THIS ISSUE: SCANDAL AT ABC NEWS Writer Blows Whistle ABC Ran Stop Sign Discussion Not "Profitable" Self-Investigation Shamt ABC PRODUCER WEARS CLINTON HAT Tom Murphy Loses His Cool Principled People  What You Can Do Notes

The time has come for a housecleaning at ABC News. Convincing evidence exists that top management at the network cannot trust underlings to tell the truth when challenges are raised about the veracity and handling of specific news stories. If the people at ABC News can't tell the truth to one another. Why should the public trust what they hear reported by this network?

We refer to three episodes, two of which were subjects of past AIM Reports: a drug-smuggling smear of the U.S. ambassador to Korea, Donald P. Gregg. And the allegation that an executive producer at ABC News has been giving advice to the Clinton campaign and influencing ABC's coverage of Clinton. A third, discussed in the Notes, involves apparent dissembling about ABC's handling of the Rodney King videotape.

The first involves a 1988 broadcast on World News Tonight in which a fantasy-weaver named Richard Brenneke made sweeping accusations about Donald Gregg, former national security adviser to Vice President Bush. Brenneke, a real estate operator and financial manager from Portland, Oregon, claimed to have been a covert arms merchant and CIA employee. Frank Snepp, a former CIA officer who had gone to work as a producer for ABC News, interviewed Brenneke for 14 hours on camera. Impressed by his stories, he produced a segment aired on ABC News on April 8, 1988, in which Brenneke, disguised and identified only as "Harry," described a secret U.S.-Israeli network that he claimed supplied arms to the Nicaraguan resistance fighters and smuggled cocaine into the United States. He claimed to have personally flown arms south and drugs north.

ABC News was sitting on a more explosive charge by Brenneke: that Donald Gregg knew about and condoned the operation, including the drug smuggling. They didn't air this until May 16, after learning that Newsweek reporter Robert Parry was going to break this story. The story was aired, identifying Brenneke as the source. Frank Snepp says he was away at the time and had no input into the broadcast. It showed Brenneke claiming that he was "directed" to talk to Don Gregg, who, he said, "was the man in charge of the Central American account." He said he told Gregg about the drug smuggling. Because he personally was disgusted with it. And that Gregg replied. "Never mind. You are not to worry about or concern yourself with the movement of drugs. That's not 5'our business. It's none of your business. Just do what you were hired to do."

Brenneke offered no proof other than his own dubious word that he had ever talked to Gregg, but the ABC broadcast said he had "produced phone logs and given a deposition under oath to a Senate subcommittee." A phone log was shown on the screen with a number highlighted, implying that it was Gregg's number. Actually, it was the number of a military aide to the vice president who had once signed a reply to a letter from Brenneke to Bush and who Brenneke had claimed to have talked to by phone. The aide did not recall ever speaking to Brenneke. The CIA, in a rare public disavowal, disclosed that the official whose name appeared on a letter Brenneke had showed to reporters to prove that he was a CIA agent had left the agency years before the date of the letter.

It was astonishing that ABC News would air such a serious charge based solely on the word of Brenneke, whose contradictory statements had undermined his credibility with most of the media. AIM provided ABC News with Brenneke's dubious record. The reply we received asserted that ABC News had found the information Brenneke had given them to be "generally accurate and verifiable," that he had never been indicted, that be had little to gain from admitting to a felony on camera, and that he had provided a deposition under oath to a Senate subcommittee. The,' refused to retract. They also failed to report the revelation by the CIA that Brenneke had used a doctored letter to establish a CIA connection.

Two Senate committees controlled by Democrats. Who were not friendly to Gregg found Brenneke's charges baseless; -- first when Gregg was confirmed as ambassador to South Korea. And again when Senator John Kerry investigated Latin American narcotics trafficking. But ABC News stuck: by Brenneke, even though most major news organizations had written him off as a nut.

