WASHINGTON — The Nixon White House was so worried about Daniel Schorr’s reporting that it ordered an investigation into the veteran network correspondent whose tough stories landed him on the president’s infamous enemies list, according to newly released FBI files.
The administration had the bureau conduct a background investigation in 1971, according to one section from among hundreds of pages released Thursday from Schorr’s FBI file.
The White House said it was considering Schorr for a public affairs job in the environmental area. A day later, the investigation was canceled, but the White House still wanted to see anything the FBI had managed to discover about Schorr. Schorr asked the FBI to discontinue the investigation. The longtime newsman later said he had never applied for such a position.
Schorr died in July at age 93 after a six-decade career with CBS, NPR and other news media outlets. He thought the White House had tried to intimidate him for his hard-hitting coverage of the administration.
The first reference to Schorr in FBI files dates from July 31, 1942, when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover asked the chief of the Special War Policies Unit for more information on Schorr’s status as a “representative of a foreign principal” in his employment with the Netherland Indies News Agency.
