According to Freedom House, television commentary and Newsweek are the
worst offenders in this "extreme case" of journalistic incompetence, so let us begin by reviewing some of their sins.
worst offenders in this "extreme case" of journalistic incompetence, so let us begin by reviewing some of their sins.
Manufacturing Consent - Chomsky
The main theme of this observer team is that the voters are eager to vote as good patriots, loyal to the militarized terrorist
state that Ronald Reagan and the State Department find acceptable. Max Singer says that "I did sense that Guatemalans feel that voting is important to them. " (This is correct, but Singer was not contemplating the possibility that its importance to them might lie in fear and a desire to avoid retribution by the omnipresent army. ) Regula said that the people were patiently waiting "for an opportunity to share in the process of choosing the constituent assembly. " According to Simcox, "They know that this was the patriotic thing to do, that this was important for their country. " Tom Kahn found that the people he talked to in voting lines "expressed a great sense of national pride. "
4. Absence of any sign of coercion. Father Kenneth Baker stated that "there seemed to be a general atmosphere of no intimidation. " Baker didn't say how he sensed this atmosphere, ? and whether it was assuredly reliable in a foreign country observed for a day under military guard. Baker referred to the bishops having urged people to vote, but he failed to note their extended observations suggesting that a meaningful election couldn't be held in an environment of disappearances, terror, and catastrophic socioeconomic condi- tions. Jack Brier saw "absolutely no violence. I saw no evidence of direct military involvement. " A problem that Brier doesn't discuss is that if pacifica- tion is thorough, no violence or substantial military presence will be necessary to confirm military choices. There is absolutely no violence or evidence of direct military involvement in elections in the Soviet Union. Brier plays dumb, pretending that violence on election day is really relevant, and ignoring the long-term violence that strips away institutional protections and produces a terrorized population. 2 Congressman Mickey Edwards did find a military pres- ence in Guatemala, but it was not "oppressive": "We did not find anything to indicate that the people in those areas were under any pressure or intimida- tion. " How hard Edwards looked must remain in doubt. 3
5. Amazing turnout. Jack Brier referred to the "surprisingly large turnout," and Ed Simcox found the 60-70 percent turnout "really an incredibly positive statistic. " Even the U. S. embassy noted that voting in Guatemala is compul- sory (although it tried to discount this by citing a Guatemalan official who said that the law was only rarely enforced). The official observers, however, never mentioned this small matter of a legal requirement, or the need to get an ID card stamped, let alone the army warnings and the background of mass killings and disappearances.
6. Human rights impro'Ding. Congressman Mickey Edwards found that "by all objective observations, the human-rights record in this country has improved tremendously over the last two or three years. " He does not say what objective observations he is referring to. Max Singer also found that "the human-rights record is improving in Guatemala, as near as I can tell," partly because the guerrilla movement has weakened, and that movement has been a serious threat to the human rights of the Guatemalan people. Singer was asked in the press conference how he determined this improvement. His answer was "From the statements of people living in the countryside. "
7. Reasonfor the blank and spoiled 'Dotes. Some 26 percent of the ballots cast in the Guatemalan election, far exceeding the total for any party, were
312 A P P E N D IX I
blank or spoiled. This would seem to compromise the notion that the Guatemalan people had gotten into long lines out of patriotic enthusiasm. Howard Penniman explained, however, that this was a result of illiteracy. Other possibilities are unmentioned. Why the illiteracy rates were so high thirty years after the United States saved Guatemala for freedom is also not discussed.
8. The case for further aid. The observers showed their objectivity, and the labor representatives Kahn and Friedman demonstrated their commitment to liberal principles, by acknowledging that this election wae only a "first step," and that a full-fledged democracy such as that just established in EI Salvador (Regula) was still to come. Some of the observers would sanction additional aid immediately, Mickey Edwards urging that the Guatemalan army would benefit from being "exposed to American values and to American training. "4 The others were more noncommittal, but agreed that the election was fair, meaningful, and deserving of U. S. recognition and support.
In sum, this was a caricature of observation, but a fairly typical performance of U. S. "official observers. " The report of this group was cited by Stephen Kinzer in the New York Times and elsewhere in the U. S. press as a serious source of information on the Guatemalan election. The official report of the Latin American Studies Association on the Nicaraguan election, written by specialists in the region after an intensive eight-day investigation, Kinzer and his mass-media colleagues never mentioned.
Appendix z
TAGLIABUE'S FINALE ON THE BULGARIAN CONNECTION:
A Case Study in Bias
To show in another way the propagandistic quality ofthe mass media's cover- age of the Bulgarian Connection, we will examine in detail the article by John Taglia~ue,"Verdict on Papal Plot, But No Answer," published in the New York Tzmes on March 31, 1986. This piece, which provides a final wrap-up that enters "history" as the mature judgment of the veteran Times newsman as- signed to the Rome trial, is a model illustration of the systematic bias that we
believe characterized mass-media reporting of the Bulgarian Connection with only minor exceptions. A close examination shows how Tagliabue incorp~rates a. ll of the elements. of the Sterling-Henze-Kalb (SHK) model of the connec-
tIOn, selects facts In accordance with the requirements of that model and bypasses conflicting facts and interpretations. I '
The Framing of the Issue: The Case Still "Unresolved"
The court dismissal of the case against the Bulgarians in Rome confronted the Times with a problem of framing. The Times had presented the case as plausi- ble for years, and now had to confront the rejection of the case in a court decision. The solution was to latch on to the peculiar feature of the Italian judicial system whereby a party found not guilty can be declared positively innocent or not guilty for reason of lack of evidence. Thus, as the title of Tagliabue's article suggests, there was a verdict, but "no answer," and Taglia- bue's first paragraph focuses on the "unresolved" nature of the case. It would have been possible to stress the fact that the Bulgarians were found not guilty for lack of evidence, and to emphasize that Western law requires positive proof of guilt. But the Times was not about to acknowledge defeat after five years of finding the Bulgarians guilty.
Tagliabue also downplays the court decision by making it an unsurprising event. "Few people were surprised by the verdict," states Tagliabue. But the failure to find the Bulgarians guilty should have been quite surprising, given the earlier assurances by Sterling and associates that the Bulgarians were clearly behind the plot, and that, as Paul Henze stated, the "evidence" has "steadily accumulated to the point where little real doubt is now possible. "2
An alternative frame would have been as follows: After a three-year investi- gation and lengthy trial, backed by the resources of the Italian state, and despite the powerful interests in Italy and the West with a stake in finding the Bulgarians guilty, the prosecution still failed to persuade an Italian jury of Bulgarian guilt. These vested interests and their propaganda vehicles were given a bone to chew on, however, in the form of a decision to dismiss the charge for "lack of evidence," rather than complete exoneration. This then allowed the propaganda agencies to frame the case in the Tagliabue manner.
Protection of the Italian Judicial Process
Throughout the history ofthe case, the U. S. mass media blacked out evidence of the compromised quality of the Italian institutions involved in pursuing the connection. Investigating Judge Martella was always treated as a model of probity, and conflicting facts were ignored. 3 Operating in this tradition, Taglia- bue wastes space on a gratuitous and irrelevant accolade to Martella (which is also given a subheading for emphasis). His statement that "Few people stood up to assail the magistrate" is absurd, as the trial witnesses were asked to give concrete evidence on the facts of the case; they were not in a position to assail the pretrial investigating magistrate, and any such attempts would have been impermissible in the courtroom. Only the Bulgarian defense was well qualified and able to assail Martella, and they did so, in effective statements on March 4-8, 1986, that were unreported in the T imes and the rest of the mass media. Tagliabue points out that although the trial was supposed merely to verify the
findings of t~e pre~imi~aryinvestigation, in fact the prosecution did a great
deal of new mvestlgatIve work. This suggests that the trial court may have
fo~ndMartella's investigation sadly lacking, but Tagliabue never addresses the pomt.
Agcats Desertion of the Case
An important part of the apologetic fr. amework is the claim that Agca, who had present~d an allegedly coherent verSIOn of a connection up to the trial, sud- denly dId an about face and refused to testify altogether. Tagliabue devotes several paragraphs to this theme, eventually suggesting that Agca's increas- ingly erratic behavior "may have been designed to torpedo the efforts of the court. " He suggests th~t the pr~secuto~couldn:t overcome th~s difficulty, so that the loss of the case IS lodged m Agca s behavior rather than m any inherent deficiencies in the prosecution's case.
In reality, Ag~a's claims emerged very slowly and contradictorily, with dozens of retractions that, taken together, are best explained by coaching outside information, and guesses by Agca as to what Martella and the pres~ would like to hear. There is no reason to believe that Agca ever offered or ~ettled upon a cO,herent, version of a Bulgarian connection. On the contrary, It appears that hiS version changed continually, and that the final result in Martella's report was Martella's own arbitrary synthesis. 4
The claim that Agca became more erratic during the trial is also not based on evidence. Agca's persistently erratic behavior was obscured by the secrecy of his earlier testimony, but it is clear from the Martella report that he was already claiming to be Jesus and displaying other symptoms of irrationality. Furthermore, Tagliabue's statement that Agca refused to cooperate during the trial is false-Agca periodically withdrew from the proceedings when his testimony became too incoherent, but he always returned to the stand, and he answered a vast number of questions. One hypothesis that Tagliabue never ~ntertainsis that if Agca's claims were based on coaching and/or imagination, m an open court he would be vulnerable and quickly pushed to the wall.
Tagliabue also never asks this further question: Even if Agca had clammed up (which was not true), given the extensive Martella investigation and report, why would the court not be able to follow the already established leads to a successful outcome? Why was not a single witness produced to confirm Agca's allegations of numerous meetings and trips with Bulgarians in Rome? Why was the car allegedly rented by the Bulgarians never found? Where is the money supposedly given to Agca? Tagliabue fails to address these questions.
