WE WIN!

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100020003-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 3, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: April 1, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Published by ACCURACY IN MEDIA, INC.
1275 K Street, N.W., Suite 1150
Washington, D. C. 20005 ? Telephone: [phone]
WE WIN!
It appears that the ABC shareholders will get a chance
this year to vote on the following resolution proposed by
Accuracy in Media and four other ABC shareholders:
Whereas, the Soviet Union spends billions of dollars
each year on its world-wide propaganda and
disinformation campaign with the goal of manipu-
lating the mass media of the United States and other
countries of the free world, and,
Whereas, ABC on November 20, 1983, televised a
movie, "The Day After," which had been produced
and promoted by ABC at an estimated cost of around
$8 million and which in the view of some experts in
propaganda analysis meshed with the Soviet anti-
nuclear campaign whose primary goal was to bar the
deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles in
NATO countries,
We ask the board of directors to take note of the
danger that ABC's facilities may be used to
disseminate Soviet propaganda and to undertake an
investigation to determine whether or not this has
been done in the past and to devise measures to insure
that it is not done in the future.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has
informed ABC that it does not concur in any of the
arguments advanced by ABC to justify not submitting
the AIM resolution to its shareholders for it vote. ABC
had relied principally on the argument that the
resolution represented an intrusion into the ordinary
business of ABC, an area off limits to shareholder
resolutions. In addition ABC argued that the resolution
and the supporting statement that we wanted included
in the proxy material to be distributed to the
shareholders by ABC were "replete with false and
misleading statements."
The supporting statement we proposed read as follows:
"The Day After" was a highly controversial and
costly movie which graphically portrayed the
devastation that would result if the United States
were subjected to a nuclear attack. Because of the
great controversy engendered by the film, it attracted
a very large audience, but the controversial nature of
the film frightened away advertisers, and ABC
M
recovered only a fraction of the cost of the production
and promotion from advertising revenue.
ABC also felt obliged to air a panel discussion after
the film to insure that the viewing audience was
better informed about the controversial issues
surrounding it, but we note that the movie has been
sold for distribution in foreign countries where it was
shown in movie theaters without the benefit of any
balancing accompanying discussion.
It was released in West Germany just prior to the
deployment of the Pershing II missiles. The
distributor was quoted as saying, "By releasing `The
Day After' now, we hope that we can change the
minds of people in our government about the
missiles . . ." This indicates that the film was
regarded as a potent propaganda weapon in the anti-
missile campaign. Preventing the missile deployment
has been a key goal of Soviet foreign policy and the
Soviet propaganda campaign.
Nicholas Meyer, the film's director, said in a
published article that ABC executives told him that
he didn't have to worry about ratings, since they were
not out to get high ratings on the film. He said that he
was also told ABC was not out to make money from it.
Why did ABC invest so much money in it? Alfred
Schneider, an ABC vice president, was quoted as
saying of the film, "Graphically you are showing the
core of the argument of those who are for a nuclear
freeze."
This suggests the possibility that persons of
influence at ABC may have knowingly produced this
film to support the Soviet anti-missile campaign.
This deserves investigation and the adoption of
measures to keep ABC funds from being used to serve
Soviet ends.
ABC Stunned
ABC did not make a convincing case that the resolution
and supporting statement were replete with false and
misleading statements. It argued that the director of the
film and the West German distributor did not speak for
the management of ABC. We had not said that they did.
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Reed Irvine, Editor
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It said that the statement by ABC Vice President Alfred
Schneider was accurate but incomplete, being "part of a
larger discussion" to the effect that while no political
motivations could be attributed to the film itself, it was
possible that partisan groups could use the film for their
own purposes. It argued that these three statements did
not support our suggestion of it "possibility that persons
of influence at ABC may have knowingly produced this
film to support the Soviet anti-missile campaign." ABC
said this suggestion was false, declaring: "ABC's
production of this film, which was approved by senior
management, was intended to perform a valuable public
service and thereby to enhance ABC's reputation with
the American television audience."
ABC acknowledged that it could not attach a balancing
panel discussion to the film when it was shown to
foreign audiences, but it expressed the hope that it
would stimulate "locally-originated discussions in other
countries where it is shown." It did not dispute that only
a fraction of the cost of the film had been recovered from
advertising revenues, but it said that it did hope to
recover its costs "when all revenues from the project
have been received," presumably meaning mainly
revenues from foreign distribution.
