Reed Irvine, Editor Cliff Kincaid, Associate Editor
The CBS News assault on Vice President George Bush led by Dan Rather and aired on the CBS Evening News on January 25 was planned, scripted and rehearsed like a secret military operation. CBS worked on it for over a month according to Rather himself. We don't know if it had a code name, but "Bush whacker" would be fitting, since the purpose of the operation was clearly to deliver a damaging blow to the Bush campaign for the Republican presidential nomination "as close to the actual (Iowa) caucus date as possible," to quote from a letter CBS News sent to Bush requesting the interview. CBS employed deception to lure Bush into a trap, surprise to knock him off balance and what The Washington Post in an editorial described as "the journalistic equivalent of a spray of machine-gun fire" to soften up the target. That referred to the six-minute taped report that was aired just before Rather began his live interview of Bush. The report was designed to demonstrate that the vice president was not being truthful and candid in his replies to questions about his involvement in the Iran arms affair.
In introducing this report, Rather said CBS News had spent more than a month preparing it. That meant that they were already well along when on January 5, Richard M. Cohen, senior politics producer for CBS News, sent Bush a letter saying, "Part of our early coverage of the 1988 presidential election has been a series of candidate profiles.... We purposely saved your profile for last, so it could be aired in January, as close to the actual (Iowa) caucus date as possible. Dan Rather is very interested in your profile and has decided to do it him- self. Mr. Rather feels that because you are the incumbent Vice President and a front runner, that your candidacy deserves special attention." He re- quested that Dan Rather be given an interview with Mr. Bush.
The significance of those words "as close to the actual caucus date as possible" and "special attention" is obvious now that we know that Cohen and his staff were busily at work preparing that "spray of machine-gun fire" at the very time he wrote that letter. The vice president was indeed slated to get "special attention" quite different from that CBS had given any of the other candidates in its "campaign profiles." It seems clear that they expected to wound Bush seriously, and by doing this as close as possible to the date of the Iowa caucuses, they would minimize the time he would have to recover from the blow before the Iowa vote.
In an interview aired on ABC's "Nightline," Cohen said that he had informed Pete Teeley, Bush's press secretary, that they "were going to try to cover a lot of ground that other journalists had tried unsuccessfully to cover in the past." He said, "I see that as a clear signal of where we are going. I don't have to send him a telegram saying, 'Iran-Contra.'" In so saying, he corroborated Teeley's statement that "Iran-Contra" had never been mentioned in the five or six conversations he had with Richard Cohen. He obviously didn't tell Teeley that Rather's interview would he preceded by a six-minute report designed to show that Bush had not told the truth about his involvement in the Iran arms affair, nor did he say that would be the exclusive focus of the interview.
CBS has made much of the fact that the day before the interview they ran some promotional announcements which they said should have made it clear to Bush what the interview would focus on. Here is the text of the "promo" that ran on "60 Minutes."
"Where did George Bush stand?" (Clip of Bush): "The question of arms for hostages has been answered over and over again." (Clip of Dole): "I think this is something that is going to continue to be raised, and the only person who can lay it to rest is the vice president." "George Bush live, in an exclusive interview with Dan Rather tomorrow, on the CBS Evening News."
This was not an unambiguous signal that the interview would focus exclusively on Iran. Bush's national campaign manager, Lee Atwater, told The Washington Post that even though his staff felt otherwise, the vice president felt that Rather was "a fair guy" who wouldn't sandbag him. He said Bush was sure the profile would be like the ones CBS had done on the other candidates. Atwater said nearly everyone else had concluded that it was going to be "an Iran-Contra piece." Bush was said to have been surprised and angered as he watched the six-minute taped report that led into the interview.
The Washington Times reported that a journalist close to the Bush campaign said that by the time the aides figured out what CBS intended to do it was too late to back out of the interview. Instead, they devised their own counterattack, meaning that Bush may have been reluctant to believe that Rather would sandbag him, but he was prepared for that possibility.