"Partial Confirmation" of Agcats Ta Ie
Tagliabue describes some alleged partial confirmations of Agca's claims. The first is that "Mr. Ozbey said the Bulgarians had indeed wanted to use Mr. Agca
to shoot the Pope, but did not trust him. " But this is not a partial confirmation if the net result was that the Bulgarians failed to hire Agca. Furthermore, another reporter present when Ozbey testified in Rome claims that Ozbey did not tell the court that the Bulgarians "wanted to use" Agca. According to Wolfgang Achtner, of ABC-TV News, in Rome, the only thing Ozbey said was that the Bulgarians "listened with interest, but behaved with indifference" (the translation by the Turkish interpreter in court), or "listened with interest but didn't take it seriously" (Achtner's own translation). In short, it would appear that Tagliabue has doctored the evidence.
The other "partial confirmation" is that "Catli hinted at obscure secret service contacts with West German intelligence, and of payments for unspeci- fied purposes to Turks involved in the investigations. " This vague statement does not even mention the plot against the pope and is partial confirmation of nothing. The most important Catli evidence bearing on this point was his description of the attempt by the West German police to bribe Agca's supposed co-conspirator Oral Celik to come to West -Germany and confirm Agca's claims. This supports the coaching hypothesis: accordingly, Tagliabue blacks it out. The only other testimony by Catli mentioning the secret services in- volved Gray Wolves leader Ali Batman, who told Catli he had heard from the German secret police that at a meeting in Romania, the Warsaw Pact powers had decided to kill the pope. This was apparently a leak of the forged SISMI document of May 19, 1981, which had made this claim. Thus the hearsay recounting of the substance of a forgery is Tagliabue's "partial confirmation" of Agca's claims of a plot.
We should also note that while he cites these alleged "partial confirma- tions," nowhere does Tagliabue list the contentions of Agca that remained unconfirmed.
The Soviet-Bulgarian Motive
Two of Tagliabue's thirty-two paragraphs were devoted to expounding the Soviet motive in allegedly sponsoring Agca's assassination attempt: "to crack religiously inspired resistance to Communist rule in Poland. " Tagliabue here follows a long-standing Times tradition of absolutely refusing to allow a coun- terargument to be voiced on this issue. Even if they covered their tracks well, a Soviet-inspired murder of the pope would have been blamed on the Soviets, solidified Polish hostility, and had enormously damaging effects on Soviet relations with Western Europe. Thus it would have been risky without any offsetting benefits. s
Who gained and who lost from the plot? Were there any possible Western motives that might bear on the case? Tagliabue follows the SHK line in failing to raise these questions. But once Agca was imprisoned in Italy, cold warriors of the West had much to gain and little to lose by manipulating Agca to pin the assassination attempt on the East. Tagliabue mentions that the charges of a Bulgarian Connection surfaced "at the nadir" of U. S. -Soviet relations. While he notes how this added to the credibility of the plot in the West, he never
hints at the possibility that its serviceability to the new Cold War might explain Agca's belated confession.
Agca's Stay in Bulgaria
This has always been critical in the Sterling-Times scenarios, and Tagliabue drags it in. It is given further emphasis with the heading "Spent 2 Months in Bulgaria. " Tagliabue does not mention that Agca stopped in eleven other countries. He fails to note here, and the Times suppressed throughout, Cadi's testimony in Rome that the Gray Wolves liked to go through Bulgaria to reach Western Europe because the heavy Turkish traffic made it easy to hide. Taglia- bue fails to mention that bringing Agca for a long stay in Sofia would have been a violation of the rule of plausible deniability. Even more so would be using Bulgarians to help Agca in Rome. Tagliabue does not discuss the question of
plausible deniability. He also fails to note that if Agca had stayed in Sofia for a while, this would allow a prima facie case to be made by a Western propagan- dist that the East was behind the shooting, and could provide the basic materi- als for working Agca over for the desired confession.
Bulgarian Involvement in Turkey
Tagliabue asserts that the Bulgarians were "purportedly" supporting both the extreme left and right in Turkey "to promote instability" in a conflict "that pitted violent leftist terrorists against their counterparts on the right. " This is a Sterling myth, with Tagliabue hiding behind "purportedly" to allow him to pass off myth as purported evidence. The equating of left and right in the Turkish violence of the 1970S is false: the great majority of violent attacks were launched by the Gray Wolves, under the protection of the police and military. Tagliabue also fails to discuss the fact that the extreme right actually par- ticipated in the government in 1977 and had extensive links to the army and
intelligence services. The claim of Bulgarian support for both the right and left has never been supported by evidence. Tagliabue never mentions that the United States had more than "purported" links with the Turkish army, the secret services, and the Fascist Nationalist Action party, and that the terrorist events of the late 1970S eventually served U. S. interests well.
Key Question: How Agca Knew So Much
The "key question" for Tagliabue is "how Agca knew what he knew and when he knew it. " This is an important issue, but there are others that he might have
E
raised if he had worked outside the SHK format. Why did it take Agca so 10ng
to name Bulgarians? Was he subject to any coercion or offered any posl't? . d k" IVe In . ucements . t~ rna e him talk. Why did he have to make major retractions?
reports, had mentioned Mafia official Giovanni Pandico's statement in Italy outlining a scenario of coaching at which he claimed to be present, but Taglia- bue doesn't even cite this or any other documents or facts that lend support to the coaching hypothesis. He sticks to the ingredients that fit the SHK format-good Martella, Agca the betrayer of the case, the Soviet motive, Agca's visit to Bulgaria, and his knowledge of details. All other materials are designated "sinister" or blacked out to enhance the credibility of the party line.
Agca Helped the Bulgarians
Tagliabue closes his article with a quote from Agca's attorney that the Bulgari- ans "should be thankful" to Agca. This reiterates one of Tagliabue's preferred themes-that Agca deliberately blew the case. This is derived from Sterling's theory that Agca's vacillations were really "signals" to the Bulgarians, alter- nately threatening and rewarding them, but aiming at getting them to help him out of jail. In his earlier articles Tagliabue followed this line, and it is implicit in this summing-up article, although it is a wholly unproven Sterling gimmick. ' What was Agca bargaining for in the trial? Did he expect the Bulgarians to spring him? To admit their own involvement in the case by arranging a deal for his release? And if he was sabotaging the case in order to win favor with the Bulgarians, and since the Bulgarians obviously refused to respond, why did he not finally decide to do them injury? Tagliabue never addresses these points.
In sum, this is a model case of propaganda under the guise of "news" or "news analysis. " In this instance there are a number of lies, but these are less important than the other systematic distortions. Tagliabue and the Times frame the issue in terms ofprobable Bulgarian guilt and the factors that caused the case to be lost-exclusive of those suggesting that there was no case to begin with. They refuse to discuss the failure to obtain confirmation of any factual claims of meetings or deals with Bulgarians. They fail to discuss-or even to mention-problems of plausible deniability. They reiterate the ele- ments of the preferred SHK model without noting the illogic or the incompati- ble facts. They ignore evidence that would support the coaching model. They use invidious language only for the disfavored line of argument and spokesper- sons, manipulating words and bending evidence to the desired end. This article should be perfect for classroom use in courses on propaganda, media bias, and related subjects.
Is It not SUSpiCIOUS that when Agca finally talked, he said J'ust what his int
? er-
. .
and where he could lie and retract evidence without penalty? lon,
rogators wanted h1m to say? How are we to evaluate a judicial process wh
? (A)
the witness gca was In regular contact with outside sources of informaf
ere
"Even the Attorneys for the Bulgarians . . . . "
In assessing how Agca knew so much, Tagliabue allocates only one paragraph to the possibility that Agca was coached. On the other hand, he goes to great pains to stress that Agca knew an awful lot-telephone numbers, personal habits, nicknames. Tagliabue gives as the "simplest explanation" of Agca's knowledge that he had access to books, newspapers, magazines, and other materials from the outside. Interestingly, he fails to mention the numerous prison contacts between Agca and secret service, Mafia, and Vatican agents and emissaries. Agca even wrote a letter to the Vatican complaining of the pressure from its representative in prison (also linked to the Mafia), a fact long blacked out by the Times. These visits would point to the ease with which Agca could have been fed information while in prison. Tagliabue will not admit facts that get into this dangerous territory.
A major question is how Agca knew details about Antonov's apartment when he later admitted to Martella that he had never been there. The Bulgarians and Antonov's defense went to great pains to prove that the information Agca provided about Antonov's apartment had never been divulged in the media before Agca enumerated the details. This implied coaching, as did a mistake in identification where Agca described a characteristic of Antonov's apartment that fitted other apartments in the building, but not Antonov's. Tagliabue says that "Even the attorneys for the Bulgarians acknowledge" that Agca named things not available through reading the papers, as if they were conceding a point, not making a devastating case for coaching. Newspaper work couldn't be more dishonest than this.
"The More Sinister View"
In a single, late paragraph devoted to the possibility of coaching, Tagliabue merely asserts it as a claim, without providing a single supportive point of evidence, although there are many. 6 He uses a double propagandist's put- down-ironically designating the coaching hypothesis as "the more sinister view," and stating that it is "espoused by critics of the case on the political left, including Soviet bloc governments. " Even Tagliabue, in his earlier news
I
I
Appendix 3
BRAESTRUP'S BIG STORY: Some "Freedom House Exclusives"
In "The Tet offensive" (p. 211), we considered the example that has regularly been put forth to substantiate the charge that the media adopt an "adversarial stance" with regard to established power-eoverage ofthe Tet offensive-and the Freedom House study on which this charge is based. As we saw, in this case too the behavior of the media conforms to the expectations of the propa- ganda model, and the major theses advanced in the Freedom House study are refuted even by their own evidence. What remains of their charge is the possibility that media coverage of the Tet offensive was technically incompe- tent, although subordinated to elite requirements. Turning to a closer exami- nation ofthis charge, we find that the shoe is on the other foot: when "Freedom House exclusives" are corrected, the performance of the media appears quite creditable, while the incompetence of the Freedom House study is seen to transcend even the level already demonstrated. That this study has been taken seriously, and permitted to set much of the agenda for subsequent discussion, is a most intriguing fact.
