Presswatch / Imam Is Not Alone

...Miss Piercy describes that heady period as full o f " rich alternatives, of Roger Starr is a member of the New York Times editorial board...

...I have my own t h e o r i e s . First, living abroad is not as ego-satisfying as living in America...

...For example, take the extraordinary cover story in L 'Express (21 June) on "Khalkhali the mad mullah...

...According to Bambad--citing the words of the regional military commander--this object was under observation for 45 minutes over Heydarabad before it turned on its axis and disappeared...

...This is quite easy on the journalist, who conducts his work by dining with sources and making the odd telephone call...

...The story (again written by the omnipresent Jacques Buob) ends with a quotation from a schoolgirl: "The meeting in Warsaw between Giscard d'Estaing and Brezhnev greatly depressed the Afghan people...

...First off, one must assume that General Motors has been sent packing from its head26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980...

...They leave its precise specifications to people they call Utopians, a label pronounced with a thin cu?l of scorn...

...In swearing to convert the monuments of our civilization instead of levelling them, Miss Piercy follows the 18th-century painters and engravers who recorded their visions of shepherds, goatherds, and maidens relaxing among the ruins of Rome, the long-collapsed Colosseum, the tumbled aqueducts, the rubblestrewn Forum...

...This delightful weekly has long t o r t u r e d the powerful with embarrassing revelations...

...A: Never...

...Q: parliament will soon be elected...

...Will not the Islamic tribunals you have created eventually disappear...

...Of the prophet himself, Khomeini[ Several days after these counterrevolutionary revelations, three members of the Association of the Employees of the Central Bank were turned over to the firing squad...

...T h i s is a side of the Islamic revolution in Iran that one d o e s n ' t really appreciate in the United States, for the simple reason that Iran is no longer newsworthy...

...In much the same way, China's current leaders send their resistant intellectuals to the manure piles, so their brains can be softened and reshaped...

...Now we're . . . cold...

...We hear that even some of the major roads are controlled by the mujabidin: "They know, it is said, who is who...

...his orders in the summer of 1979), was interviewed at length by Jacques Buob in Qom, the holy city of Khomeini...

...The Canardwas the first paper in the world to publish the s e c r e t accounts of the Pahlavi Foundation, showing several American journalists, businessmen, and politicians on the Shah's secret dole...

...Those of us who study the doctrines of revolution, hoping to glimpse the new and future world in the way of which we may be innocently by-standing, can derive some satisfaction from Miss Piercy's words...

...BABIES IN HIGH PLACES Most revolutionaries fall silent when asked for details of the future they hope to make...

...It is not clear that Miss Piercy's stint in the SDS New York office adequately honed them...

...On the southern route between Kabul and Kandahar and Herat], if a collaborator with the regime sends a cargo shipment of merchandise to Kabul, it will be burned and the driver captured...

...Why a r e n ' t the papers getting good foreign reporting...

...They may be equally old, greedy, and nutty, but at least they have escaped the fourth and fatal flaw of malehood...

...But a friend will pass...

...In Washington these days most of what is written by the big names is the result of chummy arrangements with elected and appointed officials who simply use the press for t h e i r own purposes...

...You are going to the Olympics...

...Buob points out that Khalkhali, one of Khomeini's closest collaborators before and after the revolution (indeed, Khalkhali r e f e r s to him simply as "Khomeini" and is said to be the only person in Iran to do so...

...But we who find the characterization of the enemy uncomfortably applicable to ourselves can take solace from imagining that just as she will not destroy our buildings, she may spare us any revenge more drastic than having our French cuffs ripped off...

...And there was even a little lesson for the rulers of France...

...there has been no further first-hand coverage of the Afghanistan resistance...

...begins by reminding his readers that in December, 1978, the Association of the Employees of the Central Bank of Iran had created an international scandal by publishing the names of 100 Iranian citizens who had transferred some 1,700,000 dollars abroad...

...200,000 Canadian dollars for the Islamic Association of Montreal...

...Even this indignity might be avoided if we turned over our stocks, bonds, and political offices to our wives...

...As she makes clear to Miss Betsky, in a later passage of the same interview, she merely detests the fact that the modern world has fallen into the hands of "nutty and greedy old men...

...Once again in June, the Times carried a fascinating story by Bernard Gwertzman from Venice, noting that Iran was not even a major subject for discussion among the allies at the Venice summit...

...And we shall not hear much about the murderous and c o r r u p t regime t h a t today holds The A y a t o l l a h ' s finances: The award for the month goes to the Parisian muckrakers at the Canardenchain...

...Did Miss Piercy and her fellow organizers consider what would be required to turn the General Motors building on 58th Street into a revolutionary clay-care center...

...If Oveissi or someone like him ever s u c c e e d s , you may be sure t h a t he will be t r e a t e d by the New York Times as if he were the scion of the Greek colonels...