Peter Boyer, who covers television for The New York Times and who formerly worked at CBS News, revealed the strategy and the thinking of the CBS News staff who were involved in Operation Bushwhacker. In a January 27 report based on conversations with several CBS staffers prior to the Bush interview Boyer wrote:
"In the days and hours before Monday night's heated interview between Mr. Rather and Mr. Bush, CBS News was electric with anticipation. The political team, which had been working for weeks on nailing down inconsistencies in the Vice President's position in the Iran-Contra affair, had produced what it considered to be a tough report, making a case against Mr. Bush.
"The added edge, as the CBS News strategy was planned, would be surprise: Mr. Bush would see the hard-hitting report for the first time just before going on the air live with Mr. Rather."
Boyer noted that the vice president's insistence that the interview be live, not taped, presented a challenge to CBS, since it diminished their control. He quoted one CBS News staffer as saying that Bush's people had "outsmarted themselves." He said: "His people tried to trick us by doing a live interview on the assumption that it will be a minute and a half." The implication was that Bush would use up most of that time with non responsive answers to Rather's questions and would come away unscathed. Boyer said that CBS had come up with a strategy to counter that. It was "to hit Mr. Bush with the toughly worded taped report, putting him off balance, and then keeping him on the air with Mr. Rather for as long as it took to obtain the answers they were seeking."
The Washington Post reported that the CBS plan was to devote as little as three and as much as 8 1/2 minutes to the interview if that proved necessary to get the answers they wanted. Boyer disclosed that Rather had been carefully rehearsed for the big confrontation, with members of his staff taking turns taking the part of the vice president, "volleying back evasive answers to Mr. Rather's rehearsal questions." The purpose was to prepare Rather to deliver the knockout blow as quickly as possible.
The one thing they didn't anticipate was Bush's counterattack, and Rather was unable to cope with that gracefully. The interview ran nine minutes, and Rather not only failed to get the answers he wanted, but he also ended up with egg on his face after spending nine minutes in a heated, rude confrontation with the vice president that angered and offended thou- sands of viewers. At the end, executive producer Tom Bettag was yelling at Rather through his earphone, "Cut! cut! cut! You gotta get out," leading the anchor- man to make this graceless, rude exit: "I gather that your answer is no. Thank you very much for being with me, Mr. Vice President."
In the course of those nine minutes, Rather interrupted the vice president 20 times. At one point Bush was saying, "Let's be careful here because..." and Rather interrupted to say, "Yes sir, I want you to be careful, Mr. Vice President.... "As the vice president was explaining his keen interest in freeing the hostages, especially the CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, who was being tortured to death, Rather interrupted to say, "Mr. Vice President, you've made us hypocrites in the face of the world. How could you, how could you sign on to such a policy? And the question is, what does this tell us about your record?"
In their arrogant effort to torpedo the vice president's campaign for the nomination, Rather and his colleagues violated ordinary etiquette and accepted journalistic practice. But they also violated specific rules adopted by CBS News for the guidance of its staff. These have been assembled in a looseleaf book titled CBS News Standards. What is described as one of the "basic standards which must govern our activities" reads: "In approaching individuals or organizations for interviews or coverage, misrepresentation should be avoided." Richard Cohen's letter requesting the Bush interview clearly said they wanted to do a "campaign profile." The word profile was used three times in this short letter. Cohen has acknowledged that in his conversations with Pete Teeley he did not mention "Iran-Contra," which was the only subject they intended to interview Bush about. To suggest that this misrepresentation of the purpose of the interview was corrected by the promotional announcements aired the day before the broadcast is disingenuous at best. The rule says there should be no misrepresentation in approaching people. It doesn't say that it is all right to lure them into a trap and then send them a signal of your real intentions when it is too late for them to extricate themselves gracefully.