According to Freedom House, television commentary and Newsweek are the
worst offenders in this "extreme case" of journalistic incompetence, so let us begin by reviewing some of their sins. One example to which Braestrup reverts several times is Walter Cronkite's "much publicized half-hour CBS 'special' on the war" on February 27 (Big Seory, I, 158). According to Braestrup Cronkite's "assessment" here is "that U. S. troops would have to garrison th~ countryside" (I, 645). In his foreword, Leonard Sussman properly observes that "We do not expect the reader to accept on faith our various analyses or judgments," and so "the complete texts of many of the reports discussed" are presented, primarily in volume II (I, x). Following his advice, we turn to volume II, where we find the complete text of Cronkite's "special" (180ff. ). There is not even a remote hint of the "assessment" that Braestrup attributes to him.
In this important "special," Braestrup claims, "In effect, Cronkite seemed to say, the ruins, the refugees, the disruption of pacification that came at Tet added up to a defeat for the allies that would force President Johnson to the negotiating table" (I, 158). Cronkite says nothing of the kind. He reports that "there are doubts about the measure of success or setback," noting accurately that "the experts do not agree on the objectives or on the amount of success the communists had in achieving them. " They "failed" in many of their aims, but in a third phase the enemy might "recoup there what he lost in the first two phases. " In what he calls a "speculative, personal, subjective" judgment, Cronkite states that he is "not sure . . . who won and who lost," or to what extent. He concludes that the United States is probably "mired in stalemate," and that historians may conclude that the Tet battle was "a draw"; "To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. " He does not say that Johnson will be "forced" to the negotiating table by a "defeat," but rather that if indeed there is a "stalemate," then "the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. " Note the typical reiteration of government propaganda concerning American
aims, unsullied by the factual record-enormous in scale, by this time-of U. S. government efforts to undermine democracy and to destroy all popular forces-the NLF, the Buddhist "third force," etc. -in South Vietnam, on the assumption, openly admitted, that the forces placed in power by U. S. violence could not survive political competition. Recall also that in these comments that Freedom House derides, Cronkite reaches essentially the same conclusion as did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Wheeler, in his summary to the president on the same day as Cronkite's broadcast, and the president's advisers a month later.
We may note also that two weeks earlier, Cronkite had "assessed" the impact of the Communist offensive, on the basis of U. S. and Vietnamese sources, reporting that "first, and simplest, the Vietcong suffered a military defeat" (I, 158). Similarly, on an NBC-TV special of March 10 that Braestrup repeatedly condemns, Howard Tuckner stated that "Militarily the allies won" (I, 159), as did others repeatedly.
Cronkite's "special" is exhibit A in the Freedom House indictment. The example is typical of the relation between their conclusions and the evidence they cite.
Braestrup refers to a television comment by Robert Schakne on February 28 for which he gives the following paraphrase: "In short, the United States would now have to take over the whole war, including the permanently dam- aged pacification program, because of Saigon's failures" (I, 562-63). Braestrup claims further that Schackne attributed "this argument" to Robert Komer. This he calls "a CBS exclusive," his standard term of derision. In fact, "this argument" is yet another "Freedom House exclusive. " What Schackne said, according to Braestrup, is that it was "likely" that Komer was in Washington with General Wheeler to ask for more troops "to help get the Vietnam pacifi- cation program back on the road. " The preceding day, Wheeler had requested that the troop level be raised from 525,000 to 731,756, one primary concern being that "There is no doubt that the RD Program [pacification] has suffered a severe set back," that "To a large extent the VC now control the country- side," and that "US forces will be required in a number of places to assist and encourage the Vietnamese Army to leave the cities and towns and reenter the country. "l While Braestrup's version of Schackne's "argument" has little re- semblance to the actual words he attributes to Schackne, these words were, if anything, understated.
Braestrup then goes on to claim that Cronkite "used the same argument almost verbatim, but with an even stronger conclusion" in a February 28 radio broadcast. There is no hint in the actual broadcast of Braestrup's "argument. " The closest Cronkite came to this "argument" is his statement that ''presuma- bly, A mbassador Komer told a sad tale to President Johnson" (Braestrup's empha- sis). Cronkite then repeated accurately the basic facts presented by Komer in a briefing four days earlier. He concluded that "it seems likely that today Ambassador Komer asked President Johnson for more American troops so that we can permanently occupy the hamlets and fulfill the promise of security [sic] to their residents, a promise the Vietnamese alone apparently cannot honor," the NLF not being Vietnamese, as usual. Apart from the tacit assumption of the propaganda system that the villagers yearn for the fulfillment of this "promise of security" from the NLF, Cronkite's speculation that U. S. troops would have to fulfill a promise that ARVN alone apparently could not honor hardly seems unreasonable, three days after General Westmoreland had stated that "additional U. S. forces would probably be required" (11,159), and that
with them "we could more effectively deny the enemy his objectives"; four days after Komer had described the Tet offensive as a "considerable setback" to pacification; a day after Cronkite had presented a television interview with Captain Donald Jones, deputy pacification adviser for the district regarded as "the bowl of pacification," who said that "for most of the District, pacification does not exist," and travel there is impossible (CBS-TV "special" of February 27, cited above); and one day after General Wheeler had asked for a huge troop increase justified in part by the need to overcome the fact that "To a large extent the VC now control the countryside. "
Television and radio are not alone in being subjected to "Freedom House exclusives. " Here are a few examples.
Exuding contempt and derision, the study informs us that "no one" except for George McArthur (AP) and Don Oberdorfer (Knight) "reported . . . on what happened to Hue's civilians under Vietcong rule" (I, 299). Again demon-
strating his considerable gift for self-refutation, Braestrup cites reports on Vietcong executions, kidnappings, burial of executed civilians in mass graves, etc. , in Hue under Viet Cong rule by Newsweek, UPI, Washington Post, William Ryan, Reuters, New York Times, Time, London Times, and the NBC "Today" show (I, 277, 281-84, 472). On page 283, Braestrup writes that "The television networks, as far as our records show, made no mention of the executions at all"; on page 472, he refutes this claim, noting that on February 28, in an "aftermath film report from Hue . . . at battle's end," the NBC "Today" show "hinted at the Hue massacre with this statement: 'Hundreds of government workers were killed and thrown into temporary graves. ''' A rather broad "hint," it would seem. The example is typical of the Freedom House style of handling evidence.
In this connection, we should observe that the numerous stories on the Hue massacre cited by Braestrup in self-refutation referred to the official allega- tions that 300 to 400 government officials were killed in Hue, a considerable massacre but "only one-tenth of the civilian toll in the fighting," so that "it did not seem like a major story," Gareth Porter comments; he adds that "What made the 'Hue massacre' a major story was the publicizing by U. S. embassy propagandist Douglas Pike, who wrote a pamphlet on the subject in late 1969 at the request of the American ambassador to Saigon, Ellsworth Bunker. " Pike's account was given wide coverage when it appeared and has become the basis for the standard versions since, despite the dubious source: "given the fact that Pike was relying on the Saigon political warfare department for most of his data, which was otherwise unverified, one might have asked for more skepticism and reserve from the press," Porter observes-rather plausibly, it would seem. Porter adds that the documents made available by the U. S. mission in 1971 "contradicted Pike on every major point. " According to former CIA analyst Frank Snepp, "The whole idea of a bloodbath was conjured out of thin air," and the stories were planted in the press by American officials "to generate sympathy for the South Vietnamese abroad"-in short, the "careful psychological warfare program pinning the blame on the communists" urged by "seasoned observers," as John Lengel of AP reported from Hue. 2
Presenting no evidence or argument, Braestrup accepts Pike's analysis and the U. S. government position as correct. In a footnote, he remarks that "Pike's account was challenged by D. Gareth Porter, a Cornell University graduate student, admirer of the National Liberation Front, and, briefly, a Saigon resident," but dismisses this as part of "a minor point of political contention" (I, 285-86). He describes Pike, in contrast, as "the independent-minded USIA specialist on the Vietcong" (I, 196),3 and makes no reference to the detailed analysis of Pike's allegations that had been presented by Porter, one of the few American scholars concerned with Vietnam. Similarly, Leonard Sussman takes it as obvious, without argument, that the government position must be correct, and that "the war's largest systematic execution of civilians" is the responsi- bility of the Viet Cong-thus excluding the systematic slaughter of thousands of civilians in Hue by U. S. firepower, possibly including many of those at- tributed to the Viet Cong massacre. 4 Also unmentioned here is the curious timing of the exposures that have since become the standard version of the Hue massacre, a few days after the belated exposure of the My Lai massacre in late November 1969, when
Army officers in Saigon made available "newly found" captured Viet Cong documents showing that Communist troops killed nearly 2,900 Vietnamese during the Hue offensive in February, 1968. Officers said the documents went unnoticed in U. S. military files for nineteen months until a correspondent's questions about Hue brought them to light. "I know it sounds incredible, but that's the truth," one official said. 5
We will not attempt to explore in this review what is not so much as attempted in the Freedom House study, but merely note, once again, that we have here not a work of scholarship but rather a government propaganda tract.
Max Frankel commented in the New York Times (Feb. II, 1968) that pres- sures at home and in Vietnam "are thought to have raised once again the temptation of further military escalation" (I, 584, italicized by Braestrup for emphasis as an example of raising "straw men"). Frankel was quite accurate in this measured statement. As Braestrup points out, "Wheeler and Westmore- land agreed that it was also a good time to urge a bolder Vietnam strategy, with more troops to gain quicker results: i. e. , forays into Laos, Cambodia, and possibly that part of North Vietnam just above the DMZ. " Why then the "straw man" charge? Because, Braestrup objects, escalation "was hardly a tempting prospect for Johnson" (his emphasis), hardly Frankel's point. Brae- strup claims further that Frankel, in this article, suggested "that escalation- notably a reserve call-up--was probable" (I, 586). Frankel's article does not appear in the accompanying volume of documents; turning to it, we discover that Braestrup's claim is another Freedom House exclusive, suggested no- where in Frankel's article, which is noteworthy only for its standard reiteration of government propaganda about the goal of bringing "security" to "the people of South Vietnam"-by B-52 bombing of villages, the exploits of Task Force Barker at and around My Lai at just that time as part of the general ravaging of Quang Ngai Province, etc.