AIM's five-page rejoinder, which was discussed in the
March-B AIM Report, helped persuade the SEC that
ABC's reasons for not submitting the resolution to the
shareholders were without merit. We pointed out that
the resolution dealt with an issue that transcends the
ordinary business of ABC and impinges on the welfare
and security of all the American people. We contested
the claim that it is false and misleading to suggest that
there is a danger that ABC's facilities might be used to
disseminate Soviet propaganda, saying it would be folly
to assume that Soviet intelligence services would
voluntarily refrain from making efforts to penetrate and
manipulate American mass media. We pointed out that
our media have no effective defense against this, and
that ABC's resistance to our suggestion that an
investigation be made indicated a lack of awareness of
the seriousness of the problem. We said: "We believe
that we have made a prima facie case that a great deal of
ABC money was put into a movie that was questionable
from the point of view of the normal objectives of the
company and which was widely perceived to be
promoting a cause that corresponded with a major
Soviet propaganda objective. All we are asking is that
management make an investigation to determine what
lay behind this and report to the shareholders."
The SEC rejected every one of the ABC arguments.
ABC Appeals
Stunned at the prospect of having to permit the
shareholders to vote on the resolution, ABC hired one of
Washington's most prestigious and expensive law
firms, Arnold & Porter, to appeal to the SEC to reverse
the staff' ruling. Arnold & Porter submitted a 39-page
brief and 65 pages of exhibits to the SEC in an effort to
obtain it reversal.
Arnold & Porter argued that we were trying to interfere
in ABC's programming decisions, which would be
ordinary business and would therefore make our
resolution excludable under SEC regulations. Tle-y-aliwso
suggested that requiring ABC to submit our resolution
to its shareholders was somehow inconsistent with the
First Amendment. They brought in the Fairness
Doctrine, which is administered by the FCC, and
suggested that the SEC should not "become embroiled in
disputes involving extremely fine and sensitive
judgments with respect to the interplay of the First
Amendment and broadcasting regulation."
We submitted it four-page reply in which we charged
that Arnold & Porter had artfully tried to represent our
resolution as a programming matter, when it was
clearly it request for an investigation into the need to
protect ABC from having its facilities used to serve the
ends of the Soviet propaganda machine and to devise
ways to protect against such abuse. We said:
Arnold & Porter want no inquiry into the need for
measures to protect the network against propaganda.
They make no showing that such protection exists.
They do not attack our evidence that the Soviets and
their puppets have a large and costly machine
designed to penetrate and manipulate our media.
They are like those who would not want to even
examine the adequacy of our military defenses when
confronted with evidence that our enemies were
engaging in a great military build-up and were
advertising their aggressive intentions toward us.
They introduce a lot of extraneous arruments about
First Amendment rights and the regulatory functions
of the FCC, none of which has the least relevance to
the question of whether or not the shareholders of
ABC ought to be accorded the right to vote on
important issues of this kind. It is disgraceful to
argue that enhancing the First Amendment rights of
the owners of ABC, the shareholders, is an
impermissible infringement on the First Amendment
rights of their employees, the management, especially
when the resolution is only a suggestion, not a
command.
The Lesson of the Soviet Mole
We pointed out that on March 5 and 6 ABC News had
aired reports on Arne Treholt, it Soviet mole who had
risen to a high position in the Norwegian government
prior to his arrest on January 20, 1984. Treholt had been
recruited by the KGB in 1967 or 1968, when he was a
student at the University of Oslo. He had been a
"sleeper" for several years, but he was activated once he
found a job in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry where he
had access to sensitive documents and where his
influence could be used to achieve Soviet goals.
According to ABC's Pierre Salinger, Treholt was
thought by some to have a good chance to become
Norway's next foreign minister. He had recently
participated in negotiations between the Soviet Union
and Norway, serving the Soviet side by both giving
them information about the Norwegian bargaining
position and helping to persuade the Norwegian
delegation to accept what the Soviets wanted. Treholt
was one of the leaders of the movement to block the
deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles in
Western Europe, again serving Soviet objectives.
Salinger said Treholt was the most dangerous spy ever
caught in Norway.