Misrepresenting the purpose of an interview is a much-abused trick. CBS producer George Crile used it to get Gen. William C. Westmoreland to give Mike Wallace an interview for the infamous CBS documentary, "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception." Westmoreland was told that the interview was about the broad subject of intelligence in wartime, but all CBS intended to do was grill him about charges that he had understated the enemy strength in Vietnam in 1967 to give the impression that the war was going better than it actually was. Westmoreland, like Bush, was angry to discover that he had been lured into the interview under false pretenses. Unlike Bush, he had agreed to a taped interview, and there was no way for him to alert the audience to the fact that he had been, as he put it, "rattlesnaked."
CBS took no action against Wallace, and it only belatedly suspended Crile for a minor infraction, not for anything as serious as getting an interview by misrepresentation. It is now again demonstrating that its rules can be violated with impunity. The excellent standards that CBS News has will remain a dead letter until it shows that it has the courage to severely discipline those who violate them. That certainly includes Dan Rather.
Misrepresentation was not the only violation of the CBS news standards committed by Dan Rather and his staff, nor was it the most serious. Another very important guideline reads: "In both news and news analysis, the goal of the news broadcaster or the news analyst must be objectivity .... (T)he news broadcaster and the news analyst must have the will and intent to be objective." What that means is spelled out this way: The facts are to be presented so as to inform the audience, not persuade them. Both sides of controversial questions are to be presented, offering the best available information upon which viewers can make up their own minds. "Ideally," says CBS News Standards, "in the case of controversial issues, the audience should be left with no impression as to which side the analyst himself actually favors."
How did Dan Rather's treatment of Vice President Bush measure up to this standard?
Richard S. Salant was responsible for the compilation of the news standards during his tenure as president of CBS News. He was quoted as saying that he was "in despair" as he watched Dan Rather's attack on Bush. He said, "It's terribly bad for all of us in our line of business. It hurt Dan and CBS News much more than it hurt Bush."
Nancy Dickerson, a commentator on Fox television who is a friend of Rather's, said the CBS anchor was "dead wrong" in the way he conducted himself. She said he looked like a "pit bull on the attack." She said he "lost control, he blew it." The Washington Post editorialized, "Mr. Rather was much too argumentative and hot and seemingly personally engaged. He appeared determined to make points at almost any cost and unable to stand back at all, even when it had become plain that his line of attack was not going to elicit any information."
USA Today said the interview "was not a proud moment for CBS or the media." It said that reporters "must ask questions that the candidates don't want to answer and that the public doesn't want to hear," but that they "must have ordinary rules of decency to guide them." As if it were listing Rather's violations of the CBS News standards, USA Today said: "They must not mislead candidates or the public. They must be civil. They must not be abusive or arrogant. They must not only appear to be fair, they must be fair."
ABC's Sam Donaldson, no shrinking violet when it comes to asking questions, said, "Rather went too far. He had a legitimate reason to try to press Bush, but in the give and take of these things, I don't think we can get to a situation where we make, on our own authority, accusations." Donaldson made some tougher comments that he didn't expect to appear in print. While watching the interview he said, "Look at that! And they call me arrogant!" Donaldson exclaimed after the interview ended, "If I did that, they'd fire me, and they'd be right."
Reed Collins, a veteran CBS correspondent who is now an anchor on CNN, compared the entire performance to a bullfight. Collins said, "First CBS sent in the picadors. Then Dan tried to dispatch the bleeding bull, live. It looked as if Dan got impatient. Dan seemed to realize there wasn't going to be time to do what he planned to do, which was to skewer Bush."
The way in which the attack on Bush was executed inspired these criticisms, but the whole scheme looks even worse when one sees who CBS turned to for help in planning the assault. It turns out that a private leftist organization called the National Security Archive assisted CBS in preparing the attack on Bush. Peter Kornbluh, an information analyst on the staff of the National Security Archive, worked directly with Rather's staff on this project, supplying "primary documentation." Kornbluh was previously on the staff of the far-left Institute for Policy Studies. Two other information analysts at the National Security Archive, Jeff Nason and Malcolm Byrne, had an article in the January 23 issue of The Nation, a far-left magazine. They suggested that Al Haig could improve his chances as a presidential candidate by exposing evidence that Vice President Bush was more deeply involved in the Iran arms affair than he has been willing to admit.