After television, Newsweek is the worst offender. Let us therefore inquire further into its misdeeds. In what Braestrup describes as "Newsweek's major statement on the Thieu-Ky regime," a March 18 feature entitled "Vietnam: A Reappraisal," the journal commented accurately in an editorial entitled "The Political Morass" that "land reform, a vital element in any effort to win the loyalty of the peasantry, has not been tackled seriously" (I, 534-36), a truism familiar to everyone from the American high command to officials in Washing- ton. Braestrup comments: "It is difficult, once again, to fathom Newsweek's logic. Surely, neither Newsweek nor the Vietnamese peasant expected the regime to tackle land reform seriously in the aftermath of Tet. " It is perfectly obvious that in this "reappraisal," Newsweek is referring to the general picture, not specifically to the post-Tet period of one month.
According to Braestrup, "Newsweek, throughout the February-March 1968 period, was to refer, in passing, to the 'wily' Giap, 'tough' North Vietnamese regulars, 'ominous' enemy activity, and in general, to a foe without setbacks or flaws" (I, 229). Turning to the facts, on March II, Newsweek presented an analysis in which it reported that the Communists "were still plagued by the confusion that is characteristic of all military operations. " The report (II, 216f. ) goes on to describe "inexplicable" failure to blow up a crucial bridge, failure to use main forces adequately to maintain momentum, misassessment of popu-
lar moods and U. S. -ARVN tactics, inadequate preparation of troops etc I d' h "h ' . ,
"depressed"-as were pacification officials on the ground. The third example is from an NBC-TV "special," in which Dean Brelis says that we don't know what is happening in the rural areas but "can only imagine," and that "the cities are no longer secure; perhaps they never were. "s Hardly remarkable, and far from the fevered conclusion drawn in Braestrup's paraphrase.
Examples of what Braestrup calls "straw man journalism" abound in his own presentation. Thus he faults the media for claiming that the pacification program had been destroyed, whereas his own conclusion is that "pacification, although hit hard, was not 'dead' . . . it was a mixed picture, but clearly neither a military nor a psychological 'disaster' " (I, 716). The media regularly reported that pacification was hit hard, not dead, as his own evidence clearly shows-in contrast to the Pentagon, which took a more pessimistic view, as we shall see directly. Braestrup's "straw man journalism" may impress careless readers skimming the text for dramatic conclusions, but it presents no evidence and amounts to no argument.
Braestrup refers sarcastically to "insights into Vietnamese psychology," as when Morley Safer, watching marines burning down huts in Cam Ne, con- cluded that a peasant whose home was destroyed would find it hard to believe "that we are on his side" (I, 43). How does Safer know? Perhaps the peasant enjoyed watching the flames. Not all such "psychoanalyzing" is derided, how- ever, as when General Westmoreland explains that "the people in the cities are largely indignant at the Vietcong for violating the sanctity ofthe Tet period and for their tactics which brought about damage to the cities" (II, 164), or when he expounds on the peasant "state of mind" (1,78). Note that Safer is not criticized for accepting the tacit assumption that the press is an agency of the invading army ("we are on his side").
Braestrup states that "the embassy fight became the whole Tet offensive on TV and in the newspapers during that offensive's second day" (his emphasis; I, 126); this illustration of the incompetence of the media is thoroughly refuted by his story index. He also claims that the media exaggerated VC success in the early confusion by claiming that the embassy had been entered-failing, however, to compare these accounts with the reports by military police that they were taking fire from inside the embassy, or the message log of the 716th MP Battalion, which reads: "General Westmoreland calls; orders first priority effort to recapture U. S. Embassy" (I, 92; our emphasis). It is intriguing to read Braestrup's outrage over quite accurate press reporting of what was said by Westmoreland, military police involved in the fight, and others, and in particu- lar over the fact that the press did not simply rely on Westmoreland's later account (his apparent belief that the embassy had been "captured" goes be- yond any reporter's error that Braestrup cites). A careful reading shows that media reports were surprisingly accurate, given the confusion of the moment, although one cannot fault Braestrup's profound conclusion that "first reports are always partly wrong," which will come as a startling insight to the working journalist.
Repeatedly, the study claims that the media were "vengeful" or bent on "retribution" in reacting skeptically to government claims. An alternative possibility is that this reaction reflected a newfound realism. Braestrup agrees, for example, that "Westmoreland was wrong in publicly underestimating (in November [1967]) the enemy" (I, 69), and cites many other false and mislead-
conc u mg. t at t,e co~munistsdid not achieve most of their objectives. " T? e foll~wmgweek s article on Khe Sanh reports a marine view that "Charlie m. lssed hiS golden opportunity" by bad tactics. Newsweek's picture of "a fo without setbacks or flaws" is another Freedom House exclusive. e
What of ~e other sins? As for the reference to the "wily" Giap, compare ! V. ewsweek wlth ~hatBr~estrupregards as the outstanding analysis by Douglas Pike, who describes Glap as a "master tactician," "one of the best tactical comman~ers of the 20th century," etc. (I, 196f. ). On the "toughness" of the North ~~etnameseand their "ominous" activity, see the regular reports ofthe U. S. mlhtary co~mand, and an extensive literature by Vietnam veterans.
Br~es~rup claims that "one searches in vain through most of the media descr1~tlOns o~ the fo~, even we~l into March 1968, for indications that the enemy s plannmg, tactics, executIOn, zeal, and weaponry were less than flaw- less"; "there ~erefew hints in Times analyses or battlefield reporting that the ~oe w,as anythmg but shrewd, tenacious, ascetic, infallible and menacing, and ~~ thiS c~se th,:. pap~r h~d plenty of company" (I, 186, 216). Apart from
flawless and mfalhblC7. further Freedom House exclusives, the adjectives can be taken,from the mdltary reports and seem unexceptionable. The claim that the medla. regar~edthe enemy as infallible is defended through pages 186 to 231, along with typical Freedom House self-refutation: example after exam- ple to the contrary is cited, in addition to those just mentioned. The media ~~po~e~ t~at the VC "un~oubtedly" alienated the population, as they caused
l~dlscr1mmateslaughter and"totallymisjudgedthemoodoftheSouth Vietnamese. " They may be suffering "a severe manpower problem" and "hurt- ing badly. "6 They "failed to achieve their main objectives. " Captured VC got lost in Saigon and were falsely told that they would be welcomed. (This a~pears under Braestrup's heading "Television: in praise of the VC. ") They did not "get-or heed" important information. And so on. All in all, hardly the picture of an "infallible" and "flawless" enemy.
No~e a,lso t~e ~r~edom House assumption that a free press, militantly guardmg ItS obJectiVity, should not only consider those who are resisting the u. S. attack as "the enemy," "the foe," etc. , but must also refrain from accu- rately descri~ing"the en~my"as tough, resolute, and courageous. To play its proper role In a free society by Freedom House standards, the media should never veer a moment from the kind of service to the state demanded and
secured. by force in totalitarian states, so it appears.
The Impact of the Freedom House study comes from the impression of
massive doc~mentation and the huge resources that were employed to obtain and analyze It. Case by case, the examples collapse on inspection. Here are a few more examples, far from exhaustive. 7
. On pa~ificati? n,"TV and radio commentators went far beyond the available lOfor~atlOn to Imply the dramatic worst. " Three examples are cited to prove t~ePOlOt (I, 565). Howard Tuckner, ofNBC-TV, reported from New York the views of "U. S. intelligence officials" and "Some U. S. officials in Vietnam"- correctly~as Braestrup concedes in a footnote, adding that these were the views of "CIA 10 Washington" and "Disheartened junior CORDS officials in Viet-
nam. " By Freedom House standards, it is improper to cite such sources accu- rately. The second example is a CBS radio report criticized only for being
328 APPENDIX 3
APPENDIX 3 329
ing optimistic statements, among them Robert Komer's prediction of "steady progress in pacification" a week before the Tet offensive (I, 72; Braestrup's paraphrase). In fact, part of the shock of the Tet offensive resulted from the faith ofthe media in previous government assessments, undermined by the Tet offensive, as the U. S. military and official Washington were well aware.
Furthermore, General Westmoreland's accounts were hardly persuasive during the offensive. Thus he claimed that "all I I of the Vietnamese division commanders . . . commanded their units effectively," whereas, as a journalist learned, one "had gone into a state of shock during the T et attacks" (I, 454-55). Or consider Westmoreland's claim that allegations about inaccuracy and in- flation of body counts were "one of the great distortions of the war" by the media-there were at most "relatively small inaccuracies" (II, 163). His own generals had a rather different view. In his study of the opinions of the generals, General Douglas Kinnard reports that 61 percent of those responding describe the body count as "often inflated," and only 26 percent "within reason accurate. " The responses include: "a fake-totally worthless," "often blatant lies," "a blot on the honor of the Army," and "grossly exaggerated by many
units primarily because of the incredible interest shown by people like McNamara and Westmoreland. " Perhaps journalists had some reason for skepticism, apart from "vengefulness. "9
To demonstrate the absurd extent of press efforts to find shock value, Braestrup cites a story in Time on enemy tunneling at Khe 8anh, "as occurred around Dienbienphu" (1,435; his emphasis), in general ridiculing the analogy- but forgetting to ridicule the remark by Marine Commander General Cush- man, who said that "He is digging trenches and doing other tricks of the trade which he learned to do at Dienbienphu" (I, 40 3).
"All Vietnam, it appeared on film at home, was in flames or being battered into ruins, and all Vietnamese civilians were homeless refugees," Br~estrup alleges (I, 234), in typically fanciful rhetoric, adding that "there were Virtually no films shown or photographs published during this period of undamaged portions of Saigon, Hue, or other cities" (his emphasis). This shows that coverage was unbalanced, supportive of the enemy. One wonders how many films and photographs of peaceful English villages or Hawaiian towns ap-
peared on the days that Coventry and Pearl Harbor were bombed, to balance
the picture.
