No More Learning

~8 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
2. 3. ARCHBISHOP OSCAR ROMERO
The murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the highest Catholic church official in El Salvador, was "big news," and its political implications were enormous. At the time of his murder, Romero had become the foremost and most outspoken critic of the policy of repression by murder being carried out by the U. S. -supported military government. In his last sermon, he appealed to members of the army and security forces to refuse to kill their Salvadoran brethren, a call that enraged the officer corps trying to build a lower-class military that was willing to kill freely. Romero had been placed on right-wing death lists and received threats from the right wing, which from the beginning had been closely linked to the army and intelligence services. IS Only a few weeks prior to his murder he had written a forceful letter to President Jimmy Carter opposing the imminent granting of U. S. aid to the junta as destructive of Salvadoran interests. The Carter administration had been so disturbed by Romero's opposition to its policies that it had secretly lobbied the pope to curb the archbishop. 16
Romero, in short, was not merely an "unworthy" victim, he was an important activist in opposition to the local alliance of army and oligar- chy and to U. S. policy in El Salvador. The U. S. media's news coverage of the archbishop's murder and its follow-up reflected well his threat- ening role, reaching new levels of dishonesty and propaganda service in their coverage of this and related events.
2. 3. 1. Details of the murder and public response
The details of the Romero murder provided by the U. S. mass media were concise (see table 2-2). While there were expressions of shock and distress, there were very few quotations and expressions of outrage by supporters of Romero. There were no statements or quotations suggest- ing that the murder was intolerable and that the guilty must be found and brought to justice. The New York Times had no editorial condemn- ing, or even mentioning, the murder. It was quickly placed in the larger framework of alleged killings by both the left and the right that were deeply regretted by Salvadoran and U. S. officials.
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 49
2. 3. 2. The propaganda line: a reformist junta trying to contain the violence of right and left
The Salvadoran and U. S. governments contended at the time of Romero's murder that the killing going on in El Salvador was being done by extremists of the right and the left, not by the Salvadoran armed forces and their agents; and that the government was trying its best to contain the killings and carry out reforms. John Bushnell, of the State Department, stated before a House appropriations comminee that "there is some misperception by those who follow the press that the government is itself repressive in EI Salvador," when in fact the violence is <<from the extreme right and the extreme left" and <<the smallest pan" of the killings come from the army and security forces. 17 This statement was a knowing lie,18 contradicted by all independent
evidence coming out ofEI Salvador and refuted by Archbishop Romero on an almost daily basis. 19 In his letter to Carter sent on February 17, 1980, the archbishop pointed out that aid to the junta had resulted in increasing repressive violence by the government, "amassing a total dead and wounded far higher than in the previous military regimes. " And Romero explained to Caner that the idea that the junta was reformist was a myth, that "neither the junta nor the Christian Demo- crats govern the country," but, rather, power is in the hands of the army, serving itself and the oligarchy. 20
What gave Bushnell's statement a certain credibility was the fact that there had been a "reformist coup" by young army officers in October 1979, and liberals and progressives entered the early junta. However, as Raymond Bonner points out,
The young, progressive officers who carefully plotted the coup lost control of it as swiftly as they had executed it. Their ideals and objectives were subverted by senior, more conservative of- ficers who had the backing of [U. S. Ambassador] Devine and the U. S. Embassy in EI Salvador and key Carter administration offi- cials in Washington. 21
The progressive elements on the junta found themselves entirely with-
out power, and gradually exited or were forced out, along with large
numbers from the cabinet and administration. Jose Napole6n Duarte
joined the junta in March to serve as a fig leaf and public-relations
agent of the army, but all those who were not satisfied to serve in that
role departed. 22 I
I ? J
50 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
?
