AIM REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100010004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: October 1, 1975
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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ACCURACY IN MEDIA, INC.
America's Media Watchdog
Reed J. Irvine, Chairman
J. R. Van Evera, Executive Secretary
er YPJ , onsult n
Charles A. Sutton, Consultant
Executive Registry
/'-/',/
3 NUV 1975
777 14th St., N. W.
Washington, D. C. 20005
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 STA
RLruni
Published by ACCURACY IN MEDIA, INC.
777 14th Street, N.W., Suite 427
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NENRAT
Washington, D.C. 20005 ? Telephone: [phone]
MAJOR MEDIA IGNORE SENATE SPY CHARGE
In June 1972, the discovery of a political espionage
operation in the Watergate set off an investigation that
ultimately forced the resignation of the President of the
United States. We still don't know what those spies were
after, but it is safe to say that they could not have found
anything in the offices of the Democratic National Com-
mittee that would have endangered the security of the
country.
What brought the President down was not the spying itself,
but his complicity in the effort to cover up the crime. The
press, notably The Washington Post, takes great pride in the
investigative reporting that helped blow Watergate sky high.
But now another charge of espionage in Washington has
surfaced. l , wolves not political fun and games, but deadly
serious business. The charge is that there is evidence that
Soviet int ligence has infiltrated seven to nine offices of
United StaJ s Senators. That allegation was made by
S&iator GbIllwater as he was interviewed by columnist
JAin Lofir during a TV program in Washington on
September 30.
0
Senator Goldwater said he got his information from none
other than Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The Vice
President reportedly discovered this when he was in charge
of an investigation of the CIA. Senator Goldwater asked
him if this information would be included in his report, and
Mr. Rockefeller assured him that it would be.
But strange to say, when the report was published, the
information about Soviet espionage in the Senatorial offices
was not included. Senator Goldwater said he asked Mr.
Rockefeller about this, and he was told that it had been
omitted at the request of some unnamed official.
A Sensational Story
This is obviously a sensational story. It might well put
Watergate in the shade. We have the same ingredients of
SON OF A GUN
Knowing that hunters and their organizations were very "The Selling of the Pentagon," a badly slanted docu-
upset by their program on hunting, "The Guns of mentary that put down the military.
Autumn," CBS decided to broadcast a sequel. They called
it "Echoes of the Guns of Autumn," but it was irreverently When Accuracy in Media won an unprecedented ruling
nicknamed "Son of a Gun." from the Federal Communications Commission that NBC
had presented an unfair picture of private pension plans in
Since the first program was so heavily loaded against its documentary, "Pensions: The Broken Promise," NBC
hunting that it offended millions, scared away advertisers did not agree to show the other side. They fought the FCC
and exposed CBS to a possible fairness doctrine complaint, to a standstill in the courts, and the Commission weakly
this was a wise move. This is not the first unfair and abandoned the fight.
one-sided program that CBS has aired, but the hunters
succeeded where many others have failed. When CBS upset The hunters succeeded because they are numerous and are
the Secretary of Agriculture and influential members of willing to speak up forcefully. CBS found that it had a tiger
Congress with a documentary called "Hunger in America" by the tail, and they suppressed their usual stereotyped
they blithely rejected Secretary Orville Freeman's demand dismissal of charges of unfairness. They gave the other side
for equal time to answer what he considered false charges. a hearing.
dntinued on page 3)
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Major Media Ignore Senate Spy Charge
(Continued ,from page 1)
espionage and coverup, but the basic crime and the danger
posed to our country are obviously much more serious.
You would think that the investigative newshounds would
be all over the Vice President, seeking answers to tlt'P''
obvious questions. What senatorial offices were allegedly
involved? What is the source of the information? When did
the infiltration take place, and is it continuing? Was the
purpose to get secrets or to influence senatorial actions, or
both? Who ordered the suppression of the information?
Why? Have any protective measures been taken to guard
against this? Have there been any indictable offenses?
the area into a massive "safe house" for foreign agents,
meaning a place where foreign spies can safely rendezvous.