Braestrup seeks the causes for the "exoneration of the Vietcong" for "killing
noncombatants or causing the exodus of refugees" (I, 234), overlooking ,the fact chat before seeking the cause of x it is necessary to show that x is true. In this case, it is not. The accounts he cites regularly blame the Viet Congfor
civilian suffering and emphasize Viet Cong atrocities. In fac~,he hi~s~lf
out that "both Time and Newsweek put the onus on the VIetcong 10 SaIgon (I, 246)-as elsewhere.
state that Ronald Reagan and the State Department find acceptable. Max Singer says that "I did sense that Guatemalans feel that voting is important to them. " (This is correct, but Singer was not contemplating the possibility that its importance to them might lie in fear and a desire to avoid retribution by the omnipresent army. ) Regula said that the people were patiently waiting "for an opportunity to share in the process of choosing the constituent assembly. " According to Simcox, "They know that this was the patriotic thing to do, that this was important for their country. " Tom Kahn found that the people he talked to in voting lines "expressed a great sense of national pride. "
4. Absence of any sign of coercion. Father Kenneth Baker stated that "there seemed to be a general atmosphere of no intimidation. " Baker didn't say how he sensed this atmosphere, ? and whether it was assuredly reliable in a foreign country observed for a day under military guard. Baker referred to the bishops having urged people to vote, but he failed to note their extended observations suggesting that a meaningful election couldn't be held in an environment of disappearances, terror, and catastrophic socioeconomic condi- tions. Jack Brier saw "absolutely no violence. I saw no evidence of direct military involvement. " A problem that Brier doesn't discuss is that if pacifica- tion is thorough, no violence or substantial military presence will be necessary to confirm military choices. There is absolutely no violence or evidence of direct military involvement in elections in the Soviet Union. Brier plays dumb, pretending that violence on election day is really relevant, and ignoring the long-term violence that strips away institutional protections and produces a terrorized population. 2 Congressman Mickey Edwards did find a military pres- ence in Guatemala, but it was not "oppressive": "We did not find anything to indicate that the people in those areas were under any pressure or intimida- tion. " How hard Edwards looked must remain in doubt. 3
5. Amazing turnout. Jack Brier referred to the "surprisingly large turnout," and Ed Simcox found the 60-70 percent turnout "really an incredibly positive statistic. " Even the U. S. embassy noted that voting in Guatemala is compul- sory (although it tried to discount this by citing a Guatemalan official who said that the law was only rarely enforced). The official observers, however, never mentioned this small matter of a legal requirement, or the need to get an ID card stamped, let alone the army warnings and the background of mass killings and disappearances.
6. Human rights impro'Ding. Congressman Mickey Edwards found that "by all objective observations, the human-rights record in this country has improved tremendously over the last two or three years. " He does not say what objective observations he is referring to. Max Singer also found that "the human-rights record is improving in Guatemala, as near as I can tell," partly because the guerrilla movement has weakened, and that movement has been a serious threat to the human rights of the Guatemalan people. Singer was asked in the press conference how he determined this improvement. His answer was "From the statements of people living in the countryside. "
7. Reasonfor the blank and spoiled 'Dotes. Some 26 percent of the ballots cast in the Guatemalan election, far exceeding the total for any party, were
312 A P P E N D IX I
blank or spoiled. This would seem to compromise the notion that the Guatemalan people had gotten into long lines out of patriotic enthusiasm. Howard Penniman explained, however, that this was a result of illiteracy. Other possibilities are unmentioned. Why the illiteracy rates were so high thirty years after the United States saved Guatemala for freedom is also not discussed.
8. The case for further aid. The observers showed their objectivity, and the labor representatives Kahn and Friedman demonstrated their commitment to liberal principles, by acknowledging that this election wae only a "first step," and that a full-fledged democracy such as that just established in EI Salvador (Regula) was still to come. Some of the observers would sanction additional aid immediately, Mickey Edwards urging that the Guatemalan army would benefit from being "exposed to American values and to American training. "4 The others were more noncommittal, but agreed that the election was fair, meaningful, and deserving of U. S. recognition and support.
In sum, this was a caricature of observation, but a fairly typical performance of U. S. "official observers. " The report of this group was cited by Stephen Kinzer in the New York Times and elsewhere in the U. S. press as a serious source of information on the Guatemalan election. The official report of the Latin American Studies Association on the Nicaraguan election, written by specialists in the region after an intensive eight-day investigation, Kinzer and his mass-media colleagues never mentioned.
Appendix z
TAGLIABUE'S FINALE ON THE BULGARIAN CONNECTION:
A Case Study in Bias
To show in another way the propagandistic quality ofthe mass media's cover- age of the Bulgarian Connection, we will examine in detail the article by John Taglia~ue,"Verdict on Papal Plot, But No Answer," published in the New York Tzmes on March 31, 1986. This piece, which provides a final wrap-up that enters "history" as the mature judgment of the veteran Times newsman as- signed to the Rome trial, is a model illustration of the systematic bias that we
believe characterized mass-media reporting of the Bulgarian Connection with only minor exceptions. A close examination shows how Tagliabue incorp~rates a. ll of the elements. of the Sterling-Henze-Kalb (SHK) model of the connec-
tIOn, selects facts In accordance with the requirements of that model and bypasses conflicting facts and interpretations. I '
The Framing of the Issue: The Case Still "Unresolved"
The court dismissal of the case against the Bulgarians in Rome confronted the Times with a problem of framing. The Times had presented the case as plausi- ble for years, and now had to confront the rejection of the case in a court decision. The solution was to latch on to the peculiar feature of the Italian judicial system whereby a party found not guilty can be declared positively innocent or not guilty for reason of lack of evidence. Thus, as the title of Tagliabue's article suggests, there was a verdict, but "no answer," and Taglia- bue's first paragraph focuses on the "unresolved" nature of the case. It would have been possible to stress the fact that the Bulgarians were found not guilty for lack of evidence, and to emphasize that Western law requires positive proof of guilt. But the Times was not about to acknowledge defeat after five years of finding the Bulgarians guilty.
Tagliabue also downplays the court decision by making it an unsurprising event. "Few people were surprised by the verdict," states Tagliabue. But the failure to find the Bulgarians guilty should have been quite surprising, given the earlier assurances by Sterling and associates that the Bulgarians were clearly behind the plot, and that, as Paul Henze stated, the "evidence" has "steadily accumulated to the point where little real doubt is now possible. "2
An alternative frame would have been as follows: After a three-year investi- gation and lengthy trial, backed by the resources of the Italian state, and despite the powerful interests in Italy and the West with a stake in finding the Bulgarians guilty, the prosecution still failed to persuade an Italian jury of Bulgarian guilt. These vested interests and their propaganda vehicles were given a bone to chew on, however, in the form of a decision to dismiss the charge for "lack of evidence," rather than complete exoneration. This then allowed the propaganda agencies to frame the case in the Tagliabue manner.
Protection of the Italian Judicial Process
Throughout the history ofthe case, the U. S. mass media blacked out evidence of the compromised quality of the Italian institutions involved in pursuing the connection. Investigating Judge Martella was always treated as a model of probity, and conflicting facts were ignored. 3 Operating in this tradition, Taglia- bue wastes space on a gratuitous and irrelevant accolade to Martella (which is also given a subheading for emphasis). His statement that "Few people stood up to assail the magistrate" is absurd, as the trial witnesses were asked to give concrete evidence on the facts of the case; they were not in a position to assail the pretrial investigating magistrate, and any such attempts would have been impermissible in the courtroom. Only the Bulgarian defense was well qualified and able to assail Martella, and they did so, in effective statements on March 4-8, 1986, that were unreported in the T imes and the rest of the mass media. Tagliabue points out that although the trial was supposed merely to verify the
findings of t~e pre~imi~aryinvestigation, in fact the prosecution did a great
deal of new mvestlgatIve work. This suggests that the trial court may have
fo~ndMartella's investigation sadly lacking, but Tagliabue never addresses the pomt.
Agcats Desertion of the Case
An important part of the apologetic fr. amework is the claim that Agca, who had present~d an allegedly coherent verSIOn of a connection up to the trial, sud- denly dId an about face and refused to testify altogether. Tagliabue devotes several paragraphs to this theme, eventually suggesting that Agca's increas- ingly erratic behavior "may have been designed to torpedo the efforts of the court. " He suggests th~t the pr~secuto~couldn:t overcome th~s difficulty, so that the loss of the case IS lodged m Agca s behavior rather than m any inherent deficiencies in the prosecution's case.
In reality, Ag~a's claims emerged very slowly and contradictorily, with dozens of retractions that, taken together, are best explained by coaching outside information, and guesses by Agca as to what Martella and the pres~ would like to hear. There is no reason to believe that Agca ever offered or ~ettled upon a cO,herent, version of a Bulgarian connection. On the contrary, It appears that hiS version changed continually, and that the final result in Martella's report was Martella's own arbitrary synthesis. 4
The claim that Agca became more erratic during the trial is also not based on evidence. Agca's persistently erratic behavior was obscured by the secrecy of his earlier testimony, but it is clear from the Martella report that he was already claiming to be Jesus and displaying other symptoms of irrationality. Furthermore, Tagliabue's statement that Agca refused to cooperate during the trial is false-Agca periodically withdrew from the proceedings when his testimony became too incoherent, but he always returned to the stand, and he answered a vast number of questions. One hypothesis that Tagliabue never ~ntertainsis that if Agca's claims were based on coaching and/or imagination, m an open court he would be vulnerable and quickly pushed to the wall.
Tagliabue also never asks this further question: Even if Agca had clammed up (which was not true), given the extensive Martella investigation and report, why would the court not be able to follow the already established leads to a successful outcome? Why was not a single witness produced to confirm Agca's allegations of numerous meetings and trips with Bulgarians in Rome? Why was the car allegedly rented by the Bulgarians never found? Where is the money supposedly given to Agca? Tagliabue fails to address these questions.
"Partial Confirmation" of Agcats Ta Ie
Tagliabue describes some alleged partial confirmations of Agca's claims. The first is that "Mr. Ozbey said the Bulgarians had indeed wanted to use Mr. Agca
to shoot the Pope, but did not trust him. " But this is not a partial confirmation if the net result was that the Bulgarians failed to hire Agca. Furthermore, another reporter present when Ozbey testified in Rome claims that Ozbey did not tell the court that the Bulgarians "wanted to use" Agca. According to Wolfgang Achtner, of ABC-TV News, in Rome, the only thing Ozbey said was that the Bulgarians "listened with interest, but behaved with indifference" (the translation by the Turkish interpreter in court), or "listened with interest but didn't take it seriously" (Achtner's own translation). In short, it would appear that Tagliabue has doctored the evidence.
