Presswatch / Where News Is Made

...and after President Carter's proposed f i v e - y e a r d e f e n s e buildup (which many congressmen say falls short of what is needed), was spelled out by senior Pentagon officials under ground rules forbidding use of their names . . . . " Cooley also cites a variety of American and foreign intelligence officials...

...or they wrinkle your clothes...

...If there are any journalism schools that still worry about presenting what used to be called " a balanced picture" rather than the current distressmg tactic of "advocacy journalism," let them require their students to read Cooley's February 4 story on the American ability to fight in the Persian Gulf...

...to a crists under these work...

...GM is offering one such restraint-a new type of automatic belt-as an option on the 1980 Chevette to gain insight into its public acceptance...

...and therefore, seat belts don't matter...

...Experts estimate that about half of all automobile occupant fatalities last year might have been avoided if the people had been wearing seat belts...

...Even when he cites an accurate evaluation, he draws the wrong conclusion: A recent classified [of course...

...The New York Times, for example, has gotten terribly sloppy about headlines...

...J a c k Anderson Department: From his secret telephone booth,.Anderson announced on February 2 that he had sent "a reporter, Sally Denton, to the Soviet Union to bring an ear closer to the source of the recent turmoil...

...There was a fascinating juxtaposition of ideas on February 10 on the subject of life in prison...

...WHERE NEWS IS MADE T h i s month's award for runaway prose goes to Lou Cannon and David Broder of the Washington Post for their description on February 10 of George Bush's tactics in the New Hampshire primary: Without mentioning his principal opponent by name, Bush suggests that some of Reagan's foreign policy pronounce, ments are dangerously hawkish...

...The Times picked a Reuters piece that fit nicely with the New Yorkers' view of reality...

...On the same day, the Post picked up the story written by Anthony Mascarenhas of the London Sunday Times...

...A bit further on in his story Mascarenhas explained that "the Soviets have taken over the policymaking and executive functions in most departments, although they are nominally under Afghan civil servants...

...Bill has no use for cooperation," a foreign policy official said...

...You may not think such details are of any lasting importance, but they are of a piece with the generally declining quality of what used to be an excellent newspaper...

...But until you purchase one of these cars of the future, you can protect yourself and others by using seat belts and urging )'our family and friends to follow your example...

...I end with a salute to one of the mo+,t careful and professional writers in tilt" business: John K. (;(mley of [he Chrl.~tmn Science Mon,t,,r...

...the government has directed that .some form of passive restraint-one that doesn't require any action by the occupant-be built into every car by the 1984 model year...

...Gavin Scott, of the Time-Life News Service, wrote a three-part series on Cuba that was published in the Washington Star in February and the last article was headlined, "57 Americans Cramped, Bored in Cuban Prison...

...It has been shown that in a car...

...Some people use seat belts for highway driving, but rationalize it's not worth the trouble to buckle up for short trips...

...He began with the facts, rather than with an interpretation: "An estimated 4,000 Soviet advisers have flown in here and another 100 are arriving daily to run Afghanistan's government, just as the Red Army is occupying the nation militarily...

...No suggestion that the dependence is anything more than economic, for the lack of an American economic alternative is given as the explanation for Castro's support of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan...

...Consider this, for example: Since 1977 the Carter Administration has repeatedly enunciated a policy toward the Soviet Union of "cooperation and competition," but with stress on cooperation...

...Because s,) many people still don't use their seat belts...

...Cleansing materials are scarce . . . . " But is this considered dehumanizing...

...Written by Charles Mohr, it has all the signs of an in-house spat funneled into the press by an interested party...

...In fact, the People's Democratic Party Government, which came into power after the April 1978 coup, was disintegrating from within . . . . the regime alienated its natural allies among the poor and strengthened the opposition of tribal chiefs and landlords...

...And consider this amazing concluding paragraph: Fina!ly, Mr~,Karma[ may have to indicate his polic), line on the crucial question of the 80,000 or so Soviet troops in the country...

...becau.~, even the best driver in the world can't predict what ant)thee ctriver will tic...

...The Washington Post ran a predictable story on the carnage from the New Mexico State Penitentiary, written-and very well indeed--by Cynthia Gorney...

...The fuss is over the choice of the editors, because that choice tells us something about the view of the Soviet Union dominant in the two newspapers...