Once the old-guard military had seized control from the progressive
officers in October 1979, it began a general war of extermination against all progressive individuals and organizations in El Salvador. By the end of May, church sources reported 1,844 civilian deaths already in 1980, a figure that reached 10,000 by the end of the year, almost all at the hands of the government. A guerrilla war was forced on the center and left by the policy of unconstrained violence of the Carter-supported government. The government was not centrist and reformist-it was a military regime of the right, closely linked to the terrorist force ORDEN and the death squads, and it used them regularly as proxies. The paramilitary groups were not uncontrollable-they were doing what the army wanted them to do. The paramilitary forces and death squads of EI Salvador had extensive interlocking relationships with the official military and security forces and their U. S. counterparts. There was a revolving door of personnel, close cooperation in sharing infor- mation, funding of the paramilitary groups by the official forces, and a division of labor between them. The paramilitary did jobs for which the official forces wished to disclaim responsibility. 23
Although the paramilitary group ORDEN was formally abolished at the time of the October 1979 coup, ir was secrerly maintained and had a close relationship with the regular military establishment. According to one detailed account,
The reformers had officially abolished ORDEN, rhe old informa- tion network. But . . . military officers suspicious of the young reformers secretly reestablished and expanded much of the old intelligence system into a grass-roots intelligence network that fed names of suspected subversives to military and paramilitary death squads. Four days after the coup, D'Aubuisson said in an inter- view, he was assigned by members of the high command to help reorganize ANSESAL [an intelligence communication network] inside a military compound under the chief of staff's office--out of the reach of civilians in ehe new jUDea. 24
This secret assignment ofD'Aubuisson was confirmed by junta member Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, and then Deputy Defense Minister Colonel Nicholas Carranza. 25
The U. S. mass media, however, followed the Bushnell fonnula virtu- ally without deviation: there was a "civil war between extreme right and leftist groups" (New York Times, Feb. 25, 1980); the "seemingly well meaning but weak junta" was engaging in reforms but was unable to check the terror (Time, Apr. 7. 1980). The U. S. mass media had fea-
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 5I
tured heavily the reformist character of the revolutionary junta, but they uniformly suppressed evidence of the powerlessness, frustrations, and early resignation of the progressives, and their replacement by civilians willing to serve as "front men" for state terror. Roman Mayorga, an engineer and university professor who had been the unani- mous choice of the original coup ploners, resigned on January 3, I980, along with Guillermo Manuel Ungo "and at least 37 of the highest ranking government officials, including the heads of all government agencies. "26 But for the media, these events never happened, and the junta was still a "weak centrist government . . . beset by implacable extremes" (New York Times editorial, Apr. 28, I98o), not a right-wing government of massacre. Robin K. Andersen points out that
None of the networks reported . . . the final resignation of the junta members. Even CBS, which had reported at length on the appointment of Roman Mayorga, failed to report his resignation, or any of the others. For television news viewers, these political developments never happened. Television news coverage omitted every reference to this all-important political power struggle that could have accounted for the abuses that continued. . . . The civilian lack of control, and even their resignation, had no effect on the way in which the news characterized the junta; it continued
to be labeled moderate. 27
And the Salvadoran government has continued to be "moderate" and "centrist" up to today.
Other media suppressions aided in bolstering the myth of the neutral junta standing between the extreme right and the extreme left. On March 29, I980, the New York Times carried a Reuters dispatch noting the resignation of three high Salvadoran officials, who, according to the article, "resigned last night in protest against the junta's inability to halt violence by leftist and rightist forces. "28 The preceding day, an AP dispatch recorded the same resignations, but without any explanation of the reasons for this. One of the resigning officials, Undersecretary of Agriculture Jorge Alberto Villacorta, issued a public statement say- ing that
I resigned because I believed that it was useless to continue in a government not only incapable of puning an end to the violence, but a government which itself is generating the political violence through repression. . . . Recently, in one of the large estates taken over by the agrarian reform, uniformed members of the security
?
52 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
forces accompanied by a masked person pointed out the directors ('jf the self-management group and then these individuals were shot in front of their co-workers. 29
It can be seen from the statement that the reference in the Reuter's dispatch to protest "against the junta's inability to halt violence by leftist and rightist forces" is a gross misrepresentation, and it is evident that an honest transmission of Villacorta's statement would have con- tradicted the propaganda line.