The Enquirer said the FBI had admitted that the Capitol is
off limits to FBI agents without special authority.
The Enquirer recently exposed the carelessness of Secret
Service agents guarding Secretary of State Kissir er and Dr.
Kissinger's own carelessness in reading top secret docu-
ments in public in a way that enabled photographers with
telephoto lenses to photograph them. It now charges that
the guarding of classified documents on Capitol Hill is
dangerously lax. It charges that "top secret" clearances
have been granted in less than two weeks after application
even though it takes a month or more to complete a full
field investigation of an employee.
For some strange, unfathomable reason the major media
have not asked those questions. They have not even
reported the story. They knew about it. The story was
carried on the UPI wire the day after Goldwater broke it.
The UPI story began as follows:
Senator Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., says the Soviet
Union has the United States "absolutely infiltrated"
-every major industry, every major business, and the
committees of Congress.
Goldwater said he will ask Senate intelligence investi-
gators to look into charges the Soviets have infiltrated
"seven or nine" Senate offices. He said information
to that effect was deleted from the Rockefeller
Commission's report on the CIA.
The Washington weekly, Human Events, carried the story in
its October 11 edition, adding the information that when
columnist John Lofton asked Goldwater if the Soviet
agents were actually working in Senate offices, Goldwater
said: "Well, working in offices, reporting, helping in the
drafting of legislation, the writing of reports, and so forth
and so on. But I have no idea what offices they might be.
But I would put myself in the position of the KGB, and I
think one of the first things I would try to do would be to
place as many people in clerical positions on the Hill as I
could place."
Lax Security on
Capitol Hill
The National Enquirer, a mass circulation gossipy weekly
that frequently scoops the major daily newspapers on
interesting stories, reported in its October 14 issue that
Congressman Steve Symms of Idaho had demanded a
full-scale investigation of Soviet spying on Capitol Hill.
Symms charged that the Soviet operatives had become so
brazen that they did not even try to cover up their
activities.
The Enquirer said that its own check revealed that
"Russians roam Capitol halls virtually immune from FBI
surveillance." A source was reported as saying that pressure
from congressmen to keep FBI off Capitol Hill had turned
The "Ho-Hum"
Reaction
Accuracy in Media has asked the publishers of both The
New York Times and The Washington Post what they have
done about the Goldwater charges. As we go to press, they
have not responded. It would appear that these great papers
that have done so much to push the investigations that have
virtually paralyzed the U.S. intelligence agencies are not
interested in informing the public about Soviet espionage
on Capitol Hill. Nicholas Horrocks, The Times reporter
who has been covering the CIA investigations, told AIM
that he could not say why The Times had not
published Goldwater's charges. He agreed that the story was
newsworthy. But the TV networks, the newsweeklies and
the wire services have either ignored the story or let it drop
after a single mention.
Grassroots Goading
The New York-Washington media axis does not represent
the press of the entire country. The Omaha World-Herald,
for example, has shown that there are editors who don't
think that we ought to focus exclusively on the sins of the
CIA and ignore Soviet espionage. On October 3, it
published an editorial about the Goldwater charges, which
said: "The great danger is that in focusing so much on the
excesses and the shortcomings of the CIA, Americans will
stop thinking about the Russian espionage which our own
intelligence agencies should be policing. If only part of
what Barry Goldwater said is true, he has disclosed a
frightening problem."
Reed Irvine devoted his October 12 Accuracy in Media
column to this story, and it has undoubtedly appeared in
many, if not most, of the more than 70 daily papers that
now get the AIM column.
Wilson C. Lucom, Chairman of Concerned Voters, sent a
1500-word press release on this story to every daily paper
in the country. Some of them published it in full. Mr.