...She wrote it like a movie script: "Sometimes, before the riot, the stabbings were so quiet that all you heard was poom, poom, quick in the darkness, muffled and low...

...And ph'ase remember children can be severely injured in automobile accidents, too...

...And you may wish to believe" Brown anti Jones...

...Many pe,)l,le say the) are afraid of being trapped in a ('nr by a seat belt...

...The month was January, not August...

...all that technology is designed for a purpose...

...A simple reminder from you may hell) save someone's lite...

...Another popular rationalization: you'll be .saved by being thrown clear of the car...

...That's because injuries occur when the car stops abruptly and the occupants are thrown against the car's interior...

...General Motors lk.uph' Imildmg transportation to serve people THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 2...

...Mohr says at one point that "ideas and not individuals govern," an observation that might be applied with equal justice to the people who cover the news...

...Ronald Reagan has proposed a blockade of Cuba to stop Russian aggression halfway around the world," Bush said Friday...

...a lot of the Pentagon's problems are due to the fact that every project must be routed through a paperwork maze that is as difficult to maneuver through as enemy shrapnel ]'he GAO document cited by Anderson says as much: "]'hrcontract and specifications for the Wright |'~rotht'rs" airplane was a onepage work statement .Just a contract prt~pos;l] nt,~ is oftcn 15,000 to 20.OO0 p a g e s " But Andt-rson doesn't ask thc obvious question: How can the country he expected to react raptdl...

...But give John Cooley a pin for professionalism Z " CUSTOMER INFORMATION FROM GENERAL MOTORS I I BOW TO SAVE YOUR LIFE AND THE OE NEXT TO YOU OVERCOMING YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL RESISTANCE TO SEAT BELTS MAY BE THE KEY...

...Are your object ions to ,~'at belts based on the facts (,r (m rationalizations...

...Moscow sounds a lot like Washington, where the real inside stuff gets leaked on "background...

...Their reasons range all over the lot: ,seat belts are troublesome to put on, they are uncomfortable...

...And three quarters of all collisions happen less than 25 miles from the driver's home...

...The facts are startling...

...Here are a few of the common rationalizations...

...borne radars and missiles . . . " From this Anderson concludes that our military men, fascinated as they are by "gimmickry," have gone astray and loaded us down with expensive toys rather than with effective weapons...

...Wrong, at least when the prison is in Cuba and the prisoners are American...

...The American publication I have read recently that most resembles the treatment selected by the New York Times is the Nation, whose editorial of January 5-12, entitled "The Russians Have Come," is out of an Orwellian dream: " . . . i t would be wrong to blame the weaknesses of the deposed Hafizullah Amin Government on the Moslem guerrillas...

...Make sure Child Restraint Systems are used for children who aren't olcl enough to use regular seat belts...

...It would have been accurate to report that this choice will be made by Mr...

...arrests and destruction of its traditions . . . . " I maintain that no self-respecting newspaper could print such prose...

...Belts reduce this risk...

...blockade enters another decade...

...In the first of the series, Scott tells us that the Soviet ships in the harbor off Morro Castle "are symbols of Cuba's complete economic dependence on the Soviet bloc as the dreary U.S...

...Moreover...

...Some people even think getting hurt or killed in a car accident is a question of fate...

...Early in February, Clark Clifford was simply called "Clark" in a Times headline, and on February 15 the Times announced atop a UPI story from Moscow that the "Soviet Decree of Aug...

...Simply that the official a d m i n i s t r a t i o n spokesmen have all lined up to argue that the President's program is probably sufficient, but most of the people involved in these matters who are not Carter appointees disagree To get the point, you have to read the" sto...

...were the actions~of the previous Soviet puppet regime, and the new one was distinguished from its predecessor by the presence of some 80,000 to 100,000 Soviet troops --hardly what one would call a quiet effort to win confidence...

...Cooley carefully lines them up, shows the differences of opinion, and says what he is doing: "Exactly how quickly the US could move now, a year from now...

...I General Accounting Office internal analysis concludes that "physical size and numbers of opposing aircraft dominate the outcome of air battles, not the sophistbcation of air...

...At GM, we're very concerned about safety...