At Archbishop Romero's funeral, on March 30, I980, where ma. ny thousands gathered to pay tribute, bomb explosions and gunfire killed some forty people and injured hundreds more. The version of the event provided by U. S. Ambassador Robert White and the Salvadoran gov- ernment was that "armed terrorists of the ultra left sowed panic among the masses and did all they could to provoke the security forces into returning fire. But the discipline of the armed forces held. "3o Joseph Treaster's account in the New York Times quotes Duarte that the violence was from the left. It also quotes a junta statement that the army was strictly confined to its barracks, and Treaster says, "T. here was no sign of uniformed government forces in the plaza before or during the shooting. " No other version of the facts is mentioned. However, a mimeographed statement on March 30, signed by twenty~two church leaders present at the funeral, claimed that the panic had been started by a bomb thrown from the national palace, followed by machine-gun and other shots coming from its second floorY This account was sup- pressed by Treaster and was never mentioned in the New York Times.
In a follow-up article of April 7, 1980, Treaster repeats that on March 30 the junta ordered all military forces into their barracks, and that they obeyed "even though they knew leftists with weapons were pouring into the central plaza. " Treaster asserts this government claim as fact, and he continues to suppress sources and evidence that contradict this government allegation. He also fails to explain why the leftists would indiscriminately shoot their own people paying homage to the arch- bishop. 32
The title of Treaster's article of April 7, I980, is "Slaying in Salvador Backfires on Rebels. " The article reads as follows:
The murder of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero two weeks ago and the killing of30 at his funeral may have benefited, rather than hurt, the ruling civilian-military junta, in the view of many diplo- mats, businessmen and Government officials.
The extreme right is being blamed for the killing of the Arch-
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 53
bishop and the extreme left is being blamed for the shooting and bombing that turned the crowded central plaza into chaos as Archbishop Romero was being eulogized.
"It's not so much that the junta gained," said Robert E. White, the United States Ambassador to EI Salvador, "but that its oppo- nents on the extreme right and left have lost prestige. The net result is a boost in prestige for the junta. "
We may note how the title of the article transforms the murder of the leader of the dissident forces (and then of his followers at the funeral) from a moral issue deserving outrage into a question of political advan- tage, and turns that against the rebels. It would be hard to imagine the New York Times publishing an article on Popieluszko headed "Slaying in Poland Backfires on Solidarity Movement," featuring perhaps the playing up by the official press of demonstrator aggressiveness or vio- lence. Note also how the question of identifying the killer of Romero, and the government's obligation to seek justice, has been pushed into the background. Finally, there is the statement that "the extreme left is being blamed" for the deaths in the plaza. Use of the passive voice allows Treaster to avoid specification of just who is blaming the ex- treme left. He mentions as his sources for the article as a whole "many diplomats, businessmen and Government officials"-he doesn't even pretend to have talked to ordinary Salvadorans or church representa- tives-but his only citation near the statement that "the extreme left is being blamed" is the then-U. S. ambassador, Robert White. By relying only on government handouts and carefully avoiding readily available conflicting evidence and alternative views, the Times once again found the means of applying the usual formula of a deadly right offsetting a
deadly left, with the junta favored by the U. S. government once more placed in the middle-with enhanced prestige!
2. 3. 3. Misrepresentation of Romero's views
As we noted earlier, Romero was unequivocal in laying the blame for the violence in El Salvador on the army and security forces, and he viewed the left and popular groupings as victims provoked into self- defense by violence and injustice. The peoples' organizations, he told Carter, are "fighting to defend their most fundamental human rights" against a military establishment that "knows only how to repress the
54 MANUFACTlJklNG CONSENT
people and defend the interests of the Salvadorean oligarchy. " And in his diilry, Romero completely repudiated the idea that the army was reacting to somebody else's violence-the security forces are instru- ments "of a general program of annihilation of those on the left, who by themselves would not commit violence or further it were it not for social injustice that they want to do away with. "33 Thus Joseph Treaster's statement on the front page of the New York Times that Romero "had criticized both the extreme right and the extreme left for widespread killing and torture in El Salvador" (Mar. 31, 1980) is straightforward lying: Romero never accused the left of torture or widespread killing, he never equated the right and the left, and he was quite clear that the government (an agent of the right) was the primary killer. In this respect, Romero's perception, essentially the same as that
privately conveyed to the press by the U. S. government, was grossly falsified in public by both the government and press. 34
Interestingly, a year later, in an article marking the anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Romero, Edward Schumacher, of the Times, noted that under Romero's successor, Archbishop Rivera y Damas, "the church has moved to a more centrist position in the civil war between the Government and the guerrillas. "35 Of course, if the church now takes a centrist position, as opposed to its position under Romero, this constitutes an admission that the theme played by Treaster and the Times a year previously of an even-handed Romero was a lie (which it was). Is it possible that the Times always finds the church in the middle and is lying one year later as well? The question must remain open, as his successor has been much more circumspect than Romero. The willingness ofthe right wing and the army to murder people like Romero might have affected Archbishop Rivera y Damas's ability to speak his mind freely and forced public caution. The point
does not arise for Schumacher and the Times. 36
2. 3. 4. The loss of interest in responsibility at the top
With Popieluszko, the media tried hard to establish that there was knowledge of and responsibility for the crime at higher levels of the Polish government. Soviet interest and possible involvement were also regularly invoked. With Romero, in contrast, no such questions were raised or pressed.
