Letters

FLYING HIGH

When I was a young boy growing up in the Low Country of South Carolina, sometimes in the late afternoons we'd go out in the backyard and watch the jets from Shaw Air Force Base fly over our farm. It was magical. It seemed they came from nowhere, right into our backyard sky, and what we were watching and listening for was to see if they would break the sound barrier. When one did, as I recall, my sister and brother and I would jump around in the euphoria of just having been part of something wonderful.

Going through Katherine Fulton's piece this afternoon ("A Tour of Our Uncertain Future," cjr, March/April), and having spent hundreds of hours and night-time conversations on-line recently, I know for sure that she just broke through a mind barrier. And I'm jumping around. Thanks.

Van King
Greensboro, N.C.

FOSTERING SUSPICIONS

Trudy Lieberman's piece on the Vince Foster story (cjr, March/April), which attempts to build a case that a huge right-wing conspiracy is under way to promote the "dark view of Foster's death," focuses largely on my work. But Lieberman never details my reporting on what she calls the "dark view" and omits any facts that support the notion that there are serious questions about the death.

Strange that, in a story on the "Foster Factory," cjr doesn't bother to tell its readers any of the original reporting that factory has produced. For example, there are dozens and dozens of inconsistencies in the alleged suicide, but just look at the evidence surrounding the 1913 Colt revolver found at Foster's side, neatly in his hand. Homicide experts say the gun rarely remains in the suicide's hand and is cause for suspicion. The gun had none of Foster's fingerprints on it. No one in the neighborhood heard the shot. The bullet was never found despite three federal searches. The Foster family has never positively identified the gun as even being owned by Foster. No matching ammo was found in his home. The gun had no visible blowback on it. And FBI lab evidence of powder burns on Foster's hands demonstrates, according to seven leading experts, that Foster would have fired the gun with neither hand on the gun's grip -- which they say is not consistent with suicide.

Lieberman's piece suggests that I misreported Foster being left-handed. She fails to note that it was a Boston Globe story in March 1994 that indicated Foster was left-handed. Much later in my reporting I made reference to that issue based on that report, but the focus of my work, as anyone who read my work would see, has been the forensic evidence relating to the powder burns.

Lieberman apparently followed 60 Minutes's coverage, as desperate as they were to knock my reporting by pinning this factual error about the left-hand issue on me.

 Christopher Ruddy
Greensburg, Pa.

Trudy Lieberman replies: The piece was a report on the workings of the Western Journalism Center, not a critical analysis of Ruddy's work. The sole reason for mentioning the misrepresentation of Vince Foster's left-handedness was to show that the Center, which proclaims itself a champion of independent reporting, continued to circulate sinister suggestions about Foster's death that were drawn from false information long after that information was known to be false.

Lieberman engages in the sort of counter-investigative reporting that has been the typical liberal/centrist journalistic response to Whitewater: don't report the bad news, rather expose those bringing it.

Well, sorry to say, in this case the conservative media have been miles ahead of the mainstream press, the latter having done a worse job of reporting Whitewater than any story I've seen in nearly forty years of journalism. As a progressive alternative journalist opposed to much of what the conservative media stand for, I'm not happy that it broke this way. Still, it was clear from early 1992 that the Clintons would not comfortably bear deep looking into. I decided to follow the story and not my druthers. I recommend it to others. It would improve the trade immeasurably.

Sam Smith
Editor
The Progressive Review
Washington, D.C.

DUBIOUS DISTINCTION

Your Dart to ABC News [for a misleading report -- and misleading correction of that report -- during the week before the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which said that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu had called Rabin a "traitor"] did a considerable disservice to contextual accuracy. Rabin's widow has made many public references to the inflammatory rhetoric of Likud, denouncing the excesses of its leadership which, in her estimation, created the atmosphere, the cultural ambience, that led to her husband's murder. One allegation is that a placard containing the word "traitor" appeared at a meeting addressed by Netanyahu and he did nothing to denounce it or to demand its removal.

Journalism would be far better served if you pursued that story, rather than taking potshots at the most internationally sophisticated nightly newscast to be seen on American television.

Ron Haggart
Toronto, Ontario

FAMILIARITY BREEDS . . .

Christopher Hanson laments Hollywood's changing portrayal of journalists ("Where Have All the Heroes Gone?" cjr, March/April). It is an interesting read, but it seems to miss one of the major explanations of why the shift has occurred.

