YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300220030-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2004
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: March 29, 1964
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01315R00030022-5
N v`V YORK
JOURNAL AMERICAN
MAR 2 9 1954
By WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST JR. '
Editor-in-Chief, The Hearst Newspapers
SiANTO DOMINGO
Does the above startle
you?
That is because you are
used to a free press-and
perhaps don't count it as
one of your blessings-
but it is denied to most
of the people of the
world.
Even In our own hemi-
sphere t. le are several
nations ...ere the press
Is not free at all, others
where it is half-free, and
still more where its free-
dom is threatened.
Suppression of the
people's right to know
? the facts is a tool of
tyranny so widely used in
Latin America that it was
W. R. HEARST JR.
the principal topic at the
koecting of the Inter American Press Association
which I attended here this week.
It was the first time the hemisphere's editors
had assembled in the Dominican Republic, because
[here was no free press here at all during the 30-year
absolute dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who
was assassinated In 1961.
coup and counter-coup-some half-dozen quickie
regimes, including overthrow of elected President
Juan Bosch for inability to screen Communists out
of his government-the Dominican Republic, is gov-
erned by a three-man civilian "caretaker", junta. The
triulnvirate has promised elections for 1965, but the
job'-of restoring democracy Is made tougher by cl?.ily
propaganda broadcasts from Communist Cuba.
It, is not made easier, either, by the residue of
mob,~t?ers and jobholders left by the Trujillo family
after Its survivors fled with nearly a billion dollars
of lent.
Thes' elements never had it so good as "under
the vicious Trujillo, regime, and the same can be said
of the riffraff who live off dictators anywhere. Look
at the continued menace to Argentina. from the mob
of "Descamisados" (shirtless ones) who followed the
Fascist 'Dictator Pcron.
Nor has the regime here been helped by U. S.'
timidity in delaying recognition. That was based on
the erroneous old line by which Washington withheld
recognition as punishment for governments seizing
power without benefit of ballot.
The new policy of "U. S. Interests first," credited
to Assistant Secretary of State Tom Mann, has already
helped here, for aid is beginning to trickle In. This
civilian junta is definitely friendly to the U. S.
Another threat is from the, university here, where
some 20- per cent of students and teachers are a
Communist hard core and practice terror against
the others.
It is a situation like the one my old friend Gen.
Carlos Romulo found when he left his United Nations.
ambassadorship to head the. University of Manila.
Rommie called in all concerned, said he wouldn't
permit terror and anyone who violated the peaceful
studies of, the university could get right out. It
worked.
Nothing 'in the Latin American tradition has
helped the people of our neighbor countries to under-
stand the responsibility of ruling themselves demo-
cratically. It makes them susceptible ? to demagogues
and dictators.
The triumvirate in the Dominican Republic now
are Dr. Donald Reid Cabral, Dr. Ramon Tapia Espinal,
and engineer Manuel Tavare Espaillat. They are nice,
bright young men all in their late thirties, of good
education and goodwill.. They welcomed the editors
here, attended meetings and saw us off as we left.
But I am not sure they will be able to make a
?go' of ruling this country, where too many people
want only a strongman. to tell them what to do.
The IAPA's press freedom committee- reported
Cuba is the "darkest example" in'the hemisphere of
destruction of the people's right to know.
Other countries where freedom of the press is
blacked out were listed as Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras,
Paraguay and Bolivia. And while pointing out that.
the press Is still'free In Chile, the IAPA is worried
about the effects of a new law there.
In giant Brazil, too, there is aserious threat. The
left-leaning government is squeezing the' press to the
wall by blocking purchase abroad of the paper they
print on. This is diagnosed as a slick trick to force a
government monopoly of newsprint-ajid that means
print what the government wishes or don't publish
at all,
' ` .
Even the Organization of American States-which
is supposed to guard the hemisphere but generally
prefers to snooze while letting the .U.S. worry about
it--is moving, into the anti-free-press act.