Lucom called for the release of the information about the
"seven to nine" senatorial offices that had been infiltrated
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according to Goldwater. He said this was essential to
safeguard our national security. Mr. Lucom also asked for
an investigation of the suppression of this information by
the Rockefeller Commission. He noted that Newsweek had
recently reported that Secretary Kissinger had "excised and
cut out a great deal of material about Soviet spying on the
United States out of the CIA Report." Mr. Lucom labeled
this a continuation of the Watergate coverup mentality and
said it hadto be stopped.
Mr. Lucom also pointed out that Senator Frank Church of
Idaho, who heads the Senate Committee investigating the
intelligence agencies, promised on June 18 to investigate
Soviet intelligence activity in the United States. He charged
that Senator Church has yet to hold a single hearing on this
question. He said that this showed the need to revive the
House Internal Security Committee and to re-invigorate the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.
Mr. Lucom asked the following top media officials to assign
investigative reporters to look into the Goldwater charges
of KGB infiltration on Capitol Hill and the coverup by the
Rockefeller Commission:
Herbert Schlosser, President, NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza,
NYC 10020
Leonard Goldenson, Chairman, ABC, 1330 Avenue of
the Americas, NYC 10019
Arthur Sulzberger, Chairman, The New York Times, 229
W. 43rd St., NYC 10036
Wes Gallagher, President Associated Press, 50 Rockefel-
ler Plaza, NYC 10020
Roderick W. Beaton, President, UPI, 220 E. 42nd St.,
NYC 10017
What You Can Do
1. Ask your local editor to apply grass roots pressure and
demand that the AP and UPI investigate the charges and
keep their clients informed.
2. Write to the media leaders listed above and ask them
why they are ignoring this important story.
Mrs. Katharine Graham, Chairman, The Washington
Post, 1.150 15th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005
Joe L. Allbritton, Publisher, The Washington Star, 225
Virginia Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003
William S. Paley, Chairman, CBS, 51 West 52nd St.,
NYC 10019
3. Write your Congressmen and Senators to remind them
that the agenda for discussion should not be determined
exclusively by the New York-Washington media axis. If
your local paper has shown the type of concern exhibited
by the Omaha World-Herald, point this out to your elected
representatives.
SON OF A GUN
(Continued from page 1)
How Did the Hunters
Fare ?
How fair was "Son of a Gun?" Some hunters were far from
satisfied. They argued that CBS had put on a ninety-minute
anti-hunting documentary and that they should have given
something like equal time to the rebuttal. The second
program was only an hour in length, and some felt that too
much of it was devoted to a defense of the first program.
This impression may have been created by such tricks as
reading two letters critical of the first program and two
letters defending it even though CBS admitted that the mail
was running against the program by a ratio of more than
two-and-a-half to one. Telephone calls were even more
overwhelmingly critical. Eighty-five percent of the tele-
phone calls in New York City criticized the program. But
fewer than two-thirds of the calls used on "Echoes" were
critical.
Aside from the letters and calls, CBS did give the
pro-hunting side considerably more time in the second
program. Accuracy in Media found that just half of the
time was devoted to either criticism of the first program or
to pro-hunting material. About one-fourth of the time was
devoted to defense of the original program, and the rest was
neutral.
This was enough to assure CBS that it would not have to
face an FCC ruling that its programming on hunting was
unfair to hunters. The fairness doctrine does not require
that equal time be given to all sides, only that they all get
heard.
No Excuse For
Unfairness
"Echoes" made it perfectly clear that there was no valid
excuse for the unfairness of "The Guns of Autumn." It
showed that excellent material was available to CBS
showing the attractive side of hunting, the role it plays in
game management, and steps that are being taken to train
young people to hunt properly. If CBS had made just a
modest effort to include some of this material in the first
program the hunters would have been less outraged and
CBS would have been spared much embarrassment and
expense.
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It is difficult to understand the mentality of those in the
networks who so deliberately ignore both the moral and
legal obligation to give a fair presentation to both sides of
controversial issues. Are they really interested in en-
lightening the public? Or are they merely interested in
propagandizing for particular points of view and special
causes? The evidence points to the latter.