In "the good old days" reporters were largely anonymous working stiffs doing a job. The public knew very few of them and so Hollywood could easily fabricate a noble stereotype. Today, thanks to television, reporters seem ubiquitous. They have faces. They have become "personalities," often more famous for being famous than for their work. Salaries that once paralleled those of their readers have exploded to a much greater differential for the most visible practitioners. It is very difficult to fashion screen myths of such a known, privileged set.

Bob Roehr
Washington, D.C.

TRAVEL OFFICE TRAVAILS

As a former member of the White House travel office, I was more than fascinated by Joe Conason's recent article (cjr, March/April). I was particularly amused by the title, "Travelgate: What the Press Suppressed," since the opening paragraph of the article clearly indicates that the suppresser was Conason, and the resulting casualty was the truth.

Conason makes a major charge of wrongdoing on the part of the office in not awarding press charters to the lowest bidder. Price has never been the determining factor in the contract awards of press charters because the funds used are not, nor have they ever been, government funds -- they are corporate funds provided by the various news organizations, the use of which was never restricted in any way to being awarded to the lowest bidder. Conason also takes issue with our "catering faithfully to the needs and desires of the White House press" when in fact that was our assignment.

With regard to the "whistleblower letter," Conason insists that its writer was identified by a GAO witness as a member of our office and, in violation of federal law, fired by Dale for writing the letter. In fact, the named individual, when informed that he had been so identified before a congressional committee, informed the chairman that he in no way was involved in writing the letter. Moreover, he was not fired. He retired from government service and completely supported Billy Dale in his handling of the office.

The next area of fiction on Conason's part that I found particularly objectionable is his charge -- which would be a violation of law on our part -- that we participated in ". . . a more questionable travel office practice -- looking the other way when reporters avoid taxes and duties on goods from around the world." It would not have taken much effort for Conason to find out that all travelers with the press office are provided standard U.S. Customs declarations which require them to list all purchases made overseas. Prior to landing in the U.S. these forms are collected and processed by the only person authorized to do so, and that is a U.S. customs agent on board the aircraft. A U.S. customs agent has always traveled on the press plane. At no time has a member of the travel office been assigned the responsibilities of a customs agent.

Also in the article, Conason points the finger of guilt at Billy Dale because, when faced with legal fees that were estimated to run between $400,000 and $500,000, Dale and his attorney offered to pay the $69,000 he was charged with embezzling, in hopes of saving his family from financial ruin -- without admitting guilt. This was completely clarified by Judge Kessler when she told the jury that unless the prosecution showed that any of the money that Dale was charged with embezzling was used for his personal gain, their only verdict could be not guilty.

Moreover, I take issue with Conason's use of the KPMG Peat Marwick report, which was not an official audit.

Finally, I would add a personal note to one aspect in particular and that is regarding access to, and the disappearance of, White House travel office files during the weeks before and after our firing. I was away on May 19, 1993, when the firings were announced, and, as a result, was directed to report on May 24 to the office of David Watkins at the White House to be terminated.

 When I entered the travel office on that day to pick up my personal effects, I found between twelve and fifteen people, none that I could identify, and not one of them with a White House security pass. Some were seated at desks, while others were going through the office files. I would like to be able to say that my concern at that time was for Billy Dale, but it was not. Make no mistake, it was for myself. I realized that any record or file that I might need to defend myself against any charges that might be made against me were completely accessible to anyone in that office and were not being safeguarded in any manner, nor would they be for the next twenty-two days. In addition, I found that all of my personal possessions -- trip photos, personal letters, address books, travel vouchers -- thirteen years worth of my life at the White House had been thrown out. The unit in which we each had personal assigned space for such storage had been dismantled and was in the middle of the office with a sign on it that sd "Out."

John P. McSweeney
Broad Run, Va.

Joe Conason replies: First, I want to state again that treatment accorded McSweeney and the other travel office employees, with the exception of Billy Dale, was deplorable. That has nothing to do with my criticisms of press coverage of "Travelgate," most of which McSweeney either misunderstands or does not address at all.

The press charters ought to have been bid out because the travel office employees were government workers running a government agency, even though they were spending the money of news organizations. That is not merely my opinion; it is the view of the General Accounting Office as expressed in a 1994 report on the office. The contracts need not have been given to the lowest bidder, but the contracts should have been competitive to prevent sweetheart deals.

