In all of the obits and remembrances of Marin County resident Tom Snyder a few weeks ago, we missed this story by Rem Rieder in the American Journalism Review about Snyder’s reporting skills. It was about Richard Nixon’s attempt to show off his foreign policy views in 1967 (a year before he would be elected president) in a Philadelphia news conference. Nixon was probably betting that none of the Philly reporters could lay a hand on him. That was true except for one guy in the crowd, TV newsman Tom Snyder. Rieder recalls:

Snyder was enough of a player that he could act like he belonged there. He wasn’t intimidated, and he knew enough to ask intelligent questions. Much to the relief of the rest of the press gaggle. …

The reporters weren’t the only ones who were clueless. Nixon assured us that, based on his first-hand observation, there was no imminent danger of armed conflict in the Middle East. Weeks later, the Six-Day War broke out.