July 24, 2007
Confidential Sources II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 05:25 PM EST I agree with Alexander Burns that Novak broke his word to Senator Eagleton never to reveal him as the source. A deal is a deal. Even politicians and journalists—neither profession exactly famous for gentlemanly behavior—can understand that. I also agree that it would be great if we could get it standardized that a promise of confidentiality made to get the story should have an expiration date, such as 50 years after the death of the journalist, so that historians can use the material. The historical record is imperfect enough. Speaking of the historical record, there have been far worse instances of destruction than a journalist taking a confidence to his or her grave. I can think of three infamous cases off the top of my head, all of them British. After Lord Byron’s death in 1824, his publisher, John Murray, burned his memoirs. While surely unpublishable at the time, they must have been fascinating. So fascinating, in fact, that that is why Murray destroyed them. How true they were, of course, is another matter. After the death of Sir Richard Burton in 1890, Lady Burton burned his journals. Burton had led one of the most adventurous of Victorian lives, which is saying something. Speaking numerous languages fluently, he traveled the world, went many places never seen before by Europeans (he discovered Lake Tanganyika in the heart of Africa, among other things). Fluent in Arabic (he translated The Arabian Nights into English) and Muslim customs, he dressed in Arab clothing and went to Mecca for the Hajj. Had he been discovered, his fate would undoubtedly have been very unpleasant indeed. Apparently he was as sexually adventurous as he was geographically, and his wife did not want the details to besmirch her husband’s memory. They might have, I suppose, at the time, but today his journals would make this extraordinary man only more extraordinary. Finally, Queen Victoria left her diary to her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice. She had kept it faithfully from when she was still a child until a few days before her death at the age of 81, having reigned over Britain at the height of her glory for more than 63 years. The diary was massive, 111 volumes filled with the details and vignettes of the remarkable life of the person who gave her name to an age. A good, direct writer and sometimes very observant, the Queen knew all the great figures of her time and was present at innumerable events of historical significance. The diary was published and is a remarkable document to put it mildly, but it was only published after Princess Beatrice destroyed the parts that she and she alone deemed “unsuitable.” Only about one third survives. What a tragedy.
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