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How the Washington Post Censors the News. A Letter to the Washington Post

by Julian C. Holmes

_________________________________________________________________



April 25, 1992

Richard Harwood, Ombudsman

The Washington Post

1150 15th Street NW

Washington, DC 20071



Dear Mr. Harwood,



Though the Washington Post does not over-extend itself in the pursuit of hard news, just let drop the faintest rumor of a government "conspiracy", and a klaxon horn goes off in the news room. Aroused

from apathy in the daily routine of reporting assignations and various

other political and social sports events, editors and reporters

scramble to the phones. The klaxon screams its warning: the greatest

single threat to herd-journalism, corporate profits, and government

stability -- the dreaded "CONSPIRACY THEORY"!!



It is not known whether anyone has actually been hassled or accosted

by any of these frightful spectres, but their presence is announced to

Post readers with a salvo of warnings to avoid the tricky, sticky webs

spun by the wacko "CONSPIRACY THEORISTS".



Recall how the Post saved us from the truth about Iran-Contra.



Professional conspiracy exorcist Mark Hosenball was hired to ridicule

the idea that Oliver North and his CIA-associated gangsters had

conspired to do wrong (*1). And when, in their syndicated column, Jack

Anderson and Dale Van Atta discussed some of the conspirators, the

Post sprang to protect its readers, and the conspirators, by censoring

the Anderson column before printing it (*2).



But for some time the lid had been coming off the Iran-Contra

conspiracy. In 1986, the Christic Institute, an interfaith center for

law and public policy, had filed a lawsuit alleging a U.S.

arms-for-drugs trade that helped keep weapons flowing to the

CIA-Contra army in Nicaragua, and cocaine flowing to U.S. markets

(*3). In 1988 Leslie Cockburn published Out of Control, a seminal work

on our bizarre, illegal war against Nicaragua (*4). The Post

contributed to this discovery process by disparaging the charges of

conspiracy and by publishing false information about the

drug-smuggling evidence presented to the House Subcommittee on

Narcotics Abuse and Control. When accused by Committee Chairman

Charles Rangel (D-NY). of misleading reporting, the Post printed only

a partial correction and declined to print a letter of complaint from

Rangel (*5).



Sworn testimony before Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism,

Narcotics, and International Operations confirmed U.S. Government

complicity in the drug trade (*6). With its coverup of the arms/drug

conspiracy evaporating, the ever-accommodating Post shifted gears and

retained Hosenball to exorcise from our minds a newly emerging threat

to domestic tranquility, the "October Surprise" conspiracy (*7). But

close on the heels of Hosenball and the Post came Barbara Honegger and

then Gary Sick who authored independently, two years apart, books with

the same title, "October Surprise" (*8). Honegger was a member of the

Reagan/Bush campaign and transition teams in 1980. Gary Sick,

professor of Middle East Politics at Columbia University, was on the

staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter,

and Reagan. In 1989 and 1991 respectively, Honegger and Sick published

their evidence of how the Republicans made a deal to supply arms to

Iran if Iran would delay release of the 52 United States hostages

until after the November 1980 election. The purpose of this deal was

to quash the possibility of a pre-election release(an October

surprise). which would have bolstered the reelection prospects for

President Carter.



Others published details of this alleged Reagan-Bush conspiracy. In

October 1988, Playboy Magazine ran an expose "An Election Held

Hostage"; FRONTLINE did another in April 1991 (*9). In June, 1991 a

conference of distinguished journalists, joined by 8 of the former

hostages, challenged the Congress to "make a full, impartial

investigation" of the election/hostage allegations. The Post reported

the statement of the hostages, but not a word of the conference itself

which was held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Auditorium (*10).

On February 5, 1992 a gun-shy, uninspired House of Representatives

begrudgingly authorized an "October Surprise" investigation by a task

force of 13 congressmen headed by Lee Hamilton (D-IN). who had chaired

the House of Representatives Iran-Contra Committee. Hamilton has named

as chief team counsel Larry Barcella, a lawyer who represented BCCI

when the Bank was indicted in 1988 (*11).