The media did note that Romero opposed aid to the Salvadoran
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 55
junta (which Carter provided anyway), but they failed to convey the depth of his hostility to U. S. policy and the importance of his opposi- tional role (although it was far more threatening to U. S. policy than Popieluszko was to the Soviet Union). The press never mentioned the special emissary sent by Carter to the pope in an attempt to bring Romero into line, or the fact that the head ofthe Jesuit order in Central America was called to Rome, probably in response to this U. S. pres- sure. 3' The media also suppressed Romero's appeal to the military to refuse to kill, a fact that would have made much clearer how strongly opposed he was to the official policies, and how convenient his murder was to the rulers of ? 1 Salvador.
Although Romero was far and away the most important establish- ment figure aligned with the popular movements, the media pretended at first that the affiliation of his killers was a complete mystery. The Washington Post supposed an equal likelihood of a left- or right-wing source, and the Miami Herald noted on March 27 that "Both stood to
benefit from any chaos his death might have created. " (No American paper suggested that Popieluszko might have been murdered by Soli- darity sympathizers to discredit the Polish government. ) This foolish- ness was the minority position-the bulk of the press suggested that the killer was probably a rightist, but of obscure connection. The reliable Duarte suggested that the killing was too professional to be indige- nous-it must have been a contract job from the outside. This view was dutifully repeated by the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and CBS News. 3 8
If, as seemed very likely, the killer was a Salvadoran rightist, or someone in their employ, what was his connection, i f any, with the army and security forces? We saw earlier that the linkages between the death squads and the army were close: there was at least some degree of common command, shared operations, and mutual protection. Could the killer have been a member of the armed forces? Given the links of the army to the paramilitary forces, wasn't it likely that they knew who killed Romero? The U. S. mass media did not raise, let alone press, these questions. When D'Aubuisson's link to the murder became public knowledge, the media failed to make this a big issue, and his close relations to the official forces were not examined and discussed. This is evidence of a propaganda system at work.
Any possible U. S. connection to the crime was, of course, "far out," and could not be raised in the U. S. media. That we don't do this sort of thing is an ideological premise of the patriotic press, no matter what the facts of recent history tell US. 39 But still, the question might have been raised whether the environment that the United States was help-
?
56 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
?
ing to create in El Salvador. training and aiding a murderous army whose violence had driven Romero to passionate opposition, made the United States indirectly guilty of the murder? The press never dis- cussed this point either. The Times quotes Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on the murder: "Two weeks ago I wrote the Archbishop and said: 'We share a repugnance for the violence provoked by both extremes that is taking the lives of innocent people. We deplore the efforts of those seeking to silence the voices of reason and moderation with explosives. intimidation and murder.
' " 4 { ) The paper points out that the letter from Vance was in reply to Romero's appeal to cease supplying arms. The article failed to include the gist of Romero's argument, and it did not quote that part ofVance's letter that rejected the archbishop's appeal. The report also did not take note of Vance's serious misre- presentation of the archbishop's position when he says that "We share a repugnance [for] . . . both extremes"; Romero attributed the killings to the army and the right. not "both extremes. " We may note also that while Romero was victimized by the very forces that Vance supported. and Romero's forecasts seem to be vindicated by his own murder, there is no hint in the account of any irony or criticism of Vance and his associates. Here the press cannot plead lack of knowledge. As later conceded, the media knew very well that the security forces were the source of the violence.
