Ironically, Jack Nelson died in the week that a documentary depicting the history of the Los Angeles Times began making the rounds in theaters across the country. The film is about the Chandler family and how one newspaper had an impact on greater Los Angeles. It also is the story of how one Chandler named Otis was determined to make the Times one of the best newspapers in the country. The nation was caught up by the civil rights movement, but the Times had virtually ignored the story until Nelson was hired to run the southern bureau in Atlanta and increase its coverage dramatically.
On March 7, 1965, Jack and I met for the first time, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, Alabama, he reporting for the Times and I for CBS News.
State troopers on horseback, camouflaged with gas masks and armed with clubs and tear gas were determined to halt civil rights marchers from walking from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery some 50 miles away. Nelson and I were shoulder to shoulder, watching the cops beat down, almost kill, civil rights workers like John Lewis, who later would become and still is one of the most distinguished members of the U.S. Congress. After the dramatic march was attempted again a few weeks later, this time with the protection of National Guardsmen activated by President Johnson, we reached Montgomery safely. Shortly thereafter I learned of the Ku Klux Klan's murder of a volunteer worker from Detroit named Viola Liuzzo. I doubled back down the highway to find her bullet-ridden car. Her body had been removed before a number of reporters, including Nelson and I could catch up to the story. At the Selma City Hall, we waited for a statement by the FBI and the Selma sheriff, a redneck named Jimmy Clark. We found his explanation of Liuzzo's slaying to be outrageous when he declared, "the niggahs did it." Clark's reaction was found to be even more offensive to reporters from the south, like Nelson.
We could not imagine then that what happened in Selma and on a lonely highway leading to it would set the stage for passage of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Soon after, Otis Chandler sensed the quality of Jack Nelson's reporting and had him transferred to Washington where he eventually was named to run the revitalized bureau of the Times. Its numbers were doubled along with its budget, and before long, quality journalists flocked to the Times' doorstep. Nelson's own investigative skills, his tenacity and determination to dig up the facts led to his discovery of major aspects of what would become known as the Watergate scandal.
Nelson and I did not see each other for several years when I returned to Southeast Asia, covering the Vietnam war and other stories in the region. In December 1968, I transferred back to the United States to cover the anti-war movement and the Conspiracy Trial in Chicago. It also was a time when the Nixon Administration pursued the press with a vengeance. It attacked journalists for their critical coverage of events that eventually would lead to the Watergate scandal, significantly reported by Nelson. Moreover, the Justice Department under Attorney General John Mitchell hinted that it would pursue steps which hitherto were unprecedented. It would require reporters to divulge their confidential sources, provide notes from their notebooks and outtakes of the film recorded by network cameramen and even testify in court.
As one of the CBS News correspondents based in Chicago, I found the Nixon Administration's actions to be outrageous and unconstitutional. I proposed to Anthony Lukas, the New York Times correspondent, also based in Chicago, that we organize reporters across the country to seek legal counsel and oppose any attempt to infringe on our First Amendment rights. We gathered 30 reporters, including Jack Nelson, to join us in the struggle. On numerous occasions, supported by pro bono lawyers, Jack and I met privately with judges across the country to defend individual reporters threatened with legal action by overzealous prosecutors and both federal, state and local officials.
With great respect and affection I always will remember Nelson was one of our strongest advocates in forming The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press based in Washington that will be in its 50th year next March. He was one of the great figures in the history of journalism. Most of all, I always will remember him as a friend.