We have been told that the hunters who treed a bear while
communicating with two-way radios were told that CBS
wanted to contrast old forms of hunting with hunting using
modem technology. They too are outraged by what they
consider deception by CBS.
Lessons For All
To make matters worse, they are not above using deception
and trickery to secure the cooperation of those they intend
to attack viciously. Louis Ruggirello, owner of Louie's
Game Preserve near Dexter, Michigan, charge; that CBS
secured his cooperation by telling him they wanted to do a
Bicentennial program for the hunter. He said they told him
they were going to do a pro-hunting film. He :ooperated,
even to the extent of treating the entire CBS crc-w to a wild
game dinner, but his cooperation cost him dearly. Even
though the CBS crew complimented his place, its preserve
came out looking bad, and his business has suffered. CBS
denies that it told Ruggirello that it was doing a Bicenten-
nial type program, but AIM has found that other hunters in
Michigan also claim to have been tricked by this CBS claim.
It is to be hoped that CBS has learned something from this
experience, since their venture into anti-hunting polemics
cost them a lot of money and a lot of good will. Perhaps
they will value fairness more highly in the future.
The public can also learn from the experience. The hunters
showed that it pays to let the networks know when you are
outraged. If more victims of unfair programming would
speak out forcefully and with all the strength they can
muster, the networks would soon learn that unfairness does
not pay. This is especially true if the aggrieved parties can
convey their unhappiness to the sponsors whose advertising
dollars make the network programs possible.
PLAIN AS A PIKESTAFF,
BUT NOT TO PIKE'S STAFF
In September, a former CIA analyst named Sant Adams
made some serious charges before Congressmat Otis Pike's
House Committee on Intelligence. He said that he had
discovered prior to the Tet offensive in February 1968 that
the strength of the Vietcong was much grea-er than had
been estimated previously. He charged that this information
was withheld from the American people because the
American authorities in Vietnam wanted to give the public
the impression that Vietcong strength was being rapidly
reduced. According to the report of this testimony in The
New York Times of September 19, 1975, Mr. Adams "told
the committee that the surprise of the Vietcorg's 1968 Tet
offensive had resulted largely from underratiig the Com-
munists' strength by as much as one-half."
This made a big stir in the press, even though Adams was
simply repeating charges that he made when he testified for
the defense at the trial of Daniel Ellsbcrg in March 1973.
The New York Times devoted an entire co umn to his
testimony. The Washington Star made it the subject of its
lead editorial on September 27, under the heading, "Ritual-
ization of the Lie." While asserting that there was no way
to judge the validity of the testimony, The Stcr's editorial-
ist did not shrink from judging harshly the high officials
whose veracity Adams attacked.
So far that has not been done. But it turned out that Rep.
Pike's staff was already in touch with a witness who was
willing and able to rebut Mr. Adams. He was James V. Ogle,
also a former CIA analyst who had been working on
Vietcong intentions and capabilities in Saigon prior to the
Tet offensive. Pike's staff had invited Mr. Ogle to talk to
them, apparently under the impression that he was hostile
toward the CIA. A committee investigator told him he had
heard that Ogle was one of "the good guys." His name had
been given to them by Mr. Adams.
It turned out that Mr. Ogle had quite a different story to
tell. Ten days before Adams testified, Mr. Ogle met with
the staff and gave them good reasons why they should be
wary of Adams' estimates of Vietcong strength. What is
more, he told them that, contrary to what Adams was
saying, the Tet offensive had been predicted, since he had
personally been in part responsible for the prediction.
Acting on this intelligence, President Johnson, General
Wheeler, General Westmoreland and Ambassador Bunker all
began warning against the forthcoming Vietcong offensive.
President Johnson described them as VC "kamikaze"
attacks.
The Other Side
Immediately after Adams made his charges, two members
of the Pike Committee, Rep. David Treen of Louisiana and
Rep. Dale Milford of Texas sent a letter to Ref. Pike asking
that the officials whose integrity had been attacked by
Adams be called to testify and tell their side of the story.
