Presswatch/The Shame of It
Ledeen, Michael
PRESSWATCH THE SHAME OF IT by Michael Ledeen T et us start with a quiet item, buried on page 12 of US. News & World Report in its March 9 edition: White House officials aren't the only ones who...
...There is even a special word for those who have: the Nomenklatura...
...But why on earth did they find it necessary to publish so much sensitive information...
...Acton's concept of liberty was the unifying theme of the essays collected in the first volume of this edition, Essays in the History of Liberty...
...Hersh's article the la cover story of the New York Times Magazine...
...Shame...
...It should not be forgotten that the pen is often the ally of the sword, and those who wield writing instruments should ponder the effects of their words...
...These are not mere academic questions, for a story of this sort provides people like Qaddafi—and those who share his murderous view of the world—with a ready-made justification for further attacks against Americans . . . and Israelis...
...But we should ask the editors of the New York Times Magazine, where Hersh's long article on the American bombing raid against Libya originally appeared on February 22, why this information was not checked before going to press...
...But Cook slides into one of the more blatant contradictions I can remember...
...Today it is virtually impossible to get in (and not just because everything is electronic nowadays...
...Thus, the Hersh story—wrong in its essential claims—joins the several articles by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post (who, it will be remembered, argued in his famous "disinformation" articles that American efforts to deceive Qaddafi actually provoked Libyan terrorist attacks against Americans last year) in providing a rationale for Libyan terrorism...
...Brilliant Thoughts on Socialism In Forbes, February 23, we find a useful article by James Cook, entitled "There Are No Garage Sales Here," on efforts to reform the Soviet-bloc economic systems...
...Since it is almost impossible to maintain a bearable standard of living by honest means, corruption flourishes on a scale that few democratic societies would tolerate...
...The volume concludes with Acton's famous Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 1895, "The Study of History...
...All orders from outside the United States must be prepaid in U.S...
...The Israelis have all they can do to watch their real, active opponents, from Syria to the PLO...
...Those conservatives who have learned to work closely with the media are, of course, those who have to run for re-election, rather than those who are appointed to office in the executive branch...
...To take the most common example of-legislation passed in order to advance the interests of the media (and the Congress) at the expense of the executive branch: the Freedom of Information Act applies only to the executive, not to the Congress, and assuredly not to the media...
...Writing on such diverse topics as the divorce of Henry VIII, Leopold von Ranke, and the History of the Papacy, Acton argued that history should be impartial, based on archival research, and founded in moral judgment...
...Oliver North had received information from Israeli intelligence that enabled the United States to know precisely where Qaddafi would be at the time of the raid, and hence to plan his murder...
...Fair enough...
...intelligence placed Libyan leader Qadhafi in his office hours before last year's air raid, but records show bombing orders were given 10 days earlier, when nobody knew where Qadhafi would be...
...When I was in high school and college, it was quite simple to get into the morgue of any of the leading newspapers...
...indeed, things have gotten worse...
...and that history demonstrated progress and unity through the story of liberty...
...Shame...
...Hersh had claimed that the raid was secretly designed to assassinate Qaddafi, and not simply to "teach the Libyans a lesson...
...Hersh also reported U.S...
...To order, or for a copy of our catalogue, write: LibertyPress/LibertyClassics 7440 North Shadeland, Dept...
...If you fail to, you don't get economic inequality, but you don't get much productivity, either...
...Why were these claims not checked more carefully...
...Just consider these two consecutive paragraphs from what is basically a sound piece of analysis: Say this for socialism: By equalizing everyone's standard of living, it eases the problem of envy...
...Finally, the White House has publicly stated that "no tears would have been shed" had one of the bombs fallen on Qaddafi's head (or tail), but that there was no deliberate intention to kill him...
...in this volume may be found the historical studies upon which Acton drew to explicate his understanding of the idea of liberty...
...Fearful of assassination from his domestic opponents and other African leaders, he tries to keep his behavior as irregular as possible, thus making it difficult to stage any planned attack against him...
...Indeed, the Middle East intelligence experts with whoml spoke on this matter unanimously argued that Israel finds the existence of Qaddafi to be useful: Libya frightens the United States and Western Europe, sponsors terrorism, yet leaves Israel alone...
...On reflection, we should have expected this finding, for conservatives have always been uncomfortable with the tools of mass politics, while liberals feel more at home in the rough-and-tumble atmosphere that characterizes our current politics...
...But Linsky found that conservatives are far less likely to "leak" than their liberal counterparts: "Liberals and members of Congress were much more likely to have initiated over 50 percent of the stories about themselves than were moderates, conservatives, or persons who served only in the executive branch...
...These two volumes, edited by J. Rufus Fears, Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University, will be followed shortly by a concluding volume,- Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality, which includes, a significant selection from the unpublished Acton papers...
...it's hard to find a person over the age of ten who would disagree with that (and the commission members and staffers should be commended for resisting the political temptation to "restructure" the national security system...
...Cook sees clearly that the socialist systems are falling apart, and LibertyPress LibertyClassics SELECTED WRITINGS OF LORD ACTON VOLUME II ESSAYS IN THE STUDY AND WRITING OF HISTORY By John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton Edited by J. Rufus Fears 7-phis second volume of the LibertyClassics edition of The A. Selected Writings of Lord Acton brings together lectures, articles, and reviews which demonstrate Acton's lifelong devotion to the study of history...
...This, in turn, points to the basic fact of the media in modern politics: the Fourth Estate is an integral part of government, and operates just as the other branches do—advancing policies, attacking opponents, shaping perceptions...