...They resemble lovers who, in the heat of remembered passion, write letters their associates later regret, but letters that enlighten pedestrian spirits who never shared their moments of enthusiasm...

...The historic mission of her revolution is to push them out of power...

...Some would have it that "the action is in Washington," and hence the top correspondents don't want to go abroad...

...Foreigners are likely to distrust you...

...Today his murderous instincts have rather greater play, as indicated by Buob's account of the day when Khalkhali o r d e r e d the execution of a pregnant prostitute...

...The object became increasingly pale as it gradually grew larger...

...being interviewed by Celia Betsky for the New York Times Book Review...

...There is not the slightest doubt...

...One can sympathize with both the President's desire to have this thorn removed from his side and the allies' embarrassment at discussing the American debacle vis-fi-vis Iran for the past two years, but this is no excuse for our journalists and t h e i r editors...

...One of his associates objected, pointing out that while the woman might be a sinner, the baby was without fault...

...At Miss Betsky's request, Miss Piercy elaborated on the frame of mind that had been hers in the days when, as an organizer in the New York office of the Students for a Democratic Society, she dreamed of a world perfected by revolutionary change...

...Second, American journalism is abandoning the passion for fact that of old distinguished our newspapers from those overseas...

...So unless 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 you spend years on the scene and get to know everyone, your work will consist largely in rewriting the stories broken in the local p r e s s . And in order to rewrite them intelligently, you have to do some real work: check facts, get to know which newspaper is reliable, dig out some details on your own...

...Miss Betsky wanted, as they say, to flesh out the real Miss Piercy, whose newest novel, Vida, was reviewed in the same issue of the same publication...

...In short, everyone wants to be a columnist, no one wants to dig out the information...

...All this in an environment ranging from indifferent to hostile...

...Thus, Miss Piercy and her co-organizers will have to mobilize purposive acts to reshape our cities in the forms of the future, the humane forms, the rich alternatives...

...Miss Piercy revealed her views publicly some months ago in the course of...

...We are happy to have it, but it should have been published a long time ago by one of the major newspapers or magazines...

...In fact, she does not hate the modern world...

...According to Kayhan, on Friday evening, J u n e 14, Iranian f i g h t e r planes opened fire on a "luminous flying object" that immediately disappeared...

...Others observe more cynically that the cost of living abroad is going up, and it's more difficult to live luxuriously overseas than in the United States...

...It is hard to believe that our various media stars have no initiative left, but no American newspaper has set its correspondents to work on such stories...

...You run and jump while your hosts are killing us and depriving us of freedom...

...The event took place over Tabriz...

...All in all, it's better to stay at home and try to become the new J a c k Anderson...

...We learn that many are speaking about a possible return to monarchy...

...I'm talking here about the basic stuff: Le Monde, Figaro, The Times and Financial Times of London, the Jerusalem Post, the Frankf u r t e r Allgemeine Zeitung, and so on...

...They do not symbolize the world she hates...

...Then comes the delicious news: The communiqu~ of 18 April continues, "once arrived in the European banks, the money was paid out into the accounts of these persons...

...We expected a lot from France...

...Which persons...

...In an article entitled "De chahrybde en scyllayatollah" (18 June), we learn about the financial activities of the Iranian ruling class...

...The streets below are solid sheets of asphalt laid over reinforced concrete...

...There are, however, exceptional revolutionaries whose urge to communicate exceeds their capacity for discretion...

...The interview is now several months old, but at the time it was conducted it was circulated throughout the press, and no one picked it up...

...We learn that Russian wives are afraid to go shopping in some of the major cities, because snipers operate at all hours of the day and night...

...All such rehabilitatiort efforts require mightly administrative skills...

...In the same region of Iran--Azerbaijan - - a flying object "similar to a rainbow" was seen around the same time...

...And by no means the obscure or arcane ones...

...No vine or fig tree can force its way up between non-existent paving stones...

...But consider the life of the foreign correspondent...

...It will be printed in the J u l y issue of the Washington Quarterly, for those who still care about the matter...

...To be sure, there is the occasional wire-service story, but not a single newspaper--so far as I know--has sent a full-time correspondent (or even a special correspondent) in the direction of Kabul...

...the rest r e f e r to him as Imam), is nicknamed "the cat killer," in reference to a habit which is reported to have led him to a mental institution for some time...

...But now the same Association suggests that the practice continues...

...And if they do want to leak, they'll leak to the local boys, not to you...

...I f the child is innocent, it will go directly to h e a v e n , " Khalkhali said...

...The author of the article (identified only as "P.V...

...Yet in the mid:~ une L 'Express, which is probably the finest weekly newsmagazine on the Continent (and vies with the Economist as the best in any language), devoted six full pages to Afghanistan, complete with photographs of extraordinary beauty and interviews with Russians and all manner of Afghanis...

...Khalkhali, otherwise known as the "Rage of God" and the "butcher of Kurdistan" (for the hundreds of summary executions carried out at Michael Ledeen is Executive Editor of the Washington Quarterly...