Much to Mr. Ogle's surprise, none of the information he
had supplied the committee was reflected in their ques-
tioning of Mr. Adams ten days later, and the staff showed
zero interest in having Mr. Ogle testify. They told him that
the written statement he had given them would be included
in the printed record. That would be published after a delay
of months and would get little, if any, attention.
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Ogle was disillusioned about the Pike Committee. "I
thought they were trying to get at the truth," he said. "I
am now sure they were trying to make political hay. They
are guilty of the same thing Adams accused the CIA of,
ignoring some of the facts for political purposes."
AIM Luncheon
For Ogle
The Star Outshines
The Post
Ogle thought this might make a pretty good story for the
press. He first contacted George Lardner, who was covering
the intelligence hearings for The Washington Post. Mr.
Lardner let his own biases show, saying that he could not
believe that there had actually been a prediction of the Tel
offensive. He nevertheless asked Mr. Ogle to give him a
copy of his written testimony, which he did. He never
heard from Mr. Lardner again.
Two days later, Mr. Ogle called Norman Kempster of The
Washington Star, who showed a lively interest in the story.
Kempster did a good story, which appeared on the front
page of The Star on September 22, occupying 34 column
inches. The New York Times picked up the story from The
Star, but gave it only 7 inches on the inside pages. The Post
continued to ignore it.
The only interest shown by TV came from CBS, they
invited Mr. Ogle to their Washington studios for an
interview. His account of the interview is interesting. Here
is how it went.
CBS: Why do you think the people looked on Tet as such a
defeat for the Americans?
Ogle: I think it was the television coverage. Night after
night, they saw Saigon in flames. I was walking back and
forth to work-8 blocks. I didn't see Saigon in flames.
Maybe there was some building in Cholon (the Chinese
quarter) in flames; that's where the cameras were trained.
CBS: Why do you suppose the House Committee called
Adams instead of you?
Ogle: He is good theater. All I could do is say, "This is how
I remember it"-things like that. He could go on for hours
quoting from classified reports. And I think this point is
worth noting. Mr. Adams did what he did for patriotic
reasons. But the Church Committee is recommending
punishment for people who break the law for patriotic
reasons. So I think it is strange that the House Committee
relied so on Adams, when it had in its files information
contradicting him."
Mr. Ogle, in it written memo to AIM, says: "I got the
distinct impression that his (the interviewer's) manner,
always cool, turned rather hostile at this point. Ogle thinks
the interview was never aired.
We invited James Ogle to address an AIM luncheon in
Washington on October 6. The luncheon was attended by
70 people, including several representatives of the press. Mr.
Ogle gave a brilliant talk, explaining clearly how the Tet
offensive was predicted and what was wrong with Adams'
charges. He discussed the problem media misrepresentation
that confronted our officials in Saigon, giving an illustration
from his own experience.
He told of receiving a reprimand from Washington over a
memo he had written in which he said that a new front
group in Saigon had a program identical to the communist
National Liberation Front. The New York Times, apparent-
ly eager to present the new group as an alternative to the
communists rather than as the transparent fiction it really
was, carried a story about this memo which was headlined:
"Saigon Analyst Sees Significant Difference Between Front
and Alliance Programs." That was false, and the reprimand
was withdrawn when Washington saw what Ogle had
written was just the opposite of what The New York Times
said he had written.
Ogle drew this conclusion: "My own experience convinces
me that the cables cited by Mr. Adams (about Vietcong
strength estimates) were written with just these problems in
mind. They were written not to fool the people but to keep
a media misrepresentation of the order of battle (troop
strength) debate from fooling the people. It had really
come to that."
Who Lies?
Ogle said this about lying: "In 16 years as an insider in the
CIA I have never known any high Administration official to
lie to the American people about anything about which I
had privileged information, unless it was to protect an
on-going covert operation ...