Like the Washington Post, Hamilton had not shown interest in pursuing

the U.S. arms-for-drugs operation (*12). He had accepted Oliver

North's lies,and as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee he

derailed House Resolution 485 which had asked President Reagan to

answer questions about Contra support activities of government

officials and others (*13). After CIA operative John



Hull (from Hamilton's home state). was charged in Costa Rica with

"international drug trafficking and hostile acts against the nation's

security", Hamilton and 18 fellow members of Congress tried to

intimidate Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez into handling

Hull's case "in a manner that will not complicate U.S.-Costa Rican

relations" (*14). The Post did not report the Hamilton letter or the

Costa Rican response that declared Hull's case to be "in as good hands

as our 100 year old uninterrupted democracy can provide to all

citizens" (*15).



Though the Post does its best to guide our thinking away from conspiracy

theories, it is difficult to avoid the fact that so much wrongdoing involves

government or corporate conspiracies:



In its COINTELPRO operation, the FBI used disinformation, forgery,

surveillance, false arrests, and violence to illegally harass

U.S.citizens in the 60's (*16).



The CIA's Operation MONGOOSE illegally sabotaged Cuba by "destroying

crops, brutalizing citizens, destabilizing the society, and

conspiring with the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro and other

leaders" (*17).



"Standard Oil of New Jersey was found by the Antitrust Division of

the Department of Justice to be conspiring with I.G.Farben...of

Germany. ...By its cartel agreements with Standard Oil, the

United States was effectively prevented from developing or

producing [fo rWorld War-II] any substantial amount of

synthetic rubber," said Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin

(*18).



U.S. Government agencies knowingly withheld information about

dosages of radiation "almost certain to produce thyroid

abnormalities or cancer" that contaminated people residing near

the nuclear weapons factory at Hanford, Washington (*19).



Various branches of Government deliberately drag their feet in

getting around to cleaning up the Nation's dangerous nuclear

weapons sites (*20). State and local governments back the

nuclear industry's secret public relations strategy (*21).



"The National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and some

twenty comprehensive cancer centers, have misled and confused

the public and Congress by repeated claims that we are winning

the war against cancer. In fact, the cancer establishment has

continually minimized the evidence for increasing cancer rates

which it has largely attributed to smoking and dietary fat,

while discounting or ignoring the causal role of avoidable

eposures to industrial carcinogens in the air, food, water, and

the workplace." (*22).



The Bush Administration coverup of its pre-Gulf-War support of Iraq

"is yet another example of the President's people conspiring to

keep both Congress and the American people in the dark" (*23).



If you think about it, conspiracy is a fundamental aspect of

doing business in this country.



Take the systematic and cooperative censorship of the Persian Gulf

War by the Pentagon and much of the news media (*24).



Or the widespread plans of business and government groups to spend

$100 million in taxes to promote a distorted and truncated

history of Columbus in America (*25). along the lines of the

Smithsonian Institution's "fusion of the two worlds", (*26).

rather than examining more realistic aspects of the Spanish

invasion, like "anger, cruelty, gold, terror, and death" (*27).



Or circumstances surrounding the U.S. Justice Department theft from

the INSLAW company of sophisticated, law-enforcement computer

software which "now point to a widespread conspiracy

implicating lesser Government officials in the theft of

INSLAW's technology", says former U.S. Attorney General Elliot

Richardson (*28).



Or Watergate.



Or the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" (*29), where

the White House knew of the criminal activities at "the Bank of

Crooks and Criminals International" (BCCI) (*30), where U.S.

intelligence agencies did their secret banking (*31), and where

bribery of prominent American public officials "was a way of

doing business" (*32).



Or the 1949 conviction of "GM [General Motors], Standard Oil of

California, Firestone, and E. Roy Fitzgerald, among others, for

criminally conspiring to replace electric transportation with

gas- and diesel-powered buses and to monopolize the sale of

buses and related products to transportation companies

throughout the country" [in, among others, the cities of New

York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake

City, and Los Angeles] (*33).



Or the collusion in 1973 between Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT).

and the U.S. Department of Transportation to overlook safety

defects in the 1.2 million Corvair automobiles manufactured by

General Motors in the early 60's (*34).



Or the A. H. Robins Company, which manufactured the Dalkon Shield

intrauterine contraceptive, and which ignored repeated warnings

of the Shield's hazards and which "stonewalled, deceived,

covered up, and



covered up the coverups...[thus inflicting] on women a

worldwide epidemic of pelvic infections." (*35).



Or that cooperation between McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company and

the FAA resulted in failure to enforce regulations regarding

the unsafe DC-10 cargo door which failed in flight killing all

364 passengers on Turkish Airlines Flight 981 on March 3, 1974

(*36).