The other "partial confirmation" is that "Catli hinted at obscure secret service contacts with West German intelligence, and of payments for unspeci- fied purposes to Turks involved in the investigations. " This vague statement does not even mention the plot against the pope and is partial confirmation of nothing. The most important Catli evidence bearing on this point was his description of the attempt by the West German police to bribe Agca's supposed co-conspirator Oral Celik to come to West -Germany and confirm Agca's claims. This supports the coaching hypothesis: accordingly, Tagliabue blacks it out. The only other testimony by Catli mentioning the secret services in- volved Gray Wolves leader Ali Batman, who told Catli he had heard from the German secret police that at a meeting in Romania, the Warsaw Pact powers had decided to kill the pope. This was apparently a leak of the forged SISMI document of May 19, 1981, which had made this claim. Thus the hearsay recounting of the substance of a forgery is Tagliabue's "partial confirmation" of Agca's claims of a plot.
We should also note that while he cites these alleged "partial confirma- tions," nowhere does Tagliabue list the contentions of Agca that remained unconfirmed.
The Soviet-Bulgarian Motive
Two of Tagliabue's thirty-two paragraphs were devoted to expounding the Soviet motive in allegedly sponsoring Agca's assassination attempt: "to crack religiously inspired resistance to Communist rule in Poland. " Tagliabue here follows a long-standing Times tradition of absolutely refusing to allow a coun- terargument to be voiced on this issue. Even if they covered their tracks well, a Soviet-inspired murder of the pope would have been blamed on the Soviets, solidified Polish hostility, and had enormously damaging effects on Soviet relations with Western Europe. Thus it would have been risky without any offsetting benefits. s
Who gained and who lost from the plot? Were there any possible Western motives that might bear on the case? Tagliabue follows the SHK line in failing to raise these questions. But once Agca was imprisoned in Italy, cold warriors of the West had much to gain and little to lose by manipulating Agca to pin the assassination attempt on the East. Tagliabue mentions that the charges of a Bulgarian Connection surfaced "at the nadir" of U. S. -Soviet relations. While he notes how this added to the credibility of the plot in the West, he never
hints at the possibility that its serviceability to the new Cold War might explain Agca's belated confession.
Agca's Stay in Bulgaria
This has always been critical in the Sterling-Times scenarios, and Tagliabue drags it in. It is given further emphasis with the heading "Spent 2 Months in Bulgaria. " Tagliabue does not mention that Agca stopped in eleven other countries. He fails to note here, and the Times suppressed throughout, Cadi's testimony in Rome that the Gray Wolves liked to go through Bulgaria to reach Western Europe because the heavy Turkish traffic made it easy to hide. Taglia- bue fails to mention that bringing Agca for a long stay in Sofia would have been a violation of the rule of plausible deniability. Even more so would be using Bulgarians to help Agca in Rome. Tagliabue does not discuss the question of
plausible deniability. He also fails to note that if Agca had stayed in Sofia for a while, this would allow a prima facie case to be made by a Western propagan- dist that the East was behind the shooting, and could provide the basic materi- als for working Agca over for the desired confession.
Bulgarian Involvement in Turkey
Tagliabue asserts that the Bulgarians were "purportedly" supporting both the extreme left and right in Turkey "to promote instability" in a conflict "that pitted violent leftist terrorists against their counterparts on the right. " This is a Sterling myth, with Tagliabue hiding behind "purportedly" to allow him to pass off myth as purported evidence. The equating of left and right in the Turkish violence of the 1970S is false: the great majority of violent attacks were launched by the Gray Wolves, under the protection of the police and military. Tagliabue also fails to discuss the fact that the extreme right actually par- ticipated in the government in 1977 and had extensive links to the army and
intelligence services. The claim of Bulgarian support for both the right and left has never been supported by evidence. Tagliabue never mentions that the United States had more than "purported" links with the Turkish army, the secret services, and the Fascist Nationalist Action party, and that the terrorist events of the late 1970S eventually served U. S. interests well.
Key Question: How Agca Knew So Much
The "key question" for Tagliabue is "how Agca knew what he knew and when he knew it. " This is an important issue, but there are others that he might have
E
raised if he had worked outside the SHK format. Why did it take Agca so 10ng
to name Bulgarians? Was he subject to any coercion or offered any posl't? . d k" IVe In . ucements . t~ rna e him talk. Why did he have to make major retractions?
reports, had mentioned Mafia official Giovanni Pandico's statement in Italy outlining a scenario of coaching at which he claimed to be present, but Taglia- bue doesn't even cite this or any other documents or facts that lend support to the coaching hypothesis. He sticks to the ingredients that fit the SHK format-good Martella, Agca the betrayer of the case, the Soviet motive, Agca's visit to Bulgaria, and his knowledge of details. All other materials are designated "sinister" or blacked out to enhance the credibility of the party line.
Agca Helped the Bulgarians
Tagliabue closes his article with a quote from Agca's attorney that the Bulgari- ans "should be thankful" to Agca. This reiterates one of Tagliabue's preferred themes-that Agca deliberately blew the case. This is derived from Sterling's theory that Agca's vacillations were really "signals" to the Bulgarians, alter- nately threatening and rewarding them, but aiming at getting them to help him out of jail. In his earlier articles Tagliabue followed this line, and it is implicit in this summing-up article, although it is a wholly unproven Sterling gimmick. ' What was Agca bargaining for in the trial? Did he expect the Bulgarians to spring him? To admit their own involvement in the case by arranging a deal for his release? And if he was sabotaging the case in order to win favor with the Bulgarians, and since the Bulgarians obviously refused to respond, why did he not finally decide to do them injury? Tagliabue never addresses these points.
In sum, this is a model case of propaganda under the guise of "news" or "news analysis. " In this instance there are a number of lies, but these are less important than the other systematic distortions. Tagliabue and the Times frame the issue in terms ofprobable Bulgarian guilt and the factors that caused the case to be lost-exclusive of those suggesting that there was no case to begin with. They refuse to discuss the failure to obtain confirmation of any factual claims of meetings or deals with Bulgarians. They fail to discuss-or even to mention-problems of plausible deniability. They reiterate the ele- ments of the preferred SHK model without noting the illogic or the incompati- ble facts. They ignore evidence that would support the coaching model. They use invidious language only for the disfavored line of argument and spokesper- sons, manipulating words and bending evidence to the desired end. This article should be perfect for classroom use in courses on propaganda, media bias, and related subjects.
Is It not SUSpiCIOUS that when Agca finally talked, he said J'ust what his int
? er-
. .
and where he could lie and retract evidence without penalty? lon,
rogators wanted h1m to say? How are we to evaluate a judicial process wh
? (A)
the witness gca was In regular contact with outside sources of informaf
ere
"Even the Attorneys for the Bulgarians . . . . "
In assessing how Agca knew so much, Tagliabue allocates only one paragraph to the possibility that Agca was coached. On the other hand, he goes to great pains to stress that Agca knew an awful lot-telephone numbers, personal habits, nicknames. Tagliabue gives as the "simplest explanation" of Agca's knowledge that he had access to books, newspapers, magazines, and other materials from the outside. Interestingly, he fails to mention the numerous prison contacts between Agca and secret service, Mafia, and Vatican agents and emissaries. Agca even wrote a letter to the Vatican complaining of the pressure from its representative in prison (also linked to the Mafia), a fact long blacked out by the Times. These visits would point to the ease with which Agca could have been fed information while in prison. Tagliabue will not admit facts that get into this dangerous territory.
A major question is how Agca knew details about Antonov's apartment when he later admitted to Martella that he had never been there. The Bulgarians and Antonov's defense went to great pains to prove that the information Agca provided about Antonov's apartment had never been divulged in the media before Agca enumerated the details. This implied coaching, as did a mistake in identification where Agca described a characteristic of Antonov's apartment that fitted other apartments in the building, but not Antonov's. Tagliabue says that "Even the attorneys for the Bulgarians acknowledge" that Agca named things not available through reading the papers, as if they were conceding a point, not making a devastating case for coaching. Newspaper work couldn't be more dishonest than this.
"The More Sinister View"
In a single, late paragraph devoted to the possibility of coaching, Tagliabue merely asserts it as a claim, without providing a single supportive point of evidence, although there are many. 6 He uses a double propagandist's put- down-ironically designating the coaching hypothesis as "the more sinister view," and stating that it is "espoused by critics of the case on the political left, including Soviet bloc governments. " Even Tagliabue, in his earlier news
I
I
Appendix 3
BRAESTRUP'S BIG STORY: Some "Freedom House Exclusives"
In "The Tet offensive" (p. 211), we considered the example that has regularly been put forth to substantiate the charge that the media adopt an "adversarial stance" with regard to established power-eoverage ofthe Tet offensive-and the Freedom House study on which this charge is based. As we saw, in this case too the behavior of the media conforms to the expectations of the propa- ganda model, and the major theses advanced in the Freedom House study are refuted even by their own evidence. What remains of their charge is the possibility that media coverage of the Tet offensive was technically incompe- tent, although subordinated to elite requirements. Turning to a closer exami- nation ofthis charge, we find that the shoe is on the other foot: when "Freedom House exclusives" are corrected, the performance of the media appears quite creditable, while the incompetence of the Freedom House study is seen to transcend even the level already demonstrated. That this study has been taken seriously, and permitted to set much of the agenda for subsequent discussion, is a most intriguing fact.
According to Freedom House, television commentary and Newsweek are the
worst offenders in this "extreme case" of journalistic incompetence, so let us begin by reviewing some of their sins. One example to which Braestrup reverts several times is Walter Cronkite's "much publicized half-hour CBS 'special' on the war" on February 27 (Big Seory, I, 158). According to Braestrup Cronkite's "assessment" here is "that U. S. troops would have to garrison th~ countryside" (I, 645). In his foreword, Leonard Sussman properly observes that "We do not expect the reader to accept on faith our various analyses or judgments," and so "the complete texts of many of the reports discussed" are presented, primarily in volume II (I, x). Following his advice, we turn to volume II, where we find the complete text of Cronkite's "special" (180ff. ). There is not even a remote hint of the "assessment" that Braestrup attributes to him.