2. 3. 5. Murder unavenged-or
trium phant f
The assassins ofArchbishop Romero were never "officially" discovered or prosecuted, and he joined the ranks of the tens of thousands of other Salvadorans murdered without justice being done. But in contrast with Popieluszko, the U. S. mass media seemed quite uninterested in who committed the act or in demanding just retribution.
Subsequently, a great deal of evidence became available showing that Roberto D'Aubuisson was at the center of a conspiracy to murder Romero. On the basis of numerous interviews with Arena party activists and U. S. officials, and examination of State Department cables, investi- gative reporters Craig Pyes and Laurie Becklund claimed in 1983 that D'Aubuisson had planned the assassination with a group of active-duty military officers, who drew straws for the honor of carrying out the murder. 4'l Former ambassador Robert White, who had access to State Department cables and other inside information during his tenure in
WORTHY AND U,,"WORTHY VICTIMS 57
office, also stated before a congressional committee in February 1984 that "beyond any reasonable doubt" D'Aubuisson had "planned and ordered the assassination" of Archbishop Romero, and White gave details on the planning meeting and the subsequent execution of the trigger man to keep him quiet. 42 Further evidence of D'Aubuisson's involvement in the murder came to light with the confession of Roberto Santivanez, a former high official in Salvadoran intelligence. According to Santivanez, the murder of Romero was planned and carried out by D'Aubuisson with the aid of former national guardsmen of Somoza, but "under the protection of General Garcia and Colonel Carranza. "43 Pyes's and Becklund's informants also indicated that D'Aubuisson was a subordinate and political ally of Carranza, who was the number two man in the Salvadoran military until his ouster under U. S. pressure in December 1980. Carranza then moved over to head the Treasury Police. D'Aubuisson also worked with the National Guard's G-2 central intelli- gence office while the guard was headed by General Eugenio Vides Casanova. Pyes and Becklund write that "During the time Vides com- manded the Guard, active-duty military officers working with the G-2 were linked in State Department cables to the March 1980 assassination ofArchbishop Oscar Amulfo Romero. . . . "44 Note that Vides Casanova became minister of defense, the post he still holds, under the Duarte
government.
In short, there was substantial evidence concerning the identity of
Romero's murderers, and there were significant links of the murders to the highest officials of the Salvadoran military establishment. In fact, a judicial investigation in EI Salvador headed by Judge Atilio Ramirez quickly pointed a finger at D'Aubuisson and General Medrano, a U. S. protege in ? 1 Salvador. But Ramirez soon fled the country after several threats and an attempt on his life, and active pursuit of the case in El Salvador ended. In exile, Judge Ramirez claimed that the criminal- investigation group of the police didn't arrive at the scene of the crime till four days after it was committed, and that neither the police nor the attorney general provided his court with any evidence. He concluded that there was "undoubtedly" a "kind of conspiracy to cover up the murder" from the very beginning. 45
Needless to say, Judge Ramirez's testimony was not featured in the U. S. media, nor was the accumulating evidence of D'Aubuisson's in- volvement given significant play. It was back-page material at best, treated matter-of-factly and never put in a framework of indignation and outrage by the use of emotive language or by asking allies of Romero to comment on the evidence, and it never elicited strident demands for justice. To this day one will find no mention of the fact
'.
z
58 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
that the effective rulers of this "fledgling democracy" are military of- ficers who were closely assoeiated with D'Aubuisson and his cabal and may well have been implicated in the assassination.