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AIM Report
NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF
Ley t z2
April-A 1984
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF GOOD THINGS TO REPORT IN THIS ISSUE, ONE OF THE BEST OF WHICH
is covered in our lead story. I think it is very important that the Securities and
Exchange Commission agreed with us on the shareholder resolution that we submitted
to ABC. We have talked a lot about Soviet disinformation and propaganda penetrating
our mass media. We have distributed thousands of copies of The Spike and Target Ameri-
ca, helping to broaden public awareness of the problem. We have exposed specific cases.
But we have never persuaded a major media organization that the problem was sufficiently
serious to warrant an investigation of its own defenses. We have established that none
of them has a good defense, but none has shown any sign of lifting a finger to improve
the situation. We certainly didn't persuade ABC that it had a possible problem, but
by getting our resolution and the supporting statement into the proxy material that is
sent to every ABC shareholder we have a chance of striking some responsive chords. If
enough shareholders read what we have to say and agree that our request for an investiga-
tion is reasonable, ABC's management will have to reconsider their adamant opposition
to our suggestion.
"ADAMANT" IS THE RIGHT WORD FOR IT. WE HAVE SUBMITTED A NUMBER OF SHAREHOLDER
resolutions over the years, all of which have been opposed by management of the various
media corporations. I have never seen one opposed as strenuously as this one. ABC
hired some of Washington's priciest legal talent to keep the proposal out of the proxy
material. We hired none, relying on the strength of our case, not on legal legerdermain.
With this precedent, we should be able to get similar resolutions placed before shareholders
of other companies in the future. I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. James B. Sayler of
Casper, Wyo., Carlisle Madson of Hopkins, Minn., and E. R. McChesney of San Antonio for
pooling their ABC shares with ours in support of this resolution. We needed their
support, because under new SEC regulations shareholders submitting resolutions have to
own a minimum of $1,000 worth of stock, and AIM's holdings alone were not enough.
THERE ARE OTHER FINE AIM MEMBERS WE WANT TO THANK, FIRST AND FOREMOST THE DONOR
of $100,000 to start an endowment fund for AIM. He prefers to remain anonymous, but
as I sat in his office and watched him write out a check to AIM for that amount, he told
me that it was the largest charitable contribution he had ever made. He had admired
our work and had decided, without our ever approaching him, that AIM ought to have an
endowment fund that would give it some permanent income. He decided to start the ball
rolling himself. I was deeply moved by this most generous thought and deed. I hope
that it may inspire others to do likewise. We would particularly welcome bequests.
Now that we have an endowment fund started, please think of adding to it by remembering
AIM in your will. You may also wish to consider donating assets while you are still
alive and arranging to receive the income from those assets as long as you live. There
are tax advantages in this procedure, and we can advise you on it if you are interested.
FRANK FUSCO OF POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. IS ANOTHER AIM MEMBER WHO HAS SET AN EXCELLENT
example by sponsoring our radio commentary, "Media Monitor," on WRVH in Patterson, N.Y.
Frank, who is a member of AIM's board, owns Discount Data Products, which has the
honor of being Media Monitor's first commercial sponsor. That is another good example
for others to follow. If you think you might sponsor the program, we will be happy to
send you a sample tape. Call or write Bernie Yoh at the AIM office about this.
A. P. CARY OF THE CARY PRODUCTS COMPANY OF HUTCHINS, TEXAS IS FOLLOWING THE FINE
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example of Charles H. Keating, Jr. of Continental Homes and Medema Homes in offering
gift subscriptions to the AIM Report to his customers. Mr. Cary has added a new twist,
which I like. He is going to suggest to his customers, which are businesses, that they
consider doing the same thing for their customers! A great idea and one worthy of
emulation!
AND THEN THERE IS MALCOLM SMITH, ANOTHER OF OUR FINE SUPPORTERS, WHO AT HIS OWN
expense is drawing up an ad for the AIM Report that he will place in selected general
circulation papers. The idea is to see if we can extend our reach and our membership
by more aggressive use of advertising, which is Malcolm's field. If it works, we will
be gaining members who would never be reached by direct mail solicitation.
AIM IS GOING TO HOLD ITS NEXT CONFERENCE ON JUNE 1-2 IN SAN DIEGO, CALIF. AT THE
beautiful Hyatt Islandia Hotel. The theme will be "Media Wars: Battleground of Ideas."
