BETTY BEALE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 45
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 15, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 11, 1979
• Content Type: NSPR

AolttiT pi CALGEMlolit:Acli) For Release 2PD41thirt&ipeCIA8P88-01315R0
THE WASHINGTON STAR
Betty Beale
The air was charged with electricity in that de'
bate between the New York Times' Seymour Hersh
and former CIA .official Jack Maury at the AIM
conference last weekend. In case you're not up on
such things, AIM stands for Accuracy In Media, a
group that drew 300 to the banquet that wound up
two days of panel discus'sions out at 4-H headquar-
ters on Connecticut Avenue.
Three Washingtonians won AIM awards at the
banquet ? Ben Wattenburg for .his television
series, "In Search of the Real America"; Frank
Scott, WRC's vice president and general manager,
,Yor the Pat Buchanan-Torn Braden show; and Vic-
? tor Lasky for his book, "It Didn't Start with Water-
gate." ? ? '
With former career diplomat Elbridge Durbrow
moderating, Maury produced a list of New York
Times-printed allegations over the years that he
said were totally untrue, i.e., that the CIA was in-
volved in Watergate; that the CIA was involved in
drug smuggling; that the CIA was not controlled
by either the White.House or the Congress. '
Not only were those stories false, said Maury,
but in every significant controversy the CIA was
carrying out the, orders of the president, as was
.discovered by the investigations of the Church
?and Pike committees and the Rockefeller Commis-
sion. Also untrue, he said, was the NYT story that
claimed a CIA agent was killed-in combat in Laos
? which could have violated the Geneva Accords.
What happened, said the former intelligence offi-
cer, was that the reporter saw the last name on a
death certificate of .a 5-year-old baby and decided
it referred to an agent by that name: ?
Hersh said he was more concerned about the
domestic operations. He wondered what Richard
Ileums thought was going on June.23, 1972, when
H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman called him
to the White House, he said, and asked him to stop
the FBI Investigation. He seemed to- think Helms
should have leaked such information arid also
0100040001-2
what James McCord was telling him in the letters
he was writing to him. ?
Jack Maury took delight in quoting from a letter
he wrote over a year ago to Seymour's boss,
"Punch" Sulzberger, in which he listed inaccura-
cies and distortions and asked Sulzberger to let him
know if any were incorrect or unfair. Sulzberger
wrote back, "As a matter of policy I do not preread
articles that comment on the New York Times: I
feel that is up to the author." Whatever that means.
, But all that was mild compared to what Uwe
Siemon-Netto, German correspondent for Die Ziet,
said as the main banquet speaker. As a correspond-
ent for a German news service from 1964 to 1969 in
Vietnam, he blamed the American media as well as
some European correspondents for so distorting
the war that people on both sides of the Atlantic .
thought the United States was the aggressor and
the North Vietnamese, the liberal democrats. He
told how the Viet Co ng mutilated civilians and
strung them, up. But the. press overlooked such
'things. =' '? ? In fact fact said Siemon&tto, this was the first war
ever lost primarily because the media undermined
the war effort On our side and was favorable to the
Communist side.. When AIM takes aim, no holds
are barred. . .S.-
excerpt
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? 5)
JOURNAL
Approved For Release 2004/11/pila:nyk\,-Itigni9j315R0001
4 March 1978
n Crown
Despite what we would like to
think, it must be conceded that the
t?I press- is neither:e-.? ?
? eee i.c,t
t omnipotent noreele?e
all-wise. It is:e.
' made ?e-up of ,,ee
human beings?
and therefore is
subject to thee::
frailties " and
flaws that beset
the human anie ?
mal.
Thus.. ? it
shouldn't be surprising that a sort
of devil's advocate of the press?
and the electronic media?has ari-
sen and seeks to point out on a -
regular basis our sins' of omission
and commission. This conscience
of the news media is known as
Accuracy in Media or by the acro-
nym AIM.
? One point recently raised is dis-
? turbing to me, and should be dis-
turbing to the entire profession.
But apparently it .
The AIM point is that the Soviet
police Agency, KGB, has suc-
ceeded in infiltrating the nation's
00040001-2
e,Issue Of Outside Exploitationi
Of The Press
press..
it requires no feat of memory to
h recall the outcry over allegations
that the Central Intelligence Ag--
F ency had infiltrated the news
media and used writers, reporters,
editors in behalf of the CIA. ?
I think it waS an outcry that
was justified. For the news media
to remain credible they must take
pains to insure that they aren't
infiltrated by any outside organ-
ization.
But what is astonishing and dis-
turbing is that there has been no
outcry over the KGB infiltration.
There has been no call for a con-
gressional investigation. There has
been no breastbeating by those
champions?or alleged champions
?of a free pr ? There baa been
Ko For reel
no call to root
Reed Irvine, chairman of AIM,
takes up the sticky issue in a sup-
. plement to the current AIM Re-
. port. He wrote that AIM had spon-
sored a luncheon in February
!where John M. Maury, a retired
CIA official and a former assist-
ant secretary of defense, talked on
e the issue of the Soviet KGB infil-
trating and exploiting the. Ameri-
can news media. .
Mr. Maury was with the CIA for
27 years. This past December he
testified before a House subcom-
mittee and at that time informed
the congressmen of the Soviet
Union's use of the press in this
- country. He testified that a Soviet
intelligence manual, "The Prac-
tice of Recruiting Americans in
_the, USA and Third_ _Countries"
placed members of the press sec-
ond in a list of priority recruit-
ment targets.
"At the luncheon, Mr. Maury
said in response to a question that
the CIA files contained informa-
tiorelattIrspecific journalists who
had KGB ties," Mr. Irvine wrote.
"However, Mr. Maury declined to
name any names. He was not in-
clined to favor a congressional
investigation in this area, but if
congressional committees think it
is necessary and desirable to
investigate CIA- use of journalists,
why would they not be even more
interested in probing the activities
of the KGB and other foreign
intelligence services in this impor-
tant area?"
ase 2004/11/01: CIA-R0P88-01315R0001
It's a good question. And it de-
serves an answer. If were 'going.
to get so wrought up over CIA ex-
- ploitation of the press, why don't
we get at least a twinge of irrita-
tion over KGB exploitation? But
? Congress doesn't appear inter-
ested. Maybe it's because Sen.
Frank Church isn't seeking a
presidential nomination this year.
'And the orgenizations V which
squeak with alarm over exploita-
tion of the press in any form have-
n't discernibly lifted so .much as
? azz eyebrow...
, In an earlier issue Of AIM Re-
_tort this auestion
"Entirely missing from this dis-
-cussion, as far as we have been
able to see, is any exposure by the
media of the use of journalists and
journalistic covers by foreign
intelligence Services, particularly
those hostile to the United States
such as the Soviet KGB and the
Cuban DGI. One would think from
discussions in our press that the
infiltration of our news media by
our, own intelligence agencies
posed a critical danger _to our.
?freedoms. :
"At the same time the penetra-
tion of our media by the KGB and
its allied intelligence services IS
evidently viewed as no problem at
all. It is not clear whether this is
because the media here think that
such penetration is impossible or
whether they accept' it as possible
but think that it poses no danger." -
For my part I believe the press
and the electronic types should
make every effort to eliminate ex-
ploitation by the CIA, the KGB,
the DGI and any other outside
group. - -
But it doesn't make any sense to
literally and. figuratively make a
federal case out of CIA penetra-
tion and treat KGB and DGI pene.
tration in the manner of an over.
tine jo_K?kinz ticket. V'
oug4wmtg no credit on the premix
or on the Congres.s. *. _.?,eir_eeeee
AR 2):ARr.z'
THE WASINGTON POST
OV PAGE /71 21t-Approved For Release ?p011101/91.y. ql4WDP88-01315R00 100040001-2
LETTERS TO THE
DITOR
A Reply From Accuracy in Media, Inc.
We regret that The Washington Post
has used an F.Y.I. editorial [Jan, 121 to
mislead its readers about our criticism
of an article by Lionel Martin about
Cuba. Let's set the record straight.
Our Dec. 5 letter to the editor was a
short one, just nine sentences long. Six
of those sentences were devoted to a
discussion of Mr. Martin's article. One
of them noted that he had been an ad-
viser to Castro's government and a cor-
respondent of the left-wing weekly, the
Guardian. One suggested that it would
be helpful to the readers if they knew
that, and the last one asked if The Post
would tell them this information.
The Post described this letter as an
ad hominem attack on Mr. ,Martin that
"impugned a news dispatch and its
author, not by demonstrating any inac-
curacy in the dispatch itself, but by se-
lectively reciting only a part of the
writer's personal and professional
background."
The article in question carried this
headline: "Will Influx of Capitalist Tour-
? ists Bring Back the Vices of the Old Re-
gime?" Our criticism could be summed
up in this sentence from our Dec. 5 let-
ter: "The article carried the suggestion
that such vices as prostitution and gam-
bling were the inevitable fruits of the
free-enterprise system and that Castro's
? Communist system had established a
new higher morality in Cuba.'.'
? In a letter to me dated Dec. 13, Philip
Geyelin, editor of the editorial page of
The Post, essentially confirmed that
this was what Mr. Martin was saying.
Mr. Geyelin wrote: "He was merely say-
ing that the Castro regime had pretty
'well stamped out not just prostitution
and gambling but the operations of the
mob and organized vice in general; and
that he was afraid that the return of
tourism to Cuba would mean a return
to the bad old days of the Batista dicta-
torship." -
As we pointed out in our paid ad in
The Post on Jan. 6, those "bad old days"
were the days when Cuba was capitalist
and the Cuban people enjoyed freedom
of speech, press, religion, association,
the right to travel abroad, etc.
We suggested in our original letter
that it might be appropriate to specu-
late about whether the return of tour-
ism to Cuba would "result in a relaxa-
tion of the draconian,- oppressive laws
and punishment with little regard for
due process that has characterized
Castro's totalitarian system." Instead,
Mr. Martin chose to focus on the dan-
ger that it might bring back prostitu-
tion, gambling and tipping.
, Some people might think that this re-
flects an unusual sense of values, espe-
cially in a writer for a newspaper that
places such high store by human free-
dom and which has not been known to
get unduly upset by the prostitution,
gambling and tipping that can be ob-
served within a few blocks of its Wash-
ington headquarters. It was for that
reason that we suggested that the read-
ers of The Post might be interested in
the background of Mr. Martin so that
they could better understand the per-
spective from which he writes.
The Post is not, of course, indifferent
to connections that iournalists have
' luence their writin . It
pas viewed with great disfavor . in-
fluence on newspaper correspondents
?even stringers.
Cuba is one of Many countries that
uses journalists routinely for uttelle
? ence and propaganda purposes. in
view of some of the comments in The
Post's F.Y.I. editorial, one might well
wonder whether The Post would be as
careful about not hiring_ a correspon-
dent or stringer under the control of a
. foreign intelligence agency. such .as the
DGI of Cuba, as it presumably is about
not hiring anyone connected with the
CA.
I say this because you concede. that,
great pressures may be brought upon!
your stringers in countries such as.
Cuba by the government. You perceive i
no danger in this, since your editors are!
very skilled at eliminating any storiesi
that appear to be biased or inaccurate.
It is left to the reader to wonder how
a harried editor in Washington can de-
tect the inaccuracies and biases in sto-
ries written in countries that are far
away and that may be totally unfamil-
iar to him, when he so frequently lets
pass bias and error in stories that con-
cern matters on his own doorstep.
You say to your readers: Trust us to
protect you from biased and inaccurate
stories. But you are showing by your ac-
tions in declining to print letters that
point out cases of bias and error that
you are not anxious to have the readers
know that the trust you seek cannot al-
ways be said to be deserved.
REED IRVINE,
Washington
Chairman. Accuracy in Media. Inc.
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?
n A 25X1
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? anasaanasaamisiamiatimaanamonannasairiminaisimosuansamaasaaaaassanansainasassaannaaniasaanisaanaJ
March 10 1977
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'
ITEWASH-. FR MIHE WASHINGTON PO
On February 17, The Post carried a story
by Lee Lescaze under the headline, "tetc-
hier Briefcase Opened to the Press." Mr.
Lescaze said in his story that the associates
of the late Orlando Letelier had "decided
to make the briefcase public" because
"leaks" had damaged Letelier's reputation.
We have been informed by the office of
the attorney, who "opened" the briefcase
that no press -conference -was called and
that, as-,a matter of fact, only The Wash-
ington Post was invited to a special briefing
on the documents. It is 'difficult to justify
the headline- in .The -Post or the statement
by-Mr. ? Leseaze "that the contents Of the
briefcase: haye been 'tnide'public-; ?
Lescaze, on the basis of this special
briefing:pr?e4ed to ' attack what had
been said abo-ut the -"documents by col-
umniiteho'had actual physical possession
of the papers they were writing abo'ut tie
said that --Anderson-Whitten and Evans
Novak had put-"the darkest possible inter-
pretation"-on the material.
? The main difference between what Les-
caze ? wrote and whit Evans -and Novak
wrote was that the latter actually quoted al "Meaning of 'Helsinki'
from the documents. Lescaze's long article Ev s Nova in out that tete- Finally, Lescaze describes a reference to
includes a single sentence directly quoted her ha w o t e Allende saying Rinds paid to Congressman Harrington as
from the documents. He paraphrased ry1 an des i Washington were coming from "Helsinki as "shorthand." lie
le thing else.' .."?(.2 eeking o ma an apolitical charac- suggests that the money came, not from
d? . ? ex stvely to the problems of Helsinki, but from the Commission to In-
MOney- from Cuba u an ights. He said, "The object is to quire into Crimes 'of the Chilean Military
Lescaze .also conveniently ne ect to ob ze he 'liberals' and other persons, junta, which happened to hold its first
Mention the most dama g f ,e ey don't identify with us from an meeting in Helsinki. He does not say where
dence of- Letelier's "H a .nne to de gical point of view are in it for what this comimssion is based or whc. funds it.
re
"?: t- tbat had been covered y EvanS a o- man rights reflects."N He urgefl that the It. is our understanding that it is a creature
st 4 ' vak., ThisLwas, the reve t' that ea n Chilean human rights committee, not be of the Vi/orld Peace Council, ,which just
i ,* . -- - e - ? -.-4---c* e, 4! eV, - .? '' , ? - - - ??-i -- .,. f. ..,,
came from Havana, not from Western and eventually stop giving support to the
?
Europe. - - -.. ? - committee." What is more, he expressed
If Evans and Novak were wrong and the hope that they could soon achieve in Chile
letter, did not say that the $5,000 was what had already been achieved in Cuba,
enclosed, Lescaze could have seized upon i.e., the establishment of a totalitarian clic-
this error and made much of it. The fact tatorship which would abolish human
that he totally ignored the $5,000 suggests rights that Chileans now enjoy. , - , ?
that it was an uncomfortable morsel that Evans and Novak characterized, this as
was best handled-by not mentioning it, evidence that Letelier was manipulating
hoping that no one would' notice that it "idealistic, liberal . congressmen" and as
refuted Landau's carefully worded .state- evidence tha anted to conceal "world
ment-implying that the money came from communi su 0 ' for his movement.
Western Europe. - r="--":", -- 1-?'01-t' ' -' That ul ee o a fair characteijIa-
The Landau statement which 'Lescaze Ho ed ?n th a tat words used by
uses is a prize example of misdirection. e r. ca ar rases what Letelier
Lescaze said that Landau denied that' t, , 'n th o ',and then he accuses
money came from the Cuban govern Eaits having "summarized'!"
He then said that the party - fun we is "as ,e ',.rt to -concear'World Corn-
kept in Western Europe: The re e4 "b- m nis su t In for his movement.'" He
viously expected to infer that he ey 0 r the evidence provided by tete--
came from Western Euro ug ier rt words that his real objective was
dau is carefut,not to It ul be t? .romoie a regime in _Chile that would
very strange to transf r one to e destroy human rights and that he was using
ern Europe to the U vi Cuba, ch s the "human rights" campaign to help bring
very tight ex g tr s. - _ this abouL, ',. "--, '' _ - ' - -,-
-40 'Allende'iv -letter -from `, va of 8, linked to Havana, saying, "You know how happens lo be located in Helsinki. It also
1975 informed. Letelier t a pay nt of these 'liberals' are. It's possible that one of happens to be one of the better known
IL $5,000 'tit support his work encloieci the sponsoring congressmen might fear that communist front groups, dominated by the
':
in her letter?. That meant that; the $5,000 they might be Connected- with Cuba, etc, Soviet Union.,:. "---- e.e :. -:,-;=.--i:?,r,:,,
re.4.:?ii.,,. - ---le.4-74-;,..1,- 4,15,:4,5i k , ?.:4, ' ...s-r-,,. 7,
r. - , , _ _ . .,- . a
11; e,s-elay--?after, the Lescaze :- effort to downplay r; iniminsionsinamiumansmailigniiiiiimalusimegivama
iii ? the. Letelier ',documents:, was -,published,,, The Post 'F.10 ,--,To ,-Accuracy in Media, Inc. (AIM)
-... . ? -
ran an article n
by a'Letelier associate, Saul Landau, r 0 ,f
?:?_,e-',i 14th Street, NW
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:1 Which ',went overmuch-- the same , ground: -Accu--, N I '"/::',,,.- WaShingion, D.C.: 20005 ?hone (202),783:4407 -
, ?-;-racy in Media asked The Post to print our critique,: ? , _ Enclosed is ,my Contribution- of $ -- --- '-0- -1--(Con--! 2 AN
II
tra, of the Lescaze article; The Post has refused to do . II i;tributors' ?-of , $15or:,,,-in?Jo4,-,,rilf ,,,,'reice)vtt,t ,k
h,T.1-fIAlij,Leit': ... ?
sil. Wei have therefore been compelled to purchase ,. ? -,--:Report for ,one year) , ,....,,:,-;-- - - ._..,,-;,-,.?,- ? - -
$4' la
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?speciai to bring this Information to .the .readers. of,:,,' r,
. 4'0- Send ine Information botAIM
. .
'''':;?-,The Post Thecost of this adis $2000;--,:-..-.1,,s7-.`e*er,ent"ee'i a .r49.,:-...... ,.._q,i-s.:
., AccuraCy in Media, Inc Is al nonprofit organize', IN -7-r?- -;.--' NAME .-...
.. ,,:1,---,:':4?:?i-
... to work of correcting errors' and dis- _
ion and w&nizied your contribution to enable us.?,.: 0 ' ''-' Address, -.---- ????
,
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II '-City.l. ? ' . '''!-:.--.'j'''"''';'-- t''''"-State :"'"'''''Zip,
- .- ?,.--_-?,:-.:torticinis Such .eithis Contributions are Lax-deduc- - in -?-- - ? ,' ,', - ' --'9-''? - .-- ? - r,:i---. ---?:?,=-' - -- - - -,-,-.7,--L,,i,.;
- (0---4-',. ii?ling ? ' .-;:''----4.7- ''' ' ' ' ? -.4"' 11/ ` MaktiCheaks payable to Accuracy in Media Inc. or:Kt44N II /Jig.' 1:: 'f',..;:',:l'ifti!M41.0-1:4,4-Z',1',Pi tfi-i... .--.-g.;k:ifel,..-.1e'l ..-:.%#s?-fi ? :t#:-'5', ' -' - - f - . ' - ? - - ' --' .-.
t-'1: Please send your contribution today.. : -_-,I,?:-. ,,c, -,:. .- ? ,,,CONTRIBUTIONS TO AIM ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE!
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I, ,r,:. Z04ri 1:' '3';''''C.,;.''S.W,!?'!::',':4'.'141',1-?;r1".r.7:7'''''?,?. 77 ..:o.
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?-'-'''''liASII-747."'THE',:..I.JASitINGTON'POST.'INFORMED-? US "AT - THE : LAS T-7,MOMENT THAT THEY
..
.ARE? REFUSING TO ' RUN :,THE -ABOVE . AD .:. :THEIR' REASONS ARE LAUGHABLE : 7., THEY ?:' --,.? . .-?
N :ADS BY , THE -,NORTH ,.KOREAN TYRANT,-- KIM-- IL SUNG", THAT ,TELL- LIES .-/kBm..1,
-,1- THE'U:';',S' ?.',', ._BUT ?=THET.",CENSOR-ADS . THAT TELL': THE -,-TRUTH -:'ABOUT : THE :POST
t4Til"" BUY SPACE IN OTHER 'PUBLICATIONS- TO - EXPOSE THIS GROSS 7CENSORSHIP_,
r,SE ND' YOUR'jWIT5eTel, : ..,..(
' 4 ... -,._ , - . -t- .e-'ceC--,e '. ef, -.?,:- -",i'-',,e'';!:' -, - .'"'"""e'"?4-4
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WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Release 3tonjupiktrcitkopP88-01315
,ARTICTIT AfTEARED
ON PAGE.
orrb-etion'.
ccuracy? In 1.1,1dia iistied
. ?
.7,, report in January criticizing
? ,
- major US. :papers Including
The 'Washington Post for.,not
? 'investigating charges -:' ';first
printed by the' Jack Ander,Son- .
?:-?:-Les Whitten column that Mut*: :.
:-Vdereir: Chilean _Socialiit, Orlan;
:do,Leteller's briefcase revealed ,
/
:he had ties' with Cuba. 'Iced ?
liiine,???? chairman 'of the press
Monitoring ? group`;* 'also ' Wrote
to 400 newspapers praising the .
???,.'Coltlinri. The Post' erroneously: :?
, !:1-'rePorted -.-YeSterdayi.-?thpt,', the ?
Accuracy in Media comments ??::
?..
were:i-rnade- in 'the-form of
'nevyspaper .advertisements.'
000100040001-2
icriMen, arPOAltri)
'ON PAqg
- ??.?,!! n--
ee. 13Cot _a_rt
alit Expulsion
-,-,-,TLONDOINT.,: Feb. 17 (AP)7--Forrner CIA off',
Philip Agee has gone to Scotland; where -A4'4
;
he plans to mount a legal challenge based
' on little-used proVisions, of _Scottish. la* to
fight7.a _British deportation' 'order.:._:..; '..- ?
? All- liome Secretary Merlyn- Reei announced
.i'?.'i1n-Parliament yesterday that the Labor gov-
f;?,-k.,:erriment would., expel Agee 41 and reporter..;;.,
'3.Mark ? Hosenball, - 25, _both, Americans,? az?
, cused of being' a security threat to Britain. 4
;The :deportation,. unusual' in pOlitically .
- -5.erant England is being 'protested by civil-
?
1ibertariansmernbers..Of Pzyllarneq and; ?.:_?:??
.%.1.
some newspaPers. _ : ? :
";.,A leading Scottish lawyer, Lionel paichei, ??
....Avas quoted bki.the. Guardian newspaper as
s ay ng Agee's :case hinges- on _the fact that
to deport him fromi Scotland, London must :t
?
get
independent confirmation from the sec- ?z
';?_.,,,,tetary of state .for -Scotland. Some constitu.:
tionallawyers said the procedure has been.:
.4-Used only twice before ..?J In ?both: cases,1
o,?England _backed downTfrom ..a4egal:cd2;-Iron--: ?
4tation with.7.-Scotland.., and - those .involved.-
were permitted.;.to stay in Scotland."
has said he 'will "appeal-to?tha---
, high f dciurt:IThe two men have-
Mardi 1 to leave-Britaire
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t I 111.111?0111ai
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-0131 R000100040001-2
3 November 1976
Mr. Reed J. Irvine
Chairman of the Board
Accuracy in Media, Inc.
777 14th St. N.W.
Washington D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. Irvine,
Thank you for your interesting letter and copy
of the AIM report for October.
I am sure you will understand that the Director
of Central Intelligence should not be in any way
involved in any organization that seeks to influence
the operation of the public communications media.
With good wishes.
mb
ISincerely, -
-Andre-g-T-.7-Falkiewicz .
,
Assistant to the De,ctor of
Central Intelligence
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STA
HUNAN EVENTS
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Politicos igroro
tt3B Activities,
By REED J. IRVINE
Last October, Accuracy in Media
took the news media to task for failing
to investigate and report on charges made
by Sen. Barry Goldwater (R.-Ariz.)
that the Soviet KGB had infiltrated the
staffs of U.S. senators. Sen. Goldwater
stated on a Washington TV program that
this information had been given to him
by Vice President Rockefeller. He said
that the Vice President had told him that
the information would be included in his.
report on intelligence activities. Gold--'
water said that the Rockefeller Report
failed to make any mention of these
charges, and that the Vice President had
explained to him that he had been asked
to leave them out.
