THE RIGHT'S ATTACK ON THE PRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605810010-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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N ; 10N
30 March, 1985
XBTICLES.
W BEYOND \VESTMORELAND
The Right's Atta ck
On the Press
WALTER SCHNEIR AND MIRIAM SCHNEIR
The outcome of the Westmoreland trial is a gain for
America-the America of the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights. But for the political movement
that funded and supported it, the case is merely a
lost battle. The New Right's war against the mass media
continues unabated and that outcome is still in doubt.
In their quest for political power, the energetic and am-
bitious leaders of the New Right (many of whom now call
themselves "conservative populists") regard the media as a
formidable barrier. The problem, as they see it, is that the
media is controlled by liberals, who are their natural
enemies. The leaders' animus toward the media appears to
be shared by their foot soldiers, the millions of "social con-
servatives" concentrated in the Sun Belt and the Midwest,
who support a "pro-family" agenda and respond favorably
to appeals for patriotism and a strong national defense.
Central to the thinking of the movement is the idea that
the media is now the dominant force in America. Patrick
Buchanan, the President's recently appointed Director of
Communications, argued in 1977 that the main obstacle to
the victory of conservative forces in this country was not the
Democratic Party but the liberal media. Kevin Phillips, one
of the right's most admired theorists, maintains that the old
political parties have "lost their logic." He says, "Effective
communications are replacing party organizations as the key
to political success." It follows then that to take power-as
opposed to winning an election-the right must capture the
liberal media, loci:, stock and barrel.
Phillips and other New Right social critics lean heavily
on the theory of elites propounded by the early twentieth-
century sociologists Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca,
who, not coincidentally-since elite theory counters the
concept of class conflict-strongly influenced the young
Mussolini and early Italian Fascism. New Right analysis,
following another line trod by Italian Fascism, claims a uni-
ty of interest among "producers": business, labor and
agriculture. "The basic economic and political split in
America today," according to William A. Rusher, publisher
of National Review, -"is no longer between `business and
labor' but between `producers and non-producers."'
Among the nonproducers are the print and electronic
media, part of a "verbalist" elite that battens on the hide of
the hard-working producers. Rusher believes this unjust
situation should not be permitted. So does Samuel T. Fran-
cis, a former policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation and
now a legislative assistant to North Carolina Senator John
East. He cites the media as one of those "power preserves of
the entrenched elite whose values and interests are hostile to
the traditional American ethos and which is a parasitical
tumor on the body of Middle America. These structures
should be leveled."
Although the New Right believes that the Presidency will
continue to be held by conservatives, they see liberals cling-
ing to control of the all-powerful media. In this situation,
they sometimes retard the First Amendment as a weapon
used by their enemies. How to convince people that the First
Amendment is not sacrosanct? The New Right has already
broached that touchy subject.
An article by Kevin Phillips in Human Events on
January 13, 1973, was titled "Is the First Amendment
Obsolete? " To which Phillips answered "Yes," noting,
"'The Public's right to know' is a code for the Manhattan
Adversary Culture's desire to wrap the 1st Amendment
around its attack on the politicians, government and institu-
tions of Middle America."
Two years later in a book titled Mediacracy, Phillips pur-
sued the argument:
The Bill of Rights is hardly a static legal concept....
perhaps the First Amendment may undergo a shifting inter-
pretation ... to reflect the new status of the communica-
tions industry. The media may be forced into the status of
utilities regulated to provide access.
Phillips gave no specific details as to how the media was to
be "regulated." But in 198] some extraordinary suggestions
were offered by James L. Tyson in Targe: Americc:? The In-
fluence of Communise.ProDagando on U.S. Medic. Tyson,
who lists as his past affiliations the Office of Strategic Serv-
ices (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency). Time-
Life International and I.B.M. World lea e ='."5o:auon, pro-
poses that a government official be stationed at each of the
three major television networks to check news stories for.
fairness and accuracy. The networks have "become so pow-
erful in opinion formation that national survival demands
some assurance that they will not be free to disseminate the
misinformation and distortions that have occurred in recent
years," he writes. "In a word, TV news has become much
too important a matter to be left to TV newsmen."