After D'Aubuisson was caught in a raid on May 8, 1980, with docu- ments showing that he was planning a coup and with evidence of his involvement in the murder of Romero, he was arrested and faced with the threat of trial and imprisonment. An assembly of the entire officer corps of the Salvadoran army-seven hundred strong-was quickly convened, and demanded his release. He was turned loose shortly thereafter, with the concurrence of the minister of defense. 46 The documents found in his possession dropped out of sight. The security forces also raided the legal-aid office of the archbishopric, removing all of their files bearing on the assassination. At the previously mentioned meeting of the Salvadoran officer corps, Colonel Adolfo Majano, the last of the reformers in the "reformist" junta of 1979, was denounced, and he quickly exited from the junta, to be replaced by yet another hard-liner. The army had expressed its solidarity with the hard-line- death-squad right, and the junta was adjusted to meet this new threat to the image of a reformist junta, with Duarte advanced to president,
serving as a figurehead for the benefit of Congress and the media, to ensure that arms would flow to the killers.
The U. S. mass media gave little notice to this important display and consolidation of the power of the extreme right, and the semi-official vindication of the murderers of Archbishop Romero. This was telling evidence ahout the nature of power in El Salvador and the fictional quality of the claim that the government was centrist or reformist. Unbiased media would have featured and explained the meaning of this information. But these facts contradicted the Carter-Reagan mythol- ogy, so the media predictably remained silent about these events and continued to perpetuate the myth. On November 29, 1980, following the massacre of the leaders of the opposition in San Salvador, the Times suggested that there is "a severe challenge to the credibility" ofthe gov- ernment, but there is no hint that the revolt of May 1980 had changed their view of April 28 that this was a "weak centrist government. "
The media also adjusted nicely, then and later, to the rehabilitation of the probable murderer of Romero and his reintegration into the official power structure. As D'Aubuisson sought high office and eventu- ally became president of the Salvadoran legislature, the U. S. mass media did not focus on his record as the probable organizer of the murder of Archbishop Romero and as the acknowledged leader of the death squads and a mass murderer. Even the open anti-Semitism of this Fascist was kept under the rug. 47 We would submit that if an anti-
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 59
Semite and professional assassin. who was suspected of having orga- nized the murder of Popieluszko in Poland, ran for office and became head of the Polish legislature, there might have been a raised eyebrow or two in the U. S. media.
Throughout this period, media coverage adopted a central myth contrived by the government. and confined its reporting and interpreta- tion to its basic premises: the "moderate government" that we support is plagued by the terrorism of the extremists of the left and right, and is unable to bring it under control. The U. S. government and the media understood very well that the violence was overwhelmingly the respon- sibility of both the U. S. -backed security forces. which were, and re- main, the real power in the country. and the paramilitary network they created to terrorize the population. But this truth was inexpressible. To this day the media maintain the central myth of earlier years. long after having conceded quietly that it was a complete fabrication. Reporting on the prospects for peace in El Salvador, Lindsey Gruson comments that "Today, death squads of the right and left no longer terrorize the population into submission and silence," thanks to the success of Presi- dent Duarte and his U. S. supporters in moving the country toward democracy-exactly as a propaganda model would predict. 48
2. 4. COVERAGE OF THE SALVADORAN NATIONAL GUARDS' MURDER OF THE FOUR U. S. CHURCHWOMEN AND ITS FOLLOW-UP
On December 2, 1980, four U. S. churchwomen working in ? 1 Salva- dor-Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan. Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel- were seized, raped, and murdered by members of the Salvadoran National Guard. This crime was extremely inconvenient to the Carter administration, which was supporting the Salvadoran junta as an al- leged "reformist" government and trying to convince the public and Congress that that government was worthy of aid. While temporarily suspending military aid to El Salvador, the Carter administration sought a quick and low-keyed resolution of the case. It resumed aid at the drop of an announced rebel offensive, and-eontrary to its pro- mises-before there was any investigatory response by the Salvadoran
?