Analysis shows that of 12 points in the six-minute report that CBS aired just before the Rather-Bush interview, eight were identical or similar to points in the Nason-Byrne article. Byrne acknowledged that they had been called by CBS, but he said it was Kornbluh who worked with Rather's staff. These people and The Nation are not, of course, interested in pushing General Haig as our next president. Their purpose in outlining a strategy for him to attack Bush was clearly designed to blow Bush out of the water. It appears that they shared not only their information with CBS, but also their goals and strategy.
It has also been disclosed that on the day of the interview Rather conferred with a Democratic Party activist, Tom Donilon, who had been hired by CBS News as a consultant. Donilon, a Washington lawyer, had prominent positions in the Mondale campaign and in the ill-fated Biden campaign.
What this suggests is that Dan Rather is not only using his powerful position as managing editor of the CBS Evening News to intervene in our political process, but he is doing so by linking arms with the far left, helping them promote their political agenda, louting CBS News standards in the process.
This is a dangerous development for democracy. On February 2, the three networks flexed their political muscle, denying half the people in the country the opportunity to see the president of the United States and Rep. Lee Hamilton debate the president's request for continued funding for the anti-communist freedom fighters in Nicaragua. This was the first time in history that all three broadcast networks exercised their power to black out a presidential address to the nation delivered from the Oval Office in prime time. This unprecedented, arbitrary decision could be justified rationally in one way. It was rational for those who wanted to see Congress defeat the president's request for continued aid to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters to keep the Great Communicator off television. They feared his persuasive powers would swing public opinion to his side and enable him to win the vote in the House the following day.
It was certainly not rational for CBS News to argue that the president's address and the Democratic reply were less newsworthy than the "news" program it aired instead. It devoted a whole hour to a "48 Hours" report on Denver's Stapleton Airport, covering such exciting subjects as how airline food is prepared.
Dan Rather may or may not have had any input into the decision of CBS News not to air the president's address, but we do know that he and his colleagues at CBS have been no friends of the anti-communist freedom fighters. Among the networks, CBS alone virtually ignored the important revelations of Maj. Roger Miranda, the most important defector ever to come out of Nicaragua. CBS alone reported skeptically the Sandinista incursion into Honduras in the spring of 1986 to attack the freedom fighter bases, giving credence to the false Sandinista denials. When in 1983, President Reagan charged that a Soviet ship was heading for Nicaragua, laden with military equipment, CBS alone purchased Cuban film footage of the ship when it docked in Nicaragua in an effort to prove the president wrong. CBS has done more than any other network to defame the freedom fighters with the charge that they are drug smugglers.
Accuracy in Media has decided to launch a petition drive to ask the CBS hoard of directors to impeach Dan Rather. The term "impeach" is fitting in this case, because Rather is acting as if he were the head of a fourth branch of government. He is not content with merely his multi-million dollar salary. He wants to exercise power as well, the power to determine what our government's policies will be and even who will be our next president. This was shown by his carefully orchestrated attempted ambush of Vice President Bush.
This is the basic reason for asking CBS to fire Rather, but we can cite many specific grievances. The petition forms we have had printed cite, in addition, the fact that on March 30, 1987, Rather aired Soviet disinformation charging that the U.S. Army had created the AIDS virus with no rebuttal.
Washington Times columnist John Lofton says that Rather should be fired not for the way he treated George Bush but for the way he treated Fidel Castro in an interview aired on "60 Minutes" on March 17, 1985. It was not that he was rude to Castro. On the contrary, Rather was the soul of politeness, not taking issue with the Cuban dictator even when he told the most absurd lies.
