Vanishing Editorial

London Times Editor William Rees-Mogg recently started a controversy by attacking U.S. press coverage of the Watergate investigation and arguing that British papers have more respect for the rights of suspects. British restraint, he argued, protected "universal principles" of justice. He had hardly returned to London from a U.S. visit when an uncomfortable reminder of that restraint was visited on his paper.

The Times issue of June 23 was rolling off the presses with a lead editorial titled "Poulson and Watergate"; the paper urged that a public tribunal of inquiry be established to investigate the affairs of Architect John Poulson and the widespread charges of kickbacks in British public housing construction. With 46,000 copies left to print, Times editors learned that Poulson had been arrested and charged with conspiracy after a police investigation. According to British law, the instant a civil or criminal matter is formally brought before a court, newsmen risk jail for contempt if they publish more about the case than is revealed in open court. The Times felt that it had to yank the editorial from the remaining press run. In its place appeared much white space and a note explaining that the article had been rendered "potentially prejudicial."

Poulson's arrest means that British papers will no longer refer to him in connection with the growing scandal --now being called the "British Watergate"--and it makes especially poignant one sentence in the self-censored editorial: "We should certainly try to avoid the situation in the United States in which there are ordinary prosecutions and a major public inquiry taking place simultaneously." The upshot is that discussion of the larger scandal has been quashed for now. If the same system existed in the U.S., the real story of Watergate might have remained buried while the pawns were being prosecuted.

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