Brenneke, meanwhile, expanded his fantasy to claim he was in Paris in October 1980 and saw Bush plotting with Iranians to delay the release of the embassy hostages until after the election, thereby assuring Ronald Reagan's election. Brenneke was one of the "witnesses" relied upon by former Carter White House aide Gary Sick and by the PBS program Frontline to push the so-called "October Surprise" conspiracy theory. (A House task force run by Democrats reported on July 1 that it found the Bush-in-Paris story to be false.)

Writer Blows Whistle

Brenneke contracted with Peggy Adler Robohm to write a book about him. He gave her several dozen-file boxes, which contained, among other things, his personal financial records. When Robohm examined the papers, she made a disconcerting discovery. On the dates he claimed to have been in Europe on "October Surprise" missions, his own credit cards and diaries showed him in the Pacific Northwest. Robohm, who had believed Brenneke's tall tales, was angered by his deception, and she turned the material over to Frank Snepp, the producer who had interviewed Brenneke for ABC News back in 1988. Snepp was now a writer for the leftist weekly, Village Voice, which had been promoting the "October Surprise" story. He wrote a lengthy article about Brenneke's lies and concluded that the information "inevitably undercuts the credibility of everything be touched."

Given this refutation by ABC's own reporter on the story, we thought that the network would do the decent thing and retract the slurs against Gregg. Network brass had defended the airing of the Brenneke charges at every annual share- holders meeting since we first raised it in 1989, as well as in a private meeting with chairman Thomas S. Murphy and in correspondence with AIM. Under our hammering, ABC News officials came up with the claim that they had another source that confirmed Brenneke's allegations against Donald Gregg. but the identity of this source was so secret that it had not even been made known to chairman Murphy.

ABC Ran Stop Sign

At the Capital Cities/ABC shareholders meeting in May we demanded again that ABC retract the story. Joe Goulden quoted a passage from the 1991 book on the TV industry. Three Blind Mice, in which Ken Auletta praised what he considered the high moral tone of Capital Cities/ABC. Auletta quoted chairman Thomas Murphy and president Daniel Burke as telling their executives. "Be the kind of person who stops at a traffic light way out in the country when no one else is around. If so, you're one of our guys." GOULDEN. To borrow Ken Auletta's metaphor.... ABC News has run through a traffic light, and the person responsible for your news practices doesn't want to do anything about it. I challenge ABC News or anybody in this organization to give me any independent confirmation of the statements Brenneke quotes Gregg as having made concerning drugs and the contras.

Stephen Weiswasser, executive vice president of ABC News, claimed that Snepp himself had said, "that he had other sources for the story. and on that basis we stand by the story which we carried at the time." Goulden demanded that Weiswasser be more specific.

GOULDEN. Steve. This is nonsense. What other source would you have than the words he.... was quoted as saying.... about what Don Gregg told him? WEISWASSER. Obviously if I discussed the source... then it wouldn't be a confidential source. GOULDEN. Who was in the room? Do you think that Don Gregg would sit in front of Richard Brenneke and another person and make a statement like this?

Discussion Not "Profitable"

Weiswasser responded that he did not think it "profitable" to continue the discussion. Reed Irvine then directed questions at Cap Cities/ABC chairman Thomas Murphy.

IRVINE. Tom, really, you're the chairman. We discussed this with you in your office. Tom, have you seen the evidence of another source? MURPHY. I've discussed it with the news department, and they confirmed it to me. And I'm satisfied. IRVINE. Do you know who the other source is? MURPHY. I do not. IRVINE. Tom, you have a moral duty. If you're the kind of guy who'll stop at a traffic light out in the wilds of Connecticut when nobody's there, you've got the moral courage to demand that Steve give you the name of that source and you investigate it, and if it doesn't exist, admit it and give that apology. Will you do it? MURPHY. We'll take that under advisement. IRVINE. Come on, Tom, Will you do it? Yes or no. MURPHY... I said I would take it under advisement. IRVINE. You're pondering at that traffic light. 'Will I go through it?' [Laughter] Is there a cop out there, or isn't there? Come on, Tom. You are the man. The buck stops with you. MURPHY... ABC News has many times [made corrections] and we would be delighted to do that if we found out that to be the fact and I will be glad to check on those facts. IRVINE. Good. That's all I'm asking. You get the name, and if it doesn't exist.... you might consider getting rid of the people who are lying if it turns out they are lying. MURPHY. No one is lying at ABC, and I'm delighted with their record, and I'm confident that their decision will be verified.