In one or our columns, we said that it
was shocking that the news media should
so completely ignore this- story. It in-
volved allegations of a serious threat to
our national secUrity and of a cover-up
by the Administration.
Some 50 members of the House of
Representatives signed a letter to Sen.
Frank Church (D.-Iowa) asking that his
committee on intelligence investigate
these charges. Sen. Church responded
by having a couple of aides talk to FBI
officials about the matter. On Novem-
ber 5, he released a letter he had re-
ceived from FBI Director Clarence
Kelley, which said that the FBI "has no
evidence at this time of any infiltration
of congressional staff."
The letter did not point out that the
assistant director of the FBI, W. Ray
Wannall, had told a seminar on intelli-
gence and internal security sponsored
by the American Conservative Union a
few weeks earlier that the .Soviet intel-
ligence services were showing an in-
creased pattern of activity on Capitol
Hill and elsewhere. He told the seminar
that the Soviets were trying to develop
"agents of influence" and that the U.S.
was their prime target.
The FBI letter to Sen. Church has ?
a confidential attachment. Sen.
Goldwater told MM that this men-
tioned a case of suspected infiltra-
tion of a congressional office some
time ago. Sen. Church kept this se-
cret. Ile used the FBI letter to
create the impression that there was
no reason to he concerned about
KGB infiltration of Capitol HU
On March II, the issue exploded
again, with the discovery that back in
1967 the KGB actually recruited an
aide to Sen. Eastland of Mississippi. The
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25X1
I MIS CHMe in a ficw UJOI1/4 on Lin.z ploy
Sanford Ungar, Washington editor of
the Atlantic magazine. Ungar wrote that
an aide to a senior senator had "passed
information to the Soviet Union for
years without being detected...." He
was wrong about the length of time. It
was a matter of months, but the press
showed interest in the case and revealed
that the aide in question was Kenneth
Tolliver. He had been fired by Eastland
in 196S, at the urging of the FBI.
Ungar says he is sure that Tolliver's
activity went undetected for some time,
because L. Patrick Gray and, later,
Clarence Kelley, were both shocked to
learn the details of the ease when they
took the helm at the FBI. Tolliver says
that he informed the FBI as soon as the
KGB approached him and that he be-
came a double agent, working for the
Bureau. The FBI refuses to comment.
It is evidently true that Tolliver did
become a double agent. but there are
also indications that the FBI did not
fully trust him even when they were
using him. Tolliver's version has been
given a lot of publicity by the media, and
it is unfortunate that the FBI or the
Church Committee aren't telling what
they know of the matter.
This is important. The case shows that
Sen. Goldwater was talking about a real
danger last year. The KGB has a strong
interest, in aides on Capitol Hill. If it
could recruit the aide to a senior sena-
tor, who as chairman of the Judiciary
Committee and Seriate Internal Secur-
ity subcommittee had access to highly
sensitive information, the danger cannot
be lightly dismissed. This shows the folly
of the lack or intesrest in Goldwater's
charges by both the media and Sen.
Church last year.
Inc.
Mr. Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media.
cwt.? CoAig12-eSs
C147,62, Pir
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I v /(eivt.
WASH E.; GT 0
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Cover-up .Allegation
Heed Irvine's invitation (Letters,
Cebruary 0) to comment on the recent
Watergate advertisement bankrolled by
Accuracy in Media, Inc:, offers note
temptation than I am able to resist.
As a reader of The Post and as -a reporter
who devoted two and a half years to
Watergate, I feel competent to say that the
reason neither The Post nor anyone else
gets excited about Irvine's coverup.
allegation is that most editors and
reporters can differentiate between what
is news and %what is vendetta. -
Irvine has been trying to wage a -ven-
detta against Jack Anderson and The Post
for some time now. He has succeeded
mainly in verifying anew the adage that .
on cannot make _chicken soup from
feathers. -_ . -
Even if Anderson and the Democratic
National Committee had advance
knowledge of the break-in?and there is no
credible evidence that they did?would.
that somehow have:legitimized it?
AIM is oft-target,
'EAYS GORE,
Tiine, i,.
Washingtort
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25X1 D16 Wednesdayteh. 4, 19761 THE WASHINGTON Pon
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
A WATERGATE COVER UP BY THE MEDIA
Reported as a public service by Accuracy in Media (AIM)
(Reprinted from the December A.1.M. Report)
A recently published book reveals that there is evidence
that officials of the Democratic National Committee and
gossip columnist Jack Anderson were among those who had
knowledge of the Watergate bugging many weeks before the
break-in of June 17, 1972.
The book is At That Point in Time and the author is Fred
D. Thompson, Chief Minority Counsel of the Ervin Com-
mittee, the special committee created to investigate the
Watergate scandal.
Thompson devotes an entire chapter to the intriguing
evidence that the victims of the Watergate bugging were
warned several weeks in advance of what was planned. This
evidence was developed by the minority staff of the Ervin
Committee. Sworn testimony was taken in executive
session from three officials of the Democratic National
Committee, columnist Jack Anderson, and the two indi-
viduals who gave the warning, A.J. Woolston-Smith, a
New York private detective, and William F. Haddad, a
former official in the Kennedy and Johnson Administra-
tions.
The staff prepared a surnmarY of its findings, but it was
never included in the final report of the Ervin Committee.
The majority did not think the findings were sufficiently
conclusive. We have learned that a copy of the summary fell
into the hands of a reporter for CBS News, but that news
organization chose not to divulge the story.
The transcripts of the secret testimony became available to
the public, and AIM acquired a set, but the major media
showed no interest in them and the story they contained.
We have discussed the story with many people, including a
number of reporters. The reaction is always one of
astonishment and interest. But with one or two exceptions
the reporters have failed to probe the evidence and inform
the public about it.
Who Was in the Know?
We will give you the story in some detail so that you may
judge its newsworthiness for yourself.
First, we must point out that those who dug into this
matter were frustrated by witnesses who contradicted
themselves and each other, who had incredible lapses of
memory, who claimed to have kept no records or poor
records of important matters, and who misplaced important
documents. But it is precisely the obvious effort to conceal
md confuse on the part of the witnesses that strengthens
the conclusion that there was some real fire beneath the
clouds of smoke that some of the witnesses were blowing.
If investigative reporters had devoted a fraction of the time
they spent on other aspects of Watergate to investigating
how the Democrats and Jack Anderson found out about
the bugging in advance, it is conceivable that they might
have uncovered either a double agent, some counter-
bugging, or even an unindicted co-conspirator.
Here is the story. partly as told by Fred Thompson, but
-snyiptentensed?isp?sper own analysis of the eaceacret
testimony.
A private detective in New York named A.J. Woolston
Smith apparently became aware of the?Republican plans to
bug the Democrats as early as December 1971 or January
1972. He conveyed this information to William F. Haddad,
publisher of a small New York weekly, the Manhattan
Tribune, who had previously given Woolston-Smith assign-
ments to detect suspected wiretapping. Haddad had held
high positions in both the Kennedy and Johnson
Administrations. Satisfied that Woolston-Smith had reliable
information, Haddad sent this letter to his friend Lawrence
O'Brien, then Chairman of the Democratic National Com-
mittee, on March 23, 1972:
I am hearing some very disturbing stories about GOP
sophisticated surveillance techniques now being used for
campaign purposes and of an interesting group here in
New York where some of this "intelligence" activity is
centered. The information comes from a counter-wire
tapper who helped me once in a very difficult situation
in Michigan and who had come to me highly recom-
mended from two lawyers, Gallagon (sic) and Shapiro.
Can you have someone call me so you can get the
info first hand and take whatever actions you deem
necessary. If you want, I will go a little deeper into the
situation, but I would prefer that you evaluate the same
information I have received, and from the same source,
before taking further steps.
O'Brien turned the matter over to a member of his staff,
John Stewart, the DNC's director of communications,
appending this note to Haddad's letter: "Could you follow
up on the attached and put in a call to Bill?"
Stewart had phone conversations with both Haddad and
Woolston-Smith. A meeting with them was arranged in
Haddad's New York office on April 26, 1972. It was
attended by Stewart, Haddad, Woolston-Smith, and Ben
Winter, the vice president of a New York bank who was a
friend of Haddad's. Haddad said Winter had nothing to do
with the matter. He just happened to be in his office, and
he invited him to sit in on the meeting "to hear something
fascinating."
What Was Known
Woolston-Smith testified that Haddad did most of the
talking. Haddad testified under oath that the discussion
included plans of the Republicans to bug the Watergate.
offices of the DNC, the involvement of Cubans, ways in
which the funding of the espionage operation might be
traced, and a Republican organizatio._ in New York called
the November Group that had some connection with G.
Gordon Liddy. He also said that the name of former
Attorney-General John Mitchell had been mentioned. ?
Woolston-Smith's sworn testimony also indicated that these
were among the matters discussed, but he did not mention
John Mitchell's name being brought up. He did, however,
say that James McCord, who participated in the Watergate
burglary, had been mentioned at the meeting. Woolston-
Smith claimed that nearly everything discussed by Haddad
was based on his information except for the Cuban
involvement. He thought that information could havicome
from Haddad's friend, Jack Anderson.
en Winter, the banker, recalled that Woolston-Smith had
-displayed a "sophisticated bug" at the meeting and had
handed it to Stewart and Haddad. Winter thought
Woolston-Smith's information appeared to be hard evidence
of surveillance, not just a theory. Woolston-Smith himself
tried very hard to put the investigators off with an
incredible story that he had presented nothing but a theory.
He changed his tune when interrogated a second time, but
the staff never .felt that he had given them a true statement
about the source of his information. He insisted that he did
only "defensive wiretapping," i.e., detection of bugging.
The bug he exhibited at the meeting, he said, was only a
fake model intended to show the type of equipment
available in the market.
Two days after this meeting, Haddad addressed a letter to
John Stewart, saying that Woolston-Smith had "good
information" and that it was his judgment "that the story is
true and explosive" Seeming to answer a question from
Stewart about whether Woolston-Smith wanted to be paid
for continuing his investigation, Haddad wrote: "Yes, he
did want to cover expenses..." Haddad said: "Instead of
pursuing this with money, I decided to see what a good
investigative reporting operation could do with it now. So
went ahead along these lines. If they draw a blank, I'll be
back to you on how to proceed, and keep you
informed."
Haddad testified that he made copies of all the matenal in
his file and sent it to columnist Jack Anderson with a
covering letter. Strangely, neither Anderson nor Haddad
could locate any copies of the material Hadildd sent or of
the letter. It had all mysteriously vanished. Haddad says he
sent Anderson his "file," everything he had. Anderson said
all he received was a one-page letter.
What Was Done
Having been warned that there were plans afoot to bug
their offices, did the Democrats notify the police, have the
office swept for bugs, hire a night watchman, or even ask
the staff to take precautions?
The answer is that they did none of these. Officials have
given various explanations for the seeming total lack of
reaction to the warning. Stanley Griegg, then Deputy
Chairman of the National Committee, said that John
Stewart had told him that Woolston-Smith had warned that
there might be electronic surveillance and possibly breaking
and entering, but that what he said was very fragmentary.
Griegg said he told Stewart that he could not conceive of
the opposition conducting that type of campaign. He said
he told him that they did not have money to hire guards or
buy sophisticated security equipment.
They took great pains to create the impression that they
did not really take the warning too seriously, and that they
could not afford protective measures. No one seems to have
asked why they did not complain to the authorities, but the
answer would probably have been that they lacked hard
evidence .of any crime. However, the fact was that they did
have evidence of crimes. Mr. Griegg testified that the office
had been broken into and documents and checks stolen in
the first week of May. On another occasion there had been
an unsuccessful attempt to force the locks. Under these
warning would be strange. No one has admitted it, butitig,
conceivable that a search was made for bugs and that one
was found in Larry O'Brien's office. The break-in on June
17 was made because that bug was not functioning
properly. Perhaps it did not die a natural death.
Elation After Break-In
Woolston-Smith testified that the DNC's interest in his
information continued right up to the time of the June 17
break-in. He said he was in regular telephone contact with
John Stewart ? once or twice a week. He said his last
discussion before the break-in was along the line of
"something is about to happen." He also said that after the
break-in Stewart called him and was "elated." Asked what
he was elated about, Woolston-Smith said: "Elated that we
had more or less called it the way it happened."
When asked to elaborate further, Woolston-Smith said:
"This enthusiasm seemed to have been, well, we may not
have this election, but boy, we have got them in real great
position." He said this was because Stewart thought there
was definite involvement of the Committee to Re-elect the
President. He added: "They are expecting the newspapers
to develop it."
John Stewart painted a very different picture. According to
his testimony, his contact with Woolston-Smith was ex-
tremely limited, and he really obtained no definitive
information from him. He indicated that he had only one
telephone conversation with him before Watergate. He
could not remember any meeting with him prior to June
17. It was only when he was told that the others had
testified that Stewart had met with Haddad, Woolston.
Smith and Winter prior to Watergate that he would admit
that and then only as a possibility. Stewart also had trouble
remembering the letter Haddad had sent to him dated April
28, right after the meeting in New York. The letter
characterized Woolston-Smith's story as "true and ex-
plosive," but Stewart had no recollection of ever having
seen it, even though he was sure that he must have.
Stewart insisted repeatedly that his only meeting with
Woolston-Smith was after Watergate. He claims to have
forgotten about him, but after the burglary he recalled his
warning. He had his assistant find his name and number and
give him a call. He arranged to meet him in New York,
together with Haddad.
While Haddad and Woolston-Smith frequently gave the
impression of being fuzzy and less than candid in their
testimony, Stewart seemed to go to unusual lengths to
downplay his meetings and conversations with Haddad and
Woolston-Smith. His testimony was so lacking in credibility
that one is bound to wonder what he was afraid of. Would
an admission that they took the advance warning seriously
be so damaging?
The answer is probably yes. If they took the warning
seriously, they would have had to have known more about
the source of the information. No one has been willing to
come up with a credible story about how Haddad and
Woolston-Smith managed to assemble such accurate in-
formation in advance. Thompson and his staff were
strongly inclined to suspect some leak from the CIA. Or did
they have access to information obtained by electronic
surveillance? Or was there a double agent within the ranks
of the CRP group? Suspicions have fallen on McCord, who
bungled the break-in, confessed to Judge Sirica and ended
up serving very little time in jail. They have fallen on
another member of his team, Alfred Baldwin, the lookout
man, who was never prosecuted. Baldwin was a flop as a
lookout, and he was also the source of extensive in-
formation about the Watergate operation that provided the
basis for a press conference by Larry O'Brien on September
7, 1972, according to Fred Thompson's book. Thompson
was inclined to doubt that Baldwin was a double agent only
because he had done so many things that risked
compromising the operation.
Finally, if the DNC took the warning seriously, it would be
harder to explain why no obvious defensive measures were
taken. Woolston-Smith did not accept the idea that there
was no money for security. He pointed out that field force
meters could have been acquired to detect bugs at little
cost. He noted that while the committee was saying it could
not afford money for security, it was spending $45,000 fot
a motor launch as a gift. His conclusion was that they had a
plan to let the bugging take place and capitalize on it.
The Anderson Angle
Haddad, as we noted above, says he turned his file on the
bugging plans over to Jack Anderson, expecting that he
would be able to develop more detailed information.
Anderson admitted that he received some information from
Haddad in an article he published in Parade magazine July
22. 1973, a little more than a year after the break-in. He
also mentioned it in a book he wrote.
Anderson claimed that he was not able to develop any
information on the basis of what Haddad had given him. He
claimed he ran into a stone wall and just dropped the
matter. Unfortunately neither-Anderson nor Haddad
produced the documents that addad says he sent to
Anderson. Haddad says that he would have given him
everything he had. That would have included the name of
McCord. It would have included information about Cuban
involvement, if, indeed, that information had not originated
with Anderson, as Woolston-Smith seemed to think.
By strange coincidence, Anderson had a very close friend in
the Cuban community who knew a great deal about the
Watergate matter. He was Frank Sturgis, a member of the
burglary team who was caught in the Watergate on June
17. Anderson went personally to the Washington, D.C. jail
to see Sturgis as soon as he heard of the Watergate arrests.
In fact he got there before the jailers even had Sturgis's
correct name. He was still booked under the alias he used,
Anderson testified, and he had a hard time finding him.
Anderson said he learned of Sturgis's arrest from the
papers, and this would suggest that the press had printed his
correct name before the jailers became aware of it.
Anderson tried to get Sturgis released to his custody, but he
did not succeed. He visited hin: at his home in Miami while
Sturgis was out on bail, and he also testified that he had
telephone contacts with him during that period. On the eve
of Sturgis's trial, Anderson was at the Arlington Towers
Apartment one night while the Cubans were discussing
whether they should plead guilty or not guilty. Anderson
testified that he did not participate in that discussion, but
from time to time one of the participants would emerge
and report to him on what was happening. He offered to
bring Sturgis's wife to Washington and have her stay in his
home. He visited Sturgis twice in the Rockville, Md. jail. He
staved in contact with Sturgis's attorney after Souirtiwsr
-
sent to prison in Danbury, Conn. All of this is based on
Anderson's sworn testimony.
Why this intense interest in Frank Sturgis? Anderson said
he was trying to get an exclu:sive story. He was trying to
find out what Sturgis was up to at the Watergate.
But actually Jack Anderson published very little in his
column about Watergate. Despite his unique connection
with Frank Sturgis, be seems to have contributed nothing
to the breaking of the Watergate story. Indeed, the first
column that he wrote on the subject that we were able to
find was not published until August 25, 1972, more than
two months after the break-in. It dealt with funds used to
finance the bugging having been traced to a Minnesota
businessman who had also been a financial backer of
Hubert Humphrey. That is not the sort of thing Sturgis
would have known about.
In December 1972 and January 1973, Anderson did publish
three columns about the pressure on the defendants to
plead guilty, and he intimated that they might reveal
embarrassing secrets if they did not get more help. This
appears to have been the only journalistic harvest Anderson
reaped from all his attention to Sturgis.
Did Anderson Miss
the Boat?
Anderson's unusual reticence in the treatment of the
Watergate story raises an intriguing question. Was he quiet
because he knew so little, or was he quiet because he knew
so much?
If he had heard in the spring of Cuban involvement in the
bugging plans, Sturgis would have been the logical person to
whom he would have turned for information. Anderson
testified that the first he knew of Sturgis's involvement in
the Watergate bugging was when he read his name in the
paper after the arrests. But he also testified that he had, by
chance, met Sturgis at National Airport in Washington. D.C.
on June 16, 1972, as Sturgis was arriving from Miami to
participate in the break-in.
This was an innocent chance encounter, the way he
described it. But there was a question about why Mr.
Anderson was at the airport. Here is how the testimony
went.
Q: And were you at the airport to travel yourself, you
were leaving town?
A: Yes, 1 was on my way to keep an engagement in
Cleveland.
Q: A speaking engagement?
A: Yes
Q: Where was that?
A: Cleveland
Q: Where in Cleveland?
A: I do not recall. I have been to Cleveland three or four
tunes to speak. We have a very enterprising paper there, the
Cleveland Press, and they are always arranging speaking
engagements for me.
A spokesman for the Cleveland Press denied that it had
sponsored or arranged for a speaking engagement for Mr.
Anderson. in June 1972, or at any other time. A search of
their files did reveal that Mr. Anderson had spoken in
Cleveland on June 1, 1972, at the Park Synagogue. The
Cleveland Press had carried a big story about the affair on
June 2. But there was no similar evidence of a speech by
Mr. Anderson in Cleveland on June 16 or soon thereafter. If
Mr. Anderson did not have a speaking engagement in
Cleveland on June 16, why did he say that he did? Why did
he say the Cleveland Press arranged for the speech? What
was he doing at National Airport that day? Those are
questions the Ervin Committee investigators did not get
around to asking.
The mystery deepens when one notes that The Washington
Post of June 22, 1972, quoted Anderson as saying that he
"happened to bump into Sturgis at the airport just several
days before the bugging incident." Asked about this on a
Washington television program, Mr. Anderson stuck to the
June 16th date for the encounter and denied that he had
ever given a different date.
The June 22nd article discussed a column Anderson had
published two days before that had carried highly confi-
dential information about the expense accounts of
Lawrence O'Brien, Chairman of the Democratic National
Committee. It stated that a spokesman for the Committee
said the information in the column could only have come
from a file that was missing from the Committee's
headquarters at the Watergate. Democratic officials also
noted Anderson's close ties to Frank Sturgis. Anderson
denied that the information had been provided by Sturgis.
The Press Does
Not Press
Fred Thompson titled his chapter on the prior knowledge
aspect of Watergate. "Unanswered Questions." Some of the
unanswered questions he listed were these:
1. Did McCord deliberately leave the tape on the door?
2. Did someone alert Shoffler (one of *he arresting officers
who was voluntarily working overtir.4 when the call about
the Watergate break-in came over the radio)?
3. Did the information pass from Sturgis to Anderson to
Haddad to the DNC, or had the offices of the November
Group been bugged, with information from conversations
of McCord or Liddy, or both, combined with Haddad's
"other sources" to put the story together before June 17?
4. Or was it some combination of these things?
S. And why had Jack Anderson been so mysteriously
quiet?
Thompson said: "We agreed that we had come close but
that we had fallen short. To borrow still another Watergate
expression, we had been unable to find the smoking gun in
anyone's hands."
True enough_ But the tnajor missing ingredient was the lack
of interest on the part of the press. Thompson's small staff
was not up to pursuing every lead and forcing a reconcilia-
tion of every contradiction. They let the matter drop, with
many intriguing questions unanswered, "and with a
gnawing feeling in our stomachs.-
The investigative reporters who pursued other Watergate
stories so doggedly, showed no interest in probing for the
o ,,tiotic Indeed, they had no
interest in even reporting the existence of the questions. A
reporter for The Washington Post told us that he had not
pursued the matter because he understood that Senator
Howard Baker thought there was nothing to the story. That
conflicts with what Fred Thompson says, and he was close
to Senator Baker.
An investigative reporter for The Washington Star expressed
amazement and interest when the story was outlined to
him, but he reported back that his editors had dismissed it
as "old stuff." He could not say when The Star had ever
said a word about it.
A reporter for The New York Times reacted similarly. He
was very excited about the story, especially since he had
just written a story about Bill Haddad getting a new job for
the New York State Legislature which involved investi-
gating such things as electronic surveillance. But his interest
apparently waned quickly. The New York Times owns
Quadrangle, the publisher of Fred Thompson's book. That
gave them access to the galley proofs of the book and the
right to a scoop on any news it might contain. Not only has
The Times not done a news story on the book, but as we go
to press it has not even published a review of it. (The same
is true of The Washington Post).
News is what the editors decide is news. As with Senator
Goldwater's story about KGB activities on Capitol Hill, the
editors seem to have decided with virtual unanimity that
the "prior knowledge" side of Watergate shall not be
treated as news. It may be interesting. It may be intriguing.
It may be of historical importance. But news it is not. The
Times, The Post, the wire services, the networks and the
news magazines have so decreed.
It is an illustration of a point Leopold Tyrmand makes in
his provocative article, "Media Shangri-La," in the winter
1975 issue of American Scholar. He writes:
"It took the bloody atrocities of the totalitarian move-
ments to enforce the unanirtimity of their communication
system in the name of faith and orthodoxy. The American
media achieved like-mindedness by entrenching themselves
as a separate power in the name of freedom and variety of
opinion. This cartel of solid, preordained thinking is a
threat to democracy, all the worse because it occurs in its
name, speckled with bogus paraphernalia, democratic in
word but not in spirit."
Accuracy in Media (AIM) has bought space to bring this story to your
attention because we feel that the failure of the major media to inform
you of it constitutes serious news distortion. Your right to know has
been abridged. AIM is a non-profit, educational organization that
combats error and distortion in news reporting. It depends on con-
tributions from members of the public who see the danger to our
society inherent in misleading reporting. We need your help. Support
AIM!
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.1,,,ob art E. Baskin
Sk;eior PoliticA AnNlyst-
Is there an orchestrated effort in
some quarters to destroy the effective-
ness of , the Central ? Intelligence
Agency? ,- ?
There are those in Washington and
elsewhere who think they detect signs
of this. And they point, quite rightly in
our judgment, at what appear to be in-
dications in the media of a. deliberate
attempt to serve up all the unfavorable
news possible about the CIA--authenti-
cated or not. ?
Critical Report ?
?
