything else they wanted to charge. The rationale now is that we're spreading democracy. Well, he needed a fallback position, so I write about that a lot, and that irritates a lot of people who are his supporters and devotees. I don't blame them for being angry, if they see their idol falling, or I remove the halo from the U.S. I don't think we should torture people. I wrote about torture. I think that Condoleezza Rice has an impossible task, when everybody knows that what she's saying is not true. She says we don't torture. So why doesn't the president issue an executive order saying absolutely no torture anywhere against anyone? We don't do that to serial killers. We have photographs. They're asking us not to believe our own eyes.

Q: Did you put that in your column?

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have time to schmooze, and so forth. You're on the job. Anything can happen. They can run in and say, "The president's leaving in five minutes," so you're leaving. Whenever the president is in public, you go with him. So I had no time, really, to do that. That was a fault of mine, but I'm telling you the truth.

Q: I would like to quote something that I thought was very interesting that I found in my research on you. I went to the Museum of Broadcasting and looked at some archival tapes, and in one exposé on the press they quoted I.F . [Isidor F.] Stone. He said it's important to understand your source's point of view, but reporters can be prone to the same errors and delusions as those on their beat. He issued this sort of warning, and I wonder what you think of what he said.

Thomas: That they can return to what?

Q: That reporters can be prone to the same errors and delusions as those on their beat; that you can get too close to the circles --

Thomas: I never got close to them, or they never got close to me. I called them as I saw them. I made, really, no strong personal friends among them. I think they knew that from the beginning. But I imagine that if you really got close to someone in the White House, you might hesitate to use something that might hurt. Nothing in terms of a major, damaging story, but you might skip a little few things.

Q: In all your years covering the presidents, have you ever been used as a messenger to the president, by, maybe, a government, to play a sto

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Thomas: A pornographer?

Q: There was a scandal, I would say in the last two or three months --

Thomas: Yes.

Q: How could that happen? I ask it, because I imagine, and from my readings, that the White House press corps is a pretty tight group. You all know one another. You chat, while waiting for the president.

Thomas: We don't know each other that well. We see each other at briefings, we say hello, we say goodbye, but that doesn't mean that we're that chummy with everybody who's there. We feel, if they are there, they have established some legitimacy with the press office. In the case of this man, he was getting one-day passes. He never had a "hard pass," but he was able to get in, and it was clear that he was friends, in the kind of questions he asked. But he also had ties to a Texas congressman, and kind of worked for him, on the internet. So I think that's how he got in so often, day after day. He was very pleasant. He would say hello to everyone. It's very clear that Scott McClellan would call on him when he wanted to ease the tension in the room, because he knew they'd get a softball question. But none of us knew who he was.

Q: Was he allowed access for quite some time? How long was he there ?

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pointedly, but basically I asked him if he was going to go the judicial route or a pardon -- the first question, at Ford's first news conference, when he was president. He gave it within a couple of weeks, and he fuzzied it up, the answer.

Q: I was just wondering if there are any other events over the years that you had wished you had been able to cover, but for one reason or another you weren't with the president at the time the story broke.

Thomas: Well, I think every reporter, at the time of Watergate, obviously, felt that they had defaulted. We didn't catch all the nuances that two outside reporters were able to dig in. So I think all of us feel that we missed the boat, certainly, on Watergate.

Q: Any other thoughts? Any other events?

Thomas: You always Monday-morning quarterback. You can always say, "Why didn't I put the question this way? Why didn't I ask that?" Especially when you know it's a privilege to ask the president a question. So I think you can always improve on yourself.

Q: Conversely, what stories are you most proud of having covered or broken?

Thomas: Well, I think I'm just proud of the fact that I was able to keep up with these presidents, and day to day know what was going on -- maybe in the most broad-brush, superficial way. But I did feel a certain responsibility to let people know what

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Thomas: Well, we knew gossip, but we never really tracked it down, because it wasn't important then. And there was also a basic gentleman's code. Now, it would be written immediately by a tabloid, and we would have to follow it up because we would be accused of covering up, even if we thought someone had the right to a personal life, a private life. We'd have to write it.

[END TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE; BEGIN SIDE TWO]

Q: We were just speaking about Kennedy. At that time, you said, there was kind of a gentleman's agreement, that if something was known about the president's private life, it wouldn't be reported.

Thomas: Unless it impacted on your official responsibilities and duties. But those days are gone, and they're gone forever.

Q: Why did Clinton's peccadilloes come out and get such coverage? Was there evidence that Monica [S.] Lewinsky was affecting his ability to function in government?

Thomas: No. I told you that if the tabloids or if Drudge revealed it, and we didn't write about it, we would be considered covering it up. Ordinarily, we would not have written it that way. But you have to jump onto the story once it becomes a story.

Q: Once it's out, you must cover it.