...And, in the words of a former inmate quoted by Cynthia Gorney, "When you got absolutely nothing left but your life, by Michael Ledeen and it's worthless, you're capable of anything...

...t r i g t ondtlions...

...I have never been a great admirer of the Washington Post, but its coverage of Afghanistan has been rather better than that of its New York competitor...

...To be sure, this sort of thing is supposed to be caught by the copy editor, but one gets the impression that copy editors ought to be on the list of endangered species...

...So please fasten your seat belt...

...Not at all, for their lives are described a s " dreary...

...The conditions in this medium-security prison outside Havana sound familiar to a reader of the Gorney account in the Post: "Between 15 and 18 men are kept in cells that are 13 feet by 18 feet...

...in the vast majority of cases...

...Here again, research has proved that to be untrue-you are almost always safer inside the car...

...And the differences between the two are demonstrated not only by the work of their own editors and correspondents, but also by the choices made by the editors when their own people are not on the scene...

...Now one may say that neither story was produced by American reporters, so what's the fuss...

...And Mascarenhas even dug out the very significant detail that "the entire [state security bureau] was abolished and rebuilt around 640 Soviet intelligence officers, said to have been drawn mostly from the KGB secret police...

...The conditions in the prison were textbook cases of dehumanization: overcrowding, demoralized and underpaid guards, bad sanitation...

...The "reporter, Sally Denton," talked to "a Kremlin leader who asked to be identified only as a 'high-level Communist Party source.' " Not that there 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL I~80 was anything surprising about the (dis)information that reporter Denton picked up: The Russians told her that they wanted peace and SALT, and that the Americans had overreacted to events in Afghanistan...

...What is the point...

...Anderson announced three days later that "our armecl forces are simply not ready for combat, despite the billions that have been lavished on the defense establishment...

...By the 1982 model year, we must begin putting passive restraints in all full-size cars and, eventually, into the entire fleet...

...Perhaps Scott is angling for an editorial spot on the New York Times...

...After all, the "violence, arbitrary arrests," etc...

...Just about what you might expect, right...

...When you're the driver, you have the psychological authority to convince all of the passengers that they should wear seat belts...

...Yet Anderson is committed to the view that the Pentagon is overfed, and thus our shortcomings must be due to sheer stupidity and waste by the Department of Defense...

...The prisoners' toilet is in their cell...

...Many people say they know the facts, but they still &m't wear belts...

...Such was the case on January 25, when both papers had to resort to reprinting somebody else's material on Afghanistan...

...8 on Sakharov is Printed...

...7"his adt,~,rtisement is/X, rt ~r our continuing ef/ort to ~t~' customers useful information about their cars and tn,cks and the ~vrnp~zny that buiMs them...

...Water is available only three or four hours a day...

...the driver is consiclere(t to l)e an authority figure...

...But sometimes the best airplane wins, after all...

...Brezhnev, not by comrade Karmal...

...Anderson sees a "peace offensive" in all this, warning that the Russians are trying to "drive a wedge between the United States and its allies, leaving America increasingly isolated...

...The Sovietbacked Afghan Government of Babrak Karmal, in power for four weeks, appears to be quietly trying to win back the confidence of a Moslem people shattered by violence, arbitrary Michael Ledeen is Executive Editor of the Washington Quarterly...

...Not a mention of the 3,000 to 4,000 Soviet "advisers" who manned the ministries even before the Christmas invasion The last note of interest from the Times this month is from the February 3 "news" section, which contained a totally gratuitous attack on General William Odom of the National Security Council, masquerading as a news story...

...This is a curious way to describe the reasons for growing Soviet military superiority, which is due primarily to the vastly higher level of military spending by the Kremlin...

...Perhaps, but it seems more likely to be the result of a lack of thinking and an overreliance on a single word...

...Could this have something to do with the sympathies of the reporter for the Castro regime...

...Here is everything one wants: the statements of government officials (Defense Secretary' Brown, .Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman .Jones), their leading critics (Senators .Jackson anti Byrd), and defense experts with conflicting views...

...If you're one of those people who don't use belts for one reason or another, please think carefully about your motivat ions...

...In fact...

...seat belts protect passengers from severe injuries, allowing them to escape more quickly...

...The numbers tell a different story: 80% of all automobile accidents causing injury or death involve cars traveling under 40 miles per hour...

...Fair enough...