For example, Rather asked Castro about reports that Cuba was facilitating the smuggling of drugs into the United States. Castro denounced this as a lie, as absolutely false. He said, "This is a country with the cleanest history in the field of drugs .... I do not know of a single case, not a single case of a Cuban official who has even been implicated or involved in the drug business."
Dan Rather let that pass without challenge, but had he been properly prepared for this interview and had he been willing to dispute the accuracy of any- thing Castro said, he could have pointed out that in November 1982, Castro had declared that he would not cooperate with the Coast Guard in blocking the drug traffic. That was because a Miami grand jury had indicted the head of the Cuban navy and three other Castro officials and cronies on charges of drug smuggling. We will tell more of Dan Rather's misdeeds in future issues.
Help us gather signatures for our Impeach Dan Rather campaign. If every AIM subscriber would send in a mere four signatures on the petition form included with this issue, we could present 100,000 signatures to CBS President Laurence Tisch at the CBS Annual Meeting in New York on May 11. If we could get an average of 10 signatures from each AIM member we could turn in an impressive quarter of a million names. In helping with this campaign, you will be helping educate others about the danger posed by Rather's type of journalism. This will also be an excellent way of introducing others to AIM. See the Notes for how we will help you do this.
AIM REPORT is published twice monthly by Accuracy In Media, Inc., 1275 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, and is free to AIM members. Dues and contributions to AIM are tax deductible. The AIM Report is mailed 3rd class to those whose contribution is at least $15 a year and 1st class to those contributing $30 a year or more. Non-members subscriptions are $35 (1st class mail).
AIM Report NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF By Reed Irvine February-B 1988
AIM RECEIVED ALMOST AS MANY CALLS FROM PEOPLE WHO WERE ANGRY AT THE NETWORKS FOR NOT carrying President Reagan's February 2 speech as we did about Rather's interview of Bush. There isn't the least doubt in my mind that the networks' decision was not a news judgment. It was clearly political. A veteran ABC correspondent, now retired, told me that it was utterly absurd to say that the speech wasn't newsworthy. After the networks failed to carry Reagan's speech urging confirmation of Judge Bork on October 14, ABC's Peter Jennings commented, "It's getting harder for the president to put forward a strictly partisan point of view." The liberals who dominate the network news departments will see to it that he won't get live coverage for speeches advocating actions that they disagree with. On February 7, Sam Donaldson made it clear on the Brinkley program that he agreed with the Democrats on aid to the freedom fighters. Eleanor Clift of Newsweek said the networks were absolutely right in refusing to carry the speech, since "we all know where he stands on contra aid."
I DON'T THINK DONALDSON AND HIS COLLEAGUES IN THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS ROOM PUSHED very hard, if at all, for live coverage of the president's speech. The sad thing is that the White House staff didn't push very hard either. A senior NBC official told me that if the White House asked that the speech be carried on the ground that it was of overriding importance, "of course, we'd carry it." A top ABC official said the only thing that might change their decision would be a call from the president to the chairman of their board. CBS has a written guideline that says a decision not to cover a speech live may be changed "if the White House explicitly states that the speech is of urgent importance to the American public." Not one of those things was done. Two White House staffers called the Washington corporate representatives of the networks to express displeasure with the decision against carrying the speech. Those calls were badly misdirected, since the Washington reps have nothing to do with such decisions. One said that until he got the White House call he didn't even know his network had decided against carrying the speech. This low-level, low-key protest could only be construed in New York as evidence that the White House was not seriously pressuring the networks. No one even thought of asking the Public Broadcasting Service to air the speech live. I find it hard to escape the conclusion that this was either incompetence or sabotage.
THE NETWORKS WERE PLAYING PARTISAN POLITICS IN REFUSING TO CARRY THE PRESIDENT'S speech, and Dan Rather was playing partisan politics in his attempted ambush of George Bush. I have written to the network heads asking them how they square their refusal to air the speech with their obligation as licensees "to serve the public interest, convenience and necessity." I have written to the head of CBS to ask that he request Rather's resignation. We explain why he should be fired in this issue.