Self-Investigation Sham

When an executive starts an "investigation" with confidence that a "decision will be verified," the outcome is preordained. Murphy wrote us on June 29 that "after a thorough review I am convinced that we acted responsibly in this matter." But how thorough a "review" did Murphy really conduct? He conceded that he did not "myself determine the identity of the secret ABC News source. Our policy is to limit very strictly the number of people to whom such sensitive information is given, and I have determined that, given what else we know about the circumstances surrounding this piece, there is no reason to set aside this policy in this case."

On July 7 we did what Murphy should have done himself if he were really interested in getting at the truth. We finally succeeded in locating Frank Snepp, who produced the Brenneke story for ABC. We called him at his home in California. We told him of the claim by Murphy and Weiswasser that sources other than Brenneke had verified the dealings with Donald Gregg. Snepp unhesitatingly replied: "If that's what they have communicated to you, there has been a misstatement.... I can say categorically there was no such source [other than Brenneke himself] for the Gregg-Brenneke contact."

Snepp said ABC News "was extremely concerned about Brenneke" and his credibility when the 1988 pieces were being prepared and insisted that he be brought to New York so they could evaluate him themselves. ABC videotaped about 14 hours of interviews. Which he said was "highly unusual" for a network. This was done. he said. So that ABC executives "could see what he was like and what he was saying...."

Snepp continued that there were two additional sources for other parts of the story, chiefly allegations of Israeli involvement in the Iran-contra affair. One of these was Jose Blandon. A former Panamanian official who had broken with Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and had been identified as a source when the first story aired. The other was a U.S. official whom Snepp would not name. But he was emphatic that Brenneke was the sole source for his claims that he had any contact with Gregg. He knew of no one who could confirm that there was any contact; much less what conversation took place.

Further, Snepp stated, he said as much to Chris Isham, head of the ABC News investigative unit. Snepp said he told Isham. "Look, there are sources for the Israeli thing. There were no sources for the Brenneke contact" with Gregg other than Brenneke himself.

What does this mean? Tom Murphy's subordinates at ABC News are caught in an outrageous lie. Rather than confess error and correct a false news story, they lied to the chief executive officer of their company, causing him in turn to give false information to the public and to company shareholders.

People who lie have no place in a responsible news organization. We have asked Tom Murphy and Cap Cities/ ABC president and CEO, Daniel Burke, to fire the ABC News executives whose efforts to cover up this scandal have subjected their bosses to public embarrassment and undermined the credibility of ABC News.

ABC PRODUCER WEARS CLINTON HAT

Messrs. Murphy and Burke should take a hard look at another ABC News executive who allegedly helped the Bill Clinton campaign get over an early crisis that threatened his candidacy. We were puzzled earlier this year when ABC News sacrificed a scoop by delaying its report on Clinton's now-famous letter thanking Colonel Eugene Holmes, the former head of the University of Arkansas ROTC program, for helping him dodge the draft.

As we pointed out to Murphy and other ABC brass at the shareholders meeting, a retired army colonel, Clinton Jones, who had been the administrative officer of the ROTC unit in 1969, gave a copy of the Clinton letter to an ABC producer on Sunday evening, February 11, and was told the story would air the next night. But ABC News sat on the story until Wednesday evening, February 14. By that time Clinton had already released the letter to the rest of the media, and his aides were busy trying to divert attention from its embarrassing contents by accusing the Pentagon of having released it to influence the New Hampshire primary. The Department of Defense had nothing to do with the release of the letter, but ABC's Ted Koppel had told the Clinton campaign that it was his impression that it had come from the Pentagon.

Steve Weiswasser, the executive vice president who had defended the Brenneke story, told us at the annual meeting, "I can't imagine what you would think our motivation would have been to sit on a story that we thought was ready to go. We don't have any motivation that you could seriously suggest...."