Or the now-banned, cancer-producing pregnancy drug

Diethylstilbestrol (DES). that was sold by manufacturers who

ignored tests which showed DES to be carcinogenic; and who

acted "in concert with each other in the testing and marketing

of DES for miscarriage purposes" (*37).



Or the conspiracies among bankers and speculators, with the

cooperation of a corrupted Congress, to relieve depositors of

their savings. This "arrogant disregard from the White House,

Congress and corporate world for the interests and rights of

the American people" will cost U.S. tapayers many hundreds of

billions of dollars (*38).



Or the Westinghouse, Allis Chalmers,Federal Pacific, and General

Electric executives who met surreptitiously in hotel rooms to

fix prices and eliminate competition on heavy industrial

equipment (*39).



Or the convictions of Industrial Biotest Laboratories (IBT).

officers for fabricating safety tests on prescription drugs

(*40).



Or the conspiracy by the asbestos industry to suppress knowledge of

medical problemsrelating to asbestos (*41).



Or the 1928 Achnacarry Agreement through which oil companies "agreed

not to engage in any effective price competition" (*42).



Or the conspiracy among U.S. Government agencies and the Congress to

cover up the nature of our decades-old war against the people

of Nicaragua



a covert war that continues in 1992 with the U.S. Government

applying pressure for the Nicaraguan police to reorganize into

a more repressive force (*43).



Or the conspiracy by the CIA and the U.S. Government to interfere in

the Chilean election process with military aid, covert actions,

and an economic boycott which culminated in the overthrow of

the legitimately elected government and the assassination of

President Salvador Allende in 1973 (*44).



Or the conspiracy among U.S. officials including Secretary of State

Henry Kissinger and CIA Director William Colby to finance

terrorism in Angola for the purpose of disrupting Angola's

plans for peaceful elections in October 1975, and to lie about

these actions to the Congress and the news media (*45). And CIA

Director George Bush's subsequent cover up of this

U.S.-sponsored terrorism (*46).



Or President George Bush's consorting with the Pentagon to invade

Panama in 1989 and thereby violate the Constitution of the

United States, the U.N. Charter, the O.A.S. Charter, and the

Panama Canal Treaties (*47).



Or the "gross antitrust violations" (*48) and the conspiracy of

American oil companies and the British and U.S. governments to

strangle Iran economically after Iran nationalized the

British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951. And the

subsequent overthrow by the CIA in 1953 of Iranian Prime

Minister Muhammed Mossadegh (*49).



Or the CIA-planned assassination of Congo head-of-state Patrice

Lumumba (*50).



Or the deliberate and wilful efforts of President George Bush,

Senator Robert Dole, Senator George Mitchell, various U.S.

Government agencies, and members of both Houses of the Congress

to buy the 1990 Nicaraguan national elections for the

presidential candidate supported by President Bush (*51).



Or the collective approval by 64 U.S. Senators of Robert Gates to

head the CIA, in the face of "unmistakable evidence that Gates

lied about his role in the Iran-Contra scandal" (*52).



Or "How Reagan and the Pope Conspired to Assist Poland's Solidarity

Movement and Hasten the Demise of Communism" (*53).



Or how the Reagan Administration connived with the Vatican to ban

the use of USAID funds by any country "for the promotion of

birth control or abortion" (*54).



Or "the way the Vatican and Washington colluded to achieve common

purpose in Central America" (*55).



Or the collaboration of Guatemalan strong-man and mass murderer

Hector Gramajo with the U.S. Army to design "programs to build

civilian-military cooperation" at the U.S. Army School of the

Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Georgia; five of the nine

soldiers accused in the 1989 Jesuit massacre in El Salvador are

graduates of SOA which trains Latin/American military personnel

(*56).



Or the conspiracy of the Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant administration

to harass and cause bodily harm to whistleblower Linda Porter

who uncovered dangerous working conditions at the facility

(*57).



Or the conspiracy of President Richard Nxion and the Government of

South Vietnam to delay the Paris Peace Talks until after the

1968 U.S. presidential election (*58).



Or the pandemic coverups of police violence (*59).



Or the always safe-to-cite worldwide communist conspiracy (*60).



Or maybe the socially responsible, secret consortium to publish The

Satanic Verses in paperback (*61).



