 Since the embassy was unwilling to provide government protection against police aggression , the journalists appealed directly to the White House . Browne , Halberstam , Sheehan and Kalischer wrote a letter to US President John F. Kennedy , asserting that the regime had begun a full @-@ scale campaign of " open physical intimidation to prevent the covering of news which we feel Americans have a right to know " . The protests did not garner any Presidential sympathy for the journalists , but instead resulted in trouble from their media employers . UPI 's Tokyo office criticised Sheehan for trying to " make Unipress policy " on his own when " Unipress must be neutral , neither pro @-@ Diem , pro @-@ Communist or pro @-@ anybody else " . Emanuel Freedman , the foreign editor of The New York Times reprimanded Halberstam , writing : " We still feel that our correspondents should not be firing off cables to the President of the United States without authorization . " 
