Back in 1972 the FBI’s acting director gave a New York Times reporter the impression that the president was personally involved in Watergate, but the tip died a quick and historic death in the Times’ Washington Bureau, according to the reporter and editor involved. One went on to law school, the other took a long vacation and no one bothered to follow up.

AP via Google:

… The New York Times let the hot tip fall through the cracks, the reporter and editor say after decades of silence about the August 1972 conversation. They say it’s unclear whether the Times pursued information that might have let it beat The Washington Post to the blockbuster story of political espionage, which was described in “All the President’s Men” and helped unravel Richard M. Nixon’s presidency.

“We missed out,” the now-retired editor, Robert H. Phelps, said in an interview Monday, after the Times published a story about the monumental miscue.

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#fbi#History#journalism#new york times#richard nixon#watergate#white house