Conspiracies are obviously a way to get things done, and the Washington Post

offers little comment unless conspiracy theorizing threatens to expose a

really important conspiracy that, let's say, benefits big business or big

government.



Such a conspiracy would be like our benevolent CIA's 1953 overthrow of

the Iranian government to help out U.S. oil companies; or like our

illegal war against Panama to tighten U.S. control over Panama and the

Canal; or like monopoly control of broadcasting that facilitates

corporate censorship on issues of public importance (*62). When the

camouflage of such conspiracies is stripped away, public confidence in

the conspiring officials can erode -- depending on how seriously the

citizenry perceives the conspiracy to have violated the public trust.

Erosion of public trust in the status quo is what the Post seems to

see as a real threat to its corporate security.



Currently, the Post has mounted vituperative, frenzied attacks on

Oliver Stone's movie "JFK", which reexamines the U.S. Government's

official (Warren Commission. finding that a single gunman, acting

alone, killed President John F. Kennedy. The movie also is the story

of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's unsuccessful

prosecution of Clay Shaw, the only person ever tried in connection

with the assassination. And the movie proposes that the Kennedy

assassination was the work of conspirators whose interests would not

be served by a president who, had he lived, might have disengaged us

from our war against Vietnam.



The Post ridicules a reexamination of the Kennedy assassination along

lines suggested by "JFK". Senior Post journalists like Charles

Krauthammer, Ken Ringle, George Will, Phil McCombs, and Michael

Isikoff, have been called up to man the bulwarks against public

sentiment which has never supported the government's

non-conspiratorial assassination thesis. In spite of the facts that

the Senate Intelligence Committee of 1975 and 1976 found that "both

the FBI and CIA had repeatedly lied to the Warren Commission" (*63)

and that the 1979 Report of the House Select Committee on

Assassinations found that President Kennedy was probably killed "as a

result of a conspiracy" (*64), a truly astounding number of Post

stories have been used as vehicles to discredit "JFK" as just another

conspiracy (*65).



Some of the more vicious attacks on the movie are by editor Stephen

Rosenfeld, and journalists Richard Cohen, George Will, and George

Lardner Jr (*66). They ridicule the idea that Kennedy could have had

second thoughts about escalating the Vietnam War and declaim that

there is no historical justification for this idea. Seasoned

journalist Peter Dale Scott, former Pentagon/CIA liaison chief L.

Fletcher Prouty, and investigators David Scheim and John Newman have

each authored defense of the "JFK" thesis that Kennedy was not

enthusiastic about staying in Vietnam (*67). But the Post team just

continues ranting against the possibility of a high-level

assassination conspiracy while offering little justification for its

arguments.



An example of particularly shabby scholarship and unacceptable

behavior is George Lardner Jr's contribution to the Post's campaign

against the movie. Lardner wrote three articles, two before the movie

was completed, and the third upon its release. In May, six months

before the movie came out, Lardner obtained a copy of the first draft

of the script and, contrary to accepted standards, revealed in the

Post the contents of this copyrighted movie (*68). Also in this

article, (*69). Lardner discredits Jim Garrison with hostile

statements from a former Garrison associate Pershing Gervais. Lardner

does not tell the reader that subsequent to the Clay Shaw trial, in a

U.S. Government criminal action brought against Garrison, Government

witness Gervais, who helped set up Garrison for prosecution, admitted

under oath that in a May 1972 interview with a New Orleans television

reporter, he, Gervais, had said that the U.S. Government's case

against Garrison was a fraud (*70). The Post's 1973 account of the

Garrison acquittal mentions this controversy, but when I recently

asked Lardner about this, he was not clear as to whether he remembered

it (*71).



Two weeks after his first "JFK" article, Lardner blustered his way

through a justification for his unauthorized possession of the early

draft ofthe movie (*72). He also defended his reference to Pershing

Gervais by lashing out at Garrison as a writer "of gothic fiction".



When the movie was released in December, Lardner "reviewed" it (*73).

He again ridiculed the film's thesis that following the Kennedy

assassination, President Johnson reversed Kennedy's plans to

de-escalate the Vietnam War. Lardner cited a memorandum issued by

Johnson four days after Kennedy died. Lardner says this memorandum was

written before the assassination, and that it "was a continuation of

Kennedy's policy". In fact, the memorandum was drafted the day before

the assassination by McGeorge Bundy (Kennedy's Assistant for National

Security Affairs) Kennedy was in Texas, and may never have seen it.