Thomas: That's right. Because, otherwise -- you'd have to.

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Thomas: No. It still seems shocking to me that any president would be -- not inciting to revolution and so forth, but I just thought it was not well-put, certainly not diplomatic. He just wanted us to get the word out, and he did.

Q: Do you think there will ever be a time when you will be surprised by something that comes out of the White House?

Thomas: Sure. You always assume a lot. You assume you know a lot, and you assume you know who these people are, the players. But always something can come out of the blue. Definitely. That's what news is.

Q: I wanted to ask you about some of the activities today of our past presidents. I wonder what you make of Bush I and President Clinton, and the work that they're doing together, abroad. Do you find that an unusual alliance?

Thomas: Not really, because Ford and Carter got together, very close, became good, good friends, when all the shouting was over. They had called each other everything in the book, and campaigned against each other. When they're asked to do something, in terms of the country and representing something, I think they all rise to the occasion. Pretty soon they get acquainted and they kind of like each other. Past presidents have a certain caché, and they do feel like they're in a little club. They have experienced what nobody else has, and it brings them together in that sense, even when they've been on opposite sides of the fence. Neither one really

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that they almost made it no-man's-land for any protesters to be near the ranch. I think it played to his detriment, played against him. He shouldn't have done it. But I don't think he takes very well -- no president does -- to someone who is obviously against his policies and philosophy.

Q: The next big story -- this is actually not chronological -- but another big story has been the president's intention to change Social Security policy. What has that been like to cover for you?

Thomas: Well obviously I'm very against that. I'm against privatizing Social Security. It works. It's worked since 1935, and I could not understand why he would want to. Our experiences with Wall Street are certainly not reassuring. To put the lives, really the livelihoods, of the elderly, of orphans, of the disabled, of widows -- people don't understand. That's the whole blanket of people who are covered by Social Security. To put them in jeopardy I thought was terrible. So I'm so glad that so far his plan is not getting anywhere.

Q: I guess the next mistake, in a series of mistakes, in your view, has been the foiled nomination of Harriet [E.] Miers.

Thomas: I didn't think that was a mistake. The ultra-right in this country thought it was a mistake. I thought she might have done pretty well. I really do. I think she's a good lawyer. She was respected in Texas. I'd rather have her than these people who are in concrete. The ultra-conservatives wanted a -- they had looked to this court -- they had built on this whole idea that once they get the court, they'll have the coun

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ized they were taken in by falsehoods. I think that certainly has been relevant. But he thinks he's right. He's very dogmatic. Of course, he never has to. He holds so few news conferences. You can't say to him, "Mr. President, how many more lives are you willing to give, on all sides, in this war, one of total attrition, day after day: thirty people, thirty-five people, ten marines, and so forth. How long?" You can't do that. No reporter does that, on the rare occasions when he holds a news conference. So he's protected. He has a good shield now. No one pins him down like that.

Q: Do you think it should be required for a president to have a certain number of press conferences?

Thomas: I think you can't require them because they're free, but they're always promised. He promised, when he won re-election, one a month, and he hasn't fulfilled that at all. I think they should have more and more news conferences. But this man is so protected from a lot of what I consider reality, the day-to-day horrors. You pick up a newspaper -- I have a box of Kleenex by my side. There's one tragedy after another. If he doesn't read newspapers, and I don't know if he does or not -- he said he doesn't, but he must have a sneak preview, to see his own photograph.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the president's credibility. You had said that it's very lethal for a president to lose credibility, and you can't govern if you don't have it. This was in the context of LBJ and Vietnam, and Nixon and Watergate.

Thomas: And I'm turning out to be wrong, because this man has no credibility on this war, and there's no outrage and no outcry. So I think I might have to revise my

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mand explanations, even in tenuous wartime -- so-called. I always want to try to find out the reasons. I think we all do, and especially if you're asking people to die for a cause.

Q: Is it that the American public has changed and become more complacent, as well as that the spin doctors --

Thomas: I think the American people genuinely have believed his fear card. He has sold them that they are in jeopardy, and he is saving them. I think they definitely have bought that; that if it weren't for him, the Great Savior, carrying this war and fighting these people, that they would be attacked again. That's certainly what he used in the campaign. He is losing a lot of ground and support. People are beginning to turn, but not enough. With Vietnam, thousands marched every day. They had had it.

Q: Yesterday I read that Bush's rating in the polls was getting a little bit better, finally. It had reached this nadir; and then, because of the positive signs of the economy, there was a bit of a lift. You wrote of a very interesting equilibrium between the popularity of the president and an anti-press attitude; that when there was a popular president, popular in the polls, a press that asked questions was considered not respectful, because it was probing too much. But we've seen Bush's ratings plummet, and the press then began to be viewed positively again. So this interesting equilibrium you wrote about, we see examples of that.