At the sthrie time it is evident that
the Washington media are not intern
ested in presenting the CIA in a favora--.-
ble " ? .
:?
Accuracy in Media, Inc.- (AIM), a
conserVative organization in the capi-
tal which monitors newspapersatelevi-
sion and radio for signs of news inaccu-
racies, distortions and omissions,
recentlyissued a highly critical report
of coverage of the CIA.
ALM took particular -note of a
speech made recently before the Amer-
ican Security Council by Lt. Gen. Ver-
non A. Warters ? which was ignored,a1-.
-most enth'ely by the news media.- ?
In his speech Walters declared that
it may be possible to conduct intelli-
gence operations "in a goldfish bowl,"
but he added that if we do it, it will be
like going to the moon. "We will be the
only ones ever to have done it."
A "goldfish bowl" operation seems
to be what is wanted by the liberal in-
quisitors hi Washington, and Walters,
who is deputy director of. the CIA, is
clearly apprehensive aboat it.
ALM noted that the Washington Star
on the day Walters made. his speech
devoted 70 colkpprdiVkleFtiFiRelFEigse
-kr"
theCIA, but not one line about Walters'
remarks. A Star reporter, who was at
the luncheon, said he found nothing
new in Walters' remarks. Hence no
story.
.? ? . "It would appear!! the AIM report
said, "that in the minds of some jour-
nalists the only thing that is newswor-
thy is material that is crticial of the
?
"Statements that put our intelli-
gence activities in -proper perspective,'
defending what has been done, are
.simply not deemed to be worth. report- .
ALM quotes a speech made last-Feb-
ruary by Peter Arnett of the New York
Times as reflecting the media attitude
toward the CIA. ?
?? "It seems to me," Arnett was quot-
ed as saying, "that this is going to
be the year the the 'spooks' (CIA) get
theirs, or they have to start answering.
questions . . . Many reporters that I
know are starting to go to Washington
and are trying to find all the security
people, all the discontented CIA offi-
cers and others who could feed the
grist for the mill to find the story of
what went on.
I TIMM( there are going to be some
embarrassing stories about this in the
next few months and the next year."
? General Walters, in his speech to
the ASC, recalled that 20 years ago the
'United Sta:tes believed that it was
faced with a ruthless and implacable
enemy who was determined to destroy
us by any means in its power. The CIA
at that time sought to counter the So-
viet bid for world dominion.
As of today, Walters had this to
say: "I think we are facing a very
tough situation. I think the tactics may
120041afffil.:thltAl-gtikel-ti3tigR
R000100040001-2
long-term goal has changed very
.much." - - ? -
According to the ATM report, Wal-
ters noted that many people.enow ex-
pect the intelligence service to Operate
with a degree of purity that will not be
? reciprocated by our enemies. He com-
pared this to fighting by the Marquis of
Queensbury roles against an opponent
with brass knuckles.
As a result of the current wave a of
calumny against the CIA, the agency's
ability to operate is being- severely
impaired. Said 1-Val tars :
"People who used to give t,3 whole
rep-orts are giving us summaries, and
people who used to give us summaries
are shaking hands with us. ? --
. "P-eople who used to help, us volun-
tarily are saying- don't come near me. -
This must be a delight to the America-
is-wrongers. For the people who be-
lieve that the U.S. represents the best
hope of -mankind for freedom in the .
world, it is not an encouraging factor."
Steadily Losing Ground - ? -
Perhaps we have only to look at
Portugal to see what the attacks noon
the CIA are doing to the world balance
-of power. The Soviet Union reportedly
is pumping 510 million a month into the
Communist party of that country.
There is evidence that the United
States now feels inhibited about trying .
to counter this activity: _
. The destructive attitude of the
-.Washington news media undoubtedly is
contributing in one way or another to
the continuing encroachments of the
Soviet Union, despite the widely hailed
virtues of detente.
We are losing ground steadily just
about everywhere, and it seems that
there are plenty of people in Washing-
ton who, in effect, are eager to cheer
06'6 464otio 1-2
WALL STREET JOURNAL
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CBS Earnings
Ros?5% to High
In First Period
1315R000100040001-2
Sales Climbed 7%; Holders
Reject AIM Proposal for
Study of News Handling
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
NEW YORK?CBS Inc. said first quartet
earnings ros?5% to an estimated record of
$24.2 million, or 84 cents a share, from th
year-earlier $21 million, or 73 cents a' share.
Sales climbed 7% to $442.2 million from
$412.6 million. ? . -
The earnings announcement by Williara
S. Paley, chairman, came at the outset of
what developed into a three-hour annual
meeting yesterday. Among other actions
taken during the session, which was occa-
sionally marked by extended debate. on a
range of subjects, shareholders rejected a
proposal by Accuracy in Media Inc. that
would have required the company to investi-
gate charges of unfairness in programming
by the CBS News division. .
AIM, a group established to expose er-
rors in the news media, had charged that
CBS news reporting was "partial, slanted
and lopsided." CBS officials didn't dfsclose
the exact shareholder vote on the AIM or
other shareholder proposals, all of which
were defeated.
On the financial side, Arthur R.. Taylor,
president, said that CBS-Broadcast group
sales in the first quarter rose 5% from last
year, with the company's television network
making the largest contribution. Mr. Taylor
said the CBS-Records group had record first
quarter sales, up 8% from a year ago, "with
significant gains for the international divi-
sion more than offsetting some weakness in
the domestic market."
The CBS-Columbia group and CBS-Pub-
lishing group, Mr. Taylor said, had sales
gains of 14% and 16%, respectively.
Under questioning bY shareholders, Mr.
Paley disclosed that CBS's previously an-
nounced plan to sell the professional prod-
ucts department of the CBS Laboratories
unit to Thomson-SF S.A., a French com-
pany, involved a sales price of "about $3
million." Mr. Paley, who is 73 years old,
also reiterated that he has no plan to re-
tire.
A major reason for the length of the
meeting was debated between Mr. Paley and
Evelyn Y. Davis, who attends many stook-
holder meetings. Other shareholders also
spoke at length on Mrs. Davis's criticisms
of Mr. Paley, and CBS.
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X1
WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Riimgritom-45/01 CIA-RD
Chat-e B. Seib
A Columnist vs.
Accuracy in Media, which likes to
travel under tire catchy acronym AIM,:
is a Washington-based organization
that bills itself as a non-partisan guard-
ian of "the people's right to accurate, i
unbaised news coverage." Its mission,
which it purso,:s with disconcerting
zeal?and a et-lain selectivity?is to
blow the whistle on inaccuracies and
distortions in the media.
AIM is neither loyed nor respected
by the press?meaning all branches of
the media. The press is peculiarly i
sensitive to fault-finding outsiders..
Moreover. interest in accuracy :
las a decided rieht-wing tilt that be-
_ies its claim to being non-partisan.
rhe accuracy it is interested in is
_hat which, serves the conservative
sause.
Many news people dismiss Alai's
r.omplaints and criticisms as tainted
_it the source; an outfit that is guilty .
4 self mislabeling doesn't deserve to
e taken seriously. Others consider
ea on their merits, despite the
Ss The Washington Post's
sudsman, I have tried to follow the
Ler course.
AIM does not disclose its contribu-
ors, but it says it gets along on about
30.000 a year. Its founder, chairman,
sliding spirit and brain is a most
lersistent man named Reed J. Irvine,
$37,000-a-year senior economist for
ae Federal Reserve Board. It is Irvine
directs .AIM's monitoring of the
:vas, particularly the so-called Fast-
-n Establishment press?The Post,
he :New York Times, the television
etworks. And columnist Jack Ander-
-a, which brings me to the point of.
is column. Irvine, Anderson and
3e Post have figured in a series of
-cuts ,.of special interest to the news
isiness and Its customers.
Irvine's monitoring of Anderson's
lurrin has had something of the
.aracfer of a vendetta. On at least
-1r occasions this year, AIM has cir-
larized editors of papers carrying
a column with charges of distortion
el deception. In addition, an AIM
mplaint to the National News Colin-
. a pres's monitor with more credit-
!.e claims to impartiality, resulted in
inding by the council that Anderson
a guilty of distortion in one in-
ce.
narly last month, Anderson struck!
sk with a column 'attaeldng AIINI
semi and Irvine in particular.
ie charged that AIM was not only
neted with severe right-wing bias.
that there was a relationship be-
sen its press monitoring and its
d-raising?that it solicited and re-
-,ed money from sources which
_efited from its activities.
a Critic
P8801315R000100040001-2
point !hut
accepted
? would not
_ssisici'.Ly ILI
scale- of buieaucretic misbehavior: it
doesn't seem to be the sort of. oliense ,
to which Anderson would normally
? devote a whole column. In fact, there
But the main target was Irvine him-
self. .AndersOn charged that as -a Fed-
eral ?Pieserve Board official he used
-government time and facilities to for-
ward AIM's "Watergate-style assault
on the press." possibly in violation of
the law. Specifically, he said that Ir-
vine; working for AIM undercovereef
his federal job, obtained a copy .ofenis
unpublished !aovernment report An-
derson had used in writing an earlier
column and nut only used, it in 'fram-
ing. an AIM attack on Anderson but
also sought to discredit the report.
Irvine says the chaenes.. are false.
He says he didn't use federal time or
facilities on AIM business and what
he, did in connection with tile report,
a Library of Congress study on oans
to Chile, was a legitimate part of his
Fed job. He says his AIM woek is
strickly moonlighting. And he says
the real Purpose of Anderson's column
was to 'silence a troublesome critic.
Soon after the column appeared,
Anderson and Irvine were ':.ed to
a House Banking subcommittee near-
ing, where each told his story. The
hearing ended with a charge by An-
derson that Irvine had cOMMitted per-
jury there in denying he did AIM
work in his fed office. The columnist
offered to preduce proof thv Irvine
had made a call on behalf of AIM on
his government phone, but the offer'
was not tr ken up.
Two days later, the Federal Reserve
Board announced that an investigation.
had cleared Irvine of the misconduct
charges. Anderson says the case isn't
closed. The House subcommittee is
continuing its investigation.
A thorny question is raised by the
..foregOing, one that has nothing to do,
with the accuracy -of the Anderson'
charges against It-vine. It is this: Did:
-Anderson ? abuse the power of the:
Press?specifically the great power he
himself wields by virtue of publican
tion in nearly 1,00n neva:papers?to1
shoot down a critic?
Anderson indignantly says no. He:
concedes that annoyance overIr-
vine's "constant misstatements" about,
his column and Irvine's letters to edi-
tors figured in the decision to investi-
gate AIM and its chairman. But he
maintains that the resulting column.
stands on its own feet. Irvine is a pub-
lie figure guilty of improper conductil
he says, and he deserved to be 12N-
posed. Further. Anderson sees sinister"
implications in Irvine's AIM that make
its exposure as a right-wing at-press
operation a matter of public interest.
Irvine 'maintains that Anderson's
column was a gross misuse of the,.
power of the press and a violation of.,
his civil liberties.
ApprOVpilkeptredW201:41:14MetIGIA-
tu prs juct??Illent.
I think, however, that there is one
2bAl
is something faintly amusinet about
his indignation over Irvine's oinain- ?
ing arid using areport that he .him.seif
had already obtained- and used,
There is another news business as-
pect to the Anderson-Irvine story. one
s that involves The Post.
Irvine learned of the Anderson col-
umn a few days before publication
and tried, by letter and personal
Visit, to persuade The Post's editors
..that it should not he printed. Atter
considering his areuments. they de-
cided- to use the column atter editing
out specific suggestions of illegal con-
That was a defensible decision. An-
derson was, after all. dealing with the
conduct of a government onicial 'and
an imPortant tederal agency. Also,
there is logic to the argument that if
AIM has the right to criticize the
press, the press has the rielit to exam-
ine AIM.
However. because of tile circum-
stances behind the Andersen column
?the taint, if you will, of the existing
antagonism between the vociferous
critic and the columnist?in my Opin-
ion the decision to publish carried with
it a special responsibility on tile part
of The Post's editors to lean over back-
ward to be 'fair to lone:. eed to see
that any future ticyclieenents were
fully covered. I think tile pener
I bled that responsibility..
' Soon. after the column appear-ed. Ir
vine issued a denial of tr!, Aodcrson
charges. It was carried he _the nesse.
? mated Press and Irvine oiler ed to dic-
tate it to The Post. it' 'was not pub-
lished by The Post.
Irvine then wrote a letter to the
editor for publication. In it he set
forth in detail his answer to the
charges.. The letter' was received sev-
eral days before the House hearing,
but it was not published until the
day after the hearing?eight days
after the column.
Although the House hearing was
announced in advance, The Post did
not assign one of its own reporters
to cover it?a failure in my opinion
to meet its responsibility as the Wash-
ington paper that had published the
Anderson column. As a result.. a
totally inadequate and misleading six- ?
inch story, rewritten from the wire
service coverage and leading with 131-
derson's dramatic but inconsequential
perjury charge, ',vas what the paper car-
ried the next morning.
There was one small counterbalance:
a brief but accurate story on Irvine's -
clearance by his Fed sueeciors.
All in all, though, it sounds almost
like a project for AlM.
RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
Approved For Re1144
I In
CIA-RDP88-013 5R000100040001-2
Anderson, AIM and t
Speech Issue
By ALLAN H. RYSKIND
Columnist Jack Anderson exudes a certain piety.
when he sinks his teeth into a victim, but he is also a
self-righteous bully, a below-the-belt street fighter,
who relishes flinging mud at those who challenge him
in any way. Anderson the bully was on full display
before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary
Policy of the Committee on Banking, Housing and
Currency on March 18. ,
The hearing iiroduced a bit of fireworks, with
Anderson frenetically shouting "perjury" at his prey,
arguing with clumps of interested bystanders, and,
finally, just before exiting the hearing room, engag-
ing in a near brawl with columnist Paul Scott. Wher-
ever Anderson goes, controversy is sure to follow.
The hearing had been called by Chairman Wright
Patman after Anderson and his associate, Les Whit-
ten; had penned an awful diatribe?straight from one
of Herblock's famous sewers?against Federal Re-
serve Board economist Reed Irvine.
Serving in his spare time as chairman of Accuracy
in Media (AIM), a private organization devoted to
correcting media misinformation, Irvine had gone so
far, argued Anderson, as to engage in a "Watergate-
style assault on the free press." He had used "his fed-
eral post to gather ammunition for his anti-press
campaign from unsuspecting government re-
searchers." And then Anderson wandered around to
the crux of his ire: "Irvine has also kept up a torrent
of abuse against us "(Italics added.)
Irvine had clearly committed a "no-no." While
Anderson, of course, feels it his solemn duty to
pulverize his targets at will in the 400-plus papers
that carry his daily column, he apparently believes
that Irvine has no right of reply. No matter how
erroneous Anderson is, Irvine, Supposedly, is
to behave like a vegetable or a Lump of sod.
Freedom of expression is only for the privileged
few of the fourth estate, you understand.
Patman initiated the inquiry into Irvine's
activities as a means Of getting at his old enemy,?
the Federal Reserve Board, which Patman views as a
creation of Beelzebub. The Texas populist has been
seeking an audit of the Federal Reserve, and he clearly
hopes to force one by proving that the board is some-
how improperly backing Irvine's crusade for accuracy.
The Patman panel, however, is not the place to
expect a judicious finding on Irvine's activities. Pat-
man, as noted, is out to lynch the Federal Reserve
Board, and he has latched onto Irvine as a convenient
scapegoat. He also unleashed Anderson as Irvine's
chief accuser, though Anderson can hardly be con-
sidered an objective observer, since AIM has so fre-
quently caught Anderson with his facts down.
Patman's administrative aide, Baron L Shacklette,
curiously enough, has also had a close association
with Anderson. In 1958, Shacklette was an investi-
gator for the Special House Committee on Legislative
Oversight. "Mr. Shacklette," noted the New York
Times recently, "was forced to resign [in 1958.1 when
it was discovered that he and Mr. Anderson, then an
assistant to the late Drew Pearson, had electronically
bugged a hotel suite rented by Bernard Goldfine, a
Boston industrialist accused of seeking and receiving
favors" from President Eisenhower's assistant,
Sherman Adams. If Putman is searching for pos-
sible conspiracies and conflicts of interest, he
might cast a glance in the mirror.
Anderson's bias against Irvine was evident from
the outset of the hearings. The lead-off witness, the
columnist began with his mud-gun on fully auto?-
matic. Splattering away, he decided to speculate on
the possibility that Irvine's efforts to correct the
media just might have been part of the Watergate
"plumbers" operation. Any proof? No, just throwing
ideas around. Ile suggested AIM was a front for bank?.
ers and the oil companies because it had rallied .to.,
their defense on an issue or two. But then why didn't
Anderson accuse AIM of being a front for Ralph
Nader, since it has also rallied to his defense as well?
Anderson then tossed his biggest mud-pie of all:
he hinted, ever so vaguely, that AIM members may
somehow have a Ku Klux mentality. He managed
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this by quoting some newspaper to the ell'ect that
AIM "'was afflicted by paranoia symptoms usually
associated with the Ku Klux Klan syndrome.'"
Anderson's efforts to conjure up the Klan in connec-
tion with AIM was not only wicked but stupid, since
such an insinuation could only damage Anderson's
reputation, not Irvine's. (Just for the record, AIM's
first two executive secretaries, Benjamin (Iinzburg
and Abraham Kalish. are Jews, while Irvine has a
Japanese wife. Not exactly Klan material.)
Not having thrown enough sludge at AIM, Ander-
son tried to convey the idea that everyone connected
with MM was somehow on the extreme right. He.
depicted its board of directors as a bunch of "ex-
military men, former ambassadors, rightist ideo-
logues, retired Red-hunters," a description which
drew hoots of derision from those in the hearing room
actually familiar with the composition of the AIM
board.
Anderson described Murray Baron, a board mem-
ber, for instance, as "a former AFL-CIO official, who
worked with the right-wing Committee of One Mil-
lion [to keep Red China out of the United Nations.)"
Mr. Baron, however, also happens to be a former of-
ficial of the Liberal party in New York and an early
stalwart of Americans for Democratic Action. How
could this information have eluded Super Sleuth?
Moreover, Senator Jacob Javits (R.-N.Y.) and Wil-
Him Proxmire (D.-Wis.)?hardly right-wing ideo-
logues--also belonged to the Committee of One Mil-
lion, as did the overwhelming majority of Congress
at one time.
Anderson dismissed AIM board member Lewis
Walt, one of the country's most distinguished ex-
Marine generals and a member of President Ford's
Clemency Board, as a "crony of Sen. James Eastland
[D.-Miss.]," which happens to be totally inaccurate.
He is, however, a crony of ex-Sen. Paul Douglas,
a liberal, who, having served under Walt in World
War II, became one of Walt's great admirers and
friends.
It also eluded Anderson that former Secretary of
State Dean Acheson was on the AIM board until his
death and that such noted liberals as Morris Ernst,
a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, and
Harry D. Gideonese, chancellor of the New School of
Social Research in New York, arc current members.
Anderson saved much of his wrath for Irvine di-
rectly. Irvine's "diatribes, issued in the name of
accuracy," thundered Anderson, "have no more to
do with accuracy than the Communist people's
democracies have to do with democracy."
Then the columnist delivered a sentence that,
for sheer gall, deserves a Pulitzer l'rize. "We
should," he proclaimed, "caution the subcom-
mittee that Irvine is a specialist at manipulating
glance, appears authentic. He will shave a fact
here, twist a troth there, remove a statement
ever so slightly from context. Then he will present
the fabrication with such bold authority that
?the unsuspecting reader easily can be taken
unaware." In psychology, this is called "pro-
jection," attributing your worst offenses to
? others,
Yet it was Anderson who came up short on the
facts. His major accusation against Irvine before the
Patman panel is that he used his official Federal Re-
serve position on behalf of Accuracy in Media. But
' Federal Reserve Board Gov. Robert Holland wrote
1 Rep. Patman on March 19 that a thorough review
leads the board "to conclude that Mr. Irvine did
not abuse his official position through use of
.Federal Reserve facilities on behalf of AIM." In all
t. .
of Irvine's correspondence at the Federal Reserve,
i only two letters even Mention AIM at all, and these
i mentions were only asides.
What had really set Anderson off was that Irvine
and AIM had nailed an Anderson.colurnn concerning
Chile as inaccurate. Anderson had charged that the
Li. S. sought to bankrupt the Allende government and
had helped to bring about that country's "financial
strangulation" by cutting off loans from the Inter-
American Development Bank. He based his column
on an unpublished Congressional Research Serv-
ice study. Irvine, whose responsibilities at the board i
include monitoring and analyzing the operations of
the IDB, found some serious errors in the study
which he pointed out to the CRS in his official
capacity. .
On his own time, Irvine wrote a letter for AIM
saying that the Anderson column, based on the CRS
study, was dead wrong, that the IDB, in fact, was dis-
bursing loans to Allende up to the time of his over-
throw. Irvine also pointed out that Chile's dependence
on IDB disbursements was actually quite small,
contrary to Anderson's report.
Irate over Irvine's efforts to correct him, Ander-
son charged in his column and before Patman that Ir-
vine had misused his position at the Federal Re-
serve to get information for AIM. In effect, Ander- i
son seemed to be saying that Irvine Might be permit-
ted to respond, but only after he had obliterated from
his memory any knowledge he had gained through his
profession. In fact, Gov. Holland asserted that Ir-
vine acted in a perfectly proper way. And Irvine testi-
fied that, unlike Anderson, he does not even use
information in his work for AIM that is not avail-
able to the general public.
Though ostentatiously demanding to be sworn in,
Anderson uttered another massive falsehood when he
took issue with Irvine's previous criticism of an
Anderson assault on the Senate Internal Security
facts to form a false picture which, at quick Ritfteliu7161*-141:9081114,113)it 111643'04r0004013111Faack
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, . Approved .For Release.2004/11/01ThelATAIDMEM14011)5060011160110110112dePts at
on hini'l?evetiled how Irvine Lngages in- twisting me 1
. tthe IPA, a school run by the State Department to
in" but it eleatly revealed more about Anderson ,
tram foreign policemen, "have developed some chill-
ing views about torture tactics." In .support of this
- :One sentence deep in the seventh paragraph of his ; - statement, it quoted from papers written by five
February 4 column, said Anderson, said that the , . students at the Academy-.-two from South Vietnam,
subcommittee's only ? major achievement lately .was one from Nepal,. one from Colombia and one from
a - 'crackpot report on marijuana prepared mainly Zaire.
by an outside . consultant.' " Though ' Irvine had
-
,chartod the attack was based on Inaccurate, hearsay AIN-I asserted the quotations were taken outof
context, while Anderson and his associate, Joseph
information,- said Anderson : "the Ii. words- were.
C. Spear, denied it, But the News Council, in a
based on our reading a the report." Anderson also
?
. said Irvine "neglected to mention that one of A IM decision that made news across the country, said
board
-
board members is Lewis Walt,' the ? very consultant AIM was right. and Anderson wrong.
who helped produce the report." -
- 1 Members of the council staff, said the NNC, "vis-
ited Washington and -examined the five 'Papers in full-.
.and in detail.. They found that the quotations by
'
'Anderson did in fact. misrepresent the attitudes of
the students toward torture as set forth in their papers.
In addition, they found that all .five papers were writ-
ten in the. years 1965-67, a fact, not mentioned in the
Anderson 'column (which gave the impression that
they were reasonably Contemporary).
"In a letter dated Dec. 30, 1974,, Mr.. Anderson I
insisted that the statements in his column were sup- I
ported by sources whose identity he cou1dnot.rev,70.11? t
and suggested thatmembers of the ( ,,uinit.ii
'spend a couple ()I months talking to Alum:sty Inter-
national and the National Council of Chtirehes.'- as
well as with Sem.- James Abouretk and unnamed
members of his stall all of whom, it was suggested.,
would support Anderson's charges.
That Anderson would repeat such inaccuracies !
under oath is astonishing. First of all, there is no
recent report on Marijuana, but a hearing record,
which is quite different. Secondly, Gen. Walt had
zero to do with the hearing record. Thirdly, the hear-
ing record was put together by a full-time staffer,
David Martin, not an outside consultant. Fourthly,
the hearing record of over 400 pages can hardly be
considered "crackpot," since it includes the consid-
ered and qualified testimony of 21 top-ranking scien-
tists from around the world. Among them: Prof. W.