Following the assassination, it was rewritten; and the final version

provided for escalating the war against Vietnam (*74) -- facts that

Lardner avoided.



The Post's crusade against exposing conspiracies is blatantly dishonest:



The Warren Commission inquiry into the Kennedy Assassination was for

the most part conducted in secret. This fact is buried in the Post

(*75). Nor do current readers of this newspaper find meaningful

discussion of the Warren Commission's secret doubts about both the FBI

and the CIA (*76). Or of a dispatch from CIA headquarters instructing

co-conspirators at field stations to counteract the "new wave of books

and articles criticizing the [Warren] Commission's findings...[and]

conspiracy theories ...[that] have frequently thrown suspicion on our

organization" and to "discuss the publicity problem with liaison and

friendly elite contacts, especially politicians and editors "and to

"employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the

critics. ...Book reviews and feature articles are particularly

appropriate for this purpose. ...The aim of this dispatch is to

provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the

conspiracy theorists..." (*77).



In 1979, Washington journalist Deborah Davis published Katharine The Great,

the story of Post publisher Katharine Graham and her newspaper's close ties

with Washington's powerful elite, a number of whom were with the CIA.



Particularly irksome to Post editor Benjamin Bradlee was a Davis claim

that Bradlee had "produced CIA material" (*78). Understandably

sensitive about this kind of publicity, Bradlee told Davis' publisher

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich ,"Miss Davis is lying ...I never produced

CIA material ...what I can do is to brand Miss Davis as a fool and to

put your company in that special little group of publishers who don't

give a shit for the truth". The Post bullied HBJ into recalling the

book; HBJ shredded 20,000 copies; Davis sued HBJ for breach of

contract and damage to reputation; HBJ settled out of court; and Davis

published her book elsewhere with an appendix that demonstrated

Bradlee to have been deeply involved with producing cold-war/CIA

propaganda (*79). Bradlee still says the allegations about his

association with people in the CIA are false, but he has apparently

taken no action to contest the xetensive documentation presented by

Deborah Davis in the second and third editions of her book (*80).



And it's not as if the Post were new to conspiracy work.



Former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham "believing that the

function of the press was more often than not to mobilize consent for

the policies of the government, was one of the architects of what

became a widespread practice:the use and manipulation of journalists

by the CIA" (*81). This scandal was known by its code name Operation

MOCKINGBIRD. Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein cites a

former CIA deputy director as saying, "It was widely known that Phil

Graham was someone you could get help from" (*82). More recently the

Post provided cover for CIA personality Joseph Fernandez by "refusing

to print his name for over a year up until the day his indictmen twas

announced ...for crimes committed in his official capacity as CIA

station chief in Costa Rica" (*83).



Of the meetings between Graham and his CIA acquaintances at which the

availability and prices of journalists were discussed, a former CIA

man recalls, "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call

girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month" (*84). One may wish to

consider Philip Graham's philosophy along with a more recent statement

from his wife Katharine Graham, current Chairman of the Board of the

Washington Post. In a lecture on terrorism and the news media, Mrs.

Graham said: "A second challenge facing the media is how to prevent

terrorists from using the media as a platform fortheir views. ... The

point is that we generally know when we are being manipulated, and

we've learned better how and where to draw the line, though the

decisions are often difficult" (*85).



Today, the Post and its world of big business are apparently terrified

that our elite and our high-level public officials may be exposed as

conspirators behind Contra drug-smuggling, October Surprise, or the

assassination of President Kennedy. This fear is truly remarkable in

that, like most of us and like most institutions, the Post runs its

business as a conspiracy of like-minded entrepreneurs -- a conspiracy

"to act or work together toward the same result or goal" (*86). But

where the Post really parts company from just plain people is when it

pretends that conspiracies associated with big business or government

are "coincidence". Post reporter Lardner vents the frustration

inherent in having to maintain this dichotomy. He lashes out at Oliver

Stone and suggests that Stone may actually believe that the Post's

opposition to Stone's movie is a "conspiracy". Lardner assures us that

Stone's complaints are "groundless and paranoid and smack of

McCarthyism" (*87).



So how does the Post justify devoting so much energy to ridiculing those who

investigate conspiracies?



