WOODWARD SEES U.S. UNDER SIEGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302170026-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: February 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302170026-4
ON PAGE
Woodward
sees U.S.
under siege
ut yourself in poor Bob
Woodward's position. Here
you and Bernstein revolu-
tionized schools of journal-
ism in this country, turning them
into seminaries whose seminarians
later go forth unto the world as the
highest custodians of the public
good. There is no authority for this
priestly function in the Constitu-
tion, of course, and some would say
By Richard Grenier
the principle has been repudiated
by the American people. But wasn't
Ireland pagan before the arrival of
St. Patrick? Did anyone ever say
the work of the evangelist was
easy? Press on! Press on!
All very noble-sounding. But
here its been almost 13 years since
you overthrew an American pres-
ident. (Oh. the glory days of
Watergate.) And what have you
done since? Oh. you've dabbled at
editing on the paper. A little of this
and a little of that. You did that
book on the Supreme Court with
Armstrong. But did people listen,
take alarm? No. You did a book on
John Belushi of "Saturday Night
Live" who OD'd on dope. People
snickered. You could still overthrow
a governor, you suppose. Or a
mayor But mayors are a dime a
dozen. Once you're used to life at
the heights. saving the world from
the CIA. Richard Nixon, Howard
Hunt. Donald Segretti and people
like that, going after the likes of
Rita Lavelle is pretty small pota-
toes. Who was Donald Segrettt? You
see? People no longer even remem-
ber the menace to American free-
dom posed by Donald Segretti.
Idiot, unwashed public. Ingrates!
And here you are, a back number,
lying around the house, people not
even inviting you to parties any
more. Well, you aren't going to just
WASHINGTON TIMES
12 February 1986
let it go at that. No, you aren't. You
still have at your disposal the
mighty weapon of literature, so-
called fiction. You laugh, because
any newsman worth his salt knows
that when a truly great journalist
like you takes to fiction, it is to tell
the Real Truth, things that perhaps
you couldn't source well enough to
get into the paper - well. you're
honest with yourself, things that
might not even be quite true, yet!
But things that might be true to-
morrow. Because we are on the
brink. And think of the authority it
would have when you explained the
menace to the public, you being
Woodward of Woodward and Bern-
stein, and maybe bringing in Har-
wood who's the paper's deputy
managing editor. They'd pay atten-
tion then.
Already you can see the last
scene. The good guy - the John
Dean character - comes marching
into Ben Bradlee's office, and
throws down a sheaf of documents,
and declares, "You wanted a story
?
There it is! ' Your overall story
would be basically sound. it goes
without saying, almost true. Would
it make a great novel? A great film?
If worst comes to worst, it could al-
ways be a TV movie-of-the-week,
called "Under Siege 'perhaps. and
play Sunday night. Some people say
television is a slob medium. and
you might be head-to-head with a
piece of fluff like "Harem" with
Ava Gardner, Omar Sharif. perhaps
discrediting your Message. But the
people would know - Tony Lewis,
Bella Abzug, Father Drinan, all of
Cambridge. Mass.. and Berkeley.
Calif. they would rise! Or they
would think about rising At least
theyd know rising was a distinct
possibility.
As for this basically sound story,
it shouldn't pose too much of a
problem. Does the world ever
really change? Aren't things always
the same? You start with a rotten
president. That's a fair bet. And a
noble press saving freedom in the
nick of time. There ll be a good guy
in the executive role - they aren't
all had - played by someone like
Peter Strauss. Maybe you'll throw
the audience a curve, make him
head of the FBI, something like
that. The rest of them will be all
no-good lowlifes like Nixon.
Mitchell, Colson. Liddy, Hunt. But
maybe you'll be more rounded
here, more human, with a couple of
half-good guys - black actors
would be perfect. One could be an
aide to the white good guy. And the
other, who knows, may be even sec-
retary of defense. Wow! Andy
Young! A black dove as secretary
of defense! The others would be
real white murderers though:
State; CIA; a Laxalt. friend-of-the-
president-type hawkish senator: a
Republican Party chairman, real
white swine. .
The story? Oh, yuh, the story.
Well, what are people getting all
whipped up about? Terrorism? How
about Terrorism Strikes America?
How do you like that for a story!
Terrorists bomb U.S. Army bases,
airports, hotels, shopping malls.
Dead Americans flying through the
air every which way. Not in Beirut
or Vienna, but right here in
America.
