Public Information Quotes
Regular Weekly Radio Program. FDR was meeting in with the Cabinet and the Military leaders and the White House had not issued any statement yet.
ER was the first official to report on the Japanese Attack to the American people. She left the White House. Went across the street and did her thing.
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a friend in a hunting accident becoming the first U. S. Vice President to shoot a man since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. However, the Vice President and his staff did not make the shooting public till the next day and then by having a member of the hunting party call a small local, friendly, Texas newspaper. Finally, under great pressure the Vice President gave an interview to the Fox News Network, the network who had been most favorable in reporting on the administration.
In 1948 in the midst of the Red Scare the HUAC and its Senate counterpart had started to hound a former Assistant Secretary of State, Lawrence Duggan. Typical of the times, those who disagreed with Duggan’s political views anonymously leaked material to the press alleging that Duggan might have been a spy. The press had a feeding frenzy and Dugan committed suicide in the midst of the pressure. Most in Congress paused to contemplate the consequence of what was occurring. Even Richard M. Nixon regretted the “misunderstandings.” Dugan’s father, however, an old acquaintance of Edward R. Murrow, the then dean of American broadcasters, however primarily blamed the press for printing all the unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo.