The Post has answers: people revert to conspiracy theories because

they need something "neat and tidy" (*88) that "plugs a gap no other

generally accepted theory fills', (*89. and "coincidence ...is always

the safest and most likely explanation for any conjunction of curious

circumstances ..." (*90).



And what does this response mean? It means that "coincidence theory"

is what the Post espouses when it would prefer not to admit to a

conspiracy. In other words, some things just "happen". And, besides,

conspiracy to do certain things would be a crime; "coincidence" is a

safer bet.



Post Ombudsman Richard Harwood, who, it is rumored, serves as

Executive Director of the Benevolent Protective Order of Coincidence

Theorists, (*91) recently issued a warning about presidential

candidates "who have begun to mutter about a press conspiracy".

Ordinarily, Harwood would simply dismiss these charges as "symptoms of

the media paranoia that quadrennially engulfs members of the American

political class" (*92). But a fatal mistake was made by the mutterers;

they used the "C" word against the PRESS! And Harwood exploded his

off-the-cuff comment into an entire column -- ending it with:"We are

the new journalists, immersed too long, perhaps, in the cleansing

waters of political conformity. But conspirators we ain't".



Distinguished investigative journalist Morton Mintz, a 29-year veteran

of the Washington Post, now chairs the Fund for Investigative

Journalism. In the December issue of The Progressive, Mintz wrote "A

Reporter Looks Back in Anger -- Why the Media Cover Up Corporate

Crime". Therein he discussed the difficulties in convincing editors to

accept important news stories. He illustrated the article with his own

experiences at the Post, where he says he was known as "the biggest

pain in the ass in the office" (*93).



Would Harwood argue that grief endured by journalists at the hands of editors

is a matter of random coincidence?



And that such policy as Mintz described is made independently by

editors without influence from fellow editors or from management?

Would Harwood have us believe that at the countless office "meetings"

in which news people are ever in attendance, there is no discussion of

which stories will run and which ones will find inadequate space? That

there is no advanced planning for stories or that there are no

cooperative efforts among the staff? Or that in the face of our

news-media "grayout" of presidential candidate Larry Agran, (*94) a

Post journalist would be free to give news space to candidate Agran

equal to that the Post lavishes on candidate Clinton? Let's face it:

these possibilities are about as likely as Barbara Bush entertaining

guests at a soup kitchen.



Would Harwood have us believe that media critic and former Post

Ombudsman Ben Bagdikian is telling less than the truth in his account

of wire-service control over news: "The largely anonymous men who

control the syndicate and wire service copy desks and the central wire

photo machines determine at a single decision what millions will see

and hear. ...there seems to be little doubt that these gatekeepers

preside over an operation in which an appalling amount of press

agentry sneaks in the back door of American journalism and marches

untouched out the front door as 'news'" (*95).



When he sat on the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, Judge

Clarence Thomas violated U.S. law when he failed to remove himself

from a case in which he then proceeded to reverse a $10 million

judgment against the Ralston Purina Company (*96). Ralston Purina, the

animal feed empire, is the family fortune of Thomas' mentor, Senator

John Danforth. The Post limited its coverage of the Thomas malfeasance

to 56 words buried in the middle of a 1200-word article (*97). Would

Harwood have us believe that the almost complete blackout on this

matter by the major news media and the U.S. Senate was a matter of

coincidence? Could a Post reporter have written a story about Ralston

Purina if she had wanted to? Can a brick swim?



Or take the fine report produced last September by Ralph Nader's

Public Citizen. Titled All the Vice President's Men, it documents "How

the Quayle Council on Competitiveness Secretly Undermines Health,

Safety, and Environmental Programs". Three months later, Post

journalists David Broder and Bob Woodward published "The President's

Understudy", a seven-part series on Vice President Quayle. Although

this series does address Quayle's role with the Competitiveness

Council, its handling of the Council's disastrous impact on America is

inadequate. It is 40,000 words of mostly aimless chatter about Quayle

memorabilia: youth, family, college record, Christianity, political

aspirations, intellectual aspirations, wealthy friends, government

associates, golf, travels, wife Marilyn, and net worth -- revealing

little about Quayle's abilities, his understanding of society's

problems, or his thoughts about justice and freedom, and never

mentioning the comprehensive Nader study of Quayle's record in the

Bush Administration (*98).