60 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
government. A commission headed by William P. Rogers was quickly sent to El Salvador to inquire into the facts and offer U. S. aid in an investigation. The commission reported that it had "no evidence sug- gesting that any senior Salvadoran authorities were implicated in the murders themselves," but there is no indication that it ascertained this by any route beyond asking the authorities whether they were involved. The commission acknowledged that justice was not thriving in El Sal- vador,49 but it proposed no independent investigation, merely urging
~the Salvadoran junta to pursue the case vigorously. It noted that the junta promised that the truth "would be pursued wherever it led any- where in the country at any level. "so Rogers was later to concede that perhaps he was a bit optimistic in expecting the Salvadoran junta to pursue the case seriously. 51
With the arrival of the Reagan administration, the already badly compromised concern to find the culprits diminished further, and the dominance of the interest in protecting the client regime in El Salvador became still more overwhelming. It was quickly clear that the whole business could be forgotten-along with the thousands of Salvadorans already killed-except for the demands of public relations. The willing- ness to support any feasible cover-up was also quite evident. Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that the evidence "led one to believe" that the four women were killed trying to run a roadblock-a shameless lie that was soon acknowl- edged as such by the State Department. 52 The Reagan ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, went Haig one better, suggesting that the four women were political activists for the "Frente"-as with Haig's statement, an outright lie-hinting quite broadly that they were fair game. 53
Although Kirkpatrick also asserted that the Salvadoran government "unequivocally" was "not responsible" for the murders, evidence was soon available that showed that members of the National Guard had killed the four women. The administration then moved to the position that it was clear that the local guardsmen had "acted alone. " This was asserted and reiterated despite the absence of any supportive investiga- tion, and important leads suggesting the contrary were ignored. A propaganda model would expect that this preferred government expla- nation would be honored by the mass media, and that in contrast with the Popieluszko case, where useful points could be scored by searching for villainy at the top, the mass media would now be less eager to find that which their government was anxious to avoid.
The difference between the murder of the four women and the
,
WORTHY A:-;V UNWORTHY VICTIMS 61
thousands of others uninvestigated and unresolved in El Salvador was that the families of these victims were Americans and pressed the case. eventually succeeding in getting Congress to focus on these particular murders as a test case and political symbol. This forced these killings ooto the political agenda. A trial and convictions were ultimately re- quired as a condition for certification and aid to the military govern- ment of E1 Salvador. Both the Reagan administration and the Salvadoran military were thus obligated to "see justice done"-in this one instance. It took three-and-a-half years for justice to triumph in this one case. with a lid still kept on top-level involvement. It was a challenge to the mass media to present these murders, and the delayed and aborted outcome, in such a way as to keep indignation low and to downplay the quality of a system that murdered the women and had to be forced to find a set of low-level personnel guilty of the crime (which it took them years to do). The media met this challenge with flying colors.
2. 4. 1. Details of the savagery
The finding of Popieluszko's body was front-page news for the New York Times-in fact, the initialfailure to find his body made the front page-and in all the media publications analyzed here, the details of his seizure, the disposition of his body, and the nature of his wounds were recounted extensively and with barely concealed relish (see table 2-2)_ These details were also repeated at every opportunity (and, most notably, at the trial). The finding of the bodies of the four women, by contrast, was a back-page item in the Times, and in all four of the media institutions in our sample the accounts of the violence done to the four murdered women were very succinct, omitted many details, and were
not repeated after the initial disclosures. No attempt was made to
?
reconstruct the scene with its agony and brutal violence, so that the drama conveyed in the accounts of Popieluszko's murder was entirely missing. The murder of the four churchwomen was made remote and impersonal.
The Time account, for example, after giving the names of the vic- tims, says, "Two of the women had been raped before being shot in the back of the head. " The New York Times account, shown in table 2-2, is also quite succinct. The Rogers Commission report pointed out that one of the victims had been shot through the back of the head with a weapon "that left exit wounds that destroyed her face. " The Rogers
62 MANUFACTURING CONSENT
report also noted that those present at the disinterment found "exten- sive" wounds and that "the bodies were also bruised. " Raymond Bon- ner's account, in Weakness and Deceit, noted that
In the crude grave, stacked on top of each other were the bodies of four women. The first hauled out of the hole was Jean Donovan, twenty-seven years old, a lay missionary from Cleveland. Her face had been blown away by a high calibre bullet that had been fired into the back of her head. Her pants were unzipped; her under-
4 wear twisted around her ankles. When area peasants found her, she was nude from the waist down. They had tried to replace the garments before burial. Then came Dorothy Kazel, a forty-year- old Ursuline nun also from Cleveland. At the bottom of the pit were Maryknoll nuns Ita Ford, forty, and Maura Clarke, forty- nine, both from New York. All the women had been executed at close range. The peasants who found the women said that one had her underpants stuffed in her mouth; another's had been tied over her eyes. All had been raped.