...That checks out: according to one of the people who actually participated in the selection of targets, the probability of doing physical damage to Qaddafi himself was assessed as no more than 20 percent...
...News & World Report in its March 9 edition: White House officials aren't the only ones who goofed in the Mideast...
...He should have added, "by those who are in the Nomenklatura...
...It is a dilemma spawned by a romantic attachment to the concept of socialism, rather than anything that grows out of life as it is actually lived...
...C o why was Mr...
...Remember that the commission was supposed to study the functioning ofthe National Security Council, and report to the President about its findings...
...And, to repeat a theme that has been stated many times before in this space, how can we expect peo1. Lemley V" W' C...
...News report, since it blows away the central thesis of Hersh's story...
...The "leak" is an integral part of life with the media, and those who depend upon the media for survival feed the journalists their daily bread...
...This task was fulfilled, and fulfilled quite well...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1987 31 ple all over the world to take risks on our behalf if we are going to publish their names whenever the political atmosphere in Washington makes that attractive...
...Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh apologized to former National Security Council aide Howard Teicher for mistakenly saying he knew profits from Iran arms sales went to the Contras...
...It's rare when a journalist apologizes—indeed, when anyone apologizes—so we should applaud Seymour Hersh for his forthrightness...
...He shifts his location constantly, moving between various offices and tents, many of them Michael Ledeen is senior fellow in international affairs at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies...
...What we want from our journalists is a description and analysis of the real world...
...Cook remains trapped in his confusion to the very last paragraph: "In short, every step toward efficiency and productivity is a step away from socialism and thus bitterly resisted...
...American officials—like American journalists and all students of the Libyan dictator—were aware of this idiosyncrasy, and hence none of the Americans planning the raid could possibly predict Qaddafi's location with any great assurance...
...Poland is turning into a nation of hustlers and chiselers, a society split between those who have and who have not . . . In other words, there is no such thingas "equalizing everyone's standard of living," and hence the "basic socialist dilemma" does not exist in the real world...
...That has not happened...
...News, am convinced that Hersh was wrong...
...I had 'W...
...What purpose does that serve, other than to place many of these people at risk...
...Yet if we are to strive for greater openness in American society, surely that -openness should apply to Congress and the press as well as to the executive branch...
...The question becomes more pertinent in light of the last sentence from the US...
...dollars...
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...The commission concluded that the system is a good one, but that the individuals charged with its operation failed on several occasions...
...Hardcover $15.00 ISBN 0-86597-048-3 Paperback $ 7.50 ISBN 0-86597-049-1 Prepayment is required on, all orders not for resale...
...I found that the journalists were delighted to find a young person interested enough in their trade to come in and go through the press clippings in those fascinating metal drawers that filled the morgue...
...We pay book rate postage on prepaid orders...
...If you pay people according to productivity, you breed envy and economic inequalities...
...T101 Indianapolis, IN 46250 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1987 that Gorbachev's call for change is a response to a failure so manifest that even the Kremlin must now admit it...
...Any effort to improve productivity by paying some people more than others increases economic inequality and encourages envy...
...That's the basic socialist dilemma...
...So what is this dilemma that Cook writes about...
...Deep thoughts should be left to the philosophers and the occasional politician...
...I believe this document to be unique in world history, for never before has a sitting government revealed so much sensitive information about its own operations...
...Was it really necessary to name so many of the secret contacts developed by the CIA and by the various intermediaries in this affair...
...Included are several essays not printed since Acton's time and his most important historical essays from the Rambler, Home and Foreign Review, North British Review, and the English Historical Review...
...newspapers protect their secrets as jealously as any other branch of government...
...Shame...
...What about the Israeli connection...
...He had written that the ubiquitous Lt...
...In the socialist bloc there are enormous inequalities...
...I have spoken to many of the people involved in planning the Libyan raid, and, like US...
...The roles of reporters and officials increasingly seem inextricably intertwined," Linsky writes, and he is certainly right...
...First of all, Qaddafi's personal habits are highly unpredictable...
...Please allow 4 to .6 weeks for delivery...
...Those who are down among the great unwashed will celebrate the end of "socialism...
...This holds for accurate accounts as well as for inaccurate ones, and should have been pondered by the authors of the Tower Commission Report on the Iran/contra matter...
...always believed that this generalization applied across the political spectrum, and that liberals and conservatives alike had realized that effective policy-making requires an active collaboration between governmental officials and journalists...
...Studying the Press All aficionados of the media should race out and read Impact: How the Press Affects Federal Policymaking, by Martin Linsky of Harvard.' The conclusions of six detailed case studies will not shock the readers of The American Spectator, but the wealth of detail, the careful analysis, and the good common sense of this book make it required reading for all of us...
...Indeed, it is hard to imagine such an experienced journalist as Hersh failing to know that the story was wrong, for a variety of reasons...
...To begin with, there is no evidence to suggest that Israel pays great attention to Libya...
...The problem is that those members of the other Three Estates who depend upon the journalists for their own careers are unlikely to call the Fourth Estate to account, in part because they fear the media's reaction, and in part because they themselves might be hoist by the same petard...
...In case you hadn't noticed, despite his vociferous rhetorical attacks against Israel, Qaddafi has not launched any actual attacks against the Jewish state...
...If that is so, then shouldn't the media be subject to the same standards of accountability as the rest of the government...
...far away from urban centers...
...W. Norton, $19.95...
Vol. 20 • May 1987 • No. 5