Now, did Broder or did Woodward forget about the Nader study? Or did

both of them forget? Or did one, or the other, or both decide not to

mention it? Did these two celebrated, seasoned Post reporters ever

discuss together their jointly authored stories? Did they decide to

publish such a barren set of articles because it would enhance their

reputations? How did management feel about the use of precious news

space for such frivolity? Is it possible that so many pages were

dedicated to this twaddle without people "acting or working together

toward the same result or goal"? (*99) Do crocodiles fly?



On March 20, front-page headlines in the Wall Street Journal, the New

York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post read respectively:



TSONGAS DROPPED OUT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE CLEARING CLINTON'S PATH



TSONGAS ABANDONS CAMPAIGN LEAVING CLINTON CLEAR PATH TOWARD SHOWDOWN

WITH BUSH



TSONGAS CLEARS WAY FOR CLINTON



TSONGAS EXIT CLEARS WAY FOR CLINTON



This display of editorial independence should at least raise questions

of whether the news media collective mindset is really different from

that of any other cartel -- like oil, diamond, energy, (*100) or

manufacturing cartels, a cartel being "a combination of independent

commercial enterprises designed to limit competition" (*101).



The Washington Post editorial page carries the heading:



AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER



Is it? Of course not. There probably is no such thing. Does the Post

"conspire" to keep its staff and its newspaper from wandering too far

from the safety of mediocrity? The Post would respond that the

question is absurd. In that I am not privy to the Post's telephone

conversations, I can only speculate on how closely the media elite

must monitor the staff. But we all know how few micro-seconds it takes

a new reporter to learn what subjects are taboo and what are "safe",

and that experienced reporters don't have to ask.



What is more important, however, than speculating about how the Post

communicates within its own corporate structure and with other members

of the cartel, is to document and publicize what the Post does in

public, namely, how it shapes and censors the news.



Sincerely,



Julian C. Holmes



Copies to: Public-spirited citizens, both inside and outside the news

media, And - maybe a few others.

_________________________________________________________________



Notes to Letter of April 25, 1992:



1. Mark Hosenball, "The Ultimate Conspiracy", Washington Post,

September 11, 1988, p.C1



2a. Julian Holmes, Letter to Washington Post Ombudsman Richard

Harwood, June 4,1991. Notes that the Post censored, from the

Anderson/Van Atta column, references to the Christic Institute and to

Robert Gates.



2b. Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, "Iran-Contra Figure Dodges

Extradition", Washington Merry-Go-Round, United Feature Syndicate, May

26, 1991. This is the column submitted to the Post (see note 2a)..



2c. Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, "The Man Washington Doesn't Want

to Extradite", Washington Post, May 26, 1991. The column (see note

2b). as it appeared in the Post (see note 2a)..



3a. Case No. 86-1146-CIV-KING, Amended Complaint for RICO Conspiracy,

etc., United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, Tony

Avirgan and Martha Honey v. John Hull et al., October 3, 1986.



3b. Vince Bielski and Dennis Bernstein, "Reports: Contras Send Drugs

to U.S.", Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 16, 1986.



3c. Neal Matthews, "I Ran Drugs for Uncle Sam" (based on interviews

with Robert Plumlee, contra resupply pilot)., San Diego Reader, April

5, 1990.



4. Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press,

1987.



5a. Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics,

University ofCalifornia Press, 1991, p.179-181.



5b. David S. Hilzenrath, "Hill Panel Finds No Evidence Linking Contras

to Drug Smuggling", Washington Post, July 22, 1987, p.A07.



5c. Partial correction to the Washington Post of July 22, Washington

Post, July 24,1987, p.A3.



5d. The Washington Post declined to publish SubCommittee Chairman

Rangel's Letter- to-the-Editor of July 22, 1987. It was printed in the

Congressional Record on August 6, 1987, p.E3296-7.



6a. Michael Kranish, "Kerry Says US Turned Blind Eye to Contra-Drug

Trail", Boston Globe, April 10, 1988.



6b. Mary McGrory, "The Contra-Drug Stink", Washington Post, April 10,

1988, p.B1. 6c. Robert Parry with Rod Nordland, "Guns for Drugs?

Senate Probers Trace an Old Contra Connection to George Bush's

Office", Newsweek, May 23, 1988, p.22.



6d. Dennis Bernstein, "Iran-Contra -- The Coverup Continues", The

Progressive, November 1988, p.24.



6e. "Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy", A Report Prepared by

the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations

of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, December

1988.