"Time and time again, however, I have heard from the
media stories presented as fact which I knew to be 180
degrees out of phase with the truth. There is a sense in
which one could say that almost all the leading columnists
and commentators in the country today made their
reputations `screwing up the news' on Vietnam."
Denying that he was subscribing to conspiracy theories or
attributing bad motives to anyone, Ogle said: "News has
always been about the man biting the dog, not the dog
biting the man. But 100 years ago people spent a very small
fraction of their time reading about men who bit dogs; they
spent most of their time in the real world where dogs bit
men. Today, however, we live in a media-saturated world
which has largely replaced the real world for millions of
people; and in all modes of the media-entertainment,
news, discussion-there is a tendency still to show the man
biting the dog. The rare exception is given the greatest
prominence. What is almost always true is never spoken of.
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"At the moment, intelligence in general and the CIA in
particular are suffering terribly from this perverse phenome-
non. And yet, in a very true sense, it is the media, and not
the intelligence organizations of this country which
threaten the foundations of the Republic. #'ot because the
media are the 'bad guys,' but that's the state of the art.
asked to study our own media and people. We only studied
the enemy, and our allies. We should have been studying
ourselves."
Post Won't Explain
"The people of Vietnam, perhaps, were victims of a cultural
lag which they could not overcome in time. But they were
seduced and abandoned by us, indeed, cruc..ly betrayed by
us, because we were victims of a cultural lag which we have
not yet overcome. The American people saw the war upside
down, and they saw it every day, in living color. And a man
can only stand so much."
In explaining our defeat, Ogle said: "We reckoned without
the effect of the media on the people. We hadn't been
The Washington Post, that tiger of investigative journalism
and self proclaimed scourge of official hypocrisy, has
accorded James Ogle "non-person" status. We wrote to
Katharine Graham, Chairman of The Post, on September
24. asking if there was any valid reason for the suppression
of this story. Mrs. Graham has not responded. However,
The Post did print a letter from a former top CIA official
replying to Sam Adams' charge that the order of battle
figures had been understated.
THE TIMES COVERS FOR CASTRO
From September 5 to 7, Fidel Castro staged a large
international conference in Havana to show Communist
solidarity with the tiny number of Puerto Ricans who
would like to end that island's highly profitable ties with
the United States. The communists have been pressing for
Puerto Rican independence, and they have had a little help
from terrorists and our own Public Broadmsting Service,
which obligingly airs their propaganda at the expense of the
American taxpayers.
Their big conference in Havana got very little attention in
the U S. Some think that Castro did not want publicity
here. He reportedly rejected a request from one television
network that. wanted to cover the proceediigs. The reason
for this is probably related to the efforts to picture Castro
as moderate and benign in American eyes. This helps the
campaign to normalize American-Cuban relations.
Nevertheless, at Secretary Kissinger's press conference on
September 10, a reporter asked about the prospects for
normalization of relations with Cuba, "especially in view of
the recent forum being held in Havana far the so-called
independence of Puerto Rico."
issue, Mr. Kissinger remarked that the Administration's
policy of 'reciprocal steps' toward an 'improvement of
relations with Cuba' had shown some progress in recent
months." That was all!
AIM has tried without success to get some explanation of
why The Times did not tell its readers that Kissinger had
denounced the Havana meeting as an unfriendly act and
totally unwarranted interference by Cuba in our internal
affairs that had set back the process of improving relations.
Mr. Sulzberger of The Times waxed indignant at our
suggestion that the curious editing of Mr. Kissinger's reply
raised a question of whether or not The Times "was toying
with the news." Mr. Sulzberger said: "This newspaper has
been in business for 125 years by reporting the facts as
accurately as they possibly can Other periodicals that have
drifted from this pattern have long since been relegated to
the newspaper graveyard. It would seem to me that
Accuracy in Media is far more interested in scoring political
points than in a meaningful discussion of some of the
difficult problems of covering the news. If that is, indeed,
your purpose, it might be worthwhile for you to reserve a
plot in the graveyard."