We thought it might have something to do with Ted Koppel's alleged interest in becoming secretary of state, but now the irreverent New York magazine, Spy, has provided a better answer. An article in the July/August issue, by Laureen Hobbs, states that Rick Kaplan, executive producer of ABC's Prime Time Live, and former executive producer of Ted Koppel's Nightline, "directly advised and helped Clinton during the primary season." Hobbs writes that Kaplan attended campaign staff meetings and boasted that he helped set up Clinton's press office.

Further, Hobbs reports that Kaplan advised Clinton on how to defuse the ROTC letter. Here Kaplan could use his clout with Nightline and anchor Ted Koppel. Hobbs writes that Kaplan told the Clinton staff to release the letter to the press immediately and recommended that he go on Nightline to explain it. Hobbs comments. "Clinton couldn't have hoped for a better platform -- Ted Koppel read the entire letter, not just out-of-context bites."

Hobbs also reports that Kaplan arranged for a Clinton appearance on the popular Don Imus WFAN talk show in New York City, which she says, "is considered to have been a turning point for his beleaguered New York campaign." She writes, "Kaplan coordinated the governor's appearance on the radio show. He briefed Clinton on the eve of the broadcast, and the candidate came off as funny, self-deprecating and likable.... Sources at Prime Time Live believe Kaplan scripted Clinton's on-air wit, including the ethnically knowing, Kaplanesque riposte, 'Bubba is just Southern for mensch.'" Two camera crews covered the radio show, one in the studio, one in Clinton's hotel room; and footage from it was used on Nightline that night.

Hobbs' summary is damning: "So an ABC News executive helped arrange Clinton's appearance, then briefed the candidate and possibly wrote his lines. and ABC's Nightline covered the interview as news. Why doesn't Kaplan rehearse Clinton for an interview on Prime Time and skip the middlemen'?"

Tom Murphy Loses His Cool

When we couldn't get in touch with Kaplan or anyone else at ABC News who would discuss Kaplan's alleged involvement with the Clinton campaign, we faxed a copy of the Spy article to chairman Tom Murphy and asked for his comments. Murphy first insisted. "Kaplan wouldn't have anything to do with what ABC News does." We suggested that Murphy give close attention to the article. Which detailed Kaplan's role in the ROTC letter affair. "He was up to his neck in it." Reed Irvine told Murphy.

Murphy replied heatedly. "Well, I don't question him being involved, but if you think that he tells ABC News what to do, you're full of s--. He would have something to say about what Prime Time Live says. But the idea that he'd have any influence on the rest of ABC News is a lot of s--." When Irvine pointed out that Kaplan had been the top producer at Nightline and that Ted Koppel had played an important role in the way the letter story was handled. Murphy blew his stack. Said he had had enough of this "crap" and hung up.

Murphy didn't thank us for calling his attention to an embarrassing scandal in his news department. He said he would send the Spy story to ABC News, but he is showing the same blindness with which he pursued the Brenneke matter. It is clear that ABC News had the choice of scooping the competition with the ROTC letter story on World News Tonight or getting an exclusive interview with Bill Clinton on Nightline. Rick Kaplan's Nightline strategy won. He could guarantee Clinton's appearance, and he could argue that if World News Tonight broke the story, an angry Clinton would hold ABC News responsible for the damage to his campaign. If ABC News delayed the story, Clinton would be heavily indebted to them. He would not only accept invitations to ABC talk shows, but all kinds of nice things could happen if he made it to the White House.

Principled People

Both Frank Snepp and Peggy Adler Robohm. the writer who was to write a book about Richard Brenneke, were deceived by that consummate con artist. Snepp felt compelled to tell the truth about Richard Brenneke, even though it meant admitting that much of what he had previously said about him was wrong. Peggy Adler Robohm has displayed the same kind of conscience. Robohm told us that if she had written the sort of conspiracy book Brenneke wanted, she could have earned a lot of money. The spunky Robohm is no stranger to hard times. As a single mother she had to scramble to raise her children. But of Brenneke. She said. "I wasn't going to be part of a literary fraud, regardless of how much money I might have made." She now supports herself through part-time work. Frank Snepp and Peggy Robohm don't have the incomes of the wealthy officials responsible for ABC News. But they have something money can't buy -- integrity.