Then you'll see the enemies of
freedom come out of the wood-
work. Terrorists? Are you crazy-1
No. the anti-Miranda people, the
anti-due-process people, the retali-
ation people, the people who are
shoveling out this Weinberger junk
about countries supporting terror-
ism already waging "low-intensity"
war against us. You can have Hal
Holbrook - no relationship to Dick
Holbrooke - as president. he's real
good at playing cold-hearted swine
E G. Marshall, who looks a lot Iike
Shultz, would be perfect as a stuff,
but-hawkish secretary of state
Someone resembling Bill Casey
should be in there, not necessank
at CIA. but maybe playing Don Re
gan.
The screenplay will be beauti-
fully crafted. You'll craft in a lot of
losing. really caring scenes for e%
eryone who's going to get killed
Hah. hah. they think you've seen
those midnight movies on TV fir
nothing, eh' You'll craft in real
;ood lines for the terrorists. like
The United States has exploited
the ~mi'ld long enough!" You kn,,.,
ft'citimate grievances. These icr
-o-tsts are human beings. too
Y. hen they go to their deaths in ui
c:de missions. the camera will
reach out to understand them A lit
tie recollection of the self-immo.
lated Buddhist bonzes from Viet-
nam wouldn't be bad here, so that
David Halberstam should not have
died in vain. How little we under
stand the outside world, bonzes.
Shiites, terrorists, wouldn't you
say, That's an excellent line for one
of the good characters right there
The whole story has to be con-
structed so that the audience knows
that the people the president thinks
Qonbnued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302170026-4
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doing the bombing are not do-
ing it. But this president wants to
strike back. The swine, he doesn't
really care who's doing it. And for
those who still don't realize how
unethical he is - which the way
things are going might include
most of the American people:- .
you'll just have to invent something,
really, really, really disgusting for
him to do, like putting a Lee Har-
vey Oswald type up in a warehouse
window to gun~*down some whole-
some, caring American, one of the
good guys. The killer could belong
to a secret organization within the
CIA known as IRT, which is not
known to exist, and I know you had
trouble with that domestic CIA
story, but it could exist. It might ex-
ist someday. Anyway, the whole
point is so that Peter Strauss can
shout at the president in godly an-
ger at the end that if we do things
like this, "We are no better than
them!"
As one of the country's most
celebrated journalists, you will be
extraordinarily well-qualified to
place the events in their interna-
tional and historical context. You
can remind the audience of how an-
other great democracy, Britain,
handled the IRA. Actually the Brit-
ish suspended due process in Bel-
fast, so perhaps you better not
mention. them. But how about that
other great democracy, France?
Lord knows the French had their
share of terrorism during the Alge-
rian War, and they dealt with it by
establishing State Security Courts.
In France, Kathy Boudin would
have been court-martialed. They'd
have probably executed her by fir-
ing squad. And look what they did
to poor Jacques Meserine. Dozens
of police marksmen on the roof..
Gunned him down in cold blood
without a summons, without a
warning. Crippled his girlfriend for
life. No outcry from the press or
public either. And they call them-
selves socialists!
Forget about these foreign so-
called democracies, Bob. Forget -
the darker moments of our own na-
tional past. Forget McCarthy. For-
get the Palmer Raids. Remember
only the great liberator, Abraham
Lincoln. Lincoln suspended habeus
corpus during the Civil War? Well,
forget him, too. In fact, forget inter-
national and historical context, pe-
riod. They're real losers. Interna-
tional and historical context is .
against you, Bob. Know the enemy.
I think you've got to be very up-
front about this. I think you have to
make perfectly clear that we are
aspiring to a sanctity such as the
world has never seen. No other
country has ever had it, and we've
never had it. But should that deter
us? No. We should say to the world:
"Give us your poor, your hungry,
your huddled terrorists, yearning to
maim and slaughter." And for the
sourpusses who say no democratic
legal system can withstand a major
wave of organized political terror-
ism, we will say, no! If the police
screw up reading him his Miranda
rights, even a convicted terrorist
who has machine-gunned dozens of
innocent women and children in an
American shopping mall will walk
the streets of this great land of
ours a free man. That's the mean-
ing of freedom.
And if the TV audience finds this
preposterous, well, let them change
channels and watch "Harem" with
Ava Gardner and Omar Sharif, all
about an American girl landing
somehow in a sultan's harem. Then
they will know what it's like. Then
will they hold our freedoms dear.
Although even "Harem" needn't
be so silly, Bob, handled by a writer
with some idealism. A Good Eu-
nuch - a John Dean type - could
leak the story to a reporter on the
Constantinople Post. The sultan
could be forced to.abdicate.
People are wrong to call TV
movies-of-the-week a slob medium,
Bob. They can be used to teach peo-
ple a lot.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302170026-4