Presswatch/Pelton and the Post

...Chancellor Kohl hopes to see these projects finished while he' s still in office, but this will take some doing . Rather than choose, impossibly, between the old capital , Berlin, and the real one, Bonn, th e Kohl leadership has opted for a kind of institutionalized schizophrenia...

...Perhaps they haunt me still:' Out of those years of intimate friendship and professiona l association, Barbara Branden has produced a landmark: the first major biography of one of the most controversial an d enigmatic literary figures of the twentieth century...

...asks Freimut Duve, a Social Democrat in the Bundestag . "All our sicknesses stem from ou r struggles for nationhood ." Meanwhile , a Green party booklet on the Berli n museum compares the current project to Hitler architect Albert Spee r ' s plan s to build a dome on nearly the same TH E P~SSIOfl Of Rffl fillflflD QIO6(tfPt1Y [3Y BfIRBfiRfi l3RfthD[fl Ayn Rand's haunted me through nineteen years...

...he asked , in a tone of injured innocence...

...Watch this space next month for this not-at-all-top-secret in - formation . q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EUROPEAN DOCUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : HISTORY UNDER GLASS by Amity Shlae s BerlinWhen tourists arrive here to attend the city 's 750th birthday gala next year, they'll probably stop off to brief themselves at Berlin's formidable Museum for German History...

...Here they can inspect rows of scythes, pitch - forks, and spiked clubs that peasant s wielded against each other in brutal , endless religious wars...

...For once, in the Pelton case, the Post acted properly, but Bradlee seems not to have learned the basic lessons, which are tw o in number : 'The government, not the press, is charged with protecting the national security interests of the United States . Nobody elected the media (even thoug h journalists like to pose as the real defenders of the people), and the media are not accountable to the public for their actions...

...The case of Abu Abbas is one i n which I believe that NBC was irresponsible to agree to protect the location o f its source, just as I believe that the protection of sources does not apply in al l cases, particularly when the source i s a criminal...

...It turns out that the Post—specificall y reporter Bob Woodward—had obtained some two months prior to the arrest of Pelton the details of "an amazing top-secret American intelligence capability that emerged in bit s and pieces eight months later in th e trial of Ronald Pelton...

...The media finally weighed in wit h their reigning champion, Ben Bradlee, the editor of the Washington Post, in Michael Ledeen, senior fellow at th e Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of Grave New World (Oxford), returns this month as TAS 's regular Press watch columnist...

...Since the journalist cannot, in the nature of things, have the ful l picture, on what grounds can he an d his editors decide that it is okay to publish...

...Over the course of the next nin e months, Post editors and journalist s spoke with a variety of top government officials about the story, and agree d not to publish it, on the grounds that the Russians didn't know exactly what we knew, and to print such a story would remove doubt for the Soviets . The . Post's problem was to tell their readers what the Soviets knew, but n o more than that ; a laudable position . On several occasions, the Post delayed publication, and changed the text o f the story, because of strong appeal s from Odom, Casey, Poindexter, and the President himself...

...The atmosphere had previously been poisoned by NBC's broadcast of an interview with the well-known terrorist and accused murderer, Abu Abbas, th e mastermind of the Achille Laura hijacking, during the course of which Mr...

...He replaces John O'Sullivan, who has returned to London to becom e deputy editor of the Times...

...The media cannot escape their responsibilities by claiming an absolut e right to publish, and pretending that when they remain silent about a stor y that threatens American security, they are entitled to special praise...

...In the Pelton case, Woodward had no wa y of knowing whether his source was try - ing to mislead him (hoping that a stor y would be published in order to fool th e Soviets), trying to protect Pelton (i f there were other sources for the information, the government would be unable to prove that Pelton had uniquel y damaged national security), or simpl y trying to sabotage an ongoing espionage operation against the Soviet Union...

...These projects are being critized from both left and right . Old-timers and hard-liners who still insist that the border splitting Germany is temporary are upset that the Bonn museum enshrines Bonn as a permanen t capital...

...According to Bradlee, the Post knew everything about the operation "except Pelton' s name...

...Can you imagine the wrath he would have directed against the government if CIA agents had trailed his people...

...On intelligence stories, it is virtual - ly impossible for any journalist to have the full picture...

...Not that after nearly forty years the Federal Republic of Germany is not ready to define itself . The nation' s truncated status"Germany" is a shrinking country in a Europe whos e importance is shrinking—makes estab - lishing an identity even more pressing . But Germans are their own harshes t critics and find their record of dealing with their history more than lacking . The last time Germany raised monuments on the scale now being contemplated was under the Third Reich, and many citizens are afraid of seeing Teutonic grandeur in full flower again . Their protests illuminate an old an d unresolved reluctance among German s to call themselves a nation, and als o points to the difficulties they continue to have in dealing with the Nazi pas t and the cold war division of the country...