Warren Buffett, the largest single shareholder in Capital Cities/ABC and head of Berkshire Hathaway, is also a man of great integrity. He had a large stake in the investment-banking firm Salomon Bros., and when it was rocked by a scandal that revealed dishonesty on the part of top officials, Buffett took over to insure that the necessary steps were taken to restore confidence in the firm. Salomon Bros. was faced with a financial crisis stemming from a moral crisis. ABC is not threatened financially. A serious cloud hangs over the integrity of its news operation. If Tom Murphy and Daniel Burke fail to recognize that. Perhaps Warren Buffett will.

What You Can Do

Send the enclosed cards, or your own letters. to CapCities/ ABC CEO Daniel Burke and director Warren Buffett, urging them to take the steps necessary to restore the integrity of ABC News. A card you can send to your Congressman urging repeal of the Delaney Clause is also included. See the Notes about this.

AIM REPORT is published twice monthly by Accuracy In Media, Inc., 1341 G 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-member subscriptions are $35 (1st class mail).

AIM Report NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF

FOOLISH JUDICIAL LEGISLATION BY DR. THOMAS H. JUKES

It took us one telephone call to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo, N.Y., to get both the video and the details of a fascinating post-Cold War story about how the old USSR financed a major U.S. propaganda outfit, but our TV networks have shown no interest in the story.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco on July 8 decided that pesticides are food additives anti therefore those insignificant traces of pesticides in foods are subject to the 1958 Delaney clause of the Food Additives amendment. The clause stated, "No additive shall be deemed to be safe if it is found to induce cancer when ingested by man or animal. or if it is found, after tests which are appropriate for the evaluation of the safety of food additives, to induce cancer in man or animals." The Court, reading the mind of Congress 34 years ago, declared: "Congress intended the EPA to prohibit all additives that are carcinogens, regardless of the degree of risk involved."

A slight flaw in this is that the EPA did not exist in 1958. Neither did today's knowledge of carcinogens, including their presence in foods. Pesticide chemicals are specifically excluded from the official definition of food additives in the 1958 Food Additives Amendment. So much for the legality of the new decision. The Court stated, "Revising the law is neither our function nor the function of the EPA." The Court then proceeded to revise the law by declaring that pesticide residues were food additives.

The decision shows scientific illiteracy. Practically all natural foods, and most processed foods, contain carcinogens either of natural origin or produced by heat. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the protective effect of fruits and vegetables against cancer is far greater than that of any of the possible carcinogenic effects of residues of pesticides that are used according to regulations. This will increase risks of cancer judicial. But not judicious, foray. Dr. Jukes is professor of biophysics at the University of California. Berkeley and a member of AIM's National Advisory Board.

THE RULING BY THE COURT OF APPEALS RESULTED FROM A SUIT AGAINST THE EPA BY the Natural Resources Defense Council, Nader's Public Citizen and the AFL-CIO. If not quickly reversed or offset by the long-overdue repeal of the Delaney Clause, this ruling could have a disastrous effect on agricultural production of fruits and vegetables that need the protection of man-made pesticides in addition to those that are found naturally in all plants. Half of the natural pesticides that have been tested on rodents will induce cancer if fed in large enough doses. By the logic of the Delaney Clause, the government should "protect" us from cancer by barring the consumption of virtually all fruits and vegetables. A bill to repeal the Delaney Clause. Reps. Terry Bruce and Tom Bliley have introduced HR 3216. Enclosed is a card you can send asking your representative in Congress to support it.