As a "solution to this problem," Tyson offers what he
terms a preliminary recommendation. He would "require
an ombudsman for each major network ... appointed by
an independent outside body such as the FCC." This in-
dividual would see that the Fairness Doctrine is adhered to
and would insure that the networks follow "expert advice"
on issues like "the neutron bomb, nuclear power, or our
policy in Indo-China."
Several New Right groups, including the American Secu-
rity Council and the National Strategy Information Center,
assisted Tyson with his research. But what gives his book the
Walter Schneir and Miriam Schneir are working on a book imprimatur of the New Right is the endorsement of Reed
about the New Right and the media.
Irvine, the movement's pre-eminent media maven. When
Ct.`;f~i;ul~
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a "disgraceful example of the atrocious iournahsm prac-
ticed" by CBS News. He suggested trig motive hehind tt:
"CPS is smarting under the charge that they nd others in
the rhdia helped cause our defeat in \`ietna
Soon\.,another stalwart of the right came, alloping in hot
pursuit o ,CBS. The May 29, 1982, issue f Walter Annen-
berg's Ti"guide ran a highly unusual twelve-page cover
story titled " \natomy of a Smear: H w CBS News Broke
the Rules ani `Got' General stmoreland." Using
unedited transcripts of interviews at were leaked to TV
Guide by a CBS ep Throat, t e magazine accused CBS
News, producer Grge Cril and Mike Wallace of
numerous serious viol ions journalistic standards. The
fact that Annenberg is a\ o time right-winger and a close
friend and supporter o Ronald Reagan made some
members of the press sk ti 'l about the magazine's objec-
tivity. Newsweek que ioned,whether TV Guide was a
suitably "neutral for m" for s ch an investigation, given
Annenberg's conse ative backgr nd and his declared op-
position to "adve ary Journalism.
But at the tim the Ti' Guide article
ppeared, CBS News
Faced with the ex-
had a new presi ent, Van Gordon Sauter
pose, Sauter r ponded by announcing th
sinned an in stigation of the documentary
he had commis-
ecutive Bur on Benjamin. The harshly critic
Report" as released in summary form in Ju
network ex-
"Benjamin
1982 and
stated t t the makers of the documentary had d
mistak in procedure and violations of CB
uide nes-though both Benjamin and Sauter of
g
that hey supported "the substance of the broadcast."
News
It is easy to understand why New Right ideologues would
have thought the Westmoreland affair had all the makings
of-a perfect antimedia project-their most ambitious one to
date. Thus some time before the fall of 1982 an individual
named Richard Larry approached Washington attorney
Dan Burt, president of the Capital Legal Foundation. Larry
is a trusted agent of Richard Mellon. Scaife, the great-
grandson of the founder of the Mellon banking fortune and
one of the principal moneybags of the New Right move-
ment. If Burt would fight CBS on behalf of Westmoreland,
Lam' proposed, Scaife would help pay for the suit. That
secret arrangement was not disclosed until after the suit
ended. Bur has now revealed that Scaife contributed well
over S2 million to Capital Legal (more than 70 percent of
the cost of the -litigation), which suggests that the trial
might more aptly be titled Richard Mellon Scaife v. CBS.
(Other major backers were the Smith Richardson and the
John M. Olin foundations.)
That little has been written about Scaife is not for lack of
journalistic enterprise. He has come into his own only since
the early 1970s and goes to great lengths to avoid publicity.
The most useful elucidation of his political financing ac-
tivities is an article in the Columbia Journalism Review by
Karen Rothmyer, a former Wall Srreet Journal reporter
who teaches at the Columbia School of Journalism. Based
on public and private financial records, Rothmyer'$ 1981
story estimated that Scaife's charitable foundations already
lac granted SICK, m;iion and were continuing to content to
heavily to a varten of conser.ative, neoconservanve and
especially Ne' Rtcht orcantzations. (Both Accuracy in
Media and The Public Inheres!, a magazine run by Irving
Kristol and Nathan Glazer, are funded in part by Scaife)
Moreover, Scaife has been particularly influential as a
source of seed money for such organizations as the Commit-
tee for the Free World, the Institute for Foreign Policy
Analysis, the Institute for Contemporary Studies, the Media
Institute and the Heritage Foundation. All this bespeaks a
good deal of political sophistication.