In this important "special," Braestrup claims, "In effect, Cronkite seemed to say, the ruins, the refugees, the disruption of pacification that came at Tet added up to a defeat for the allies that would force President Johnson to the negotiating table" (I, 158). Cronkite says nothing of the kind. He reports that "there are doubts about the measure of success or setback," noting accurately that "the experts do not agree on the objectives or on the amount of success the communists had in achieving them. " They "failed" in many of their aims, but in a third phase the enemy might "recoup there what he lost in the first two phases. " In what he calls a "speculative, personal, subjective" judgment, Cronkite states that he is "not sure . . . who won and who lost," or to what extent. He concludes that the United States is probably "mired in stalemate," and that historians may conclude that the Tet battle was "a draw"; "To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. " He does not say that Johnson will be "forced" to the negotiating table by a "defeat," but rather that if indeed there is a "stalemate," then "the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. " Note the typical reiteration of government propaganda concerning American
aims, unsullied by the factual record-enormous in scale, by this time-of U. S. government efforts to undermine democracy and to destroy all popular forces-the NLF, the Buddhist "third force," etc. -in South Vietnam, on the assumption, openly admitted, that the forces placed in power by U. S. violence could not survive political competition. Recall also that in these comments that Freedom House derides, Cronkite reaches essentially the same conclusion as did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Wheeler, in his summary to the president on the same day as Cronkite's broadcast, and the president's advisers a month later.
We may note also that two weeks earlier, Cronkite had "assessed" the impact of the Communist offensive, on the basis of U. S. and Vietnamese sources, reporting that "first, and simplest, the Vietcong suffered a military defeat" (I, 158). Similarly, on an NBC-TV special of March 10 that Braestrup repeatedly condemns, Howard Tuckner stated that "Militarily the allies won" (I, 159), as did others repeatedly.
Cronkite's "special" is exhibit A in the Freedom House indictment. The example is typical of the relation between their conclusions and the evidence they cite.
Braestrup refers to a television comment by Robert Schakne on February 28 for which he gives the following paraphrase: "In short, the United States would now have to take over the whole war, including the permanently dam- aged pacification program, because of Saigon's failures" (I, 562-63). Braestrup claims further that Schackne attributed "this argument" to Robert Komer. This he calls "a CBS exclusive," his standard term of derision. In fact, "this argument" is yet another "Freedom House exclusive. " What Schackne said, according to Braestrup, is that it was "likely" that Komer was in Washington with General Wheeler to ask for more troops "to help get the Vietnam pacifi- cation program back on the road. " The preceding day, Wheeler had requested that the troop level be raised from 525,000 to 731,756, one primary concern being that "There is no doubt that the RD Program [pacification] has suffered a severe set back," that "To a large extent the VC now control the country- side," and that "US forces will be required in a number of places to assist and encourage the Vietnamese Army to leave the cities and towns and reenter the country. "l While Braestrup's version of Schackne's "argument" has little re- semblance to the actual words he attributes to Schackne, these words were, if anything, understated.
Braestrup then goes on to claim that Cronkite "used the same argument almost verbatim, but with an even stronger conclusion" in a February 28 radio broadcast. There is no hint in the actual broadcast of Braestrup's "argument. " The closest Cronkite came to this "argument" is his statement that ''presuma- bly, A mbassador Komer told a sad tale to President Johnson" (Braestrup's empha- sis). Cronkite then repeated accurately the basic facts presented by Komer in a briefing four days earlier. He concluded that "it seems likely that today Ambassador Komer asked President Johnson for more American troops so that we can permanently occupy the hamlets and fulfill the promise of security [sic] to their residents, a promise the Vietnamese alone apparently cannot honor," the NLF not being Vietnamese, as usual. Apart from the tacit assumption of the propaganda system that the villagers yearn for the fulfillment of this "promise of security" from the NLF, Cronkite's speculation that U. S. troops would have to fulfill a promise that ARVN alone apparently could not honor hardly seems unreasonable, three days after General Westmoreland had stated that "additional U. S. forces would probably be required" (11,159), and that
with them "we could more effectively deny the enemy his objectives"; four days after Komer had described the Tet offensive as a "considerable setback" to pacification; a day after Cronkite had presented a television interview with Captain Donald Jones, deputy pacification adviser for the district regarded as "the bowl of pacification," who said that "for most of the District, pacification does not exist," and travel there is impossible (CBS-TV "special" of February 27, cited above); and one day after General Wheeler had asked for a huge troop increase justified in part by the need to overcome the fact that "To a large extent the VC now control the countryside. "
Television and radio are not alone in being subjected to "Freedom House exclusives. " Here are a few examples.
Exuding contempt and derision, the study informs us that "no one" except for George McArthur (AP) and Don Oberdorfer (Knight) "reported . . . on what happened to Hue's civilians under Vietcong rule" (I, 299). Again demon-
strating his considerable gift for self-refutation, Braestrup cites reports on Vietcong executions, kidnappings, burial of executed civilians in mass graves, etc. , in Hue under Viet Cong rule by Newsweek, UPI, Washington Post, William Ryan, Reuters, New York Times, Time, London Times, and the NBC "Today" show (I, 277, 281-84, 472). On page 283, Braestrup writes that "The television networks, as far as our records show, made no mention of the executions at all"; on page 472, he refutes this claim, noting that on February 28, in an "aftermath film report from Hue . . . at battle's end," the NBC "Today" show "hinted at the Hue massacre with this statement: 'Hundreds of government workers were killed and thrown into temporary graves. ''' A rather broad "hint," it would seem. The example is typical of the Freedom House style of handling evidence.
In this connection, we should observe that the numerous stories on the Hue massacre cited by Braestrup in self-refutation referred to the official allega- tions that 300 to 400 government officials were killed in Hue, a considerable massacre but "only one-tenth of the civilian toll in the fighting," so that "it did not seem like a major story," Gareth Porter comments; he adds that "What made the 'Hue massacre' a major story was the publicizing by U. S. embassy propagandist Douglas Pike, who wrote a pamphlet on the subject in late 1969 at the request of the American ambassador to Saigon, Ellsworth Bunker. " Pike's account was given wide coverage when it appeared and has become the basis for the standard versions since, despite the dubious source: "given the fact that Pike was relying on the Saigon political warfare department for most of his data, which was otherwise unverified, one might have asked for more skepticism and reserve from the press," Porter observes-rather plausibly, it would seem. Porter adds that the documents made available by the U. S. mission in 1971 "contradicted Pike on every major point. " According to former CIA analyst Frank Snepp, "The whole idea of a bloodbath was conjured out of thin air," and the stories were planted in the press by American officials "to generate sympathy for the South Vietnamese abroad"-in short, the "careful psychological warfare program pinning the blame on the communists" urged by "seasoned observers," as John Lengel of AP reported from Hue. 2
Presenting no evidence or argument, Braestrup accepts Pike's analysis and the U. S. government position as correct. In a footnote, he remarks that "Pike's account was challenged by D. Gareth Porter, a Cornell University graduate student, admirer of the National Liberation Front, and, briefly, a Saigon resident," but dismisses this as part of "a minor point of political contention" (I, 285-86). He describes Pike, in contrast, as "the independent-minded USIA specialist on the Vietcong" (I, 196),3 and makes no reference to the detailed analysis of Pike's allegations that had been presented by Porter, one of the few American scholars concerned with Vietnam. Similarly, Leonard Sussman takes it as obvious, without argument, that the government position must be correct, and that "the war's largest systematic execution of civilians" is the responsi- bility of the Viet Cong-thus excluding the systematic slaughter of thousands of civilians in Hue by U. S. firepower, possibly including many of those at- tributed to the Viet Cong massacre. 4 Also unmentioned here is the curious timing of the exposures that have since become the standard version of the Hue massacre, a few days after the belated exposure of the My Lai massacre in late November 1969, when
Army officers in Saigon made available "newly found" captured Viet Cong documents showing that Communist troops killed nearly 2,900 Vietnamese during the Hue offensive in February, 1968. Officers said the documents went unnoticed in U. S. military files for nineteen months until a correspondent's questions about Hue brought them to light. "I know it sounds incredible, but that's the truth," one official said. 5
We will not attempt to explore in this review what is not so much as attempted in the Freedom House study, but merely note, once again, that we have here not a work of scholarship but rather a government propaganda tract.
Max Frankel commented in the New York Times (Feb. II, 1968) that pres- sures at home and in Vietnam "are thought to have raised once again the temptation of further military escalation" (I, 584, italicized by Braestrup for emphasis as an example of raising "straw men"). Frankel was quite accurate in this measured statement. As Braestrup points out, "Wheeler and Westmore- land agreed that it was also a good time to urge a bolder Vietnam strategy, with more troops to gain quicker results: i. e. , forays into Laos, Cambodia, and possibly that part of North Vietnam just above the DMZ. " Why then the "straw man" charge? Because, Braestrup objects, escalation "was hardly a tempting prospect for Johnson" (his emphasis), hardly Frankel's point. Brae- strup claims further that Frankel, in this article, suggested "that escalation- notably a reserve call-up--was probable" (I, 586). Frankel's article does not appear in the accompanying volume of documents; turning to it, we discover that Braestrup's claim is another Freedom House exclusive, suggested no- where in Frankel's article, which is noteworthy only for its standard reiteration of government propaganda about the goal of bringing "security" to "the people of South Vietnam"-by B-52 bombing of villages, the exploits of Task Force Barker at and around My Lai at just that time as part of the general ravaging of Quang Ngai Province, etc.