Continued
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 Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000300220030-5
MANUEL TAVARE ESPAILLAT
In the Dominican Republic's Triumvirate
UPI Photo
An OAS agency, called the Inter American Com-
mission on Human Rights, last year, drafted a
"convention on freedom of expression" which is
expected to come up for ratification at the next
session of the hemisphere's Foreign Ministers.
This is a real sleeper and my hat is off to the
IAPA's keen-eyed watchdogs for detecting a gimmick
which-in the name of freedom-poses a threat to
freedom. After a long list of articles piously calling
for every type of free expression, 'there is one article
which opens the door for gagging the press wherever
a government aims to do so.
It says in part: "The exercise of the rights and,
freedoms . . implies duties and responsibilities and
may therefore be subject only to such formalities,
conditions and restrictions, cleari defined by law
and applied in conformity therewith,. as are strictly
necessary in a democratic society to uphold national
security, territorial integrity, public 'order or the
prevention of cringe, to prevent incitement to racial,
or religious strife, to protect he health, morals,
reputation or rights of others, to prevent the disclosure
of confidential information, or to guarantee the
impartial administration of justice."
Play that one back: It takes quite a? while merely
to determine whether it means anything at all. Then,
translated from ,the gobbledegook, it dawns that
practically every freedom of the people's right to
know is exposed to destruction--with the sanction of
legality---if any government decides it needs to gag
its critics.,
"The best law for the protection of the press Is
no law at all."
The list of countries in the Americas where the
press is gagged points up the old truth that dictators
-whether of the right wing or the-left-can't easily,
be told apart without a score card. Both kinds are on
the IAPA list of blackouts. When it comes to. facing'
up to a populace with access to the facts, their fear
shows, and they crack down on the newspapers to
prevent spread, of information.
It isn't so hard to understand the dictators.
Britain's Lord Acton summed them up: "Power tends
to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
But the itch to gag critics goes beyond dictators.
It often infects governments which think of them-
selves as democratic, although history proves there
can be no government of, by and, for the people
without a free press.
In fact, since all government-benevolent or
tyrannous-is basically the price the people pay in
loss of freedom for security, order and the general
welfare, a resentment of criticism becomes an endemic
disease of all governments.
Even in our own country, the press has had to
fight with unrelaxed vigilance to be free. A classic
example was in the administration of Thomas
Jefferson, whom we think of as a great libertarian,'
and whose eloquent words of the Declaration of
Independence listed freedom of,the press as essential,
along with freedom of religion, freedom of speech,
and freedom of assembly.
,Jefferson once wrote that, if he were forced to'
choose between a government and no newspapers, or.
newspapers and no government, he would unhesitat-
ingly select newspapers as more important. I
But,. In the heat of political battling, even the
liberty-loving Jefferson resented criticism to the.
point of forgetting his high principles and attempting
to gag critics.
As my friend John R. Reitemeyer, the current
president of the IAPA, proudly pointed out in Santo,
Domingo, it was his own Hartford (Conn.) Courant
that had to fight Jefferson in one case..
Jefferson and his majority in Congress had voted
a secret payment. to France, which his political
opponents, including the Courant, believed to be
tribute to the European conqueror Napoleon.
Said the Courant: "The executive of the United'
States follows the cowardly example of a man who,
cuts off his thumbs to escape enlistment."
Jefferson had criminal libel charges brought
against the Courant in 1806. By 1812 it got to the
U.S. Supreme. Court, which in an historic decision.
ruled that Federal Courts had to depend on written-,
laws for such' cases, and tossed it out. -
Today, almost any editor would admit that the
language used by the Courant was over-rough. But
the principle remains the same.
As Manuel Cisneros. of Peru concisely put it to
the IAP A:Approved, For, Release, 2004/1 Q/13. _ CIA-RDP88-01315R00030022
MAR 2 9 1964