Rothmyer was never able to discuss her findings with
Scaife. Although she repeatedly requested an interview, he
repeatedly refused. She finally cornered him at an exclusive
club in Boston one evening and shot a question at him:
"Mr. Scaife, could you explain why you give so much
money to the New Right"" He responded, `,You fucking
Communist cunt, get out of here."
Scaife is also known to have provided seed money for the
National Legal Center for the Public Interest and six af-
filiates, one of which was the Capital Legal Foundation.
Other benefactors of this New Right legal network were the
Coors and Fluor families, both closely identified with con-
servative causes. In 1977, when Capital Legal was incor-
porated, its board included Leslie Burgess, a vice president
of the Fluor Corporation; Peter J. Fluor, president of Texas
Crude and a major stockholder of Fluor; and associates of
two leading conservative organizations, the American
Enterprise Institute and the Media Institute.
In 1980 Dan Burt left a lucrative private law practice (he
had an office in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, where Fluor Ara-
bian has headquarters) to become president of the Capital
Legal Foundation. That same year Scaife commissioned
Michael Horowitz to study conservative public interest law
firms. Horowitz concluded they were too stereotypically
pro-business to capture the sympathy of many Americans.
Burt may have followed this advice, or perhaps he had a
natural affinity for playing the kind of role recommended
by Horowitz. He severed the foundation's ties to the Na-
tional Legal Center and publicly criticized his erstwhile
counterparts. He began to tell interviewers that his firm
practiced a new breed of public interest law. It was for the
little guy rather than big business and was more libertarian
than conservative. Nevertheless, his connections to the right
do not appear to have suffered as a result of his apostasy.
He developed 2 working relationship with Senators Paul
Laxalt, Orrin Hatch and Edward Zorinsky; he was accorded
the honor of a long interview in the John Birch Society's
newsletter, "Review of the News"; and his big-business,
New Right board of directors was virtually unchanged.
Moreover, Capital Legal's budget tripled between 1980 and
1982, with much of the money still coming from Scaife.
In spite of-or perhaps because of-his independent
stance, Burt and his foundation were chosen by Scaife to
handle the Westmoreland suit. At a press conference attend-
ed by Burt on September 13, 1982, the general announced
that on that day the Capital Legal Foundation had filed a
5120 million libel suit against CBS on his behalf.
mmitted
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Soon after, Reed inane soi:nted conations to, a
v, estmoreiand ie~al fund (ne later sal- he did thi> a: hurts
request). He also sent out a nationwide mailing of a letter
signed by estmoretand, blasting CBS and appealing for con-
tributions to AINI. In addition. Irvine ran a three -Quarter -page
advertisement in The "ashingion Times for AIM and the
Tyson book, with a photograph of W-estmore)and in full
military dress, captioned: "General V' estmoreland wrote
that 'Accuracy in Media did a fantastic ioh of exposing the
dishonest smear lob that CBS perpetrated. Everyone should
read the AIM Report,"'
In late January 1983, CBS News president Sauter told a
meeting of journalists in Philadelphia that the Westmore-
land libel suit "has become a rallying point for people who
seek to use it as an instrument for damaging the image,
spirit and aggressiveness of the news media." Westmore-
land, he added, "is merely the point man in their search-
and-destroy mission." A CBS spokesman identified AIM
and the American Legal Foundation as the "people" Sauter
had had in mind.
Burt struck back sharply in the press, insisting that
ital Legal followed no particular political philosophy
C
ap
and that he had tried to distance himself from AIM and the
American Legal Foundation. He was quoted as saying,
"Sure, there are crazy groups on the right, but what can I
do? " Irvine later reported in his newsletter that Burt had
refused 541.000 that AIM had raised for the suit, and com-
mented bitterly: "He apparently decided that the case might
in some way be jeopardized if Accuracy in Media was in any
way connected with it. He said that he would not want to
run the risk of being accused of carrying out an anti-media
crusade." That the dispute was tactical, not substantive,
however, is suggested by the fact that in May, Irvine could
announce to his readers that AIM had received a new con-
tribution of S1O0.000 from Richard Mellon Scaife-the
eminence prise of the Westmoreland case.