JOURNALISTS TEND TO BE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT LYING OR NOT TELLING THE whole truth by almost anyone in the public eye accepts their fellow journalists. We have the unhappy spectacle of the young lawyers, acting in the name of independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. Obtaining an indictment of former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger on grounds that he lied in June 1987 when he told Congressional aides that he didn't remember being told of the shipment of Hawk missiles from Israel to Iran in November 1985. A man who is widely known for his integrity and dedicated public service will be obliged to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe millions, to defend himself against a failure to remember. This is another outrageous abuse of power by the Walsh gang, which has nothing of any value to show for the S60 million dollars its operation has cost so far. That is Admiral John Poindexter's attorney's estimate of the cost to the taxpayers of Walsh & Co. The Walsh office admits to S30 million. but that doesn't include such things as the cost of FBI agents assigned to assist Walsh or the cost of the expensive facility that had to be set up to handle classified documents. The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times have spoken out against the abuse of power and the waste of money by the forty-year-old and younger attorneys who run the Walsh operation while the octogenarian judge writes his memoirs. But most of the media cheer them on.

I'M VERY GLAD I LEFT GOVERNMENT SERVICE 15 YEARS AGO. I AM NOW THE SAME age that Cap Weinberger was when he was asked about those Hawk missiles, and I would hate to have my liberty hang on my ability to accurately recall everything I was told two years ago. I thought of this the other day when a journalist asked me if it were true that Admiral James Nance, minority staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had told me last December that he knew we had abandoned live POWs in both Korea and Vietnam. My immediate response was that it wasn't true. I had no recollection of the admiral saying any such thing, but I had recorded the phone conversation, and I said I would check the tape. I found that indeed Admiral Nance had said he knew that after the Korean War there were about 2,133 U.N. POWs that were not repatriated. He said he was sure that we had left behind POWs in Vietnam. I had passed this information on to other people at the time. They remembered, but it had completely vanished from my own mind. If I couldn't remember such a dramatic statement in a conversation I had only six months earlier, I can understand Weinberger forgetting something he was told two years earlier.

WILL THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME. NEWSWEEK OR ANY OF the other networks criticize these lies? Not likely! They all let Bob Woodward get away with the outrageous lie that he interviewed the late William J. Casey in the hospital after Casey had lost his power to speak intelligibly because of brain surgery. They all have a vested interest in preserving their own right to lie with impunity.

SPEAKING OF BOB WOODWARD, I RECEIVED A NOTE FROM HIM LAST MONTH, TAKLNG me to task for accepting the thesis advanced by Colodny and Gettlin in their book, Silent Coup, that Woodward had known Alexander Haig before Watergate. This note was prompted by a call I had made to a C-SPAN call-in program on which Woodward's colleague, Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, was being interviewed about the CBS special on Watergate. I asked about The Post's facile dismissal of the evidence that Woodward and Haig had known each other. Pincus's reply is reported to have created consternation at The Post. He denied that Woodward had known Haig before Watergate, but he said that Haig had been a source for Woodward, himself and other reporters at The Post after Watergate. Colodny says it is obvious that Haig was the source of much of the material in Woodward and Bernstein's book The Final Dax's. If Haig was willing to betray Nixon and tell all to Woodward for that opus, the theory that he was also the source of the information attributed to "Deep Throat" becomes more plausible.

IT IS HARD TO THINK OF ALEXANDER HAIG MEETING WOODWARD IN A PARKING garage in the wee hours of the morning or rendezvousing with him at a working-class bar, as "Deep Throat" is alleged to have done. But it would have been plausible for Haig to use someone else on the White House staff who was a close friend of Woodward's to transmit his tips. Woodward had such a friend on the White House staff, David Gergen, a White House staff assistant who later became communications director for Ronald Reagan. Gergen and Woodward were classmates at Yale. He is now an editor at U.S. News & World Report. Gergen has been mentioned, but dismissed. as a candidate for "Deep Throat" because his job would not have given him access to the information "Deep Throat" provided. But he could have served as Haig's channel to Woodward. Arnaud de Botchgrave dismisses the notion that Haig was leaking to Woodward, recalling that he was at Haig's NATO headquarters in Brussels when Woodward tried to see Haig and was thrown out. He thinks that proves Haig did not regard Woodward as a friend. But if Pincus is right about Haig's being a Woodward source, then Haig's refusal to see Woodward in Brussels must have been simply an act put on for de Botchgrave's benefit.

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