...They were specifically concerned about a story that the Washington Post had obtained about the Pelton spy case, whic h apparently detailed the material that Pelton had sold to the Soviet Union , and they warned the press about excessive "speculation" in connection with its coverage of the Pelton trial . This kicked off the usual mutua l recriminations, with the press accusin g the government of efforts to censor th e news, and the government muttering about the media's insensitivity to national security concerns...

...Until now, guests seeking cultural edification in the Rhineland townlet have had the choic e of riding the subway to see Beethoven' s last grand piano and the town' s pink and white gilded town hall or inspecting macabre stuffed eagles and elephants at a natural history museum in the government quarter...

...Lack of space makes it impossible for me to give details of the very many instances in which the media have encouraged terrorism and damaged the national interest...

...A large museum of Germany's past will rise across from the graffiti-covered Wall in the old diplomatic district of West Berlin . In Bonn, a more modest monument to West German democracy will grace the government quarter...

...Leon Klinghoffer had been killed by Abbas's PLO terrorists...

...a very long article on Sunday, June 8. "What's all the fuss about...

...where young Germans first argue d publicly for the establishment of a liberal democracy...

...Odom and Casey were concerned tha t too much information might appear i n print and on the air about America n electronic intelligence operations...

...Historians workin g on the Berlin museum, to be given the rather ringingly Prussian title o f "The German Historical Museum, " hope to trace the German past from territory to Reich to nation . Schoolchildren strolling through will ponder the Roman conquest, Luther ' s Bible in the Vulgate, and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm . The Weimar and Nazi periods won't be spared . In Bonn, plans are further along...

...They can even ad - mire an elegant little wristwatch wor n by a lady resistance fighter during World War II . Trouble is, the museum is in East Berlin . Now West Germany's conservative government is making plans to correct this unseemly situation by constructin g two national history museums for the Federal Republic...

...The government says it wants to give children a picture of a country they can be proud of...

...Was it right for these storie s to be published...

...Messrs...

...Indeed, in one of the nice ironies of American life, the Freedo m of Information Act does not apply t o the media, but only to the executive branch of the government...

...Do these men [Casey, Odom, etc .] really think the people who run this news - paper would betray their country ? What reporter and what editor could betray this trust, and look their owner in the eye...

...They are anathemas in a free society, and they were greeted as such by the American pres s on this occasion . " This is the sort of specious moral equivalency between the Soviet Union and the United States that the Post loves so much, and it is particularl y disappointing that a major America n editor should think that he is somehow subject to pressures remotely comparable to those of the "editor" of Pravda...

...And Larry Grossman was disingenuous, to say the least, when he argued that if the government wanted to know where Abbas was, they should have tracked his journalists around th e world...

...The more disturbing questions, however, have come from thos e for whom the projects smack of dangerous national hubris . "Why should we build a museum honoring our `nation-state...

...Many people, in and out of government, were angered by NBC's refusal to say where the interview had taken place...

...When the government says , "this story is dangerous for the country," on what basis can a newspape r or network decide that its judgmen t THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1986 31 is better than the government's ? In the real world, several stories i n the American press have severely damaged the national interest . In th e field of terrorism, stories have led t o the deaths of individuals, and compromised our ability to obtain good information...

...Woodward, for example, has written several stories in the past two years that have contained some major errors of fact, and other errors showing a complete lack o f understanding of the context in whic h his story should have been placed...

...A fascinating insight into one of the most thoughtful authors of this century" —Alan Greenspan DOUBLEDAY 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1986...

...In short, the Post was convinced that publication would damage the nationa l interest, and remained silent . But when Casey warned against speculation , Bradlee reflected that "warning s against speculation are the fabric of a Pravda editor's life...

...In the Pelton case, I believe tha t the Post behaved correctly i n withholding the story for so long, and that Bradlee has failed to address the central questions in what is one of the most urgent issues of our time...

...And if it was the latter, what obligation did the Post have to tell the government that there was a traitor i n its midst...

...This information apparently had come from someone familiar wit h the debriefing of Vitaly Yurchenko, th e KGB defector who had been Pelton's original Soviet contact...

...PRESSWATCH r PELTON AND THE POST by Michael Ledee n The sermon for today deals with the press and national security, a subjec t that has recently seen a gaggle of top Administration officials and leadin g media spokesmen weighing in...

...Bradlee is not threatened by exile to the gulag, nor are his journalist s employees of the government...

...A site among the concrete and government buildings has been selected, and the planning group working on th e project says it hopes to have a building finished by 1990 . The group envisions an exhibit beginning with a rubbl e landscape, to display the nation' s desolation at the end of the war, and then winding out past a variety of theme stations showing West Germany's phoenix-like rise...

...Historian s hope the museum—to take up som e 7,000 square meters—will confirm Bonn's status as a Western capital to b e taken seriously...

...Larry Grossman, the head of NBC News, issued several public statements, defending NBC's protection of Abbas's location (this had evidently been a con - dition of the interview), and on one occasion remarked that since the journalists had traveled under their ow n names, the government should have been able to follow them...

...They can study flag-draped posters commemorating the 1848 Frankfurt National Assembly, Amity Shlaes is on the staff of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal/Europe...