. After AIM ran the ad with Westmoreland's picture a sec-
ond time, Capital Legal released a letter the general had
written Irvine. The letter disclaimed any animosity. toward
the press. "The ad. by implication, could give the reader the
impression that my fight is with the media," Westmoreland
wrote. "It is not! It is with CBS over a specific issue. Your
ad adds fuel to the frequent allegations by some that my
case is a right-wing effort to `get' the press."
Forgotten by nearly everyone was that some years earlier
the general had not hesitated. to associate himself with
AIM's criticisms of the media. In 1978 he had been the prin-
cipal speaker at an AIM conference in Arlington, Virginia,
that was also addressed by William Rusher and Patrick
Buchanan. In a rambling but combative talk, Westmoreland
did not go so far in his condemnation of the-press as many
in the New Right have, but he charged that journalists in
Vietnam were "abusive, arrogant and hypocritical," that
Americans had been "masterfully manipulated by Hanoi
and Moscow" and that the public's "false perception" that
let was a victory for the Communists was "directly attrib-
utable to inaccurate reporting." He declared, "If the media
can create a defeat of our armies on the battlefield, they can
also e\entuali\ Qefea':, ine viahiitt~ of our system.
As Inc tria; sate neared, h,,;7 -oespue one slip v hen ne
exclaimed, "V e are about to sec Inc aismantling of a orator
news nets orb' -sounded more and more like a nenign Pro-
fessor of Journalistic etnics. He managed to focus the Press
on such matters as media responsibihn and the right of an
old man to preserve his reputation. Although a fes stories
made passing reference to Capital Lecal's Nev Right fund-
ing? Burt largely succeeded in diverting attention from the
motives of those who were paying Westmoreland's legal fees
and the political significance of the case. Instead, the media
turned on itself in a paroxysm of self-criticism. On the eve
of the testimony of the first witness, Newsweek bore a pic-
ture of Westmoreland on its cover and a story inside with
the headline "The Media in the Dock: Scrutiny of the mak-
ing of a TV documentary highlights shortcomings tiiroug h-
out the news business."
But for Burt the party ended when the trial began.
To win his case, he had to prove that the documentary's
statements about the general were false and were made with
"malice"-that is, with knowledge they were false or with
reckless disregard for the truth. George Crile, the producer
of "The 'Uncounted Enemy," was one witness from whom
Burt confidently expected he could extract testimony sh^r.-
ing malice, but his examination of Crile was a disaster. Ex-
pected by some to become the scapegoat of the entire affair,
Crile saved himself by coolly demonstrating that he was
extraordinarily knowledgeable about the subject. He came
across as a serious, well-informed journalist, who had done
impressive research.
Burt's last chance to undermine Crile's testimony and
prove malice was Ira Klein, a former CBS employee. Burt
had stressed the importance of Klein's testimony to his case
in his opening statement to the jury:
Crile fabricated his story with the help of a film editor...
(who) complained to Crile time and again about the way he
was making the broadcast.... That film editor, Ira Klein,
the man who physically made the broadcast, you will see,
testify at this trial as a witness for General Westmoreland. He
will describe how Crile created "The Uncounted Enemy: A
Vietnam Deception" with reckless disregard for the truth.
CBS attorney David Boies delivered the coup de grace to
Westmoreland's case whey; he cross-examined Klein. This was
the man who had been airily giving his "expert" opinions
on alleged distortions in the broadcast for the previous three
years. First, Boles forced Klein to admit that he had told a
reporter that Crile was a "social pervert" and was '.`devious
and slimy" (tape recordings of those conversations were
available). Then he proceeded:..
Q.: During the preparation of the broadcast, did you
attend any of the interviews of people that were being
interviewed?
A.: No.
Q.: Were you aware that Mr. Criie and Mr. (Sam) Adams
and others associated with the broadcast took notes of inter
views that they conducted in preparation for the broadcast,
interviews that were not filmed interviews?
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