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Thomas: The most religious of the presidents, openly religious, was Jimmy Carter. He taught Sunday School, even as a president, but he never, ever tried to sell his religion, or act like he was so pious. No, no. This man has injected religion, I think very dangerously, into all things American. I really think it abridges the Constitution.

Q: When I was told I was going to have the honor of interviewing you, I mentioned that to some of my friends, and one or two of them asked me to ask you a question. This question comes from an elderly gentleman who is a nuclear engineer. He actually met you. He actually once walked up to you at a restaurant, and you were very kind to shake his hand when he said how thankful he's been for all the questions you've asked of the White House all these years. He said, "Would you please ask Miss Thomas why the president cannot pronounce 'nuclear' correctly. [Laughter] Ask her. Is the president just stupid, that he can't get that straight?"

Thomas: Yes. No, he is the master of the malaprop, and he doesn't do very well with the English language. Every president, in a way, has one word. President Ford used to say "judg-e-ment," spelling it with an "e" in it. They all have their idiosyncrasies. But this one in particular, I think. A lot of words are new to him, that we consider pro forma.

Q: When I finished asking my question, you said, "Yes….No."

Thomas: [Laughter] Well, I was being very rude.

Q: Which did you mean?

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Q: And then you can contrast that with the quick jab, as I think you put it.

Thomas: Yes.

Q: So you've been called into the Oval Office to have off-the-record conversations.

Thomas: Yes.

Q: How often is that done by presidents, and why?

Thomas: Oh, I don't know how often it's done by them, but it's only happened a few times. In the case of LBJ, he wanted to get things off his chest, and he wanted you to write it, but not source it -- attribute it. You knew that he was trying to get a point of view across, so you helped him to fuzzy it up in a way. It also serves as good background for you to know what was going on.

Q: So that has never happened with Bush or Clinton?

Thomas: No. Not with me. But that doesn't mean that others haven't gotten --

Q: So when you make that agreement, do the things you were told off the record have to remain off the record permanently? It's years now since LBJ --

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Thomas: That's right. Or how close it was to the throne.

Q: But he hoped that some people reading it might suspect it came from the White House?

Thomas: I don't think so. I think they just wanted to clear up something, or get something out that they were going to do, that they couldn't actually announce themselves.

Q: Okay. Now I'd just like to ask you a more general question about what advice you would give to journalists today, in helping the public to be more alert. We spoke about the dual responsibility of educating and informing the public. What can we do to wake up people a little bit? I have the sense that they're not that interested in current affairs.

Thomas: Well, there's no question that there's a drop-off in the circulation. We're reduced to one-newspaper towns. The broadcasts are much more interested in entertaining, so there's been a real sea change, I think, in terms of news -- except if something cataclysmic happens, like 9/11, where everybody feels horrified and affected. I think we should just keep on doing what we're doing. I think we should always try to stick to the facts in news stories. I think it would be great if our public schools -- any schools -- would teach young people the importance of reading newspapers, and understanding the differences between what is on the front pages -- the news -- and the editorial columns, and so forth. I just think we are indispensable, and I don't see how anybody can live without a newspaper, myself. If we're not in

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write. But in the last analysis, your judgment and your values are involved, in every story.

Q: It's never boring.

Thomas: It's never boring. I should have put it that way. That's much better. That's putting it succinctly, really. It's never boring. It couldn't be. Not if you care about what's going on, and care about people.

Q: What do you think we can do to get the public to discern more astutely between those who are masquerading as journalists -- the O'Reillys and the Rush Limbaughs -- and get them to understand that their techniques are not the techniques, and couldn't possibly be techniques, of legitimate journalists?

Thomas: I do think that takes an education, to get the point across. In the first place, they use our M.O. [modus operandi] -- the Q and A, and so forth -- but mostly they're injecting themselves. I think that we should in some way get the word across that they are putting their own opinions and it's not legitimate. They cannot be called journalists, should not be. Some of them don't even aspire to be called that. But I think they’re tossing around the term liberal -- trying to call every reporter a liberal -- in a derogatory way. I'm a liberal. I'll always be a liberal. But they act like that is some sort of sin.

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Q: Finally, what do you hope your legacy will be?

Thomas: Just that I was a fair reporter, as honest as could be, and really believed in the credo of searching for the truth -- always knowing that you can't quite reach that, because of tremendous -- I believe that authority should always be challenged, and I think I was privileged to do that.

Q: Is there anything I haven't brought up that you would like to speak to?

Thomas: I doubt it. I don't think so.

Q: Okay. Thank you again, so much, for your time -- especially on a day where you have another deadline.

Thomas: I've got to go see what happened. I don't know. I expected to get ten calls, because my boss is much more conservative than I am. So I am always surprised and keeping my fingers crossed when I write something. He has the last word.

Q: Okay. Thank you again, so much, Miss Thomas.