NEWSWATCH: Muckraking Is Sometimes Sordid Work

In ancient days, before Watergate made Woodward and Bernstein household words, investigative reporting meant Drew Pearson. He was, as TIME said then, "the most in tensely feared and hated man in Washington." From the '30s to the '60s, scoops in his syndicated column ("Wash ington Merry-Go-Round") or on his Sunday radio broad casts became headlines: the Roosevelt court-packing plan, F.D.R.'s destroyers-for-bases swap with Churchill, the Patton soldier-slapping incident, Sherman Adams' vicuna coat and many other tales, worthy and less worthy.

In a new book, Confessions of a Muckraker (Random House; $12.95),...

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