D. M. Paton, head of the British drug research pro-
gram, perhaps the world's top-ranking pharmacolo- ?
gist; Dr. Henry Brill, regional director, New York
State Department of Mental Hygiene;_tor. Julius Axel-
rod, a Nobel laureate, of the National Institute of
Mental Health; Prof. Nils Bejerot of Sweden, one of .
the world's top experts on drug abuse; and Prof. M. I.
Soueif, chairman, Department of Psychology and
Philosophy, Cairo, Egypt, who has done the classic
study of the hashish impact on the Egyptian popula-
tion.
The hearing record, in fact, his revolutionized the
thinking on marijuana, and has altered the thinking of
many persons in the area who previously had a much
more tolerant attitude toward marijuana's dangers.
To disagree with its findings is one thing; to call
it crackpot is, well, crackpot.
gen...,..IY'lark Hatfield (R.-Ore.), who, along with.
Jack Anderson, hopes to rid the Senate of its In-
ternal Security subcommittee, said on March 7 that
he believed the marijuana hearing was "a very extra-
ordinary piece of research" and commendCd the
SISS's general counsel, Jay Sourwine, and staffer
Martin "for this very outstanding work."
In trying to assail Irvine's credibility vis-a-vis his
own column, Anderson's testimony, however, con-
tained a curious omission. It failed to mention that
on February 4 the National News Council, whose
executive editor is William Arthur, former editor of
Look magazine, issued a formal finding upholding
AIM's complaint that Anderson had twisted facts re-
garding the International Police Academy.
"11. such support as wa.?: alleged by Mr. Anderson
exists, it is up to him, not this Council, to develop and
publish it. Al M's complaint alleged simply that the
live quotations set forth and relied on in the original
Anderson column misrepresented the views of the
writers; and the complaint is quite correct."
But the NNC wasn't finished. "Nor can Mr. An-
derson," it went on, "escape responsibility for the
misrepreseritations.by pointing to the second sentence
of his column, which stated, 'After a lengthy investiga-
tion, we found no evidence that the academy actually
advocates third-degree methods* In the first place,
ekculpating the academy itself does not excuse leav-
ing a false implication with respect to the views of the
live named students. In the second place, the sentence
was simply inconsistent with the general thrust of the
column, which Mr. Anderson's own syndicate titled
The Torture Graduates.' "
Briefly, then, Anderson's attack against Irvine,
far from a public service, looks more like a private
vendetta?launched from. a platform financed by the
taxpayers?to squelch a critic who has rattled Ander-
son on numerous occasions. Rep. Pittman, moreover,.
.has clearly been a willing party in helping Anderson
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Pg. 4
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As Rep. John. Conlag (R.-Ariz.) stated at the
Patman hearings: "I think the basic question here is,
does an official, whether an employed official, as.
elected, as a citiien,i have his. right to express his
viewpoints in criticizing the press... " IF Patman
and Anderson have their way, officials such as. Irvine
will be denied that right.
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S
3
1315R000100040001-2
Crucial Comments Cut from Interview
AIM Protests CBS Editing of Castro Special
By JEFFREY HART
The big guns are now being trained on Accuracy
in Media (AIM), a private Washington organization
devoted to publicizing distortions and misrepresenta-
tions in the major media. It was only a matter of
time, of course, before so persistent and persistently
accurate a media critic would come under attack.
AIM is now involved in a bitter controversy on two
fronts. The first involves an argument with columnist
Jack Anderson over AI M's charge that Anderson has
slanted the facts in a recent column on attitudes to-
ward torture at the International Police Academy.
The dust has not settled on that one yet. AIM, of
course, is not infallible. But the foundation-supported
National News Council, headed by a former New
York chief judge, and embracing many shades of
opinion, has backed AIM against Anderson.
Anderson, however, in the course of replying to
AIM, launched a secondary and unrelated attack
upon AIM Chairman Reed Irvine, who is also a Fed-
eral Reserve Board economist. Anderson charged that
Irvine has used his federal office for his AIM work.
This was followed by the decision of Rep. Wright
Patman of Texas to call a hearing of his House Bank-
ing subcommittee to look into Irvine's alleged infrac-
tion. (A Federal Reserve Board inquiry said Irvine
"did not abuse his official position through use of
Federal Reserve facilities on behalf of AIM.")
Ominously enough, in a letter to Fed Chairman
Arthur Burns, Patman stated it as a fact that
Irvine and AIM seek to "harass the press, and
hamper' their reporting of news of major public
interest." That statement sounds as if it had been
confeeted by some PR man for the major media,
and it certainly does not describe the work or the
motives of AIM. Time and again, AIM has doc- ?
umented a major distortion or an outright lie by
the media, most recently catching'none other than
CBS and Mr. Dan Rather with their hands in the
? ideological cookie jar.
Last October, CBS put on an hour-long documen-
tary, "Castro, Cuba and the U. S. A." featuring Dan
Rather and including an interview with Castro by
Rather. In his commentary, Rather sought to convey
the impression that Cuba no longer supports revolu-
tionary movements in other Latin American countries.
This is a key political point, since Cuba's ostracism
by the Organization of American States was based on
. precisely such export of Marxist revolution.
Today, said Rather, Castro talks "more of concilia-
tion and trade." In a central passage on the issue,
Rather said: "Che [Guevara] went to Bolivia in 1967,
was killed there trying to carry out a Castro-style
guerrilla war. Che's way failed. Now, Castro talks
more of conciliation and trade. Indeed, while keeping
Che's memory alive in Cuba, Castro is pushing else-
where an economic union of all Latin American na-
.tions." The greening of Castro, you gather.
. Now AIM noticed something interesting. Included
continued
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in the Rather documentary on Cuba were some ex-
cerbts from a taped interview with Castro made by
Frank Mankiewicz and Kirby Jones, to which CBS
had acquired the rights. CBS obviously knew every-
thing Castro had said in this interview.
In it, Castro was asked about his support for- rev-
olutionary violence elsewhere. He replied: "Do we
sympathize with revolutionaries? Yes, we do. Have
we aided revolutionaries as much as we have been
able to? Yes, we have."
Asked under what conditions he would support
revolutionaries abroad, _Castro elaborated: "It is
essential that they be fighting. If they are not, then
we don't. When they fight, we back them."
Those words, of course, contradicted the entire
thrust of the Rather broadcast. And so they were
just omitted.
I give you AIM's conclusion: "That comes close to
being deliberate falsification with intent to mislead.
Instead of informing the American people that Castro
had not changed his policy, letting them hear it from
his own lips, CBS censored Castro. Knowing that
Castro was still helping those dedicated to violent
overthrow of other governments, Dan Rather falsely
implied that this was all past history and that Castro
had switched to...talking of 'conciliation and trade.'"
It looks as if CBS has decided to put its considerable
resources behind the policy of detente with Cuba; even
? if that means a little judicious?editing.
And you can see why AIM, ferreting out this sort
of thing, is such a nuisance to the media barons.
Naturally, AIM has come under attack, Wright Pat-
man taking on the role of Sam Ervin.
? King Fraiurrs Synth...are
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^
111..L.INUJA1.1.1 J. WI-,
6 FEB 1975
AP,ici?7kriiiemwoi:CarnfilliR000100040001-2
Fou,nd
inaccurate'
NEW YORK, .Feb; 5 (AP) ?
The National News Council
said today a. syndicated Jack
Anderson column entitled
"The Torture Graduates"
made biased and inaccurate
use of quotations from source
letters.
- Accuracy in Media, a Wasg
ington-based group, had filed
the complaint against the col-
umn with the National News
Council, a private organizaton
that investigates allegations
against the national news me-
dia.
The column, which appeared
In The Washington Post Aug.
3, 1974, asserted that "students
at the International Police
Academy, a school, run 17 the
State Department to train for-
eign policemen, have devel-
oped some chilling - views
about torture tactics."
! Accuracy in Media charged
that statements from papers
written by five students at the.,
academy were taken Out of:
context to support the asser-
tion. - ? ' -
The council said members;
of its staff examined the five!
papers and "found that the I
.quotations by Anderson do in
fact misrepresent the attitude
of the students toward torture
as set forth in their papers.".
The papers were written in
1965-67, a fact 'that was not
mentioned in the column, the
council findings said.
Anderson said in a letter.
dated Dec. 30 'that the state-
ments in the column were sup-
ported by sources whose iden-
tity he could not reveal. The
council said that if support ex-
ists, it was Anderson's respon-
sibility to develop and publish i
it
Anderson could, not be:
reached for comment on the.,
council's findings. However,1
reporter Joseph Spear, who re-
searched the story, said, "We
think they are . absolutely!
wrong. They have not yet )
done a thorough job. We feel)
justified in. what we %Tote.",
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Approved For Release 2634AVOtilb 5 latlatNRIANIN4WORTWonsidered
5 JAN 1974
flatters
FOR THE RECORD
Margaret Fisk's characterization of
Ac-
curacy in Media's complaint against Eric
Sevareid for his inaccurate assessment of
American news media coverage of the Hue
massacres was misleading.
On September 12, Eric Sevareid criti-
cized Soviet Nobel Prize-winning novelist,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for saying that
the Communist massacre of over 5000 ci-
vilians at Hue did not arouse much atten-
tion or protest in Western countries. Seva-
reid said Solzhenitsyn was wrong and that
the hue massacres had been heavily re-
ported.
This was obviously not a minor issue.
Solzhenitsyn's statement had been widely
reported around the world. Sevareid
thought it important enough to criticize in
his nationwide television commentary. The
question was, which was Correct.
Accuracy in Media informed Mr. Seva-
reid that we could find only two stories on
this terrible massacre in the New York
Times in 1968. There was no editorial com-
ment and no photos. By way of contrast;
we noted that The Times index for 1969
had no less than 31/2 pages of entries on
My Lai even' though that story did not
break until the 11th month of the year.
We haVe presented to CBS and Eric Seva-
reid considerable additional evidence dem-
onstrating that Solzhenitsyn was absolutely
correct in his criticism of the scanty at-
tention paid to the Hue massacres by the
news media in this country. We invited
CBS to tell us how heavily they covered
the massacres Jn their news programs.
CBS has revealed nothing whatsoever
about its own coverage of the Hue mas-
sacres, and neither Sevareid nor CBS has
presented a single piece of evidence to
show that the reporting of the massacres
was anything but scanty. Indeed, Sevareid
has said that it would require considerable
research to check his impression that the
coverage was heavy and he has said that he
is unwilling to undertalce that research. This
is tantamount to an admission that he criti-
cized Solzhenitsyn on network television
without having first checked the facts.
After having failed to persuade Sevareid
that he owed Solzhenitsyn an apology,
AIM decided to see what the National
_News Council would do with i this case. We
filed a complaint with them on October 22,
over a month after we first wrote to Seva-
reid. (This is of some importance, since
the National News Council' will not take a
complaint unless the complainant has first
written to the newspaper or broadcaster
and has failed to receive a satisfactory re-
ply within 30 (lays. This is no doubt one
reason the Council does not get many com-
plaints.)
The NNC responded promptly to AIM
on November 2, 1973. Your article was in-
accurate in. saying that the decision came.
after three months of correspondence. The
decision had two points:
"heavy" coverage. It thought that the con-
trast with the incomparably heavier cov-
erage of the Mv Lai massacre of 109 ci-
vilians was irrelevant since "the My Lai
massacre invrilved the killing of defense-
less civilians by 'American soldiers, an act
unorecedented in the history of our coun-
try." ?
On the first point, the NNC seems to take
the position that editorials are privileged
ground for factual inaccuracy. AIM does
not agree. We agree, rather, with Franklin
R. Smith of the Burlington (Vt.) Free
Press, who, in a talk published in E & P on
May 1, 1971. said:
"An editorial can 'promote any cause,
criticize any situation or express any
opinion no matter how far out?hut
don't get caught with erroneous facts."
On the second point, I feel that the
NNC position bears out the very criticism
that Solzhenitsyn was making--that there
exists a terrible double standard in the
treatment of misdeeds. The killing of 109
Vietnamese civilians at My Lai was given
saturation coverage while the killing of
5000 Vietnamese civilians by the Commu-
nists at Hue was all but ignored. The Na-
tional News Council apparently thinks that
reflects good. news judgment. Accuracy in
Media does note Nor do we think that the
issue is "petty." the characterization ap-
plied 'to our complaint by Margaret Fisk.
Incidentally, your article did not men
tion that the complaint on Newsweek's arti-
cle, "Slaughterhouse in Santiago," was also
taken to the NNC by AIM. NV,- have now
filed a total of. five ,_omplaints with the
NNC to test them and to help them out by
giving them something to work on. We
could give them a lot more, since we have
not found the same lack of specific, ac-
tionable complaints that the NNC has en-
countered. We have taken up ? over 130
complaints in 1973. Our budget is about
one-tenth that of the NNC.
REED, J. IRVINE
(in-inc is chairman di AIM, Washington,
D.C.)
(1). Since' Mr. Sevareid's statement was
labeled "commentary" the NNC did not
ApproverdTbY1461ta61'20014/Ifigi111.1:fir-ailiAZR91388.-01315R000100040001-2
(2).The Council thonght t tat 'pu
lication by The New York Times of two
? ? stories on a cold-blooded massacre of over
o
WASHINGTON POST
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2 DEC WS
By Stephen ISaacs.
. ? 'Washington Post Staff writer
?? NEW YORK?The exper-
imental new National News
4.,*".- Council's principal griev-
ance so far is not the com-
plaints about the media it is
? receiving, but its own obseu-
yity.
? In fact, few complaints
that - would come 4i:der the
council's purview, have been
received?probably because
? so few people know of the
? council's existence, says Wil-
liam B. Arthur, its executive
director.
As a result, Arthur, the
.59-year-old former editor of
Lock magazine, and Ned
? Schnurman, associate direc-
tor .of the council and
former city editor at =BS-
' TV here, have had to be-
:come promoters of the
council itself?a public rela-
. tiOns role they do not relish.
So, says, Arthur, he and
Sehnurman are accepting
any speaking invitations that
? they feel do not involve con-
flicts of interest. Sehnur-
? man, for instance, in one
? 24-hour stopover in Chicago
scheduled five radio and
?television apparances while.
there.
The Twentieth Century
'Fund and a task force con-
sider-A many potential pit-
falls of such a council?pos-
sible areas of contention be-
twee' and among the media,
private, interests and the
gove nment?before estab-
lishii it.
13u; the fund did not fully.
? antic :pate the dearth of
' coin) mints that has greeted
the c nitwit's birth.
M. st of the complaints di-
rect( to the council in its
few months of existence
have been from "profes-
sion: I letter writers," per.
sons who are known ubi-
quitously to editors around
.the country.
The council is hearing sev..
era! time:; a week irenl
Ac-
etirary in litc., anou
? profit washily:toit organiza-
tion that deseribes itself as
"an education:11 organization
? 777 ?
Aerr7 r?3,/i)
ment that he Whs broadcast-
ins.; from 'Chile, the most
democratic nation in South
America.' Now this may or
may not be true: I am sure
there are many South Amer-
icans who would dispute it.
Itowever, such a statement
is strictly a matter of opin-
igtc.and I strenuously object
tq.ithis kind of propagandiz-
ing in a secalled news re.
port.
"This is not exactly an
earth-shaking matter. but I
find it indicative of the bias
and irresponsibility that
sometimes plagues the news
media. 'Credibility gap" is a
cliche, but it certainly does
exist."
barometer of either happi- In this case, the writer
was told that complaints
So far, says Arthur, none
of AIM's complaints has
been of the nature of the
type of grievance the coun-
cil was set up to investigate.
"We take their letters one
by one," says Arthur.
"That's the only way to deal
with them fairly."
"We certainly hope we're
not going to be used on a
regular basis by organiza-
tions with big public rela-
tions departments," says Ar-
thur. "We hope to encourage
complaints from far less or-
ganized sources!'
So far, then, the several
hundred letters that have
come to the council are no
ness or discontent with the
media. They are, says Ar?,.. had to be more specific.
?
thur, more emotional than Yet another letter corn-
substantive, "like the PsY-
chologist who wrote us and
said that Harry Reasoner
always has a leer when he
mentions t h e President's
name. That's an emotional
response."
One letter-writer from
Vancouver, Washington,
said that "I wish 'to propose
to you investigation of na-
tional news coverage of the
abortion movement of the
last five to six years."
"It is continuously clear,"
said the letter,- "that the pro-
abortion forces receive bet-
ter coverage than the anti-
abortion ones at all levels
and in all media."
Sehnermati's reply stated:'
abortion issue is a
conn)lex one which does re-
eel'. c a sizable amount of
media coverage. However. it
is ;.et our purpose, or -the
spirit in which the council
conceived, to examine
?.eval charges of bias in
thc media. If you can cite
fir examples of media?
tids involvine, a national
news organization we shall
he happy to entertain con-
sideration of yo ur com-
plaint . . ."
Another letter complained
of -a stucific practice of
CBS rat' o news. I have no
way of documenting what I
heard. but perhaps my letter
Will cc info rce someone Schnurman and Arthur
else's complaint." been considering all els
.,plained about a story carried
by The Washington Post-Les
Angeles Times news seryice
that described a new drug
for treating gonorrhea.
"Gonorrhea is a terrible
problem," said the letter,
"but this (article) implies
some new drug was discov-
ered." Instead', said the let-
ter, the drug in the 'article
was not new, and a far
cheaper versien of the drug
has "been around about a
decade."
The counetrs by-laws au-
thorize it to study First
Amendment issues, and last
week the council announced
its first such study, to be
directed by Columbia Uni-
versity constitutional law
expert Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.
The study os. "the poten-
tial threat of a free press
posed by increased demands
for access to the media,"
was triggered by a Florida
court decision that extended
the FCC's equal time rrovi-
sions to newspaper editorial-
izing on political campaigns.
"Maybe the results of
such a study will be directly
valuable," says Schnurman,
'in ease that some .(lay goes
all,the way to the Supreme
Court. At least Well hope to
have this study published by
early 1974."
-
(7.`/- 6 Ti r 77./ 77 1\
t/c),1 .
I
_, drj,jj cli
president Spiro Agnew had
brought his complaint about
news leaks to the council
stead of to court,.
In one case where another
action was taken, Schnur-
man says, the complainant
might have preferred news
council action.
Schmirman says the Ameri
can Medical Association
complained to the Federal
Communications Commis-
sion about an NBC docu-.
me niar y last December
about the nation's health
care.
A copy of the AMA's com-
plaint was sent to the news
council, and AMA was told
that, since it had its case
pending.before a regulatory
agency, the council could
not act.
? NBC gave in before the
FCC was through hearing
the case, Schnurman says,
by giving the AMA time to
rebut the program on ? the
"Today" show and by admit-
ting certain errors in fact.
"Our postulation," says.
Schnurman, "is wouldn't it
have been more interesting
if it had gotten before us
and gotten to the open hear-
ing Stage. Couldn't the coun-
cil, by its publicity, have
ended the tint-1:s. Then NBC
would not'have betel obliged
to make the 'Today' show
time available. H that Pub-
licity had been publicized in
enough areas, wouldn't NBC
have been better off. The
hind of thing they did
makes it look like they were
guilty."
The NBC action, says
Schnurman, had a further
impact. in that other related
programs "have been
shelved or put aside because
of it. You have to ask your-.
self why,"
Schntirman .s a y s he un-
derstands that the AMA'
la retrospect would have
Ontinued
' reproseleire,t you ? (the 'the letter cited radio re- ements of contention be-
public) in combating ApprovedsFor Release 12004/11 AlleoClefeRDR88-01e1?R000100040001-2
and distortion 'in the news "the reporter ended his mem, and have dehated ass
media." 11CwSeas1 with the flat state- to what procedures they:
would have followed i' vice'
25 1
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1 MAY 1973
A Group Keeps Bitsj;
Trying to Ensure
Accuracy of Media
So-Called Liberal Media Are
Targets of Pest, er, Gadfly;
Does It Have Any Influence?v
By JOHN PIERSON
,Staff Reporter Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON ? The Washington Post, it
seems, has discovered a nifty way to make
money.
First, it prints some slanted and/or inaccur-
ate stories. This stirs uP an organization called
Accuracy in Media Inc., which writes several
letters to the Post to. complain. Then the Post
publishes only one.
So AIM buys space in the paper to advertise
its "letters the editor of the Washington Post
refused to print." This cost AIM $1,800.
Next, a reader writes in to ask why the Post
didn't run AIM's letters in the first place. And
the Post explains that printing all of them
? wouldn't have left any room for anybody else
to voice his opinions. And AIM writes back that
correction of error deserves top priority. But
the Post won't run this letter, either.
So AIM buys more space?for the original
letters from its first ad, for the Post's reply,
for AIM's reply to the reply and for a ballot
so readers can say how they feel about it all.
That's $2,400 more for the Post, and the end
may not he in sight.
This said, It now is necessary to report, in
the interests of accuracy and fairness, that the
Post thinks its original stories were both fair
and accurate and that if AIM wants to spend
money to print letters that didn't make the
paper free of charge, that's AIM's-business.
"They are biased, and they're trying to sub-
stitute their news judgment for ours," declares
managing editor Howard Simons. "But I don't
really worry about them. They're more of a
pest than anything."
AIM' doesn't mind being called a pest, al-
though it would prefer the more dignified
"gadfly." But the group rejects the idea that
the nips it has been taking out of the hide of
the Post, The New York Times, the TV net-
works and others of the allegedly liberal media
are having HO effect.
"I like to feel we have a sort of background
influence, that writers are a little more careful
of their facts after we've had a paid ad in the
Times or the Post," says Abraham Kalish,
ATM's executive secretary.
Some Allegations
Although go-rounds with the Post are taking
the lion's share of AIM's time just now, during
the past year. the Washington-based -organiza-
tion has:
?Run an ad in The New York Times criti-
cizing, Times columnist Anthony Lewis for re-
porting that the North Vietnamese might be
25X1
Times columnist, Tom Wicker, correct eight
"serious" errors concerning ? electric power
projects in the Southwest, a State Department
computer and the Communist massacre of ci-
vilians in Hue in 1968. (Mr. Wicker concedes he
"probably should have run a correction" of his
computer mistake, but he says his Southwest
power errors were "not fundamental" and
maintains the Hue massacre is "a matter of
how you read history.")
?Filed a complaint with the Federal Com-
munications Commission charging that NBC
had violated the "fairness doctrine" with its
documentary "Pensions: The Broken Prom-
ise." (NBC says that "the program was fair,
and in addition to focusing on abuses in private
pensions, it did acknowledge the existence of
many good private plans and satisfied partici-
pants.")
?Brought a Rand Corp consultant to Wash-
ington to take part in a televised discussion of
whether a bloodbath would follow a Communist
takeover of South Vietnam. Mr. Kalish told
Martin Agronsky, host of WETA-TV's Evening
Edition, that the consultant was needed to
"balance the anti-bloodbath views" of other
participants. (Mr. Agronsky says that Mrs.
Howard. Nutt was a welcome addition to the
program but denies that without her it would
have been one-sided.)
?Helped persuade ABC to correct five fac-
tual errors in a documentary, "Arms and Secu-
rity: How Much is enough?" ABC senior vice
president William Sheehan says, "There was
one bad error, but the rest were trivial.")
?Urge businessmen to insist on seeing the
text of any program they sponsor before it's
broadcast on radio or TV.
"Right-Wing Point of View" -
Many of AIM's targets refuse to take the or-
ganization seriously, because they feel its criti-
cisms are so one-sided. They note, too, that
AIM almost never finds error or bias in conser-
vative columns or publications. "Kalish is for
accuracy as long as it's his kind of accuracy,"
says Charles Seib, managing editor of The
Washington Star-News. "He obviously repre-
sents a right-wing point of view."
But Mr. Kalish says AIM has remonstrated
with a Midwest paper over an article blaming
fluoridated water for causing sickle-cell ane-
mia. He says AIM has challenged the National
Review, a conservative periodical, for at least
four "errors."
"Most of the news media are liberal-ori-
ented, and most of the complaints that come to
us concern the liberal media," Mr. Kalish
says. "I make a special effort to find conserva-
tive error, but we can't make up cases if they
don't exist or if we don't get complaints."
Complaints come in from ordinary citizens
as well as special-interest groups. The NBC
documentary on pensions, for example, was
brought to AIM's attention by businessmen,
business groups and actuaries, AIM says; In
addition, ATM's officers and advisory-board
members are also careful newspaper readers
and TV watchers.
