A CHILL WIND IS FANNED BY SOME IN PRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100120003-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 19, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/03: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100120003-5
0 ARTICLEAPP mAm II HERALD FILE ONLY
PAGE
.ON 9 un e 1986 Tii?' levsiis A, chill wind ls fanned by
Sonsky
some--in press
L OS ANGELES - Return with us now to the
not-so-glorious days of the late '60s and early
'70s, the Nixon years, when Spiro Agne-
wisms were spewed across the media landscape,
when an administration waged virtual war against
the press with Agnew proclaiming journalists
"nattering nabobs of negativism" and trying to
somehow suggest that the light of scrutiny, when
focused on one's own government, was un-Ameri-
can.
Thomas Jefferson, champion of the independent
press as a protector of our liberties, was turning in
his grave. If he has been watching the news lately,
he might have cause to stir again.
There seems to be a broad new perception of
media "negativism" and anti-Americanism. The
chill is on, the "fit" in "all the news that's fit to
print" - and to broadcast - is under attack again
by those who would redefine it in their qwn, nar-
row terms. What's disturbing is that an increasing
number of shallow-thinking, self-styled patriots
are buying into the new chill.
A pre conference held here earlier this week
between visiting television critics and NBC News
President Lawrence Grossman was disturbing in
its vitriol and ignorance. Astonishingly, the mis-
guided thinking came from members of the press
corps as Grossman was discussing - and admira-
bly defending - his news division's role as a light-
ning rod in two recent press freedom controver-
sies.
The first had to do with CIA Director William
Casey's statement that NBC should b prosecuted
for its May 19 report on the Todav how about in-
teiligence secrets that were sold to the Soviets by
former National Security A enc operative Ronald
relion.
Oddly, there was little new about U.S. intelli-
gence- at erin capabilities - Casey's area of
concern - in that report. There was little, if any-
thing, that had not already come out in,Pelton's tri-
al or been printed elsewhere. Grossman pointed
out that NBC had a record of being sensitive to re-
porting matters that could endanger national secu-
rity. He said the network, along with CBS and
ABC, had held back what it knew in advance, for
example, about the plan to bomb Libya.
"But," he said, "when the release of information
is a matter of public record and has been widely
reported previously with no protest or expression
of concern from the authorities ... then you have
to wonder what really is behind the press-bash-
ing."
What was behind it, undoubtedly, was govern-
ment embarrassment at the continued breaches in
security. But killing the media messenger is not the
answer to securing those breaches. Calling atten-
tion to them, within commonsense limits, is part of
the answer in a free society - so that there is em-
barrassment, so that security measures win oe im-
proved, so that other potential traitors will know
there will be hell to pay.
Wisel , cooler heads revailed within the
Reagan a ministration a ter asev s outburst. De-
mands that news coming out of espionage trials be
screened - censored, actually - by the govern-
ment were dropped. For where would potential
press-chill laws end? Carried to a logical extreme,
you might get, if not the Soviet Union, then per-
haps something akin to the South African state,
where coverage of anti-apartheid demonstrations
is routinely prohibited.
The second, and more publicized, NBC News
controversy - the interview it secured with Pales-
Continued
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/03: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100120003-5
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/03: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100120003-5
tinian terrorist Abu Abbas. - is
what prompted most of the vitriol-
ic gibberish at the press confer-
ence.
Two minutes of the interview
by NBC correspondent Henry
Champ with the man who master.
minded the Achille Lauro hijack.
ing were broadcast on May 5 on
the NBC Nightly News. A more
complete version of it, within the
context of a documentary explor-
ing The Achille Lauro: A Study in
Terror, was broadcast Tuesday
night.
In the interview, Abbas threat-
ened to extend his terrorist war
inside the United States itself and
against Ronald Reagan personally.
NBC was criticized for two things:
giving Abbas a forum and, after
tracking him down, agreeing to
his terms of an interview only if
his whereabouts at the time were
not disclosed.
As for the latter, Grossman
showed that such promises are not
uncommon in the pursuit of infor-
mation. In order to illuminate, to
help better understand points of
view, both just and deviant, the
trade is a good one in the cause of
journalism.
"Newspaper as well as televi-
sion reporters have accepted such
arrangements in the past," he
pointed out, "in order to get
interviews with Polish Solidarity
leaders, Afghan freedom fighters,
contra rebels, Soviet dissidents,
IRA extremists and even those in
the Federal Witness Protection
Program."
Besides which, NBC was hardly
hiding Abbas. Correspondent
Champ simply tracked him down
where he happened to be at the
time, in Algeria. The man doesn't
actually live anywhere. He moves
around. And if NBC co ld find
him couldn't the CIA?
And yet, reporters from this
nation's two largest television
markets wanted to know why
NBC hadn't "arrested" Abbas (as
if news organizations had such
power) and called the network "an
unwitting, unindicted co-conspira-
tor" of terrorists.
The bigger question - and the
one it disturbed me to hear so
many people even ask - is this
matter of providing Abbas with4
staging obscene "press confer
ences" with hostages at gunpoifl$
This
was an
what goes on in the mind of
enemy of the people.
"It is absurd to think t
..
Abbas' recent appearance
American television is what h*
given him his t9 d,--5
cd,--5
oss
said. And of course, he is corr
Abbas' weaponry, and his willi
There was no television when
r
terrorist assassinated a head of
state and plunged the planet into
World War I.
"If our critics fear that the
American public is so gullible as to
fall for Abbas'
r
''
p
opaganda,
Grossman went on, "either th
have little faith in the intelligent
of the American people or the
have undue faith in the power of
Abbas' arguments." i
A reporter from a small towrw
challenged: Would it have bekr
proper to have given Hitler air
time to state his case against the
Jews?
Grossman took a deep breath;
"The answer is, if only we had'
been able to put Adolf Hitler on,'if
only we had been able to show the
death camps, then perhaps the''
world would have awakened
much earlier than it did to that
kind of threat.
"The big problem you have i's
when nobody knows what the hell
is going on. And I think there is'a
service to be performed in alerting
people to what is going on in the
world - as distasteful as it may
be."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/03: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100120003-5