WE ALSO ANNOUNCE THE LAUNCHING OF A DRIVE TO "IMPEACH" DAN RATHER. I URGE ALL OF you to help us get at least 100,000 signatures on our Impeach Rather petitions, which we will present to CBS President Laurence Tisch at the annual meeting on May 11. If each AIM member would sign and get three other signatures we would easily reach that goal. This is a serious effort, but it can be fun. We have two bumper stickers that you can buy for only 50 cents each. We also have "CAN DAN" caps and "IMPEACH RATHER" T shirts for $5.98 plus $1.50 for postage and handling. We will give discounts for quantity orders, enabling the activists among you to make some money to fund your activities. We will supply petition forms free, along with copies of this AIM Report, AIM brochures, and other material about Rather. You can use these to get signatures for the petitions and new members for AIM. We will pay you $5.00 for each new member you get.
I REALIZE THAT MANY OF OUR MEMBERS MAY NOT WANT TO TAKE AN ACTIVIST ROLE IN this campaign or adopt as high a profile as Debby Lambert, AIM's public relations director, displays in the photo below. But there are several things that everyone can do in addition to sending in the enclosed petition form with at the very least your own signature. Here's a list. (1) Put bumper stickers on your cars. (2) Send AIM a special contribution (tax-deductible, of course) to enable us to promote this campaign with ads in various publications, including USA Today. (3) Place classified ads in your local papers advertising the bumper stickers on AIM's behalf (see sample ad below). (4) Get volunteers or hire someone to man a table at a shopping mall or airport to solicit signatures and sell bumper stickers, caps and T shirts. (5) Get a club or other local group to invite an AIM speaker to address it, either specifically on the reasons for our campaign or on a more general topic. The AIM-Allied Educational Foundation Speakers Bureau arranged 580 talks in 1987, most of them at no cost to the inviting organization. We have a panel of great speakers, and you can easily arrange for one by contacting Mrs. Vernita Grimes at AIM's office, 202-371-6710. (6) Work with other AIM members in your community to start an "Impeach Dan Rather" committee. We will supply you with the names of AIM members that may wish to participate. The committee could (a) Hold a press conference or work to get publicity by contacting local media; (b) Sponsor a meeting, luncheon or dinner featuring an AIM speaker; (c) Jointly undertake activities listed above.
HERE'S A SUGGESTED CLASSIFIED AD YOU OR YOUR COMMITTEE COULD PLACE IN YOUR LOCAL paper: Bumper stickers--"Impeach Rather!" and "Clean Up CBS, DUMP DAN" $1.00@; "Impeach Rather" T shirts and "CAN DAN" caps $5.98 plus $1.50 postage. AIM, Box 28390, Washington, D.C. 20038. (Use your own address if you want to handle the sales yourself).
A NEW AIM CATALOG OF BOOKS, VIDEO CASSETTES AND AUDIO TAPES AVAILABLE FROM AIM at good discounts has been published. If you have not yet received your copy, please so indicate on the coupon below, and we will send you one.
TO: The Board of Directors of CBS Inc.
c/o Accuracy In Media, 1275 K Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20005
(Accuracy In Media will present the signed petitions it receives to the CBS Board at the CBS Annual Meeting in New York City on May 11, 1988).
WHEREAS, Dan Rather has behaved as a participant in the political process, seeking to shape the news to achieve his political goals rather than report it fairly and objectively,
WHEREAS, Dan Rather behaved unethically and unprofessionally in his effort to derail the presidential candidacy of Vice President Bush on January 25,
WHEREAS, Dan Rather aired without rebuttal the Soviet disinformation that the U. S. Army created and spread the AIDS virus,
WHEREAS, Dan Rather has refused to apologize to Vice President Bush for his unethical and rude conduct or to the U. S. Army for helping spread the Soviet lie defaming it,
We the undersigned respectfully request the CBS Board of Directors to take partisan politics and Soviet disinformation out of CBS News by terminating the contract of Dan Rather as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.