AIM's president is Pi-an,-is Wilson, profes-
clearing mines from Haiphong harbor as sot emeritus of government at the. University
quickly as U.S. planes dropped them. (Mr. of Illinois, and its chairman is Reed Irvine, an
economist with the Federal Reserve Board.
Lewis replies that "some of the AIM criticism
But the man who does most of the work is Mr.
In that ad was justified?indeed I filed a cor-
Kalish, a Harvard classics major and retired
rected piece from Aqi.up u
,t, igArldiatelv?and
tel igence c ool. Ka sltill,t8
cOntin'ae6.
some of it was quite vrf?KtieFu -For Keleasele0471vgriciA,Aqp tofotopti 00040001-2
?Placed another ad in l'he Washington
Star-News demanding that another New York oresc.ent bow ties, gaudy shirts and lizard-skin
shoes, says he takes no pay from AIM and
lives on his government pension. He holds'
down expenses by renting office space at a cut
rate from his wife, who has a secretarial and
phone-answering service.
AIM started small in 1969, and even in the
year that ended last April 30?the first year.
AIM had tax-exempt status?contributions to-
taled only $6,412. and expenses $5,047. But busi-
ness is picking up. This year's budget should
be about $65,000, Mr. Kalish says, and Lead
year's goal is $100,000.
AIM's two largest donors so far are an un-
disclosed foundation ($10,000) and an anony-
mous company ($10,000). The 1,200 other con-
tributors include, according to Mr. Kalish,
foundations, trade associations, professional
groups, labor unions, women's clubs, business
firms and individuals. He declines to identify
any contributor, because some are worried
about getting "on every mailing list in the:
world" while businessmen have expressed fear
of "bad publicity that would hurt their busi-
ness."
In answer to one question sometimes asked,
Mr. Kalish says AIM receives no money from
the 'White House. Nor docs the White House
send AIM complaints about the media, he
adds. Lyndon Allin, the man who prepares
President Nixon's daily news summary,
agrees. "They've done some very good stuff,"
he says, "but we haven't had.any contact with
them."
When a complaint cbmes- in, Mr. Kalish nor-
mally farms it out to one of some 30 "consul-
tants." They prepare rebuttals, often in the
form of letters to the editor.
If a paper or network refuses to run a letter
or recant error, AIM urges the 4,000 readers of
its monthly report?contributors, newsmen, li.
brarians, and others?to complain to the editor,
the network president, the network's affiliatet
stations, their Senators or their Congressmen
How effective is all this? Mr. Kalish claim!
AIM's biggest success was in getting ABC ti
admit those five errors in its defense documen
tary. But ABC's Mr. Sheehan says the networl
received a lot more complaints from anotha
conservative organization, the American Sect
rity Council.
Mr. Kalish thinks Martin Agronsky's pane
show has "gotten better" since AIM begs:
hounding him about "lack of balance." (Mi
Agronsky calls Mr. Kalish "utterly irrespons:
hie" and adds: "If we're going straight accore
lag to him, I'm ashamed of myself.")
Mr. Kalish claims he has forced the FCC t
take speedy action on his "fairness doctrine
complaints. "But, of course, they're rulin
against me in every case." he concedes.
And AIM achieved "sort of a breal
through," Mr. Kalish adds, when The Ne?
York Times finally printed one of his letters 1
the editor. In fact, Mr. Kalish's proudest pa
session appears to be a framed letter to Hi
from Times publisher Arthur Ochs Suizberge
which begins: "I believe you must be the ma
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2?
thorough reader that The New York Times has,
and I think in the particular instance that you
mention in your letter of January 24 you are
correct." (The January 24 letter called the
publisher's attention to a column by corre-
spondent Lewis which, as Mr. Kalish put it,
erred by suggesting that the British involve-
ment in World War II "was in response to a
German attack on Britain," Mr. Kalish point-
ed out th,at Britain entered the war after Ger-
many invaded Poland and before Britain it-
self had been attacked.)
Beyond this, what about that "background
influence" Mr. Kalish likes to think AIM brings
to bear upon reporters to keep them straight?
The Post's Mr. Simons doubts this influence is
very influential, and so do a lot of other news-
men.
But the Star-News' Mr. Seib gives AIM
more credit. AIM, lie says, ? "keeps us on our
toes. Only I wish we had someone on the other
(liberal) side doing the same thing."
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ITE-7 yora TIMES
25X1
Approved For Release 212021/1117illok-RDP88-013111/65-0715340001-2
as 1956. Inlander in four years when
S \I 11.1 Ems has been eebna sitchechaadnogpet adoption
since of thtehiet tGoeolitl . YGee?ngeernj Ir?ortaiittieniv,:kiyIl,a5e04,
It strategy to nuclear warfare. ;General lvanovsky had been in
SHOliV 101 STYLE.,
This has involved the replace- !command of the politically im-
:ment of mass operations, , portant Moscow
?successful in the latter stages of I trict for four years. That corn-
World War 11, by small-unit: Hand went to the 48-year-old
tactics. !Col. Gen. Vladimir F. Govorov.
New weapons, missions and ! At the same time., the corn-
organizations have been fitted :position of the general staff
into the offensive strategy. The !under General Kulikov was
new Soviet Navy, for example, :changed to include generals
has been designed and armed to ;with technological background.'
! The most important appoint-
meat, analysts believe, was that!
of Gen. Nikolai V. Ogarkoy, as I
first deputy chief of staff. He
was a member of the Soviet:
delegation to the talks on lint-
king strategic arms and is now
major changes in its military vers on seizing airfields and believed to be in charge of
river crossings. military research and develop-
high command in the last 18 The difference between 1956 ment.
months, motivated by a need and today, as American and
for rejuvenation, according to European analysts see it, is that Radar Specialist Advanced
military and civilian analysts. command is now held by men
Senior generals have been re- :willing to use new tactics and
placed by younger men. One-
;weapons.
Three deaths of high officers
star generals and colonels with !provided the opportunity for
,technological experience have 'rejuvenation of the high corn-
moved into. areas previously mand which, in 1971, had an
e
dominated by rough-and-ready averas:e ee ef 66 for its top
15 officers. The passing of Mar-
veterans of the mass battles of ?
shall Matvei V. Zakharov, chief
A Younger High Command
Is Thought to Stress
Offensive Strategy
fight well away from the na-
tion's coastal waters with the
mission of finding and destroy-
By DREW MIDDLETON ? ?
b
mo- United States surface and
Special to Th t New York Timm undersea forces. The seven air-
WASHINGTON, April 22? borne divisions, each with 7,500
The Soviet Union has made men, concentrate during maneu-
World War II. A naval officer
has been appointed to the gen-
eral staff although the Soviet
Air Force still lacks a repre-
sentative there.
Two civilian analysts who
have studied the records, pub-
lished military comments and
of the general staff, Marshal
Nikolai 1. Krylov, commander
in chief of Soviet rocket forces?
and Col. Gen. Sergei S. Maryak-
hin, the chief of logistics.;
opened the door to a new gen-1
eration.
Most Important Appointment
The first?and in the opinion
personalities of the new gen of the civilian anlvsts, the most
,erals believe that, as a group, important appointment ? was
the new men will emphasize that of Gen. Viktor G. Kulikov
staff.
Another technical expert ap-
pointed to the staff was Col.
Gen. V. V. Dru.zhinin, a deputy
chief of staff. He is an engi-
neer . who has specialized in
radar and radio technology. For
five years until 1967 he was
chief of the air defense forces'
radio engineering service.
Until last year, the general]
staff was the preserve of
ground-force generals. The first
break was the appointment of ,
Adm. S. M. Lobov as assistant
chief of the general staff.
Admiral Lobov is an expert
on nuclear submarines and since
196-1 has been commander of
the Northern Fleet, which is
based at Murmansk and in-
cludes all Soviet nuclear-mis-
sile firing submarines with the
exception of those in the Pa-
the doctrine of the offensive as chief of the general
cific.
in their leadership. This would. General Kulikov, who is 51, was.
General Kulikov, in addition
mean that the training, procure-,
VI the energetic commander in to remaking the general staff,
: chief of Soviet forces in Ger-
ment of weapons and tactical: has replaced, transferred or re-:
many before he assumed his
planning of Soviet forces would' tired 19 chiefs of staff of mili- ?
new appointment. tory districts since December, ;
be aimed at the ability to sup- When Marshal Krylov died, 1,71. . I
port an offensive in the event the Soviet Defense Minister, Most of the new chiefs or
:of war in Europe or Asia. Andrei A. Grechko, chose CCU. staff are one-star generals in :
: The analysts are Alexander 0.
!Gebhardt and William Schnei-
der .1r. of the Hudson Institute
Iat Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., a
!private research organization
that does most of its work for
the Clovernment.
Their studies on the Soviet
!high command and the air force
high command will appear in
the May issues of Military Re-
. Vladimir F. Tolbuko, flInn".1Y their early 40's Who saw little!
commander of the Far hastern fighting in World War II but,
:military district, to head the who are presumably more at
!missile forces. At 59, General home than their elders in an:
,Toluko cannot be considered age of technological warfare. :
:young but he is said to be One conclusion drawn from!
:more in accord with the the rejuvenation program is
:younger leaders 'views than that Soviet procurement will ,
I with those of the elderly mar- shift to more sophisticated'
!shals. weapons than the previous:
Col. Gen, Semyon E. Kurot- ones designed for mass opera-
kin, who followed General Kuli- te-,,,,.
Itov in Germany, replaced Gen- The Hudson Institute's ex-
anal Marvakhin as loeistics pats suggest two hypotheses;
view, published by the Corn- chief. He is 55 with no previous, on Soviet'snetteLly. 'rile first is.
mand and General Staff College.'
, logistics experience. :i:Pri l l not: that the Kie:sians have assim- :
at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and; uncommon in the reluvenation, Hated and accepted" American
the Air University Re.viewd programs where commanaersi ideas on deterrence that make ?
published at Colorado Springs.i of Prnynnicl, ti.N1I..::e,a:
oral. huroAin ate na.a.... Lo
' Analysts at the Pentagon clis-1
jobs in new fields while they.
agree that the cornmandl
are young enough to bring a:
changes mean new emphasis on; fresh
approach to the pi ob--
the offensi ;
Soviet armed forecT***117417eP;? ?9ig4111111?Clei--
1A-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
ve. In thek
all offensive strategy as early:,
; many received their third colas-1
?
active defense inappropriate toI
their strategy.
The second asserts a shift;
toward greater emphasis on the:
offensive, arguing in part that!
"the recent changes in the So-
viet command structures have;
brought into prominence offi-
cers who have expressed a,
preference for an offensive em-
phasis."
WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Release 2004i1
m :61-RDP88-01315
,'SSS 1114o
001
25X
The following letters have been submitted to the Post by Accuracy in Media for the purpose of correcting inac-
curacies or misleading information published in the Post and other papers. The editor has dec fined to publish th-,se
letters. Since AIM believes that the readers of the Washington Post really do have a right to know, we are poblisheig
them at our own expense:
John Stewart Service
Jan. 31. 1973
SIR: In reporting on a luncheon given at the State Depart-
ment to honor John Stewart Service and other "old Cnina
hands" of the 1940's, the Post described the recipient of
this honor as "the men who were persecuted and dismissed
for sending news their country did riot want to hear." This
statement was apparently based on an uncritical acceptance-
of an assertion made by Mr. William C. Harrop, Chairman of
the Board of Directors of the American Foreign Service
Association, the sponsor of the luncheon.
In a letter announcing the luncheon, Mr. Herron said "The
facts they reported were unwelcome at home. Many of these
officers suffered harsh domestic criticism and were unable
to continue their careers."
Mr. Harrop has admitted in private conversations that he
had never made any systematic study of the reporting of the
foreign service officers whose reporting his association was
honoring. Nor was he able to cite any study that would
? confirm that Service and his colleagues suffered because they
reported factually and objectively information that was "un-
welcome at home." ?
An analysis of the reports from China Submitted by John
Stewart Service in 1944 suggests that Mr. Service was funda-
mentally wrong in his judgments about the philosophy and
Intentions of the Chinese Communists. For example, a report
of his dated September 28, 1944. said: "The Communist po-
litical program is simple democracy. This is much more
American than Soviet in form and spirit." In the same report,
Mr. Service assured Washington that it was wrong to think
that Mao wanted to bring socialism to China. He said: "The
next stage in China's advance must be capitalism."
Mr. Service's analysis of the Chinese communists was
dead wrong, but it is incorrect to say that it was unwelcome
in Washington. On the contrary, this kind of analysis was
very popular in the United States in 1944. Mr.- Service was
simply one voice in a loud chorus that was telling America
that the true democrats in China were the communists and
that we should support them, not Chiang. That chorus was
largely successful in getting American policy changed, and
the policies recommended by Service, and his colleagues
were to a large extent adopted.
Those historians who are now rewriting history would have
us believe that Washington ignored Service and Davies and
gave unstinting support to Chiang Kai-shek. That is not true.
The policies followed in the critical postwar years were
essentially those that these experts recommended. We actu-
ally withheld vitally needed aims from Chiang for a whole
year while we tried to force him into forming a coalition
government with the communists.
Amnesty
Feb. 9, 1973
SIR: Haynes Johnson's recent article on the issue of amnesty
(214/73) suggests that there is a need to clear up the serious
misunderstanding that has arisen about the actions and atti-
tude of Abraham Lincoln toward deserters and draft evaders.
.Johnson and others have discussed Lincoln's policies with-
out drawing a clear distinction between his offer of amnesty
to those who had rebelled against the Government of the
United States and fought for the Confederacy and his policy
toward those who deserted from the Union forces or evaded
the draft. The distinction is an important one.
Lincoln issued an amnesty proclamation on December 6,
1663. while the war was still in progress. It provided that
members of the Confederate forces below the rank of colonel
and others who were supporting the Confederate cause, with
certain exceptions, would be exempted from any punishment
if they took a loyalty oath. The purpose of the proclamation
was to encourage desertion from the Confederate forces. It
did not aPpiy to those who were already prisoner; of war,
and Lincoln made it clear that it was "not Fe these who
may be constrained to take (the oath) in order to escape
actual imprisonment or punishment."
It is most misleading to confuse this tactical move by
Lincoln to encourage enemy desertions with Lincoln's policy
toward deserters from his own forces. The standard punish-
ment for desertion during the Civil War was death, and
although Lincoln commuted many death sentences, many
such sentences were carried out. As the war neared its end,
on March 11, 1865, Lincoln issued a proclamation ()tiering
a conditional pardon to deserters. The condition was that
they return to their units and serve out their enlistment, add-
ing time for the period of their desertion. The proclamation
stated that those who failed to turn themselves in or who
fled to avoid the draft would be deemed "to have voluntarily
relinquished and forfeited their rights of citizenship" for-
ever. Lincoln clearly took a very firm stand toward deserters
and draft evaders, a fact that has been badly obscured in
much of the current discussion.
Post readers might also be misled by Haynes Johnson's
discussion of Truman's pardoning of some selective service
violators after World War 11. Johnson says that Truman
granted amnesty to 1523 violators, but he fails to say that
When America later discovered that these policies had
helped bring about Mao's absolute control of the mainland continuad
and when they found that the communists were Stalinist
totalitarians, not the democratic reformers described by Serv-
ice, there was strong criticism of Service's reports and policy
recommendations.
However, John Stewart Service would probably never have
been fired on the basis of his misleading reporting alone.
What got him into hot water was the fact that it was ound
that in 1945 he wrongfully gave ponies of some 18 classified
State Department documents to Philip Jane, the editor of
Amerasia, a pro-communist publication. He has admitted this
serious violation of security, and there is no doubt that it
weighed heavily in the judgment of the Loyalty Review Board.
The American Foreign Service Association does no credit
to its own reputation when it honors Service and his col-
leagues wilhoiAPPreVellaftr Rev* ?gtoilVer CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
Post practices poor journalism when - o t d
version of history without checking the record.
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
90 per cent of the selective service viceators whose c:3ses
were considered by Truman's amnesty board were not par-
doned. Nor does he say that the pardons were not extended
to deserters. None of those pardoned by Truman were ex-
cused because they sympathized with the Nazi cause and had
moral scruples about fighting them.
Mr. Johnson advocates that an amnesty board be estab-
lished "to determine those cases that merit pardon on
grounds of moral objections to the war." These would not
be persons who could qualify for conscientious objector
status beeauso of opposition to all war, but persons who
objected to this particular war. There is no precedent in
Arnericail history (or probably the history of any country)
for forgiving deserters and draft evaders for such a reason.
TV Bias
e Feb. 14, 1973
SIR: By coincidence, George Will's article arguing that TV
bias does not matter appeared in the Post at the same time
as an article in TV Guide demonstrate.c1 that TV bias matters
very much.
Will contends that the networks are Indeed biased but
lacking in power to influence public opinion. Therefore, we
need not worry about the distorted view of the world that
comes over the tube.
TV Guide's article, "The Black Eye That Won't Go Away,"
shows that the city of Newburgh, N.Y. is still suffering today
from the unfair negative image that it was given by an NBC
documentary aired over ten years ago. The mayor of New-
burgh is quoted as blaming the difficulty experienced in
attracting industry to his city on the unfavorable impression
that was created by the NBC program.
Was the NBC portrayal of Newburgh accurate and fair?
The people of Newburgh don't think so. The local newspaper
described the program as "a hatchet job on the city." It
asked for an apology from NBC, but no apology was ever
made. The TV Guide points out that because of the NBC
documentary the local media are extremely distrustful of
the national press, both print and broadcast.
The Newburgh case is only one of many that could be
cited to show that TV has a stronger influence on public
opinion, for good and ill, than Mr. Will seems to believe.
More TV Bias
Feb. 15, 1973
SIR: In a recent speech the president of NBC, Julian Good-
man, charged that "some Federal Government officials are
waging a continuing campaign aimed at intimidating and
discrediting the news media." Singling out an official who
recently charged that there was bias in TV network news,
Mr. Goodman said: "He did not say how we are biased."
Accuracy in Media, Inc. has spelled out in detail many
specific cases of TV network bias. Many of these involve
NBC, and Mr. Goodman knows of them. He misleads the
public when he implies that charges of bias are lacking in
documentation.
In the AIM REPORT for February 1973, we cite the fol-
lowing cases of bias in NBC News programs in recent
months.
1. An attack on private pension plans In America In a
documentary called "Pensions: Tho Broken Promise."
The program was very one-sided.
2. An attack on private health care systems In a docu-
mentary called "What Price Health?" Another one-sided
presentation.
3. A documentary on San Francisco's famed Chinatown
based entirely on the carping criticisms of two radical
youths whose sympathies for Mao Tse-tung came
through loud and clear.
4. A documentary about the drug traffic In Southeast Asia
transmitting the views of those who Wanted to portray
America and its Southeast Asian' allies in a had light.
At the same time, NBC did not report the testimony on
the other side that was given by Marine General Lewis
W. Walt before the Senate Internal Security Subcom-
mittee.
It is not the government that Is 'discrediting the networks.
The networks are discrediting themselves by their one-sided
presentations of controversial issues of public importance.
tlection Campaign Law Violations
Feb. 19, 1973
- on February 13, the Associated Press sent out a story
siich Lie an this way: "The General Accounting Office re-
: ( i.clay that the campaign organization's of President
na and Senator George McGovern failed to report within
, r see.. a series of large contributions received in the last '
? ass af the 1972 Presidential campaign." The story pro-
? ? ?, it te say that no legal action was being recommended
"neither the new law nor the regulations were suffi-
els explicit on these matters," according to the Comp-
.'. r General. .
? Jiff report was a very accurate account of the GAO press
aase on this subject.
Washington Post carried a story about the GAO re-
,: ? under the headline: "GAO Says Nixon Funds Unit
r led Spirit, Intent of Law." The headline was a summary
e, lee Post's lead paragraph. It was not until the reader
rated to the sixth paragraph of the Post story that he
?*d that the GAO had "also reported apparent viola- ?
? by the campaign organization" of Senator McGovern.
; Post story then reverted to the Nixon campaign funds,
ribing how large contributions had been divided among
lees e rot's committees so that each amount would be under
the $5000 floor for contributions that had to be reported
feat :n 48 hours. Nothing was said about the fact that the
e i.'e,evern campaign organization was reported by the GAO
id have followed the same practice.
'rim GAO criticized the Nixon committee for Its handling
o' reeds totaling over Si million. It criticized the McGovern
.comeeittee for its handling of funds totaling over $150,000.
Is il_ehe difference in the amounts that justifies the differ-
(ace in the way the Post reported the criticism of the two
committees? Does that wipe out the fact that the GAO criti-
cism was directed evenhandedly at both committees?
Ir?
1232 Pennsylvania Bldg.
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?,,????????????../I/Mg.
Approved For Release iF4/711p4.9A-RDP88-01315R0
30 SEP 1972
El Gets ,,3C
lo
By REED J. IRVINE
With criticism of inaccurate and biased news re-
porting mounting at a rapid rate, it is surprising that
the news media have done almost nothing to remedy
the faults that the customers are complaining about.
The press and TV news departments are on the de-
fensive. Their thin skins show as they react with irri-
tation to well-intentioned criticism and with super-
cilious contempt to suggestions that there is a dem-
onstrated need for an independent media watchdog.
In the fall of 1969 such a media watchdog made its
appearance. Called Accuracy in Media, or simply
AIM, it was a toothless puppy at the time, possess-
ing neither bark nor bite. In three short years, how-
ever, AIM has demonstrated that it is possible for
ordinary concerned citizens to do something about
the serious deficiencies in news reporting. The little
pup has developed both bark and bite.
This was demonstrated on Sept.. 17, 1972, when the
American _Broadcasting Co. televised a statement
admitting that several inaccurate statements had
been made in an ABC documentary, "Arms and Se-
.curity: How Much is Enough??
ABC took time at the beginning of its popular
Sunday afternoon program, "Issues and Answers,"
to correct the erroneous statements. It admitted that
it had erred in saying that 60 per cent of the Ameri-
can tax dollar goes for defense, amending the figure
to 40 per cent. It admitted that it had been incorrect
? when it said that the President's blue ribbon defense
panel had characterized our defense policies as suffi-
cient. It acknowledged that the panel. had not made
such a judgment and that seven of the 16 members
of the panel had signed a supplemental report which
said that the strategic military balance was running
against the United States..
ABC conceded that it had erred in saying that the
American Security Council had criticized the blue
ribbon defense panel, and informed its audience that
r the Council had circulated the supplemental state-
ment to the panel's report. ABC also conceded error
in saying that the 13-52 was a supersonic bomber.
This amazing and unprecedented public admis-
sion by a TV network of serious errors in what
? ? was supposed to have been a carefully. prepared
documentary by its own staff was the result of the
?
efforts of Accuracy in Media and the American
Security Council.
AIM and the ASC both lodged strong protests
with ABC about the factual inaccuracies in "Arms
and Security: How Much is Enough?," and both
scored the program for its lopsided presentation of
the defense debAk2. It was heavily weighted in favor
of the disarmarMIMW KgreigliglagictiAQ04411401
documentary that I prepared was widely circulated
hv thn ASC in its Washington Report.
0100040001-2
As a result, the president of ABC News, Elmer
Lower, ordered that the corrections be made on the
air. ABC notified both AIM and the ASC in ad-
vance that this would be done. A I M's executive sec-
retary, Abraham H. Kalish, immediately issued a
statement to the press commending ABC for taking
this corrective action, contrasting it with refusals
by CBS and NBC to make public correction of
errors pointed out by AIM. However, Mr. Kalish
noted that the ABC program was faulty not only be-
cause of its factual errors but because of its lack
of balance, which was contrary to the requii.ements
of the fairness doctrine of the Federal Communica-
tions Commission. He said ABC still had an obliga-
tion to correct the imbalance by airing a program
that would deal fairly with those who are concerned
about the deterioration of our military defenses.
Accuracy in Media had previously succeeded in
getting some publications and broadcasters to cor-
rect errors. National Review, for example, has
printed two out of three criticisms that AIM has
made of errors found in its pages, and a fourth is yet
to be disposed of. But the media giants, the television
networks, the New York Times and the Washington
Post have stubbornly refused to correct errors ? that
AIM has heretofore called to their attention. After
bombarding them with polite letters, documenting
their mistakes, to no avail, AIM recently escalated
its attack on media errors.
On June 30, readers of the New York Times were
startled by a two-column quarter-page ad with this
bold headline: "CAN YOU TRUST THE NEW
YORK TIMES?" The ad challenged the credibility
of Anthony Lewis, a top staff writer for the Times.