I will be there, along with Murray Baron, Bernie Yoh, and other stars from our Speakers
Bureau. In addition we will have Arnaud de Borchgrave and some terrific West Coast talent,
including Bruce Herschensohn, the popular conservative commentator on KABC, Dr. Fred
Schwarz, President of the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, Dr. Carl Galloway, who is
appealing his libel suit against CBS, Jay Matthews, bureau chief of the Washington Post
in Los Angeles and former bureau chief in Peking, and Dr. Thomas Jukes, renowned scien-
tist from the U. of Calif. at Berkeley and AIM adviser. The cost of the conference, which
includes two luncheons and a banquet, will be $75 if you register before May 15 and $95
after May 15. Rooms at the Hyatt will cost $70 for single or double occupancy for
conference participants. Reservations should be made directly with the hotel before
May 10. The number to call is 619-224-3541. The hotel is ten minutes from the San Diego
airport and is across the street from Sea World. It is a great place for a vacation,
as well as for attending the AIM conference. I hope to see you there. We will be provid-
ing details of the program in a later issue of the AIM Report. Use the coupon below to
register now, or to request a conference brochure.
OUR SCIENCE ADVISER, DR. THOMAS JUKES, WISHES TO CORRECT A STATEMENT HE MADE THAT
we cited in our story in the March-B issue on aspartame, the new artificial sweetener.
Dr. Richard Wurtman, a brain researcher at MIT, had told-.CBS News that he was concerned
about.the amino acid, phenylalanine, in aspartame. A G. D. Searle & Co. scientist had
said there is much more of this amino acid in foods we eat than we would get from small
amounts of aspartame. Dr. Wurtman had said that the phenylalanine in aspartame "goes
'zip' right into the brain" because "other limiting amino acids aren't there." Dr.
Jukes had said that was unfounded. He has since discussed the matter with Dr. Wurtman
and now agrees that Dr. Wurtman has found that phenylalanine enters the brain more
readil;;. when it is by itself than when it has to compete with a mixture of other amino
acids. In this respect it is similar to the amino acid tryptophan, which Dr. Wurtman
has shown to promote sleep when administered alone but which does not have that effect
when it is consumed in foods that contain other amino acids that compete with tryptophan
for entrance into the brain. We join Dr. Jukes in regretting having suggested that Dr.
Wurtman was wrong on this point.
IF YOU HAVE ADDRESS CORRECTIONS OR CHANGES OR PROBLEMS WITH NOT GETTING YOUR AIM
Report, please write to Mrs. Joan Yoh at the AIM address. This will expedite the solution.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO: Miss Sandra Harton, AIM, 1275 K St., N. W., Washington, D. C. 20005
( ) I(we) plan to attend the AIM San Diego Conference. Advance registration payment of
$75 per person is ( )enclosed OR to be charged to VISA/Mastercard
Acct. # Exp. ( ) I may come. Send brochure.
NAME (S)
CITY, STATE, ZIP
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In :*Ur letter to the SEC, we noted that Treholt would
never have been caught if the Norwegian authorities
had taken the view that it was unthinkable that such a
trusted civil servant could possibly be serving the
Soviet cause and therefore no check on his activities
could be tolerated. We suggested that if this was the
attitude of ABC's management, "it is all the more
important that our resolution be submitted to the
shareholders for their consideration. If management
really thinks that it is impervious to such manipulation,
then the task of the would-be manipulators is made
easy. They can feel free to function with impunity,
knowing that nothing they do, no matter how
outrageous, can ever be challenged or investigated."
We said: "We do not know whether or not there are Arne
Treholts within the bowels of ABC, but neither does
ABC's management. It would be naive to suggest that
this is an absolute impossibility. When Stanislav
Levchenko defected from his post as the KGB's active
measures chief in Japan, the Japanese were astonished
to learn that the editor-in-chief of Tokyo's conservative
daily newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, had been one of
Levchenko's agents. The management of that news-
paper and its owners were as surprised as the man in the
street. Like the management at ABC, they had been
believers in the old comforting slogan, `It can't happen
here."'
ABC's Appeal Rejected
Arnold & Porter's elaborate (and expensive) efforts
went for nought. In a letter dated March 21, the SEC
staff reaffirmed its ruling that the AIM resolution
"involves policy considerations beyond the realm of the
company's ordinary business." However, the staff
decided that the last paragraph of the supporting
statement submitted by AIM "contains statements
which impugn the character, integrity and personal
reputation of the company's management and makes
charges of improper conduct, without factual founda-
tion." It concluded that the paragraph could be omitted.