Secretary Kissinger said: "We have pursued a policy with
respect to Cuba of moving by reciprocal steps towards an
improvement of relations. This policy has shown some
progress and we are prepared to continue this policy.
"At the same time, the meeting in Havana can only be
considered by us as an unfriendly act, and as a severe
setback to this process, and as a totally unwarranted
interference in our domestic affairs."
The following day, The New York Tines reported the
above response as follows: "On anotlte:- foreign policy
Thinking the
Unthinkable
Mr. Sulzberger would have us believe that it is unthinkable
that The New York Times would have on its staff any
practitioners of the art of advocacy journalism.
But if advocacy journalism is what propels papers to the
graveyard, Mr. Sulzberger should be grateful to AIM for
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ARE WE DOING WHAT YOU
^
^
If so, won't you help us keep on doing it? Your support
deductible contribution this year, do it now.
^
To AIM
777 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005
To help you keep
up the
WANT US TO DO?
good work, here is my contribution
calling such things as the distorted Kissinger quote to his
attention.
To give him a little additional food for thought, we pointed
out that David Binder, the perpetrator of this journalistic
horror, once sent a letter to AIM's chairman, Reed Irvine,
calling him a "fascist beast," a favorite epithet of the
extreme left. More recently, Mr. Binder verbally assaulted
Senator James Buckley of New York at a press conference
the Senator was holding.
We were informed by a member of Mr. Buckley's staff that
Mr. Binder was emotionally upset because the Senator had
the audacity to suggest that Portugal was in danger of going
down the tube.. The Senator's office protested the conduct
of this journalist to his head office, and he subsequently
called to make an apology of sorts. There is some reason to
think that Mr. Binder is interested in making "political
points," and that may explain his editing of Kissinger.
We have also called to Mr. Sulzberger's attention a
syndicated column by Jeffrey Hart about an article in the
July 31 Rolling Stone which Hart describes as "a long
paean" to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. We are printing
Mr. Hart's column below. He notes that the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade was a- creation of the Communist Party, by
the admission of the Daily World, that party's official
organ. The author of the laudatory article in Rolling Stone
was Gloria Emerson of The New York Times, who just
happened to have written some highly emotional articles
condeming our side in the Vietnam War.
It is enough to tempt one to think the unthinkable.
WHERE THINGS STAND
1. On October 13, AIM filed a fairness doctrine complaint
against WNET/13, charging the station with one-sided
programming on the issue of Puerto Rican independence.
2.. The District Court of Appeals on October 16 rejected
AIM's claim that the FCC should enforce Section
396(g)(1)(A) of the Communications Act, requiring that
programs funded by the Corporation for Public Broad-
casting be produced with strict adherence to objectivity and
balance. We will probably seek Supreme Court review.
There is now no enforcement of this important provision of
law.
3. On September 5, the FCC rejected AIM's complaint
against WNET/13 of New York City, in which we charged
the station with violating the fairness doctrine in their
programming on Chile. Chairman Wiley and Commissioner
Hooks dissented from the ruling.
ACCURACY IN MEDIA, INC. is a non-profit, educational
organization. Gifts and contributions are tax deductible.
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Secretary.
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By,JEFFREY HART
another Times reporter wrote up the
same relocation program four days later:
"After the heartache and uncertainty
of leaving home, and a short-lived epi-
demic of airsickness, the 1.500 pioneers
of South Vietnam's most ambitious
refugee resettlement project are taking
over their new village and say they are
eager to start a new life. For the swarm-
ing families who arrived here last Thurs-
day, Friday and Saturday. the move
looks like a good deal. 'This is good
land, much better than I had up there,'
said Le Tict, a 50-year old farmer."
from the thousands upon thousands
of words filed from Vietnam by Emerson.
let us select one other choice item, from
19-71. This time she rated five columns
on the front page of the Sunday edition.
Ostensibly. the story concerns some
minor skirmishing around the obscure
village of Bachuc. Four South Vietnam-
ese had been killed, and some villagers
injured, by Vietcong mines in the neigh-
borhood.