It showed that Lewis had printed false statements
on the subject of Viet Nam, including a claim that
North Viet Nam was successfully sweeping the mines
in the port of Haiphong. This had been printed on the
front page of the Times. The ad said that Lewis had
previously declared his overriding commitment to
bringing about an end to the Viet Nam war, and it
suggested that his reporting was influenced by that
commitment.
The ad was the work of Accuracy in Media. Hav-
ing failed to get the Times to correct the Lewis errors,
it laid out nearly $3,000 to buy the space in the Times
to have the corrections made. It not only'set the
record. straight, but the ad put readers of the paper
on notice that Anthony Lewis was apt to let his anti-
Viet Nam emotions get the better of his journalistic
duty to report the facts fully and accurately.
: CIA-R0P88-01315R000100040001-2
continued
Approved For Release 2,99:54.ftWoNCIfftpft88-01315
1 Sei;Getriber 1972
SPECIAL:
V ABC
"The key to security is public infornfrttion."
So wrote Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R., Me.) in the March, 1972, issue of Rcader's Digest. Sen, Smith
said .she had no doubt about the will of the American people t9 safeguard their freedom and the security of
their children, but they had to understand what had happened and what is happening. ?
. Network tele: vision Probably has done more than any other medium to misinform the Anierican people
about our national security posture. In its 1971 documentary, "The Selling of thc. Pentagon," the Columbia
Broad&isting System employed highly unprofessional practices to heighten the effectiveness of its attack on
the military. The National Broadcasting, Company's ace commentator, Dayid Brinkley, has been caught
Using Phony figures to try, to prove that the United States is more militaristic than Prussia ever was.
:che. American Broadcasting Company has now joined the parade with its Aug. 7 documentary, "Arms
and Security: How Much Is Enoughr
f
R000100040001-2
25X1
ksarinamentl,
.The. dominant .theme of this program was summarized in
. narrator Frank'ReYnclds' closing remarks. He said:
? "Sixty per cent of America's tax dollar goes for
defense.. It is estimated that the - United States has
? ? enough nuclear power to destroy the major cities of
the Scivict Union 34 times. She can destroy our major
cities 13 Ones over. And it's getting more Orni11011S.
,"To all Intents and purposes, there are no secrets
in science, for each time we escalate the arms race,
each time we 'develop and build a new and more
sophisticated weapons system, the Soviet Union
matches us, and each time the Soviets start on a new
weapons system, we follow suit. And so the longer
the arms race goes on, the less sedirity we have,
rather than more .
"For a generation, the United States has been the
leader-in the arms race. The time has come for us now
to become the leader in the race to limit arms. That's
a fob for Congress?to watch closely the programs and
appropriations, but it is also a challenge to all of tts;
for we must assess just. how vulnerable we are, not
only to an enemy attack, but vulnerable to old fears.
.and suspicions in a new, perhaps very different, age."
ABC was suggesting, not -very- subtly, that ? we are
spending too much ori defense and that our expenditures
are not providing us with security. The time had come, sad
the message, to reverse the course and cut back on defense
expenditures and reliance on military strength for our
security,
The program was a stacked deck. It was heavily loaded
with sta.tements by men who supported the ABC con-
clusion. All of them were introduced with credentials that
suggested that they were unbiased authorities, well-
qualified to discuss defense questions dispassionately.
This was the lineup and the Manner in which each was
introduced:
A:\
',A:7. ?
tEDITO)?'S NOTE: Reed J. Irvine is chairman of the. board of
.Aecuracy in Media, a private, non-profit organization. which Time
magazine reported Aug. 14 "reeks out errors in news reportiPg and
commentary, requests .retractions, then buys ads to .publicize the
mistakes iftheyare not corrected." This article iepresents Mr. Irvine's.
personal .views.. The American Security Cotmcil publishes it for- the
benefit. of its members, .contributors and subscribers who may have
had difficult recognizing ASC from time treatment it NV;1S accorded in
the ABC documentary, "Arms and Security: 'How Much Is
Enough?"]
niontsenttevesratenssaarrans.sraimnzasorracmarou
sessuarsrsassermarEmlasiwmariord. corizzw..matuall
ANALYSES OF DEVELOPMENTS AFFECTING THE NATION'S SECUMTY
gliZZINICX.:ZWIRNIMPASTI1.744.0.42,4*.X.WorUe-1....-VoiaanatraTIMpa,n. VS=a2.40949VIITAUVU.1.6.75EMMUiPEr.brilrEGM.M..M,VBSTUMITI.....CMCIMOSS;
?
Continued
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ACCU 4,AGY
MErIA
INC.
roved For Rel
501 THIRTEENTH STREET, N.W.
SUITE 1012
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20004
[phone]
Dear Mr. Ray:
OFFICERS:
Dr: Francis G. Wilson, President/Alphons I. Hack!,
ase 20014/111-104irisC,IA-EIRDEI86c0345B0100.
David S. Lichtenstein, General Counsel ?
NATIoNAL, ADVISORY BOARD:
The Hon. Dean Achesont/Mutray Baron/ Ambassa
Dr. William Yandell Elliott/Morris L. Ernst/Eugene
R. Adm. William sel M
040001-2
Mr. William B. Ray, Chief
Complaints and Compliance Div
Broadcast Bureau
F.C.C.
Washington, D. C. 20554
On July 28, 1972, NBC presented in its Chronelog Series a documentary on
? the narcotics traffic in Southeast Asia.
We have analyzed this program and have concluded that it fails to meet the
Fairness Doctrine requirement that the licensee provide a balanced presentation
of all sides in programming that deals with controversial issues of public impor-
tance. We therefore wish to file a complaint of violation of the fairness doctrine
against all NBC-owned and affiliated statiOns that carried the program.
There appear to be three principal controversial issues involved in the NBC
. documentary. ?
1. The documentary dealtmith the question of whether or not America's allies
in Southeast Asia--Thailand, Laos and Vietnam--are important sources of supply
of heroin for the American. market.
2. It discussed the charges that U
in assisting those who are trafficking
accusation that our Government has not
because 1.'re did not want to do anything
. S. Government agenciea have been involved.
in narcotics in Southeast Asia and the
been aggressive in fighting the traffic
to hinder the war effort.
3. It discussed charges that the Governments of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos
are not cooperating adequately in combatting the narcotics traffic, charges that
have led to legislative proposals that aid to these countries be terminated.
Our analysis suggests that all of these issues were deliberately treated in
a manner that was intended to lead the viewer to the conclusion that American
allies in Southeast Asia were iirmortant sourees of heroin for the American
market, that the governments of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam were not cooperating
adeqaately in putting down the traffic and that U. S. agencies were themselves
involved in supporting the traffic.
Moreover, we find that NBC has managed to give support to these conclusions
and to avoid presenting evidence that would lead to contrary conclusions by its
news programming. For example, perhaps the largest amount of opium ever deliberately
. destroyed was burned in Thailand on March 7, 1972 by the Thai Government. This
event .was not reported on the NBC evening TV news program at that time. Never-
4
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I
theless, on its July 28 ivogram
03 Thailand's "well publicized
publicized by NBC. On the cont
. On August 14, 1972, General
Senate Internal Security Subco
General Walt, who had recently
problem in Southeast Asia for t
the Thai Government and others
004/'
1/01 ;.CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
-.2 -
NBC referred to this massive destruction of opium
arch extravaganza." It was certainly not we117-- -
ary, NBC suppressed any report of it.
Lewis W. Walt, USMC,(ret.) testified before the
ittee on the narcotics traffic in Southeast Asia.
ade an on-the-spot investigations of the narcotics
e committee, praised the efforts being made by
o control the traffic. NBC did not report one
'word of General Walt's testimonY on its evening TV news program. However, on
the same day that the General testified, NBC put Alfred McCoy, the chief promulgator
of the line that Southeast Asia has become a main source of heroin for the U. S.,
that our allies are doing little to control the traffic and that our own government -
agencies have helped the traffie, was given five minutes on the NBC Today. program
to plug his line and his new book.
We submit that the suppression of news of General Walt's testimony and the
granting of an additional 5 minutes of time to Alfred McCoy on the very day that
General Walt testified confirms!that one-sidedness has characterized the NBC
discussion of the'narcotias traffic of Southeast Asia. The Chronolog program
is part Of the same pattern.
To make the point that ,Southeast Asia is an important Source of 'heroin for
the U. S. market, NBC Chronologiquoted a "professional estimate" that one-
third of the heroin in our market came from Southeast Asia. Even Alfred McCoy
thinks this is too high a figure. NBC did not put any other estimates before
its vieviers, nor did it point out that until recently it is believed that 80
per cent of our heroin came from Turkey. NBC did not point .out that Turkey had
been a serious problem for several years and that it was only after long and
difficult negotiations that we succeeded in persuading Turkey to make the cultivation
.of opium poppies illegal.- By failing to give this broader background, NBC created
the impression that Thailand, Laos and Cambodia were major 'problem suppliers and
were particularly uncooperative in dealing with the traffic. The fact is that
they have been nothing like Turkey as a problem source of supply, and they have
all moved more rapidly than Turkey in making efforts to stamp out the traffic.
NBC charged that the so-called "golden triangle" area produces 900 to 2700 tons
of illicit opium a year. A recent government report puts illicit opium production
in Burma, Thailand and Laos at 700 tons a year. This difference between NBC's esti-
mates and our official estimates was not mentioned, much less explained.
By exaggerating the importance of Southeast Asia as a source of heroin supply.
to the U. S. market, NBC misled its viewers about the significance of the fact that
the United States has taken action only within recent years to get Southeast Asian
governments to curb opium production and traffic. NBC promotes the view that the
U. S.' officials were deliberately ignoring the problem because it would hurt the
war effort to pressure the governments to ban opium. No one was presented on the
program to point out that U. S. concern with opium in this area began as soon as
it became known that heroin use by American troops in Vietnam was a serious problem.
While -NBC permitted charges to be aired that the CIA and our military forces
were involved in the narcotics traffic, it did not put on a .single government
official to deny those charges. In a letter published in The Washington Star
on July 5, 1972,.W. E. Colby, Ec.ec.utIve Director of the CIA, responded to similar
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charges, denying them. NBC made no use of this stateiient by Mr. Colby nor of
any similar statement by any of his colleagues.
, NBC did discuss some of the progress that had beei made by Southeast Asian
governments, but it minimized the achievements and emPhasized the failures. For
example, in discussing the destruction of 26 tons of Opium by Thailand, opium.
whose street value in heroin equivalent in the U. S. Would be in excess of $1
billion, NBC dismissed this as little more than a public relations stunt. NBC
permitted Mr. McCoy to make much of the fact that the IKMT Chinese in northern Burma
were once supported by the CIA, implying that the CIAlis therefore responsible
for everything they have done over the past 20 years. NBC did not mention that
the 26 ions of opium destroyed in Thailand in March came 'from the KMT people and
that they pledged to give up dope-running as part of the deal made with -che Thai
government. Nor did NBC mention that the Thai Government was the first to enter
Into an agreement with the United Nations to provide or compensation of farmers
who give up opium cultivation.
The issue of cutting off aid to Thailand because of the opium traffic is
one that is currently agitating our Congress. NBC put on three congressmen, Wolff,
Rangel and Steele who have taken a very hard line on this issue. NBC put not a
single congressman on the program to represent the view that cutting off aid
would not be desirable. There are, of course, many congressmen who take that
point of view. They would point out, among other things, that we are getting
far better cooperation from Thailand than we are from Burma, a country that
we do not give aid to.
Our timing of the various statements on the Chron.log program indicates
that nearly four times as much time was given to those who, made statements
critical of the Southeast Asian countries and the United States policies than
to those who answered these criticisms and charges. BC's own statements were
very heavily weighted on the side of the McCoy thesis
Moreover; the program. gave a one-sided and misleading impression about the
attitude of the communists toward production and distribution of narcotics. It
suggested that the communists were hard on the producers and traffickers. It
made no mention whatsoever of charges that have been Made about illicit opium
being produced in North Vietnam and of illicit opium coming from Mainland China.
The role of these countries In the drug traffic is ce tainly an issue of importance
and controversy, and omission of it could be explaine as being motivated by the
desire of NBC to focus criticism on the allies of the United States in Southeast
Asia.
In summary, we believe that NBC did not comply vi h the requirements of the
fairness doctrine in discussing the nartotics traffic in Southeast Asia on
July 28, 1912. Its powerful voice was lent to a camps gn that is underway to
discredit the United States Government and its allies in Seutheast Asia, playing
. upon the public's fear and hatred of heroin. The proc. am did not provide the
viewers with balanced information that would enable tlem to weigh charges made
by Alfred McCoy. Instead, the program was largely a, ehicle for the transmission
of McCoy's ideas. This was supplemented by McCoy's a pearance on the Today show
on July 14 and by the blackout or the testimony of Ge eral Wait on the same day.
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-
AIM raised a number of questions about this program in a letter to NBC dated
July.28, 1972. We have received a replY from NBC that is not at all responsitre
to our request for comments.
We request that you investigate the Chronolog program of July 28, 1972. .WA
'feel that you will conclude as we have that NBC has not given adequate representa-
tion to the views of the CIA, the U. S. military, many members of Congress and
to that substantial body of opinion which holds that both Communist China and
North Vietnam are an important part of the Southeast Asian narcotics problem.
We ask that you instruct the NBC-owned stations and the NBC affiliates that
they have a duty to offset the one-sided presentation of the Chronolog program
by appropriate programs, including interviews with such men as General Walt,
who can .put the matter into perspective and tell the people what is being done.
cc; Julian Goodman
Reuven Frank
Qong. Harley 0. Staggers
Richard Helms
Clay T. Whitehead
Gen. Lewis W. Walt
Senator James Eastland
-Nelson Gross
Variety
Broadcasting
Sincerely yours,
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:Abraham H. Kalish
Executive Secretary
?
?
R000100040001-2
,
ACCURACY
IN
MEDIA
INC
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501 Villt7'EENT11 STREET, N.W.
VETE 1012
'WASHINGTON, D. C. 20004
'? (202)737,9357
. i
.1
.CIA-RDP88-01315R00010004
OFFICERS: ?
Dr. Itaiti!is C. Wilson, Preskieid/Alphons J. Hack!, Vice President
Abraham 11>Ralish, Executive Secretary/john K. McLean; Treasurer
David S. Lichtenstein, General Counsel
NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD:
The Hon. Dean Acheson-I/Murray Baron/ Ambassador Elbridge Du
Dr. William Yandell Elliott/Morris L. Ernst/Eugene Lyons/Dr. Char
R. Adm. William C. Mott, USN (Rel.)/Edgar Ansel Mowrer
V
x ?
Dear Mr. Prank:
July 28,
Mr. Reuve
Presiden-
NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New, Yank, N. Y.
001-2
Accuracy in Media wishes to call to your attention a few apparently
erroneous.etatements in the Chronolog program of July 20 on the narcotics
traffic in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Utley, the narrator, made the following statement.
? , "CIA Went to' the publishing house of Harper & Row to get and to read
the manuscript of McCoy's book before its publication date. And surprisingly
Herper and Row acquiesced. It surrendered to the threat of prior censorship."
A story on this matter was published in The New York Times on July 22.
According to this story, CIA 'asked to have an opportunity to review the book
because it believed that it contained statements concerning the agency that were
totally false and without foundation. The CIA letter' to Harper and Row stated:
"It is our belief that no reputable publishing house would wish to publish such alle-
gations withouebeing assured that the supporting evidence was valid."
B.' Brooks Thomas, vice president and general counsel of Harper and Row, said:
"We're not'cubmitting to censorship or anything like that. We're taking a responsible
middle position. I just believe, that the CIA should have the chance to review it."
I am sure teat it is known at NBC that manuscripts being considered by
reputable publishers are always submitted to experts for review prior to publication.
One of the big mistakes McGraw-Hill made with the Irving book on Howard Hughes was
that it did. not take the precaution of having the book read by people who were
sufficiently. knowledgeable about the subject of the book. Of course, a publisher
is free to accept or reject the suggestion .ade by the reviewers. We think it
would be irresponsible for a publisher to ignore warninip that a manuscript contained
serious inaccuracies and to refuse to permit those able to point out the inaccuracies
to.havo.an opportunity to do so prior to publication. By taking every precaution.
to insure' accuracy, the publisher helps establish his own credibility, the credibilit
of the book, and he avoids increasing the amount of misinformation that circulates
in public channels. We do not. think this has any connection with censorship, which
connotea Legal compulsion to prevent statements from being published. Since CIA has
no legal power to prevent Harper and Raw from publishing anything, Mr. Utley' eharg
Iceleasubmis 20)1
that'thdoe4144841*Aad tted to prior 'censorship peens to be clearly false
e04/11/01 : CIA-RDP884
315R008ineAnnA
A Second statement that was made on this prograne nemmmetilobably convoyed
--"es 4!(1'.010 viewer was the following:
LW M-JC 111125
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ADVERTIUMENT
? T-Itg..-W.--761* ft?11,--eN,nt-4 a,.-SV?4-7,776.4X
We raise a question concerning the
reports of
Anthony Lewis, one of the
top writers of The New York Times.
Mr. Lewis' words speak for themselves.
"Haiphong, May 17_The North
Vietnamese say they are clearing
American mines from the Haiphong
harbor as planes drop them, and
moving ships in and out. Independ-
ent sources give supPort 10 that
claim." Lewis, The Times, May 18.
[Emphasis added. This report was
carried on the front page of The
Times even though Administration
officials had informed the paper that
it was false. Their denial was in-
cluded in the story.]
"The only way to be certain (about
the minesweeping) would be ex
tended investigation or observation
of the harbor, which the North Viet-
namese would not allow. So the
claim could be mere bravado."
Lewis, The Times, May 20.
3. "The consensus of foreign observers
? here (Hanoi) now is that American
mining has effectiVely closed North Ardent advocacy which leads to mis-
Vietnam ports." Lewis, The.I'intes, leading reporting should not be tolerated
May 23. by any responsible newspaper. No re-
Five days after the disputed report sponsible paper should refuse to correct
was front page news in The Times, promptly and prominently serious er-
' e
Lewis reported the consensus that it was rors when they are pointed out. Th New
York Times has refused to print our let-
erroneous. He never identified the "in-
ters protesting what we say are numerous
dependent sources" that were supposed
serious errors, such as those cited above,
to have given it support.
which Accuracy zn Media has pointed
Why did this veteran newsman report out.
Hanoi's claim when Hanoi would not
permit the insaection e knew was
essential its f
elease 2004/11 01 : CIA-RDI;88-01315R000100040001-2 =at
to erriMt
1
)00100040001-2
A clue to the ans\ el.
in this passage from Lewis' May 13
column:
?
"This issue (stopping the war) is
now paramount. It conies before other
obligations, before personal ambition
or comfort. For the ordinary citizen
that means participation in some form
of political expression, howo cr incon-
venient . . . involving one's professional
association, school or other activity in
the attempt to stop the war."
We believe that Mr. Lewis has en-
listed in a crusade. We believe that he
feels his obligation to the crusade comes
before his. obligation to report the news
accurately and objectively.
This might explain why Lewis told
the readers of The Times on April 10
that the United States had never offered
total withdrawal of troops from Vietnam
in return for the POW's, "even in the
secret talks." The fact is that President
Nixon *revealed that the United States
had offered to agree to a deadline for
withdrawal of all American forces in ex-
change for the release of all prisoners of
war and a ceasefire in the secret talks in
his televised address of January 25. The
President said North Vietnam had re-
jected the offer, continuing "to insist
that we overthrow the South Vietnamese
GOAT rnment."
501 THIRTEENTH STREET, N.W.
SUITE 1012
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20004
(204 737-9357
Dear Mr. Hallissy:
25X1
ForM@Age2004M1/01:CIA-RDP88-013,18R000100040001-2
Dr. Francis G. Wilson, President/Alphons J. Hackl, Vice President
Abraham H. Kalish, Executive Secretary/John K. McLean, Treasurer
David S. Lichtenstein, General Counsel
NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD:
The Hon. Dean Achesont/Murray Baron/ Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow
Dr. William Yandell Elliott/Morris L. Ernst/Eugene Lyons/Dr. Charles Burton Marshall
R. Adm. William C. Mott, USN (Ret.)/Edgar Ansel Mowrer
AN OPEN LETTER
March 17, 1972
Thank you for sending the material on Media Probe. We had heard of this organization
but had not seen any of its literature until we received your letter and enclosures. You
ask a very pertinent question, Is one of you a phoney"?
We have examined the names on the letterhead of the Media Probe stationery. They
belong to men of good reputation, and we are sending copies of this letter to them as well
as to other individuals who might be interested.
We note that Media Probe is asking the public for $80,000 to-be used to finance future
activities. It asks this even though it has no record of actual performance. Accuracy in
Media, on the other hand, already has a widely recognized record of achievement. We have
carried on extensive correspondence with the top officials in the news media, pointing out
errors and seeking corrections. We have already made ten studies of significant news media
issues. Most of these have been placed into the Congressional Record, with highly complimen-
tary introductions by various Congressmen from both parties. Examine the back of this letter
which lists the principal AIM releases and reprints. Other studies are in process.
Articles about Accuracy in Media have been published by Editor and Publisher, Seminar,
The UPI, Washington Star, Columbia University Journalism Review, Barron's and by nationally
syndicated columnists. AIM officers have appeared on TV and radio discussion programs.
CBS, Newsweek, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times have investigated AIM,
but have not to date published anything about us. We feel sure that they would have hurried
to do so had they discovered anything "phoney" about Accuracy in Media.
AIM has two cases now pending before the FCC, charging violations of the Fairness
Doctrine. We are preparing a third complaint. The Ervin Committee has promised to print
AIM's statement to the Committee, in its final report. We expect to be invited to testify
on the Fairness Doctrine in a coming FCC hearing. We have also placed two paid advertise-
ments in the Washington Post in order to expose an error by a prominent TV commentator.
We send all our releases free of charge to 300 leading news media. The cost of this
has been met by 240 individuals who to date have sent us $10 each for annual subscriptions.
The same people have also donated an average of $15 each. We are financially solvent because
tens of thousands of dollars worth of time and talent in research, writing and many other
tasks have been contributed free by individuals who know that without truth in our communi-
cation media, our democracy will perish.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Sincerely,
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f3ARRON'S
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EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
"Pentagon" Revisited
CBS Is Still Doing Business at the Same Old Stand
ACCURACY in Media (Warner
Bldg., Washington, D.C., 20004)
is a non-profit, tax-exempt organiza-
tion launched a few years ago "by a
group of concerned citizens who had
become increasingly fearful that the
content and presentation of the news
by many sections of the media were
undermining the democratic process
and threatening our freedom."
A.T.M. boasts a National Advisory
Board comprising such prestigious
figures as Morris L. Ernst, Eugene
Lyons and Edgar Ansel Mowrer. In
pursuit of its goal (which is aptly de-
scribed by its name), A.I.M. since
its inception has issued perhaps two
dozen "critiques, articles, editorial
replies, bulletins, reports and news
releases", as well as filed several
complaints with the Federal Com-
munications Commissioh charging
violation of the Fairness Doctrine.
Letting the chips fall where they
may?a warm reference to its activ-
ities in the March 29, 1971, issue of
Barron's evoked a courteous re-
sponse and a correction of two fac-
tual errors?A.I.M. has not blinked
at taking on some of the leading
lights of the liberal establishment.
* * *
Perhaps its chief claim to fame
has been its confrontations with the
Columbia Broadcasting System.
Taking dead aim in 1970 at one of
CBS' famous "documentaries,"
dealing with Castro's Cuba, Accu-
racy in Media listed 10 major doubt-
ful statements, including: "For
Cuba's poor, things are a good deal
better than they used to be. . . the
Cuban poor man doesn't want to
leave. . . there is a quiet equality of
the races now. . ." Noting in metic-
ulous detail that real life refuses to
follow the script, A.I.M. solicited
comment from Richard S. Salant,
then and now president of CBS
News. Nine times out of 10, in the or-
ganization's view, his answers failed
to meet the objections. Painfully
aware of the mounting national in-
terest in his network's efforts, Mr.
Salant lately has grown more re-
sponsive. Thus, the CBS point-by-
point defense of its controversial
program, "The Selling of the Penta-
gon," which finally surfaced in mid-
December, nine months after its
promised appearance, addresses it-
self?albeit inadequately, in the
main?to 13 of the 23 issues raised
by A.I.M. and a host of other critics.