AIM will propose modifications in the language of the
paragraph that should make it acceptable.
What You Can Do
We can't ask owners of ABC stock to vote for our
resolution without first clearing whatever we say with
the SEC, but we think that we will get a lot of support if
only shareholders will read the resolution and the pro
and con statements about it in the proxy material. If you
own ABC stock, please read those statements. If you
know anyone who owns ABC stock, please call the AIM
resolution to his attention. The ABC shareholders
meeting will be held in New York City on May 15. If you
are a shareholder, try to be there.
COVERING FOR THE COMMUNISTS
On March 21, The New York Times carried a front-page
AP story with this lead: "The Colombian police attacked
an isolated jungle cocaine processing plant guarded by
Communist guerrillas 10 days ago and seized 13.8 tons
of cocaine with a street value of $1.2 billion, the United
States Ambassador to Colombia said today. `It's the
largest drug raid ever in the world,' the Ambassador,
Lewis A. Tambs, said. 'Never has anyone been found
with that much cocaine.'"
Amb. Tambs told reporters that the cocaine operation
had functioned under the protection of the armed wing
of the Colombian Communist Party. They are known as
the "Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces," whose
Spanish acronym is FARC.
The Times appended another AP story reporting that
airplanes hauling cocaine out of Colombia are returning
loaded with Cuban weapons for the communist
guerrillas, according to the Colombian Defense
Ministry. Defense Minister Gustavo Matamoros gave a
speech on March 19 in which he said: "Everyone knows
that the planes leave Colombia with cocaine and that
they return with weapons from Cuba." The AP reporter
added: "The Colombian military said last month that
leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers were working
together in a drugs-for-guns deal that threatened
Colombia's democracy, but no one had said previously
that the guns came from Cuba."
The AP was wrong on the latter point. A kingpin of the
drug smuggling operation, Jaime Guillot Lara, was the
subject of a front-page story in the Miami Herald of
January 24, 1982 by Edna Buchanan, who revealed that
Guillot had agreed to deliver arms to the Colombian
guerrillas in return for Castro's assistance in getting his
drugs to the United States. The Washington Inquirer of
March 12, 1982, quoted a Colombian narcotics officer as
saying that the Cuban DGI had been making arms
shipments to the guerrillas for years. Subsequently,
Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss laid out the
drugs-for-arms trade and the Cuban connection in detail
in a series of articles carried by a number of newspapers
here and in Europe. In November 1982, several persons,
including four officials of the Castro regime, were
indicted by a Miami grand jury for their involvement in
this drug traffic. They included Aldo Santamaria
Cuadrado, head of the Cuban Navy, Rene Rodriguez
Cruz, president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship
with the People, and Fernando Ravelo Ranedo, former
Cuban ambassador to Colombia. Detailed information
about the drug and arms traffic was brought out in the
trial last year.
The TV Network Omissions
What is deplorable about the coverage of this story is
not only the ignorance of the Associated Press and The
New York Times about the Communist practice of
trading drugs for guns, but also the cover-up for the
Communists by some of our media by downplaying the
story and in one case omitting any mention of the
Communist connection. Peter Jennings on ABC's "World
News Tonight" never mentioned the Communists in his
17-second report on the world's largest drug bust. Here
is what he said: "We learned about the largest drug bust
in history. Last week, March 13, in Colombia, police and
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army units raided a jungle hideout.They found 121/2 tons
of cocaine with a street value of more than a billion
dollars. The army and police fought a day-long battle
with the smugglers. Forty of them were arrested."
NBC did slightly better, Tom Brokaw saying: "The
United States ambassador to Colombia called it the
biggest drug haul in history, a megabust in the
Colombian jungle that yielded nearly 14 tons of cocaine,
street value $1.2 billion. Colombian police attacked a
jungle cocaine processing plant that they said was
guarded by Communist guerrillas. The plant had 10 labs
for processing the cocaine. Forty people were arrested,
including an American pilot. The complex is located in a
remote area, about 700 miles north of Bogota. Under
Colombian law, all evidence in a drug raid must be
burned, in this case, cocaine, guns, and 7 airplanes. The
drug crackdown is continuing in that part of the world."
CBS devoted more time to the story than either ABC or
NBC, describing the raid, the resistance met, and the
sophisticated equipment found, including five runways
equipped for night landings. However, the Communist
connection was disposed of in this single sentence: "The
U. S. Embassy says it was all under the protection of the
armed wing of the Colombian Communist Party."