After television, Newsweek is the worst offender. Let us therefore inquire further into its misdeeds. In what Braestrup describes as "Newsweek's major statement on the Thieu-Ky regime," a March 18 feature entitled "Vietnam: A Reappraisal," the journal commented accurately in an editorial entitled "The Political Morass" that "land reform, a vital element in any effort to win the loyalty of the peasantry, has not been tackled seriously" (I, 534-36), a truism familiar to everyone from the American high command to officials in Washing- ton. Braestrup comments: "It is difficult, once again, to fathom Newsweek's logic. Surely, neither Newsweek nor the Vietnamese peasant expected the regime to tackle land reform seriously in the aftermath of Tet. " It is perfectly obvious that in this "reappraisal," Newsweek is referring to the general picture, not specifically to the post-Tet period of one month.
According to Braestrup, "Newsweek, throughout the February-March 1968 period, was to refer, in passing, to the 'wily' Giap, 'tough' North Vietnamese regulars, 'ominous' enemy activity, and in general, to a foe without setbacks or flaws" (I, 229). Turning to the facts, on March II, Newsweek presented an analysis in which it reported that the Communists "were still plagued by the confusion that is characteristic of all military operations. " The report (II, 216f. ) goes on to describe "inexplicable" failure to blow up a crucial bridge, failure to use main forces adequately to maintain momentum, misassessment of popu-
lar moods and U. S. -ARVN tactics, inadequate preparation of troops etc I d' h "h ' . ,
"depressed"-as were pacification officials on the ground. The third example is from an NBC-TV "special," in which Dean Brelis says that we don't know what is happening in the rural areas but "can only imagine," and that "the cities are no longer secure; perhaps they never were. "s Hardly remarkable, and far from the fevered conclusion drawn in Braestrup's paraphrase.
Examples of what Braestrup calls "straw man journalism" abound in his own presentation. Thus he faults the media for claiming that the pacification program had been destroyed, whereas his own conclusion is that "pacification, although hit hard, was not 'dead' . . . it was a mixed picture, but clearly neither a military nor a psychological 'disaster' " (I, 716). The media regularly reported that pacification was hit hard, not dead, as his own evidence clearly shows-in contrast to the Pentagon, which took a more pessimistic view, as we shall see directly. Braestrup's "straw man journalism" may impress careless readers skimming the text for dramatic conclusions, but it presents no evidence and amounts to no argument.
Braestrup refers sarcastically to "insights into Vietnamese psychology," as when Morley Safer, watching marines burning down huts in Cam Ne, con- cluded that a peasant whose home was destroyed would find it hard to believe "that we are on his side" (I, 43). How does Safer know? Perhaps the peasant enjoyed watching the flames. Not all such "psychoanalyzing" is derided, how- ever, as when General Westmoreland explains that "the people in the cities are largely indignant at the Vietcong for violating the sanctity ofthe Tet period and for their tactics which brought about damage to the cities" (II, 164), or when he expounds on the peasant "state of mind" (1,78). Note that Safer is not criticized for accepting the tacit assumption that the press is an agency of the invading army ("we are on his side").
Braestrup states that "the embassy fight became the whole Tet offensive on TV and in the newspapers during that offensive's second day" (his emphasis; I, 126); this illustration of the incompetence of the media is thoroughly refuted by his story index. He also claims that the media exaggerated VC success in the early confusion by claiming that the embassy had been entered-failing, however, to compare these accounts with the reports by military police that they were taking fire from inside the embassy, or the message log of the 716th MP Battalion, which reads: "General Westmoreland calls; orders first priority effort to recapture U. S. Embassy" (I, 92; our emphasis). It is intriguing to read Braestrup's outrage over quite accurate press reporting of what was said by Westmoreland, military police involved in the fight, and others, and in particu- lar over the fact that the press did not simply rely on Westmoreland's later account (his apparent belief that the embassy had been "captured" goes be- yond any reporter's error that Braestrup cites). A careful reading shows that media reports were surprisingly accurate, given the confusion of the moment, although one cannot fault Braestrup's profound conclusion that "first reports are always partly wrong," which will come as a startling insight to the working journalist.
Repeatedly, the study claims that the media were "vengeful" or bent on "retribution" in reacting skeptically to government claims. An alternative possibility is that this reaction reflected a newfound realism. Braestrup agrees, for example, that "Westmoreland was wrong in publicly underestimating (in November [1967]) the enemy" (I, 69), and cites many other false and mislead-
conc u mg. t at t,e co~munistsdid not achieve most of their objectives. " T? e foll~wmgweek s article on Khe Sanh reports a marine view that "Charlie m. lssed hiS golden opportunity" by bad tactics. Newsweek's picture of "a fo without setbacks or flaws" is another Freedom House exclusive. e
What of ~e other sins? As for the reference to the "wily" Giap, compare ! V. ewsweek wlth ~hatBr~estrupregards as the outstanding analysis by Douglas Pike, who describes Glap as a "master tactician," "one of the best tactical comman~ers of the 20th century," etc. (I, 196f. ). On the "toughness" of the North ~~etnameseand their "ominous" activity, see the regular reports ofthe U. S. mlhtary co~mand, and an extensive literature by Vietnam veterans.
Br~es~rup claims that "one searches in vain through most of the media descr1~tlOns o~ the fo~, even we~l into March 1968, for indications that the enemy s plannmg, tactics, executIOn, zeal, and weaponry were less than flaw- less"; "there ~erefew hints in Times analyses or battlefield reporting that the ~oe w,as anythmg but shrewd, tenacious, ascetic, infallible and menacing, and ~~ thiS c~se th,:. pap~r h~d plenty of company" (I, 186, 216). Apart from
flawless and mfalhblC7. further Freedom House exclusives, the adjectives can be taken,from the mdltary reports and seem unexceptionable. The claim that the medla. regar~edthe enemy as infallible is defended through pages 186 to 231, along with typical Freedom House self-refutation: example after exam- ple to the contrary is cited, in addition to those just mentioned. The media ~~po~e~ t~at the VC "un~oubtedly" alienated the population, as they caused
l~dlscr1mmateslaughter and"totallymisjudgedthemoodoftheSouth Vietnamese. " They may be suffering "a severe manpower problem" and "hurt- ing badly. "6 They "failed to achieve their main objectives. " Captured VC got lost in Saigon and were falsely told that they would be welcomed. (This a~pears under Braestrup's heading "Television: in praise of the VC. ") They did not "get-or heed" important information. And so on. All in all, hardly the picture of an "infallible" and "flawless" enemy.
No~e a,lso t~e ~r~edom House assumption that a free press, militantly guardmg ItS obJectiVity, should not only consider those who are resisting the u. S. attack as "the enemy," "the foe," etc. , but must also refrain from accu- rately descri~ing"the en~my"as tough, resolute, and courageous. To play its proper role In a free society by Freedom House standards, the media should never veer a moment from the kind of service to the state demanded and
secured. by force in totalitarian states, so it appears.
The Impact of the Freedom House study comes from the impression of
massive doc~mentation and the huge resources that were employed to obtain and analyze It. Case by case, the examples collapse on inspection. Here are a few more examples, far from exhaustive. 7
. On pa~ificati? n,"TV and radio commentators went far beyond the available lOfor~atlOn to Imply the dramatic worst. " Three examples are cited to prove t~ePOlOt (I, 565). Howard Tuckner, ofNBC-TV, reported from New York the views of "U. S. intelligence officials" and "Some U. S. officials in Vietnam"- correctly~as Braestrup concedes in a footnote, adding that these were the views of "CIA 10 Washington" and "Disheartened junior CORDS officials in Viet-
nam. " By Freedom House standards, it is improper to cite such sources accu- rately. The second example is a CBS radio report criticized only for being
328 APPENDIX 3
APPENDIX 3 329
ing optimistic statements, among them Robert Komer's prediction of "steady progress in pacification" a week before the Tet offensive (I, 72; Braestrup's paraphrase). In fact, part of the shock of the Tet offensive resulted from the faith ofthe media in previous government assessments, undermined by the Tet offensive, as the U. S. military and official Washington were well aware.
Furthermore, General Westmoreland's accounts were hardly persuasive during the offensive. Thus he claimed that "all I I of the Vietnamese division commanders . . . commanded their units effectively," whereas, as a journalist learned, one "had gone into a state of shock during the T et attacks" (I, 454-55). Or consider Westmoreland's claim that allegations about inaccuracy and in- flation of body counts were "one of the great distortions of the war" by the media-there were at most "relatively small inaccuracies" (II, 163). His own generals had a rather different view. In his study of the opinions of the generals, General Douglas Kinnard reports that 61 percent of those responding describe the body count as "often inflated," and only 26 percent "within reason accurate. " The responses include: "a fake-totally worthless," "often blatant lies," "a blot on the honor of the Army," and "grossly exaggerated by many
units primarily because of the incredible interest shown by people like McNamara and Westmoreland. " Perhaps journalists had some reason for skepticism, apart from "vengefulness. "9
To demonstrate the absurd extent of press efforts to find shock value, Braestrup cites a story in Time on enemy tunneling at Khe 8anh, "as occurred around Dienbienphu" (1,435; his emphasis), in general ridiculing the analogy- but forgetting to ridicule the remark by Marine Commander General Cush- man, who said that "He is digging trenches and doing other tricks of the trade which he learned to do at Dienbienphu" (I, 40 3).
"All Vietnam, it appeared on film at home, was in flames or being battered into ruins, and all Vietnamese civilians were homeless refugees," Br~estrup alleges (I, 234), in typically fanciful rhetoric, adding that "there were Virtually no films shown or photographs published during this period of undamaged portions of Saigon, Hue, or other cities" (his emphasis). This shows that coverage was unbalanced, supportive of the enemy. One wonders how many films and photographs of peaceful English villages or Hawaiian towns ap-
peared on the days that Coventry and Pearl Harbor were bombed, to balance
the picture.
Braestrup seeks the causes for the "exoneration of the Vietcong" for "killing
noncombatants or causing the exodus of refugees" (I, 234), overlooking ,the fact chat before seeking the cause of x it is necessary to show that x is true. In this case, it is not. The accounts he cites regularly blame the Viet Congfor
civilian suffering and emphasize Viet Cong atrocities. In fac~,he hi~s~lf
out that "both Time and Newsweek put the onus on the VIetcong 10 SaIgon (I, 246)-as elsewhere.