Again, in its eagerness to refute the
devastating proof of network bias
which emerges from the recent
best-selling book, "The News Twist-
ers," by Edith Efron of TV Guide,
CBS hastened to release a rebuttal
on the day of publication.
Lesser communications media,
as we have observed before, occa-
sionally run a correction or retrac-
tion, but CBS is made of sterner
stuff. "We are proud of `The Selling
of the Pentagon'," Mr. Salant told a
nationwide television audience a
year ago. "We are confident that
when passions die down, it will be
recognized as a vital contribution to
the people's right to know." Recog-
nition?in the form of the George
Foster Peabody, Saturday Review
and National Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences awards for distin-
guished journalism?followed with
almost indecent speed. Nor has CBS
lacked for support?notably from a
professor of sociology at City Uni-
versity of New York and a vice pres-
ident of United Press International
?with respect to the "News Twist-
ers."
Yet on both occasions, so the
facts suggest and the critics affirm,
the network has staged a really poor
show. Thus, while professing contin-
ued pride in its brainchild, CBS, by
A.I.M. count, "actually concedes
that five points of criticism are to
some extent justified . . . and
makes de facto admission of error in
two other cases." As for Miss Ef-
ron's best-seller, professional statis-
ticians have defended her methods
and endorsed her findings. On even
a casual inspection?and the author
has prepared an 87-page report, as
she testified recently before the Sen-
ate Subcommittee on Constitutional
Rights, "in which I identify every
misrepresentation; restore every vi-
olated context; present the stories
CBS sought to conceal"?the CBS
"spot-check" plainly fits her de-
scription of a "carefully calculated
smear" and "fraud." Last summer,
the House Interstate and Commerce
Committee voted to cite CBS for
contempt of Congress (the full
House killed the move). Evidently
CBS' real contempt is for truth.
Regarding the controversial doc-
umentary, CBS explains that "deci-
sions were made by intelligent, con-
scientious journalists applying the
best professional judgment with the
intent only to condense and focus a
vast amount of material . . . no one
has refuted its basic veracity." Ac-
curacy in Media?and Barron's?
disagree. As A.I.M. points out, "CBS
now actually concedes that five
points of criticism were to some ex-
tent justified. It admits that the edit-
ing of one of the answers Assistant
Secretary of Defense Henkin gave to
a CBS question might not have con-
veyed accurately what Mr. Henkin
actually said. CBS also admits that
it was wrong in saying of defoliated
areas that 'nothing will grow there
any more.' It agrees that it should
have mentioned that one of the Pen-
tagon films it criticized was actually
produced by CBS. CBS also con-
cedes that it greatly exaggerated
the number of offices in the Penta-
gon, and allows that it should not
have used language that implied
Reprinted frau the March 6, 1972 issue of
ccuracy in Media, Inc .
Barron's Nat ional Business and ketificiVtdfatieReleraseat194141/CflereiA?Fk&'edf-OVMARNOlarallaRr-45L
'Warner Bldg. , Washingtr,r Dr-
,?"
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
that it had to track down the indus-
trial War College team that was put-
ting on a National Security Seminar
in Peoria, Ill.
"In addition, CBS makes de facto
admissions of error in two other
cases. In the broadcast, CBS had
said that a still unpublished report
of the prestigious 20th Century Fund
had estimated real total spending by
the Defense Department on public
affairs at $190 million, compared
with the budget figure of $30 million.
CBS now concedes that the report of
the 20th Century Fund had been pub-
lished at the time the broadcast was
made and that it contained no such
figure. CBS tries to wriggle out of
this embarrassing situation by
showing that such a figure was used
in some of the research done for the
study. However, it was also clear
that the figure was not used in the
published study precisely because it
could not be verified and the 20th
Century Fund quite properly would
not accept it as valid. CBS was
therefore both wrong and unethical
in foisting such a figure on its unsus-
pecting audience and using the pres-
tige of the 20th Century Fund to au-
thenticate it."
Accuracy in Media proceeded to
dissect the reply made by CBS to
eleven other points of criticism, in-
cluding "the editing of the remarks
of Col. John MacNeil, which in-
volved creating a synthetic state-
ment from widely separated sen-
tences in his speech; the circum-
stances surrounding the appearance
of the Industrial War College lecture
team in Peoria, Ill., especially
whether or not the visit was ar-
ranged by Caterpillar Tractor Co.
(Ed. note: "which," according to
the broadcast, "did $39 million
worth of business with the Defense
Department last year"), charges
that CBS selectively edited films of
press briefings in Washington and
Saigon to make the spokesmen ap-
pear unresponsive to newsmen's
questions; charges that CBS gave a
wrong impression in saying that the
U.S. had resumed bombing in North
Vietnam." In A.I.M.'s judgment:
"CBS refuses to admit that there
was merit to any of these charges,
but in every case its refutation is
weak and unconvincing."
By deed, if not word, CBS in ef-
fect has conceded the point. In strik-
ing contrast to the publicity splash
which accompanied Mr. Salant's
television debut last March, the
company's point-by-point rebuttal
was quietly inserted into the Con-
gressional Record toward Christ-
mastime by Rep. Ogden R. Reid
(R., N.Y.), allegedly at the behest of
the head of the Radio Television
News Directors Association. Last
June, moreover, CBS, in reviewing
its "operating Standards for News
and Public Affairs," specifically
outlawed most of the dubious prac-
tices in which those responsible for
"the Selling of the Pentagon" had
indulged.
The rank-and-file at CBS now
may have gotten the word?verac-
ity. However, to judge by the corpo-
rate response to "The New Twist-
ers," there's plenty of room for im-
provement at the top. To dernOn-
strate the pervasive political bias of
all three networks, Miss Efron se-
lected 13 controversial issues "on
which strong opposing positions
were taken by the Republican-con-
servative-right axis and by the Dem-
ocratic-liberal-left axis." Then, with
the help of The Historical Research
Foundation' she tape-recorded and
transcribed the prime-time (7-7:30
p.m.) news broadcasts of all three
networks for the seven weeks ended
November 4, 1968. She isolated all
stories dealing with the chosen is-
sues, excerpted all stands "for" and
"against," and, in each case, tallied
and totaled the number of words.
What she found ought to open the
country's eyes. On all three net-
works, the number of words spoken
against Richard M. Nixon far ex-
ceeded those spoken for him, some-
times by a margin of 10-to-1. On
such issues as the bombing halt or
U.S. policy in Vietnam, broadcast
sentiment, as expressed in wordage
for and against, was equally one-
sided.
In a press release last October,
Richard S. Salant of CBS News of-
fered another rebuttal, in which he
charged Miss Efron with "distinct
bias and gross distortion," as well
as "using statistical procedures
which are seriously flawed." Mr.
Salant went on: "With full recogni-
tion of its responsibility to be fair
and 9bjective, CBS News has re-
tained two highly qualified, experi-
enced, independent research
organizations, one to study
the methodology used by
Miss Efron and the other to
review the identical 1968
campaign coverage on which
her book reports. They will
advise us of their conclu-
sions when these studies
have been completed, and
the findings will be made
p then CBS News has
come '
Since
with a critique by
,Dr. Charles Winick, profes-
sor of sociology at City Uni-
versity of New York, who
failed to examine the au-
thor's textual analyses and
whose cautiously worded
complaint seems to be that
Miss Efron's pioneering ef-
fort ignored standard operat-
ing procedure. As to the au-
thoritative review of the net-
work's 1968 campaign cover-
age (which Broadcasting
Magazine on October 18 as-
sured readers will be "com-
pleted shortly"), a diligent
search of the Congressional
Record so far fails to dis-
close it. Meanwhile, two ex-
pens in content analysis?
Paul H. Weaver, assistant
professor of government at
Harvard University, and Dr.
George Weinberg, research
consultant and author of
"Statistics?an Intuitive Ap-
proach", used as a univer-
sity text?have publicly sup-
ported the book's methodol-
ogy and data. On October 27,
Dr. Weinberg stated: "Miss
Efron is far more objective,
systematic and explicit in
her method than anyone
known to me who has ever
written a book about TV.
After examining her data, I
believe that any systematic
tabulation by any method
would result in essentially
the same findings."
Let the lady have the last
word. "Now I respectfully
submit that the very exis-
tence of an ideological oligo-
poly that controls the air-
waves is an immense danger
to this country. . . . There is
only one way to destroy it.
. . . It is for the goverment
to acknowledge the sacred
status of the First Amend-
ment in this country; to ac-
knowledge that it has no
business regulating an intel-
lectual and artistic medium
? that it never had any busi-
ness doing so ? that it never
should have allowed three
nationwide monopolies to
form on this intellectually
stagnant base ? and that it
should not year after year,
have blocked economic and
technological competition in
this area. . . Only this hurri-
cane of fresh air will bring
about in broadcasting . . .
diversity and intellectual
freedom."
Robert M. Bleiberg
BARRON'S
Approved For Releweja9911/11101 : CIA-RDP88-013
.EDITORIA L. COMMENTARY
"Pentagon"
CBS Is Still Doing Business at the Same Old Stand
5R000100040001-2
ACCURACY in Media (Warner December, nine months after its srhear" and "fraud." Last summer,
Bldg., Washington, D.C., 20004) promised appearance, addresses it- the House Interstate and Commerce
is a non-profit, tax-exempt organiza- selfs--albeit inadequately, in the Committee voted to cite CBS for
tion launched a few years ago "by a main?to 13 of the 23 issues raised contempt of Congress (the full
group of concerned citizens who had by A.I.M. and a host of other critics. House killed the move). Evidently
become increasingly fearful that the Again, in its eagerness to refute the
content and presentation of the news devastating proof of network bras
by many sections of the media were which emerges from the recent
undermining the democratic process?best-selling book, "The News Twist-
and threatening our freedom." ers," by Edith Efron of TV Guide,
A.T.M. boasts a National Advisory CBS hastened to release a rebuttal
Board comprising such prestigious on the day of publication.
figures as Morris L. Ernst, Eugene Lesser communications media,
Lyons and Edgar Ansel Mowrer. In as we have observed before, occa-
pursuit of its goal (which is aptly de- sionally run a correction or retrac-.
scribed by its name), A.I.M. since tion, but CBS is made of sterner
its inception has issued perhaps two stuff. "We are proud of 'The Selling
dozen "critiques, articles, editorial of the Pentagon'," Mr. Salant told a
replies, bulletins, reports and news nationwide television audience a
releases", as well as filed several year ago. "We are confident that
complaints with the Federal Corn- when passions die down, it will be
munications Commission charging recognized as a vital contribution to
violation of the Fairness Doctrine, the people's right to know." Recog-
Letting the chips fall where they nition?in the form of gthe George
may?a warm reference to its activ- Foster Peabody, Saturday Review
ities in the March 29, 1971, issue of and National Academy of Television
Barron's evoked a courteous re- Arts and Sciences awards for distill? s
.sponse and a correction of two fac- guished journalism?followed with
tual errors?A.I.M.` has not blinked almost indecent speed. Nor has CBS
at taking on some of the leading lacked for support?notably from a
lights of the liberal establishment, professor of sociology at City Uni-
* *. * versity of New York and a vice pres-
? Perhaps its chief claim to fame ident of United Press International
has been its confrontations with the ?with respect to the "News Twist-
Columbia Broadcasting System. ers."
Taking dead aim in 1979 at one of Yet on both occasions, so the
CBS', famous "documentaries," facts suggest and the critics affirm,
? dealing with Castro's Cuba, Accu- the network has staged a really poor
racy in Media listed 10 major doubt- show. Thus, while professing contin-
ful statements, including: "For ued pride in its brainchild, .CBS, by
Cuba's poor, things are a good deal A.I.M. count, "actually concedes
better than they used to be . . . the that five points of criticism are to
Cuban poor man doesn't want to some extent justified . . . and
leave.? . . there is a quiet equality of makes de facto admission of error in
the races now. . ." Noting in metic- two other cases." As for. Miss Ef-
ulous detail that real life refuses to ,
ron s best-seller, professional statis-
follow the script, A.I.M. solicited ticians have defended her methods
comment from Richard S. Salant, and endorsed her findings. On even
then and now president of CBS a casual inspection?and the author
News. Nine times out of 10, in the or- has prepared an 87-page report, as
ganization.'s view, his answers failed she testified recently before the Sen-
to meet the objections. Painfully ate Subcommittee on Constitutional
aware of the mounting national in-
Rights, "in which I identify every
terest in his network's efforts, Mr.
misrepresentation; restore every vi-
Salant lately has grown more re-
elated contekt; present the stories
sponsive. Thus, the CBS point-by-
CBS sought to conceal"?the CBS
pointdefense o its controversial if
program, "The AppfigliodiFeontelatag4speseck" plainly fits her de- that the figure was not used in the
gon," which finally surfaced in mid- Wgilsiiill" 78
:SsikkaROPd3eallsat6R000100040001-2 ,
CBS' real contempt is for truth.
Regarding the controversial doc-
umentary, CBS explains that "deci-
sions were made by intelligent, con-
scientious journalists applying the
best professional judgment with the
intent only to condense and focus a
vast amount of material.. . . no one
has refuted its basic veracity." Ac-
curacy in Media?and Barron's?
disagree. As A.I.M. points out, "CBS
now actually concedes that five
points of criticism were to some ex-
tent justified. It admits that the edit-
ing of one of the answers Assistant
Secretary of Defense Henkin gave to
a CBS question might not have con--
veyed accurately what Mr. Henkin
actually said. CBS also admits that
it was wrong in saying of defoliated
areas that 'nothing will grow there
arny more.' It agrees that it should
have mentioned that one of the Pen-
tagon films it criticized was actually
produced by CBS. CBS also con-
cedes that it greatly exaggerated
the number of offices in the Penta-
gon, and allows that it should not
have used language that implied
that it had to track down the Indus-
trial War College team that was put-
ting on 'a National Security Seminar
in Peoria, Ill.
"In addition, CBS makes de facto
admissions of error in two other
cases. In the broadcast, CBS had
said that a still unpublished report
of the prestigious 20th Century Fund
had estimated real total spending by
the Defense Department on public
affairs at 8190 million, compared
with the budget figure of $30 million.
CBS now concedes that the report of
the 20th Century Fund had been pub-
lished at the time the broadcast was
made and that it contained no such
figure. CBS tries to wriggle out of
this embarrassing situation by
showing that such a figure was used
in some of the research done for the
study. However, it was also clear
? published itudy AtafiggiSelfkEarsRegep6111401911 /V: tiRFRIO R0004 weal:402 methodol-
ranscribed t e prime-time ( RV ogy and data. On October 27,
could not be verified and the 20th
Century Fund quite properly would p.m.) news broadcasts of all three Dr. Weinberg stated: "Miss
networks for the seven weeks ended Efron is far more objective,
not accept it as valid. CBS was
November 4, 1968. She isolated all systematic and explicit in
therefore both wrong and unethical
stories dealing with the chosen is- her method than anyone
In foisting such a figure on its unsus-
sues, excerpted all stands "for" and known to me who has ever
pecting audience and using the pres-
"against," and, in each case, tallied written a book about TV.
tige of the 20th Century Fund to au-
and totaled the number of words. After examining her data, I
? thenticate it." What she found ought to open the believe that any systematic
Accuracy in Media proceeded to
country's eyes. On all three net- tabulation by any method
dissect the reply made by CBS to
works, the number of words spoken would result in essentially
eleven other points of criticism, in-
against Richard M. Nixon far ex- the same findings."
eluding "the editing of the remarks
ceeded those spoken for him some-
of Col. John MacNeil, which in-
times by a margin of 10-to-i. On Let the lady have the last
ment from widely separated sen-
volved creating a synthetic state- such issues as the Vietnam,
halt or word' "Now I respectfully
tences in his speech; the circum sentiment,
policy in d broadcast submit that the very exis-
stances surrounding the appearance f d as expressed in wordage -Len poly
e of an ideological oligo-
of the Industrial War College lecture for an against, was equally one- that controls the air-
waves is an immense danger
In a press release last October, to this country. . . . There is
team in Peoria, Ill., especially, sided.
whether or nep the visit was ar- Richard S. Salant of CBS News of- only one way to destroy it.
. . . It is for the goverment
to acknowledge the sacred
status of the First Amend-
ment in this country; to ac-
knowledge that it has no
business regulating an intel-
lectual and artistic medium
? that it never had any busi-
ness doing so ? that it never
? should have allowed three
nationwide monopolies to
form on this intellectually
stagnant base ? and that it
should not year after year,
have blocked economic and
technological competition in
this area., . . .
"The government must
acknowledge all this, how-
ever painful. It must get out
of broadcasting lock. stock
. and barrel and let CATV,
Pay TV, and cassette tech-
nology rip, uncontrolled, un-
licensed, unregulated, un-
censored and uninhibited ?
dominated exclusively by
the desire to win voluntary
customers, and regulated by
the law of supply and de-
mand alone. Only this hurri-
cane of fresh air will bring
about in broadcasting . . .
mg procedure. As to the au- diversity and intellectual
thoritative review of the net- freedom."
work's 1968 campaign cover-
age (which Broadcasting
Magazine on October 18 as-
sured readers will be "com-
pleted shortly"), a diligent
search of the Congressional
Record so far fails to dis-
close it. Meanwhile, two ex-
perts in content analysis?. ?
Paul H. Weaver, assistant
professor of government at
Harvard UniVersity, and Dr.
George Weinberg, research
consultant and author of
ocratic-liberal-left axis." Then, .wit "Statistics? I
ranged by Caterpillar Tractor Co.
(Ed. note: "which," according to
the broadcast, "did $39 million
worth of business with the Defense
Department last year"), charges
that CBS selectively edited films of
press briefings in Washington and
Saigon to make the spokesmen ap-
pear unresponsive to newsmen's
questions; charges that CBS gave a
wrong impression in saying that the
U.S. had resumed bombing in North
Vietnam." In A.I.M.'s judgment:
"CBS refuses to admit that there
was merit to any of these charges,
but in every case its refutation is
?weak and unconvincing."
By deed, if not word, CBS in ef-
fect has conceded the point. In strik-
ing contrast to the publicity splash
which' accompanied Mr. Salant's
television debut last March, the
company's point-by-point rebuttal,
was quietly inserted into the Con-
gressional Record toward Christ-
mastime by Rep. Ogden R. Reid
(R., N.Y.), allegedly at the behest of
the head of the Radio Television
News Directors Association. Last
June, moreover, CBS, in reviewing
its "operating Standards for News
and Public Affairs," specifically
outlawed most of the dubious prac-
tices in which those responsible for
"the Selling of the Pentagon" had
Indulged.
The rank-and-file at CBS now
may have gotten the word?verac-
ity. However, to judge by the corpo-
rate response to "The New Twist-
ers," there's plenty of room for im-
provement at the top. To demon-
strate the pervasive political bias of
all three networks, Miss Efron se-
lected 13 controversial issues "on
which strong opposing positions
were taken by the Republican-con-
servative-right axis and by the Dem-
fered another rebuttal, in which he
charged Miss Efron with "distinct
bias and gross distortion," as well
as "using statistical procedures
which are seriously flawed." Mr.
Salant went on: "With full recogni-
tion of its responsibility to be fair
and objective, CBS News has re-
tained two highly qualified, experi-
enced, independent research
organizations, one to study
the methodology used by
Miss Efron and the other to
review the identical 1968
campaign coverage on which
her book reports. They will
advise us of their conclu-
sions when these studies
have been completed, and
the findings will be made
public."
Since then CBS News has
come up with a critique by
Dr. Charles Winick, profes-
sor of sociology at City Uni-
versity of New York, who
failed to examine the au-
thor's textual analyses and
whose cautiously worded
complaint seems to be that
Miss Efron:s pioneering ef-
fort ignored standard operat-
the help of The HisAriiifiQTACFEREklelease 29M1-149$11441015R000100040001-2
sity text?have publicly sup-
"
25X1 Approved For Release 2004/11/01 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
Approved For Release 2004/11/01: CIA-RDP88-01315R000100040001-2
United States
of America
Tongressional 'Record
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 92 CONGRESS SECOND SESSION
Vol. 118
WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1972
No. 20
CBS DIGS DEEPER HOLE
HON. F. EDWARD HEBERT
OF LOUISIANA
IN THE HOUSE.OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, February 16, 1972
Mr. HEBERT. Mr. Speaker, it has been
nearly a year since the nostrils of Amer-
ica's television audience were choked
with the stinch of the irresponsible, poli-
tically carious presentation disguised by
the title, "The Selling of the Pentagon."
The odor has never faded as is wit-
nessed by the most recent analysis pub-
lished by Accuracy in Media, an inde-
pendent organization which will not let
the truth die.
And after 1 year of squeamish, pusil-
lanimous explanations by the Columbia
Broadcasting System, the truth con-
tinues to emerge. The following speaks
for itself:
[From AIM Bulletin, Feb. 1, 19721
CBS REPLIES TO CRITICS' QUESTIONS ABOUT
"THE SELLING OF THE PENTAGON"
February 23 will mark the anniversary of
the first showing of the CBS controversial
documentary, "The Selling of the Pentagon."
Claude Witze of the Air ForcerTeUial , Con-
gressman F. Edward Hebert, Chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee, and Ac-
curacy in Media were among the severest crit-
ics of this program. On March 20, 1971, AIM
sent a 7-page letter to Richard S. Salant,
President of CBS News, asking for his com-
ment on many inaccuracies or, questionable
points in the documentary. In our letter to
Mr. Salant, we said that we agreed with
a statement made by Roger Mudd in the
broadcast, which said: "Nothing is more es-
sential to a democracy than the free flow of
information. Misinformation, distortion.
propaganda all interrupt that flow." AIM
said that "The Selling of the Pentagon" con-
tained a great deal of misinformation and
distortion. We wanted CBS to clear up the
disputed points as quickly as possible.
CBS PROMISES COMPREHENSIVE REPLY
On March 29, 1971, Mr. Salant replied to
AIM saying that he had decided to wait for
the myriad of complaints and charges to ac-
cumulate and then prepare a comprehen-
sive analysis. He said: "When this analysis
is completed and at such time as we deter-
mine tts release Is appropriate, I will include
you on our distribution list."
Many months passed and no reply to the
questions was forthcoming. AIM raised this
with CBS from time to time. We urged our
Supporters to write to CBS to prod them into
releasing the promised analysis. Finally, in
December 1971, CBS informed us that we
could find the long-awaited analysis in the
Congressional Record for December 15 and
December 17, beginning on pages E 13493
and E 13697. There was no press release, no
announcement that CBS had met its critics
head-on and had shown them to be wrong.
No copy of the reply was sent to the principal
critics. We all had to look it up in the Con-
gressional Record, where it had been inserted
by Congressman Ogden Reid, who said he
obtained it from the president of the Radio-
Television News Directors Association. The
press has completely overlooked this latest
word in the great controversy over the CBS
documentary. It appeared that that was pre-
cisely what CBS wanted. The less publicity
the better.
CBS ADMITS A FEW ERRORS
CBS does not claim to be infallible, but
AIM's experience is that it will rarely admit
an error. Mr. Salant appeared on TV on the
night of March 23, 1971, to reply to the critics
of "The Selling of the Pentagon." He said:
"We are proud of 'The Selling of the Penta-
gon' and CBS News stands behind it." He
said they could refute every charge of the
critics who had appeared on the air?Cong.
Hebert, Secretary Laird and Vice President
Agnew. Nine months later, in the statement
quietly slipped into the Congressional Record
CBS admitted that not all of the criticisms
could be refuted. For CBS that wiz quite an
admission. That was why they sought no
publicity for their statement, we believe.
CBS now actually concedes that five points
of criticism were to some extent justified. It
admits that the editing of one of the answers
Assistant Secretary of Defense Henkin gave
to a CBS question might not have conveyed
accurately what Mr. Henkin actually said.
CBS also admits that it was wrong in saying
of defoliated areas that "nothing will grow
there any more." It agrees that it should
have mentioned that one of the Pentagon
films it criticized was actually produced by
CBS. CBS also concedes that it greatly ex-
aggerated the number of offices in the Penta-
gon, and allows that it should not have used
language that implied that it had to track
down the Industrial War College team that
Was putting on a National Security Seminar
in Peoria, Illinois.
In addition to these admissions of error,
CBS makes de facto admissions of error in
two other Oases. In the broadcast, CBS had
said that a still unpublished report of the
prestigious 20th Century Fund had estimated
real total spending by the Defense Depart-
ment on public affairs at $190 million, com-
pared with the budget figure of $30 million.