I took no exception to the fact that the travel office employees were expected to "cater" to the White House press -- but it does explain why the press corps took such a one-sided view of the dismissals.

My account of the travel office whistleblower came from a 1989 White House memo of an interview with Billy Dale, in which Dale said he knew the identity of the staffer who had made corruption charges, and that he intended to dismiss that person. Nowhere did I quote a "GAO witness" about this matter, as McSweeney wrongly suggests.

As for the customs issue, I simply cited accounts which appeared in publications such as Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor. As federal employees, the travel office workers were required to report any customs violations they witnessed.

On the question of Dale's trial, I found a general reluctance to report not only the failed plea bargain but also other evidence that suggested mismanagement and worse on his part. The verdict in his favor doesn't retrospectively change any of the facts brought out by the prosecution which ought to have been reported.

The Peat Marwick report found the travel office in utter financial disarray. That Dale was depositing reimbursed funds in his personal bank account -- an undisputed fact -- offers some sense of how he ran his agency, regardless of any later claims about purloined records. Still, McSweeney and his colleagues have my sympathy, if not my agreement.

HOW NOT TO PEDDLE A PAPER

cjr's analysis of the foibles at The Miami Herald (January/February) was right on in many ways. Growing up reading the Herald was one of the experiences that led me to go into journalism. Sadly, today, I refuse to read it.

The paper panders not so much to advertisers but to individual groups that advertisers want to reach. Each of the diverse groups that make up Miami is represented by a columnist: that is, there is the African-American columnist, a couple of Hispanic columnists, and even a Sunday columnist aimed at the substantial elderly population still in town. Each columnist follows the conventional wisdom as though given a handbook; the elderly-oriented columnist discusses the good old days of South Florida, the African-American columnist rails against the evil white majority, and the Latin columnists keep reaching for the image of the bubbling pot of black beans. It's almost a parody; a James Watt-inspired collection of people who just fit the politically correct bill.

Unfortunately this editorial policy conflicts with the hard news happening in the community.

Michael W. Sasser
North Miami, Fla.

HEADS UP

That's an amusing title you came up with for my article about China's Xinhua News Agency ("I Was a 'Polisher' in a Chinese News Factory," cjr, March/April). A good title for another piece, perhaps.

I wrote what I thought was a serious, if not humorless, article about China's Xinhua News Agency -- a critical assessment of one part of a huge operation. The title trivializes the piece and sets the wrong tone. With its "I Was . . ." construction, it also puts words in my mouth. I don't call Xinhua a "news factory."

I assume that the editors were just trying to coax readers who normally shy away from foreign-press pieces into taking a look at this one. My fear is that the title will make it all too easy for Xinhua's top brass -- not to mention journalists and academics in China and elsewhere -- to dismiss the piece out of hand: If the editors themselves treat the article as a joke, why should we take it seriously?

Jon Swan
Aerdenhout, The Netherlands

REVELATION

The angst of editors and reporters ("Playing God in the Newsroom," cjr, January/
 February) over whether to do stories about the desperately ill who lack money for life-saving medical procedures seems to me wholly needless.

Why can't papers run a standard feature briefly listing all such doctor-verified cases in the community or region, concisely spelling out the need in each case? No more "playing God" picking and choosing cases deemed worthy of being turned into "stories." Just a bulletin-board accounting of this ongoing scandal in our so-called civilized country where people are allowed to face death because they can't afford readily available lifesaving medical treatment. Let the scandal all hang out, every day.

Frank N. Megargee
Salisbury, Md.

CORRECTION An item in the March/April Darts & Laurels column mistakenly placed the Edmonton Journal in the Canadian province of Ontario instead of in Alberta, where it remains to this day. We regret the error and apologize particularly to the many readers to the north who took the trouble to point it out.

CLARIFICATION An alert reader points out that the Soundbite on page 14 of the March/April issue, which cjr excerpted from a speech delivered by Gannett c.e.o. John J. Curley in Washington on January 18, 1996, is nearly identical to a passage in a speech delivered by South African president F.W. de Klerk in 1994 and excerpted on the July 24 page of the Freedom Forum's First Amendment calendar for 1995. When asked for clarification, Curley called cjr's attention to a similar speech he delivered in Arlington on October 16, 1995, in which the very same passage appeared. In that speech, the passage was attributed to de Klerk.

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