The Washington Post’s Most Atrocious Ad
Media Monitor | By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid | June 7, 1999
The most outrageous ad ever published by the Washington Post. Bearing the headline, “The Source of Evil,” it declared that the Russian people are the source of all evil.
At the annual shareholders meeting of The Washington Post on May 13, Accuracy in Media asked Donald Graham, the publisher of the newspaper this question: “Would the Washington Post accept an ad that recommended the removal of 90 percent of the Jews from Palestine or the removal of 90 percent of the blacks from the United States, or any similar ethnic cleansing proposition?” This question was prompted by what must be the most outrageous ad ever published by the Washington Post. Bearing the headline, “The Source of Evil,” it declared that the Russian people are the source of all evil. It proposed that 140 million Russians be paid $100,000 each to leave the countries that constituted the Soviet Union and be scattered throughout the world. To preserve the Russian language, 10 million Russians would be permitted to continue living around Moscow. The land vacated would be sold to foreigners who would replace the Russians and create new countries. The former Soviet Union was to be ethnically cleansed of 94 percent of its Russian population, who, according to the author of the ad would clamor to leave the country and settle elsewhere if they were paid $100,000 each. A Minnesota physician named Aivars Sluicis paid the Post over $20,000 to run this. He believes that all Russians are evil and that dispersing them, with no more than 5 percent in any one country, is necessary to (quote) “assure that these aggressive, barbaric, shameless people will no longer commit crimes against humanity nor teach others to do so.” Dr. Sluicis said that the Russians murdered 100 million people in this century and that all Russians had to participate to kill that many. He said (quote) “The actual killing was done willingly and enthusiastically by the whole Russian people. The guns were in the hands of the common Russian in Russia just as they are today in the hands of the common Serb in Kosovo.” He claims that the bloodletting by the Russians was what “led Hitler to carry out the Holocaust.” He argues that the Serbs are practicing what they learned from the Russians in Kosovo. He wants all Serbs who served in Kosovo since February of last year to be sentenced to “30 years to life for genocide.” This ad should have been rejected by the Post not only because it libeled an entire people, putting the blame for the atrocious crimes of the Communists on their victims, the Russian people, but also because of its many inaccuracies. I thought that Washington Post Publisher Don Graham would not hesitate to say that an ad proposing ethnic cleansing of Jews and blacks would be rejected, but I was wrong. After noting that ad-acceptability issues generate hard questions, Graham said, (quote) “I’m tempted to say ‘no’ to your question up front, but the truth is we would look carefully at any ad any organizations placed with us. We would try to see whether it conformed with the general principles on which we run ads.” He promised to look at the ad in question and respond in writing.
Reed Irvine is the former Chairman of Accuracy In Media and Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report.
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