CBS now concedes that the report of the
20th Century Fund had been published at
the time the broadcast was made and that
it contained no such figure. CBS tries to wrig-
gle out of this embarrassing situation by
showing that such a figure was used in some
of the research done for the study. However
It was also clear that the figure was not used
in the published study precisely because it
could not be verified and the 20th Century
Fund quite properly would not accept it as
valid. CBS was therefore both wrong and
unethical in foisting off such a figure on its
unsuspecting audience and using the pres-
tige of the 20th Century Fund to authenti-
cate it.
The second de facto admission of error
relates to the CBS charge that Pentagon ex-
penditures on public affairs in 1971 were ten
times the 1959 level. CBS now admits that the
1959 figure for public affairs expenditures was
not comparable to the 1971 figure because
different definitions for "public affairs ex-
penditures" were used in these two years.
ARE THE ADMITTED ERRORS SERIOUS?
Yes. Three of them are quite serious. The
improper editing of the Henkin interview,
which CBS now concedes, was one of the ob-
jects of the heaviest attacks of the critics of
the documentary. For example, Martin Mayer
In the December 1971 issue of Harpers maga-
zine said this about the editing of the Henkin
interview: "This episode shows at least sub-
conscious malice, a desire by the producers
of the program that the man in charge of
the Pentagon selling apparatus look bad on
the home screen." Reed J. Irvine, writing in
the August 10, 1971 issue of National Review,
said that in editing the Henkin interview,
CBS did more than make Mr. Henkin look
bad. He stated in his reply to one of CBS's
questions his justification for spending pub-
lic money to inform the public of the reasons
why we need national defense. Since CBs was
clearly out to prove that such expenditures
were wasteful, the mangling of the Henkin
interview was necessary to make sure the
viewers were not provided with any effective
counter-arguments to the point CBS wanted
to make.
CBS, of course, does no go very far in ad-
mitting that it might have done better by
Mr. Henkin. Discussing the transposition of
answers that Mr. Henkin gave to incorpo-
rate them as parts of answers of different
questions, CBS says: "Upon review, one
might judge that a fuller answer could have
been broadcast by including, in the compo-
site answer, the second sentence of the 'orig-
inal' answer . . ." CBS concedes that edit-
ing involves subjective judgments and that
others may disagree with the judgments of
CBS. It insists, however, that in editing the
Henkin interview its intent was to condense
and clarify, not to deceive. The admission
that it might have done better by Mr. Hen-
kin is limited and grudging, but it is a step
forward from the previous insistence by CBS
President Frank Stanton that the editing
was completely fair.
The two errors cited above relating to the
amount of money the Department of Defense
spends on public affairs are serious because
in the documentary CBS placed a great deal
'of emphasis on the amount of money being
spent on these activities. It used the false
$190 million figure in comparison with the
combined news budgets of the three com-
mercial television networks, showing a graph
on the TV screen that told the viewer that
the Department of Defense spent more to tell
Its story to the people than all three net-
works spent to bring them the news. The
exaggeration of the size of the Pentagon
expenditures at the beginning of the pro-
gram helped establish the important nature
of the subject of the documentary.
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?Extensions of Remarks February 16, 19 72
The other three admitted errors are sig-
nificant in that they cast light on the bias
and carelessness of CBS. The bias is clearly
shown in the incorrect description of the
results of defoliation in Vietnam. The truth
could easily have been ascertained by CBS,
but it would not have been so dramatic. The
exaggeration of the number of offices in the
Pentagon by a factor of 6 shows the same
kind of bias, as does the implication that
CBS had to "find" the Industrial War Col-
lege lecturers. The criticism of the film,
"Road to the Wall," would have been blunted
If CBS had correctly attributed its produc-
tion to CBS rather than to the Pentagon.
THE ERRORS CBS REFUSES TO ADMIT
The purpose of the CBS reply is not to ad-
mit and apologize for errors in The Selling of
the Pentagon, although that is grudgingly
done in a few cases. Rather, CBS set out to
show that the critics, not CBS, had erred.
Thus the reply is mainly an effort to rebut
the numerous criticisms made of the docu-
mentary. In addition to the points already
discussed, the CBS reply takes up the fol-
lowing criticisms:
(1) The editing of the remarks of Col.
John MacNeil, which involved creating a syn-
thetic statement from widely separated sen-
tences in his speech;
(2) The circumstances surrounding the
appearance of the Industrial War College lec-
ture team -In Peoria, Ill., especially whether.
or not the visit was arranged by Caterpillar
Tractor Co.;
(3) Whether or not the IWC lecturers vio-
lated regulations in discussing foreign policy;
(4) The accuracy of the statement that the
Pentagon "used" sympathetic Congressmen
to interview military heroes such as Maj.
James Rowe to counter anti-war reporting;
(6) The charge -that CBS used false pre-
tenses to obtain a tape of the interview of
Maj. Rowe by Congressman Hebert;
(6) The charge that CBS falsely suggested
that the Pentagon spent about $12 million
a year on films to be shown to the public;
(7) The charge that CBS gave a mislead-
ing impression about a film narrated by
Robert Stack;
(8) The charge that CBS implied that an
expensive war game was staged for the bene-
fit of a few VIP civilians;
(9) Charges that CBS selectively edited a
film of a press briefing by Jerry Friedheim to
make it appear that he was unresponsive to
newsmen's questions;
(10) ditto for a Saigon news briefing; and
(11) Charges that CBS gave a wrong im-
pression in saying that the U.S. had resumed
bombing of North Vietnam.
CBS refuses to admit that there was merit
to any of these charges, but in every case its
refutation is weak and unconvincing.
(1) CBS justifies creating a synthetic
statement and putting it the mouth of Col.
John MacNeil on the ground that each of the
sentences used was actually said by Col. Mac-
Neil and their meaning was not altered. It
admits that one of the sentences was taken
out of chronological order, but it does not
mention that this is contrary to the CBS
Operating Standards for News and Public
Affairs, which state that this kind of trans-
position must not be done without inform-
ing the audience. This rule was adopted in
June 1971, after the controversy about The
Selling of the Pentagon. But if CBS says that
there was nothing wrong with this kind of
transposition in The Selling of the Pentagon,
we wonder how seriously CBS intends to en-
force its new regulation.
The same point can be made about the
editing of the Henkin interview, which also
involved clear violations of the rules against
the transposing of answers to questions with-
out giving an indication of this to the au-
dience. In its discussion of the editing of the
Henkin interview, CBS makes no mention of
the fact that the editing was clearly contrary
to the rules later adopted.
These are the most obvious criticisms to
be made of the CBS defense of its editing of
the MacNeil speech and the Henkin inter-
view. OBS is actually dishonest in suggesting
that there was no significance to the fact
that it took a sentence out of proper chron-
ological order to begin the synthetic state-
ment it created for Col. MacNeil. The sen-
tence was: "Well, now we're coming to the
heart of the problem, Vietnam." This was.
then followed by a statement the colonel had
made about Thailand and two sentences that
he had quoted from the Premier of Laos con-
cerning Southeast Asia. The latter two sen-
tences were taken so completely out of con-
text that they were not shown as quotations
at all in the CBS synthetic statement.
Why was it necessary to introduce state-
ments about Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and
other Southeast Asian countries with the
statement on Vietnam which CBS took out
of its proper order? CBS did this for the very
good reason that it wanted to lead into Col.
MacNeil's synthetic statement with this:
"The Army has a regulation stating: Per-
sonnel should not speak on the foreign policy
implications of U.S. involvement in Viet-
nam." It would appear that CBS wanted to
create the impression that Col. MacNeil was
speaking in violation of that regulation. The
easiest way to do this was to lead off the
synthetic statement created for him with a
sentence taken out of order. CBS seems not
to understand the meaning and importance
of context. If it can still say that what it did
to Col. MacNeil's statement was fair editing,
then no one's words are safe with CBS.
(2) CBS described the National Security
Seminar given by the Industrial War College
In Peoria, Ill., this way: "The Pentagon has
a team of colonels touring the country to
lecture on foreign policy. We found them in
Peoria, Ill., where they were invited to'speak
to a mixed audience of civilians and military
reservists. The invitation was arranged by
Peoria's Caterpillar Tractor Co., which did
$39 million of business last year with the
Defense Department."
Every one of these sentences was chal-
lenged by the critics. The team did not come
;rom the Pentagon, but from the Industrial
War College. In addition to colonels, it in-
eluded a Navy captain and a State Depart-
ment civilian. The seminars cover 33 topics,
including foreign policy, and they are given
each year in seven locations throughout the
country, primarily for the benefit of military
reservists. They were invited to Peoria by the
Association of Commerce of Peoria, which
shared sponsorship with the 9th Naval Dis-
trict.
CBS, in a lame rejoinder, justifies its
phrase, "a team of colonels," by asserting
that the Navy captain is equivalent to a
colonel and the State Department civilian
was a reserve It. colonel, It does not explain
why it called this a "Pentagon" team rather
than identifying the responsibility of the
Industrial War College (Industrial College
of the Armed Forces), but it justifies the mis-
leading term by saying that the military
officers are all subject to the authority of the
Pentagon. It admits that it should not have
said it "found" them in Peoria. It admits that
the team lectures on many subjects other
than foreign policy, but it defends the mis-
leading statement by saying that the broad-
cast did not say the team lectured only on
foreign policy. Presumably if the listeners
inferred that, that was their mistake.
CBS says it was justified in saying that
Caterpillar arranged the invitation, because
an official of Caterpillar was co-chairman of
the committee that arranged the seminar and
they were told that he and his associates were
very helpful "in heading up the committee
and making all the necessary arrangements."
OBS would apparently have us believe that
anything an employee of a company does, in-
cluding civic activities, can be attributed to
the firm that employs him.
(3) CBS accused the lecturers for the In-
dustrial College of the Armed Forces of vio-
lating military regulations in discussing for-
eign policy implications of Vietnam. It was
criticized for not pointing out that the talks
given by these speakers had been cleared
not only by Defense but by the State Depart-
ment. The Assistant Secretary of Defense
says this is all the regulations require. CBS
Insists that the talks violated regulations, no
matter who cleared them. Since national de-
fense and foreign policy are frequently inter-
twined, it would seem clear that the Depart-
ments of Defense and State are in a better
position than CBS to determine whether or
not a speech runs counter to government
regulations and policy.
(4) CBS was charged with having falsely
suggested that friendly Congressmen, spe-
cifically Cong. F. Edward Hebert, had been
"used" by the Pentagon in broadcasting in-
terviews that they had made with Maj. James
Rowe. This was vigorously denied by Cong.
Hebert, who denied that the interview with
Maj. Rowe. was produced at the suggestion
of the Pentagon or that the broadcast to his
home district involved the ?use of Pentagon
funds. This could easily have been the infer-
ence drawn by those who heard the CBS
statement. CBS says the program did not say
that the Pentagon produced the Hebert-Rowe
interview or that it was the Pentagon's idea.
However, it undermines this denial by
stressing that Cong. Hebert thanked the
colonel who served as liaison with the House
Armed Services Commitee for bringing Maj.
Rowe to him. They do not seem to consider
that Cong. Hebert might have asked the
colonel to bring Maj. Rowe, who was famous
for surviving five years of captivity as a VC
prisoner and who successfully escaped, to see
him. While denying that it meant to imply
What it implied, CBS persists in conveying
the same unfair implication.
(5) Cong. Hebert charged that CBS ob-
tained the tape of his interview with Maj.
Rowe by telling his office that It wanted it
in connection with a documentary it was
doing on prisoners of war. CBS denies this,
saying that it was public knowledge that it
was doing a documentary on public infor-
mation activities of the Department of De-
fense at the time it obtained the Hebert tape.
CBS asserts that no one on its staff ever
represented that the tape it wanted from
Cong Hebert was to be used for a POW
documentary.
On the contrary, says CBS, they said they
wanted the film in connection with a docu-
mentary on Pentagon public relations ac-
tivities. This is flatly contradicted by Cong.
Robert's press secretary and by the Congress-
man. Congresman Hebert has put into the
record letters or memos from the offices of
five other congressmen who assert that they
were approached by the same CBS staffers
who approached Congresman Hebert's office
to obtain tapes of interviews with Maj. Rowe.
Four of them said they were told that CBS
wanted these tapes in connection with a
documentary it was doing on POW's. CBS
makes no mention of this evidence confirm-
ing Cong. Hebert's charge that the CBS staff
sought tapes of interviews between congress-
men and Maj. Rowe under the pretense that
they were working on a documentary on
POW's. In a delightful evasion, CBS says:
"Months after the Rowe-Hebert program
was delivered to M. Seabrooks, Mr. Branon
contacted Mr. rlabert's office and the offices
of other Representatives to obtain informa-
tion with respect to additional Congressional
interviews with Major Rowe and other mili-
tary personnel, including other former pris-
oners of war. It is at this point, seemingly,
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February 16, 1972 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?Extensions of Remarks
anything an employee of a company does, in-
cluding civic activities, can be attributed to
the firm that employs him.
(3) CBS accused the lecturers for the In-
dustrial College of the Armed Forces of vio-
lating military regulations in discussing for-
eign policy implications of Vietnam. It was
criticized for not pointing out that the talks
given by these speakers had been cleared
not only by Defense but by the State Depart-
ment. The Assistant Secretary of Defense
says this is all the regulations require. CBS
insists that the talks violated regulations, no
matter who cleared them. Since national de-
fense and foreign policy are frequently inter-
twined, it would seem clear that the Depart-
ments of Defense and State are in ?a better
position than CBS to determine whether or
not a speech runs counter to government
regulations and policy.
(4) OBS was charged with having falsely
suggested that friendly Congressmen, spe-
cifically Cong. F. Edward Hebert, had been
"used" by the Pentagon in broadcasting in-
terviews that they had made with Maj. James
Rowe. This was vigorously denied by Cong.
Hebert. who denied that the interview with
Maj. Rowe was produced at the suggestion
of the Pentagon or that the broadcast to his
home district. involved the use of Pentagon
funds. This could easily have been the infer-
ence drawn by those who heard the CBS
statement. CBS says the program did not say
that the Pentagon produced the Hebert-Rowe
interview or that it was the Pentagon's idea.
However, it undermines this denial by
stressing that Cong. Hebert thanked the
colonel who served as liaison with the House
Armed Services Commitee for bringing Maj.
Rowe to him. They do not seem to consider
that Cong. Hebert might have asked the
colonel to bring Maj. Rowe, who was famous
for surviving five years of captivity as a VC
prisoner and who successfully escaped, to see
him. While denying that it meant to imply
what it implied, CBS persists in conveying
the same unfair implication.
(5) Cong. Hebert charged that CBS ob-
tained the tape of his interview with Maj.
Rowe by telling his office that it wanted it
in connection with a documentary it was
doing on prisoners of war. CBS denies this,
saying that it was public knowledge that it
was doing a documentary on public infor-
mation activities of the Department of De-
fense at the time it obtained the Hebert tape.
CBS asserts that no one on ita staff ever
represented that the tape it wanted from
Cong Hebert was to be used for a POW
documentary.
On the contrary, says CBS, they said they
wanted the film in connection with a docu-
mentary on Pentagon public relations ac-
tivities. This is flatly contradicted by Cong.
Hebert's press secretary and by the Congress-
man. Congresraan Hebert has put into the
record letters or memos from the bffices of
five other congressmen who assert that they
Were approached by the same CBS staffers
Who approached Congresman Hebert's office
to obtain tapes of interviews with Maj. Rowe.
POUT of them said they were told that CBS
wanted these tapes in connection with a
documentary it was doing on POW's. CBS
makes no mention of this evidence confirm-
ing Cong. liebert's charge that the CBS staff
sought tapes of interviews between congress-
men and Maj. Rowe under the pretense that
they were working 'on a documentary on
POW's. In a delightful evasion, CBS says:
"Months after the Rowe-Hebert program
was delivered to Mr. Seabrooks, Mr. Branon
contacted Mr. Hebert's office and the offices
of other Representatives to obtain informa
tion with respect to additional Congressional
interviews with Major Rowe and other mili-
tary personnel, including other former pris-
oners of war. It Is at this point, seemingly,
that the confusion began. The focus on addi-
tional Rowe interviews and other POW inter-
views may well have been the genesis of the
misunderstanding which arose."
We are expected to believe that five Con-
gressional offices all got the impression that
CBS wanted these tapes in connection with
a documentary on POW's even though they
were all presumably told that CBS wanted
them in connection with a documentary on
Defense Department public relations activi-
ties. That is too strange a coincidence to be
swallowed.
(6) CBS devoted nearly one-fourth of "The
Selling of the Pentagon" to films made by
the military and available to the public. It
said that most of the films were made orig-
inally for troop information but a large num-
ber was later released for public showing. It
said that the Pentagon spends over $12 mil-
lion a year on films. Later, in criticizing anti-
communist films made by the Pentagon, CBS
said: "But to the filmmakers at the Penta-
gon, with at least $12 million a year to spend.
1946 seems to have lasted a whole genera-
tion." One could easily infer from these
statements that a very large part of the $12
million goes for films that are intended for
public release. The Pentagon notes that the
great bulk of the films are made for troop
training, researah development, recruiting,
medical and religious use. It charges that
CBS was wrong in implying that the $12
million in films was largely used to influence
the public. CBS responds that it had no in-
tention of implying what most of the viewers
probably Inferred from what was said.
(7) It is charged that CBS showed Robert
Stack narrating a Defense Department film
in a way that suggested that he was doing a
film on the use of weapons in Vietnam when,
in fact, the film was about unarmed recon-
naissance pilots. The brief film clip used by
CBS did give the impression that Stack was
going to talk about guns in Vietnam. CBS
says they had no intention of implying
this and that "no such implication was
created." Nevertheless, the inference was
created.
(8) "The Selling of the Pentagon" gave
many viewers the impression that a large
military training exercise called "Brass
Strike" was put on for the benefit of a small
group of civilian VIP's. Describing this mili-
tary exercise, CBS said: "An air and land
assault on enemy territory was simulated for
the visitors." The Defense Department points
out that the training exercise would have
taken place with or without the VIP visitors
and that many other observers, including
military personnel saw it. The answer CBS
gives is that it did not say that the exercise
would not have taken place in the absence
of the VIP visitors, that it was other than a
training exercise and that no other observers
were present. True, CBS did not say any of
those things, it only created that implica-
tion.
(9) It Was charged that CBS showed As-
sistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim
declining to answer half of the questions he
was asked at a press briefing when actually
at that briefing he responded to 31 of the 34
questions asked. The complaint was that CBS
deliberately focused on those questions that
Mr. Friedheim detained to answer for se-
curity reasons to create the impression that
he did not provide the press with much in-
formation. It was charged that CBS used the
Sarile technique to indicate that press brief-
ings in Saigon were characterized by "no
comment" answers to newsmens' questions.
CBS said that at the Friedheim briefing
at least 56 questions were asked and Mr.
Friedheim was unable to answer 11 of these
completely for varying reasons. This meant
that he answered 80 per cent of the questions
asked completely. CBS showed six questions
E 1235
being asked, the first three of which Mr.
Friedman declined to answer or could not
answer. In the CBS portrayal, his response
rate was only 50 per cent compared with the
actual 80 per cent which CBS says prevailed
for the entire briefing. CBS says: "This is a
fair representation which does not reflect
adversely on Mr. Friedheim." What CBS se-
lected to show was clearly not typical of
Mr. Friedheirn's performance at the briefing.
CBS appeared to be trying to make the point
that the press briefings are an occasion
when the press is trying, without much suc-
cess, to extract information from unwilling
Defense Department spokesmen.
In introducing Mr. Friedheim, CBS de-
scribed him as an "adversary" of the press.
The briefing was described as a "confronta-
tion," and CBS said of Mr. Friedheim: "He
does not, of course, tell all he knows; he
wouldn't have his job long if he did." There
followed the carefully selected segment from
the briefing showing Mr. Friedheim avoiding
answering reporters' questions. That is what
CBS calls a "fair" representation. The same
kind of treatment was given the press brief-
ing in Saigon for exactly the same reason.
CBS said the daily press briefing there was
"known among newsmen in Saigon as the
Five O'clock Follies." It indicated that the
most popular phrase at the briefing was
"no comment."
It then illustrated this by showing a film
clip of the briefer declining to answer ques-
tions. The Defense Department claims that
this was not a typical scene. CBS does not
deny that the sequence it showed was not
typical. Instead it argues that the briefer
should have been authorized to answer the
particular questiolts that he was shown de-
clining to answer. Arguable though that may
be, it does not get CBS off the hook for pre-
senting an atypical sequence and passing it
off to the viewers as completely representa-
tive of the daily briefings.
(10) CBS was criticized for saying that the
phrase "protective reaction" means that the
U.S. resumed the bombing of North Vietnam.
The Defense Department states that "protec-
tive reaction" means a very limited kind of
bombing undertaken to protect unarmed re-
connaissance flights over North Vietnam. It
emphasizes that this does not mean the re-
sumption of the widespread bombing of
North Vietnam carried out prior to Novem-
ber 1968. CBS responds that it only said the
bombing had resumed, without saying that
large scale bombing had been resumed. They
say that the Defense Department has made
it clear that "protective reaction" bombing
Is different from the pre-November 1968
bombing. CBS made not the slightest dis-
tinction of this kind, and many in the audi-
ence could well have been misled into think-
ing that the phrase, "the U.S. resumed the
bombing of North Vietnam" meant that the
U.S. had resumed the kind of bombing that
was being carried out in 1968.
THE QUESTION CBS DID NOT EVEN TRY TO
ANSWER
Although CBS once claimed to have an
answer for every one of the criticisms of "The
Selling of the Pentagon," its comprehensive
reply to the critics leaves many questions un-
answered. AIM criticized 23 points in the
CBS documentary, and CBS dealt with only
13 of them in its "comprehensive" reply. Ten
points, with 35 questions attached, were com-
pletely ignored.
Among the questions CBS avoided were
these: (1) was it not inaccurate and unfair
to suggest that John Wayne narrated De-
fense Department films in return for help in
making "The Green Berets?" (2) How does
CBS define its phrase, "Pentagon propa-
ganda," and would any factual description
of the record of communist oppression be la-
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E 1236
beled "propaganda" by CBS? Does CBS know
that Walter Cronkite has changed his mind
about the aggressive nature of communism,
and if not why was it implied that he had
changed his views?
In analyzing Pentagon films, why did CBS
focus on films on communism and then com-
plain that they dealt with communism? How
does CBS reconcile its assertion that we
adopted a policy of "peaceful coexistence"
prior to 1961. with the Bay of Pigs invasion,
the Cuban missile crisis, the building of the
Berlin Wall and the Gulf of Tonkin resolu-
tion?
Many of the questions CBS did not try to
answer probed the most serious flaw in "The
Selling of the Pentagon," the fact that it was
fundamentally dishonest. CBS says no one
has refuted the basic veracity of the doc-
umentary. That is precisely what AIM did.
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?Extensions of Remarks February 16, 1972
That is why CBS has not answered AIM's
deep probing questions.
Mr. Speaker, if anyone is further in-
terested in the type of propaganda, such
as was evidenced by the "Selling of the
Pentagon" program, I add this bit of
information from Claude Witze's column
in Air Force magazine:
[From Mr Force magazine, February 1972]
In case anyone is still interested, "The
Selling of the Pentagon" is available for
rental. It can be obtained for a fee of $65
from American Documentary Films, a non-
profit educational organization with offices
at 336 West 84th St., New York, N.Y. 10024,
or from 379 Bay St., San Francisco, Calif.
94133.
(Not printed at Government expense)
American Documentary Films advertises
that it circulates "Films for Agitation." In
addition to the CBS masterpiece, you can se-
lect from a list that includes, for example,
"79 Springtimes," described as "a brilliant
impressionist biographical tribute to Ho Chi
Minh." And there is "Hanoi, Martes 13,"
which is a "moving salute to the Vietnam-
ese," presumably those in North Vietnam.
Then there is available, "Stagolee: Bobby
Seale in Prison," a film in which the Pan-
ther leader speaks out, and another picture
in which Angela Davis tells it like it is,
from her viewpoint in jail.
The American Documentary Film catalog
does not include "Road to the Wall," a doc-
umentary produced by CBS for the Depart-
ment of Defense in 1962.
Printed and distributed as a public service by ACCURACY IN MEDIA, a non-partisan,
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in news reporting.
If you are disturbed by inaccurate and biased news coverage, you can take elfective
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