LEARNING THE NEW NEUTRALITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605230003-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605230003-6
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ON PAGE ) . 4J -
WASHINGTON TIMES
21 November 1985
rRAIND PRICE
0 nce upon a time - before
most of today's Americans
were born - there was a
territorial dispute called
World War II. Chauvinists that we
were back then, most Americans ac-
tually called the other side the "en-
emy." Some, even some in the news
media, went so far as to use terms
nearly as extreme as (chuckle,
chuckle) "evil empire:'
'Ibday, of course, we know better.
Today we know that what
threatens the world is not militaris-
tic totalitarianism, but international
misunderstanding. It's especially
our own government's failure to ad-
dress sufficiently the under-
standable concerns of those in the,
Kremlin who believe that American
imperialism requires them to spend
so heavily on arms that their belea-
guered citizens can hardly spare a
kopeck for a dram of vodka. We've
reached this level of enlightenment
by going to col-
lege, and by
watching the eve-
ning news.
In World War
II, news reporting
was still prehis-
toric. That is, it
was pre-tele-
vision. And the
counterculture
ethic of the 1960s
had not yet be-
come so dominant
in so many influ-
ential segments
of the media.
We know today
that reality is
what we see on the
21-inch screen.
Back then, people
were so naive that
they believed
the new
neutrali
up in the ratings competition. News-
men didn't feel that they had to
achieve "balance" by equating what
the U.S. secretary of state said with
what Nazi propaganda chief Joseph
Goebbels said.
But the primitivism of American
news reporting showed itself in even
more shocking ways, back in those
early days. War correspondents, in
effect, struck a deal with the Ameri-
can commanders: the commanders
told them in advance about their
strategies, their
plans, their secret
maneuvers, on the
clear under-
standing that
these were na-
tional security se-
crets which the
correspondents
would respect and
therefore keep.
Sharing the confi-
dences enabled
the correspon-
dents to do a bet-
ter job. The com-
manders knew
they could trust
the correspon-
dents to keep the
secrets. And the
correspondents
respected the con-
fidences and kept
Back then it was
assumed that the
purpose of a military
operation was to
defeat the enemy, and
that the business of
news people who went
along was to report
what happened
without getting in the
what their government told them
about Adolf Hitler. They hadn't been
conditioned by spectacles such as
this week's summit swarm. They
didn't have three networks fighting
to promise the highest Nazi officials,
the biggest U.S. audience, for an on-
camera interview, so as to get a leg
the secrets. It was a matter partly of
honor, but also of shared purpose.
Back in those antedeluvian days,
correspondents felt this was part of
the duty they owed to their country.
Funny, isn't it?
Back then it was assumed that the
purpose of a military operation was
to defeat the enemy, and that the
business of news people who went
along was to report what happened
without getting in the way. That was
long before Grenada, when the tube
exploded with media nabobs sput-
tering their outrage that the Penta-
gon should dare stage an invasion as
a military exercise rather than as
public entertainment.
That was also before terrorism
became the favorite outdoor sport of
the world's roressives, and CIA-
bashing t e Favorite moorsport o
America's media trendies. In fact,
there wasn't yet a CIA, and Libyan
troop man Muammar Qaddafi was
barely out of swaddling clo is. So
there was no way The Washin ton
Post could, ac ten, have gotten
stabilize Qaddafi's murderous re-
gime and its terror network, and le-
thally splash the story across Page I.
The effect of The Post's doing so
earlier this month was, of course, to
kill the plan, to preserve the terror
network, and to do more for Qaddafi
then even the sainted Billy Carter
did.
But if such an opportunity had
arisen in the World War II era, edi-
tors would probably have resisted
temptation. They had not yet been
sensitized to the First Amendment's
requirement that all government se-
crets be exposed, particularly those
labeled (chuckle, chuckle) "national
security."
There still are a few journalistic
old fogies around, steeped in an ear-
lier tradition, who would argue that
taking a neutral position between
freedom and tyranny encourages
tyranny. They would even argue that
treating U.S. and Soviet officials
with equal skepticism is not even-
handedness in the service of truth.
By equating the credibility of a
system built on the systematic, de-
liberate lie with one built on free
inquiry, we demean free inquiry, ex-
alt the systematic lie, and ease the
path of that tyranny based on lies.
We won World War II. One reason
we won it was that we hadn't learned
to equate Franklin D. Roosevelt with
Hitler, or the Voice of America with
the output of Joseph Goebbels. But
now, of course, we know better. Now
we've learned to be evenhanded.
Raymond Price is a nationally,
syndicated columnist.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605230003-6