We may note the failure of Time and the New York Times to mention the bruises (which both of these publications mentioned and repeated, as regards Popieluszko); the failure to mention the destruction ofJean Donovan's face; the suppression of the degrading and degraded use of the nuns' underwear;~4 the failure to give the account of the peasants who found the bodies. These and other details given by Bonner and suppressed by Time and the New York Times (and also Newsweek and CBS News) add emotional force and poignancy to the scene. Such details are included for a Popieluszko, but not for four American women murdered by a U. S. client state. The Rogers report also pointed out that the forensic surgeons sent to the scene of the crime by the junta, at the urging of Ambassador Roben White, refused to perform an autopsy on the ground that no surgical masks were available. This touch, which would have cast the junta and its agents in a bad light, was also omitted from U. S. media accounts.
In the Popieluszko case, both the finding of the body and the trial were occasions for an aggressive portrayal of the details of the act of murder and the condition of the body. The mass-media reticence on such matters at the time of the finding of the bodies of the four women was exceeded by their restraint at the trial. Lydia Chavez, of the New York Times, who attended the trial, notes that there were eight hours of testimony and seven hours of argument that focused on the women's work in El Salvador "and on the details of their kidnappings and
WORTHY AND UNWORTHY VICTIMS 63
deaths," but heT article gave no details whatsoever on the medical evidence.
2. 4. 2. Lack of indignation and insistent demands for justice
In the Popieluszko case, the press conveyed the impression of intoler- able outrage that demanded immediate rectification. In the case of the murder of the four American women, while the media asserted and quoted government officials that this was a brutal and terrible act, it was not declared intolerable, and the media did not insist on (or quote people who demanded) justice. The media relied heavily. on "senior officials" of the U. S. and Salvadoran governments, who expressed a more resigned view of the situation and were prepared to allow the Salvadoran system of justice to work things out. Correspondingly, the media also moved into a philosophical vein-the women, as Time points out, were "victims of the mindless, increasing violence" of El Salvador (Dec. 15, 1980). With Popieluszko, it was live government officials who committed the crime, not blind forces (that are hard to bring to book).
Even the funeral and memorial services for the women in the United States were not allowed to serve as an occasion for outrage and a demand for justice. For the most part, they were ignored and sup- pressed. The New York Times (Dec. 8, 1981) gave a tiny, back-page, UPI account of the memorial service for Sister Dorothy Kazel, featuring the apolitical statement by Bishop Anthony M. Pilla that "The life of a missionary has never been easy or glamorous. "
We must consider, too, that as Ambassador Kirkpatrick indicated, the victims may have been asking for it. As Newsweek observed (Dec. 15,1980), "The violence in El Salvador is likely to focus with increasing ferocity on the Roman Catholic Church. Many priests and nuns advo- cate reform, and some of them are militant leftists. Such sentiments mean trouble, even for more moderate members of the clergy. '~ (Note here also the impersonality of "the violence"-nowhere in the article is there a suggestion that the U. S. -backed government initiated, and was doing the bulk of, the murdering. ) In the case of Popieluszko, by contrast, the media never once suggested that he was a regrettable victim of escalating conflict between the state and rebellious forces (or between East and West). That situation was much simpler than the one in El Salvador: Popieluszko was murdered by officials of the state, and
64 MA:-JUFACTURING CONSENT
this was intolerable. The complexities and resort to philosophical in- anities about unallocable "violence" are reserved for deaths in the provinces.
2. 4. 3. The lack of zeal in the search for villainy at the top
As we saw earlier, in the Popieluszko case the mass media eagerly, . . aggressively, and on a daily basis sought and pointed to evidence of top-level involvement in the killing. In the case of the killings of the four women, we can observe a completely different approach. Here the media found it extremely difficult to locate Salvadoran government involvement in the murders, even with evidence staring them in the face. Their investigatory zeal was modest, and they were happy to follow the leads of ("Trust me") Duarte and U. S. officials as the case
unfolded. They played dumb.