Not really. "Coward" is the wrong word. The guy had a pair on him.
I'll give you "mistaken" or maybe "wrongheaded", but the problem back then was, what the hell DO you do about a crooked press that's trying to screw you and help the other side?
They've been rotten for years, since the 1950's.
So what do you do? Get up and get all mad at the press people like Nixon did in 1962? That got him real far. He got elected in 1968, and in 1970, pissed at the Pentagon Papers treason, he tried to up the ante, and we all know how that turned out.
I remember a scene in the fall of 1970. My watch section and I had pieces of a New York Times spread out on our plotting tables and desks, members of the watch section taking a few minutes when time permitted to read the Sheehan stories as the Times committed serial espionage and treason against the United States. It was surreal: we were surrounded by equipment and reports classified "SECRET LIMDIS CANUS EYES ONLY" and "SECRET NOFORN" -- and the stuff in The New York Times was hotter than our hottest work products. Some of it included verbatim quotes, including headers, of CINCPACFLT cables classified "TOP SECRET" and higher, stuff that at one time was radiantly hot.
So what do you do with people like that? How do you fight that evil?
A pair... you mean like when he buddied up with Jimmuh "the retard" Carter?.. more than once if I remember correctly..