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The feuding and crusading has erupted into some whopping libel suits. All told, Pearson has been sued eight times for a total of $23,500,000. But cagey Drew Pearson, a match for most libel lawyers, brags that he has not yet paid a judgment (though his attorneys' fees are huge). He will work for hours to make an item libel-proof, or to tone down the libel until it is not worth suing over. Editors seldom ask Pearson for his proof. They know he will fight the case for them if they are sued. It is not altruism on his part. He cannot afford to lose many suits and stay in business. "But when someone shows me I'm wrong," he says, "I retract in a hurry." If he is sure he is right, he stands pat against threats and legal action.
When he exposed Lobbyist John P Monroe's ill-famed "red house on R Street," where high officials were wined and duped, Monroe sued for $1,000,000. So Pearson got a young mutual friend to get better acquainted with Monroe. "I don't put servants in people's houses," explains Pearson, "or plant people around town. But in this case I was fighting for a million bucks." The young man dug up enough dirt to put Monroe in jail—and the libel suit was dismissed.
A Kiss & a: Kick. The Merry-Go-Round's complex and contradictory pilot regards himself as a man with a mission; he thinks of himself as the conscience of government, a Vigilante riding herd on Washington.
Many newsmen agree with him. "For the moment," said one bureau chief last week, 'Tearson is the one investigatory journalist in Washington, and we could use more like him. The rest are all pundits and deadpan reporters. If he laid off those predictions, he'd be a better journalist—and, I suppose, a poorer-paid one." There is no doubt that Pearson has had a healthy effect on Washington. When George C. Marshall was chief of staff, a general, worried over Army leaks to Pearson, went to the chief and urged that Pearson be bottled up by strict censorship. No, said Marshall: "Pearson is one of my best inspectors general."
But is a "conscience" that is not invariably right a reliable conscience? Pearson's detractors would say no; his admirers would say yes. The majority on the sidelines would agree with his admirers—or how else, they would say, can we have freedom of the press? But editors—and the public—could wish that Pearson, and his fellow hip-shooting columnists, show more care in getting it right, rather than getting it first—and a greater sense of responsibility in deciding what is legitimate public news and what is mere troublemaking gossip.
*This brought Pearson his closest brush with physical violence. In the House restaurant, Texas' Congressman Nat Patton (no kin to the general) beerily waved a knife under Pearson's nose until Maury Maverick interceded and eased Pearson out of harm's way.