Newspaper Burials
The Washington Post cut the 17-paragraph AP story
down to eight paragraphs and buried it at the bottom of
page A18. It did leave in the assertion that the cocaine
processing plant had functioned under the protection of
the armed wing of the Colombian Communist Party. The
Washington Times trimmed the AP story down to 10
paragraphs and ran it at the bottom of page 5A, but
someone evidently recognized that this had been poor
coverage, and the story was rewritten and run the
following day at the bottom of the front page. The
second-day story included mention of the Communist
practice of exchanging drugs for arms.
The New York Post was slow to catch up with the story,
but when it did on March 23, it gave it a big headline
across the top of page 14 reading, "Castro Linked to
Record Cocaine Bust in Colombia." It gave more details
about the Cuban connection than had appeared in
previous stories. Drawing on a cable sent to Washington
from the U. S. Embassy in Colombia, reporter Niles
Lathem said that the Communist guerrillas received
orders from Cuba and used cocaine profits to finance the
campaign to overthrow the Colombian government. He
said the cable also charged that some of the profits went
to aid guerrillas in El Salvador and other Central
American countries.
On Cable News Network's "Crossfire," co-host Patrick
Buchanan observed that if it had been Chile that had
been implicated in the drug operation, using the profits
to fund Roberto D'Aubuisson in El Salvador, the story
would have made banner headlines in the newspapers.
Buchanan cited the low-key coverage given to the story
as an illustration of how the political leanings of
reporters and editors influence news coverage.
It was not surprising that the story was severely edited
and relegated to page 18 of The Washington Post, where
the foreign editor, Karen DeYoung, is on record as
having said that most reporters seek out left-wutg
groups because "you assume they must be the good
guys." What was surprising was to see similar
treatment given to the story by the conservative
Washington Times on the day the story first broke.
Who Runs the Show?
What this example demonstrates is the fact that it is
reporters and editors in the bowels of the paper or the
network that determine what stories are covered and
how they are covered, not the owners, the publishers,
and not even the editor-in-chief in many cases. At ABC,
where top management is outraged at AIM's suggestion
that someone in the organization may have promoted
the idea of producing "The Day After" in order to assist
the Soviet propaganda campaign against the Pershing II
missiles, some unknown editor had to make the decision
to give the drug-bust story only 17 seconds and to omit
any mention of the Communist connection. The
chairman of ABC, Mr. Leonard Goldenson, probably
would have handled it differently had he been
personally involved.
At The Washington Times, the story would certainly
have been handled differently had the publisher and
editor, James Whelan, known about it. Whelan is an
expert on Latin America and would have seen that this
was an important story and played it accordingly. Some
of his subordinates obviously don't have the same
viewpoint. This became evident again on March 22, in a
story about the discovery that an unnamed former
Salvadoran official had been promised $50,000 to make
statements linking Roberto D'Aubuisson, the conserva-
tive presidential candidate in El Salvador, to the death
squads. The money had come from a group associated
with former U. S. Ambassador Robert E. White,
funneled through a left-wing organization, the Center
for Development Policy, for tax purposes. While The
Washington Post said that the revelation of the payment
hurt the credibility of critics of the government's
Salvadoran policy, The Washington Times story was
essentially a defense of the payment and a report on the
charges made by Amb. White and the unidentified
Salvadoran. The story, written by Thomas Brandt, also
failed to disclose that White's credibility had been dealt
a blow the previous day. It was revealed that Arturo
Muyshondt, one of the persons White had accused of
backing the death squads, had filed a $10 million libel
suit against him, and White had admitted that he may
have been mistaken in naming Mr. Muyshondt. The
Post reported that, but The Washington Times didn't
until after AIM pointed out the omission.
NOTE: We refer in the above story to The
WtiWashin}ton Inquirer, a weekly that covers
news 13i,,, Media ignores. We are enclosing
an Inquirer brochure. Please look it over.
The AIM REPORTis published twice monthly hp Accuracy in
Media, Inc., 1275 K Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. 20005, and
is tree to AIM members. Dues and contributions to AIM are tax-
deductible. The AIM Report is mailed 3rd class to those whose
contribution is at least $15 a veal' and 1st class to those
contributing $30 a year or more. Non-member subscriptions are
'35 (1st class mail).
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