ABE ROSENTHAL AND THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100200023-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 15, 2007
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: May 6, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Approved For Release 2007/06/18: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100200023-7
ARTICLE AP'0"AIZE 1)
cJIN PAGE_., --.-?.
WASH ??NGT01i WEEKLY
6MAY1980
I
3u chanan
WASHINGTON-Addressing the American So--i Why this particular press hostility toward the
ciety of Newspaper Editors, ' Adm. Stansfield CIA?
Turner; 'director, Central Intelligence Agency, Many American newsmen have cooperated with
asserted the right to use U.S;. correspondents and been paid by the United-States Information
abroad 'for gathering intelligence in "exceptional Agency; the Voice of America- HEW: Some can be
seen daily, and weekly on a public television network
circumstances."
The effect among the editors was as though the funds for.which are provided by the Congress of the
rural chapter of the Ottumwa, Iowa, PTA had just United States. Is every journalist who has accepted
'guarantees and protections,:, unavailable'; say,. to Would he fire his man in Moscow for the clandes-
-those 53 Americans held in Tehran? tine-,delivery of monies which` might enable Sak--
When the late Stewart?Alsop entered an embassy IJ'harov &. Company to suivive- in internal exile?
journalists, in-Third World countries, enjoy special Rosenthal might reflect:upon his absolutism.
raving in the U.S. press... And : why should U.S. as a conventional state."_ -
made them more so than the public debate currently conspiracy," centered m.Moscow, masquerading
-pay from public radio, or Public Broadcasting Ser-
vice, compromised?
My friend, Professor Ernest Lefever, an ordained
minister of 40 years, whose academic discipline is
Christian ethics, to"'=fied on the matter recently be-
fore Congress: - - -
"All American citizens, regardless of station or
profession, have an equal obligation to protect the
state and the institutions and values for which it
stands. A garage mechanic, a politician and a
and you cast doubt upon the independence and inte- preacher should all have an equal right to be patrio-
grity of us all. Worse, you may place lives in jeo-' tic_ They have an equal obligation to serve the com-
pardy.'Access to foreign. sources will instantly dry 1 mon good..All American citizens should be free to
up; information upon which the American people,; cooperate with the CIA, FBI, HEW, or any other
and, indeed, the government may depend will.not U.S. agency, in the pursuit of legitimate national in-
be forthcoming. The wall of separation between terests.
press and state will be breached; we would all be the "There `is no basic moral difference between
losers. cooperating with the CIA and any other U.S. agen-
Excuse the interruption. But, on this one, the ad- cy."
miral'is right and Abe is wrong. Surely, one of those "legitimate national inter-
American correspondents serving abroad are al-- ests" is arresting the expansion of what Dr. Lefever
ready "citizens under suspicion.'-',:; Nothing has correctly describes as the "brutal revolutionary
heard the newly appointed high school principal de--
liver an impassioned defense of-in certain circum-
stances--statutory rape.;.-:,
"Do you think it is worthwhile," asked Abe
Rosenthal of The New York- Times, "to cast into
doubt the ethical and professional position of every
foreign correspondent?"
There was little dissent to the predominant. press
view which might he summarized thus:
Use a single correspondent in a.CIA operation,
abroad,, so-. the story goes-,' ' he: would boom out,
"Who's the local spook?"- If it was fine for-Alsop
to milk the "local spook'.' for information on arri.
vat, was it ethically wrong for Alsop,to share' with
,his source, tidbits, impressions and information-on
departure?--
.Would he read out of the' profession a=}ournalist -
`'who Caine back from a holiday in Samarkand to re-
port to .the= embassy nightly: movements of tanks--
and troops toward the Afghan frontier?
- Perhaps' Rosenthal would feel`ethically'cheap-
ened- cooperating with the intelligence-"arm of the
Uriited:States government that protects and defends
the First-Amendment rights of us -all.-,-That is his.
Butt he; and the like-minded leaders of this di-
verse, open fraternity known as the "press" ought
not to:have it written into the CIA charter, as crim-
inal, an occasional cooperation with the CIA which
a minority of us- might consider- not only patriotic,
butheroic "
home port: 111:--.e-3 .e__. e__ _ u__ _.L-__"__ _-~ --_ :
~1 Approved For Release 2007/06/18: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100200023-7
Reading Hanson Baldwin's fine book, `"The Cru- .
cial Years, 1939-1941,'.' the other night, I'-was re- .
minded of the well-kept wartime. secret thal it was
.an American Catalina flying' boat, ' ."loaned" to-
Great Britain and co-piloted by a U.S. naval offi
cer, which sighted the 'crippled Bismarck in the
North Atlantic.. America--was: not then at war with
Germany.; Suppose it had beenHoward K; Smith or"
William..Shirer who had reported back. to U.S.: in-
telligence-in Berlin-thence to-British intelligence-'
the precise time of the'Bismarck'ss'departure from