The moral of this strange item is pre-
sented by Nguyen Van Sam. a Bachuc
"religious leader," who says, according
to Gloria Emerson: "Between death and
injury, death is perhaps easier for us.
We are very poor. If a villager loses an
arm or a leg his family will suffer, for he
can no longer work." Accompanying all
this is a large front-page photo of Tran
This Nam. a "mother of eight," who
lost an arm and a leg in a Vietcong mine
blast.
All of this, of course, issued in an im-
plicit but very loud message. If you sup-
ported Vietnamization and continued
resistance to a Communist takeover you
wanted to blow the limbs off the "mother
of eight" and by inference wanted the
"eight" to starve.
Celebrating this Abraham Lincoln Brigade
In its July 31 issue, the quasi-under-
ground paper Rolling Stone ran a lung
and celebratory article on the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade. These were American
volunteers, largely Communist and serv-
ing under Communist auspices, who
fought on the Republican side in the
Spanish Civil War. There is nothing
remarkable about the appearance of the
article in Rolling Stone the politics
of that paper is standard New Left ex-
cept that the author of the article was
Gloria Emerson of the New York Tones.
not long ago a principal Times corre-
spondent on the scene in Vietnam.
Let us for a moment go back three
or four years, to the time when the Viet-
nam War was a burning and divisive issue
in American politics. Gloria Emerson's
regular dispatches from the scene were
not "news." They were mood pieces.
designed to capture the essence of things
in some small incident. Week after week
they appeared, sometimes on the front
page, and their quality was inimitable.
The closest thing in my experience to
the Emerson mood was the soap-box
radio serial. Stella Dallas. Emerson
wrote tear jerkers.
At one point in 1972. the Saigon gov-
ernment was trying to resettle in the
South some farmers from exposed
Quantri Province in the North. Here is
the special Emerson music:
"The refugees, many of them bare-
foot, stood on the shiny airstrip early
yesterday morning holding clumsy
bundles and shivering babies and
looking fearful of the big American
warplanes and the long voyage
ahead . . . . The United States mis-
sion in Vietnam has been severely
criticized for its relocation programs.
which were often considered of little
or no benefit to the Vietnamese who
were forced to move . . . . "
Just by way
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in as a war criminal. with another quota-
tion from the ever obliging Nguyen Van
Sam: "God cannot hear what we are try-
ing to say. We are choked by the hands
of the government, so we cannot shout
out."
God might not have been able to hear.
but the reader certainly did. It was not
enough that the U.S. withdraw its troops.
The war itself had to stop. and whatever
the consequences.
Now let us return to the present, things
having been tidied up in Vietnam. Miss
Emerson not only wrote the long paean
to the Lincoln Brigade for Rolling Stone,
but along with 1,300 other enthusiasts
attended the 38th anniversary celebra-
tion in New York's Statler-Hilton Hotel.
Steve Nelson and other Brigade veterans
made speeches. Nelson is national com-
manderoftheveterans of the Brigade. He
has also been identified by Louis Budenz
as a Soviet espionage agent.
The official Communist organ
Daily World welcomed the anniver-
sary, and was not shy about identify-
ing the genesis of the Brigade. "The
Lincoln Brigade was not a spontan-
eous immaculate conception . . . .
It had its on in, inspiration, and
organizing genius somewhere. That
was the Communist Part of the
United States."
This kind of thing is usually discreetly
overlooked, but it is common knowledge.
The Lincoln Brigade was the American
unit. Josip Broz, later Tito, a Communist
functionary, ran the overall transport
operation in Paris. The German contin-
gent was named after Ernst Thaelman, a
German Communist, etc.
As the editors of Rolling Stone re-
minded the youthful audience for Gloria
Miss Emerson concluded these heart- Emerson's article, the Lincoln Brigade
rending proceedings, and by this time the is a "stirring reminder that -American,
o contrast. is o reader was about ready to turn himself did nc' 1i ht u I e ide of democracy."
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