...And so let us join in thanking Miss Marge Piercy, a radical novelist, who has painted for us in a brief sentence or two some details of the world she expected her revolutionary colleagues to bomb, or cudgel, into shape...

...and two separate transfers to the PLO Bureau in Paris, the first on December 12, 1979, involving some 24,800,000 francs, and the second-for 11,000,000 francs--on February 2 of this year...

...I remarked last month that the New York Times had carried a front-page story that explained why Iran had stopped being a c e n t e r of attraction: the P r e s i d e n t wished it to be so...

...possibility," continuing as follows: "I remember walking around with other organizers and fantasizing about what we would do after the revolution with all the buildings, what human uses they could be put to...

...They pictured grass, even vines, growing in the cracks between the stone blocks of the Caesars' architects...

...Considering Manhattan's newest buildings beautiful, she disavows a campaign to demolish them...

...Could you not have ordered the execution of some innocent person, I don't know, perhaps a judicial e r r o r . . . ? A: All t h o s e whom I o r d e r e d killed are the corrupt of the earth...

...Now it has demonstrated that the new regime in Tehran has continued the practice of p u t t i n g public funds to private profit...

...But since we know so l i t t l e about Iran itself, such stories simply suggest that Oveissi and his friends are counterrevolutionaries, trying to restore a discredited ruling class at the expense of the saintly Ayatollahs...

...For those who enjoy gauging the effect of bureaucracy on human perception, it is significant that just one week before these remarkable events, the Interior Ministry of the Iranian regime opened a special office that would permit citizens of the Ayatollah's Islamic Republic to inform the government about "suspicious movements of foreigners or luminous or flying objects...

...Their nostalgic art implied that time erases the bombastic structures of even the most imperial state, humanizing them so that they may be enjoyed over the centuries by simple rankless mortals...

...The Canadian dollars are for the Defence THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 25 A f g h a n i s t a n : It seems that the mediocre epic of Gunga Dan Rather was sufficient for the American media...

...Iran made lots of news in June, but very little of it was carried in the American press...

...This news had provoked some nasty remarks about the corruption of wealthy Persians, and had helped rally sympathy for the cause of the saintly Khomeini...

...If you're overseas, you don't have the access to sources that you get in this country...

...The Hamburg marks are for the Ayatollahs Behechti and Ardebili, two thugs from the revolutionary gang in Teheran...

...I recently came across a splendid interview with the "students" at the Embassy in Tehran conducted by a Greek journalist...

...And as for the little gift to the PLO, the money ended in the bottomless pockets of the son, the grandson and the brother-in-law of who...

...For us, it is better to hear of the efforts of General Oveissi, who is trying to organize some sort of army in Iraq to r e c a p t u r e Iran from the theocratic fascists that currently govern it...

...What marvelous day-care centers and hospices they would become, what beautiful public places you could have, and in what beautiful places people could finally live, when you didn't have the best part of Manhattan occupied by corporate headquarters and houses for the wealthy...

...On April 18 the Association listed the financial transfers of the Revolutionary Counc i l - v i a the selfsame Central Bank: 22,240,000 German marks for the Islamic Center and mosque of Hamburg...

...The revolution is permanent, and there will always be counterrevolutionaries and persons who act against Allah's word...

...Indeed, perhaps the last outstanding foreign correspondent for the New York Times-Flora Lewis--is now a columnist...

...I regret that a certain number among them may have escaped their punishment...

...Like the "decadent" Europeans of the recent past, our journalists now p r e f e r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n to information...

...There is lots of news around, but no one prints it...

...Kayhan also notes that in the area around Tehran, in the skies over Chariza, Roudhen, and Karadh, "a luminous object larger than the moon, with a semicircular shape and a light green color" was sighted...

...The question has been answered in various ways of late...

...There is not very much investigative reporting, but a g r e a t deal of leaking...

...The interview contains some remarkable exchanges: Q: Are you certain that you have not the slightest remorse...

...Hence the prices of rugs in Kabul are skyhigh, because the rug-makers demand a high price in order to pay those who take the risk of transporting their products...

...over there, not only are they unknown, but they have to learn a foreign language and a foreign culture...

...Would it not be b e t t e r to delay the execution of the woman until the baby was born...

...Miss Piercy has divined that the avenues of Manhattan will not provide hospitality to goatherds and shepherds in the natural way of the Forum Romanum...

...Here, journalists are coddled and stroked...

...A city of glass exteriors may get dirty and the windows may crack at last, but nothing will grow in spaces that do not soften and erode like the stones of Rome...

...The Canard gives the account numbers for the transfers...

...Minister Chamaran and for the Ayatollah Khamnei...

...If you had traveled through Europe and the Middle East you would have found the most fascinating stuff in the newspapers...

...And the orders were carried out...

...Allah is always great when the money has but a single odor: that of its holiness...

...But, beneath it all, yes, I do have some regrets...