7a. Mark Hosenball, "If It's October ... Then It's Time for an Iranian

Conspiracy Theory", Washington Post, October 9, 1988, p.D1.



7b. Mark Hosenball, "October Surprise! Redux! The Latest Version of

the 1980 'Hostage- Deal' Story Is Still Full of Holes", Washington

Post, April 21, 1991,p.B2.



8a. Barbara Honegger, October Surprise, New York: Tudor, 1989.



8b. Gary Sick, October Surprise, New York: Times Books, Random House,

1991.



9a. Abbie Hoffman and Jonathan Silvers, "An Election Held Hostage",

Playboy, October 1988, p.73.



9b. Robert Parry and Robert Ross, "The Election Held Hostage",

FRONTLINE, WGBH-TV,April 16, 1991.



10a. Reuter, "Ex-Hostages Seek Probe By Congress", Washington Post,

June 14,1991,p.A4.



10b. "An Election Held Hostage?", Conference, Dirksen Senate Office

Building Auditorium, Washington DC, June 13, 1991; Sponsored by The

Fund For New Priorities in America, 171 Madison Avenue, New York, NY,

10016.



11a. David Brown and Guy Gugliotta, "House Approves Inquiry Into

'OctoberSurprise'", Washington Post, February 6, 1992, p.A11.



11b. Jack Colhoun, "Lawmakers Lose Nerve on October Surprise", The

Guardian, December 11, 1991, p.7.



11c. Jack Colhoun, "October Surprise Probe Taps BCCI Lawyer", The

Guardian, February 26, 1992, p.3.



12. See note 5a, p.180-1.



13a. See note 4, p.229, 240-1.



13b. Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the

Iran-Contra Affair, Senate Report No. 100-216, House Report No.

100-433, November 1987, p.139-141.



14a. Letter to His Excellency Oscar Arias Sanchez, President of the

Republic of Costa Rica; from Members of the U.S. Congress David

Dreier, Lee Hamilton, Dave McCurdy, Dan Burton, Mary Rose Oakar, Jim

Bunning, Frank McCloskey, Cass Ballenger, Peter Kostmayer, Jim Bates,

Douglas Bosco, James Inhofe, Thomas Foglietta, Rod Chandler, Ike

Skelton, Howard Wolpe, Gary Ackerman, Robert Lagomarsino, and Bob

McEwen; January 26, 1989.



14b. Peter Brennan, "Costa Rica Considers Seeking Contra Backer in

U.S. -- Indiana Native Wanted on Murder Charge in 1984 Bomb Attack in

Nicaragua", WashingtonPost, February 1, 1990.



14c. "Costa Rica Seeks Extradition of Indiana Farmer", Scripps-Howard

News Service,April 25, 1991.



15. Press Release from the Costa Rican Embassy, Washington DC, On the

Case of the Imprisonment of Costa Rican Citizen John Hull", February

6, 1989.



16. Brian Glick, War at Home, Boston: South End Press, 1989.



17. John Stockwell, The Praetorian Guard-- The U.S. Role in the New

World Order, Boston: South End Press, 1991, p.121.



18. Hearings Before the Committee on Patents, United States Senate,

77th Cong., 2nd Session (1942)., part I, as cited in Joseph Borkin,

The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben, New York: The Free Press,

Macmillan, 1978, p.93.



19. R. Jeffrey Smith, "Study of A-Plant Neighbors' Health Urged",

Washington Post, July 13, 1990, p.A6.



20. Tom Horton, "A Cost Higher Than the Peace Dividend -- Price Tag

Mounts to Clean Up Nuclear Weapons Sites", Baltimore Sun, February 23,

1992, p.1K.



21. "The Nuclear Industry's Secret PR Strategy", EXTRA!, March 1992,

p.15.



22a. Samuel S. Epstein, MD et al, Losing the War Against Cancer: Need

for PublicPolicy Reform", Congressional Record, April 2, 1992,

p.E947-9.



22b. Samuel S. Epstein, "The Cancer Establishment", Washington Post,

March 10, 1992.



23a. Hon. Henry B. Gonzalez, "Efforts to Thwart Investigation of the

BNL Scandal", Congressional Record, March 30, 1992, p.H2005-2014.



23b. Hon. David E. Skaggs (CO)., White House Spin Control on Pre-War

Iraq Policy", Congressional Record, April 2, 1992, p.H2285.



23c. Nicholas Rostow, Special Assistant to the President and Legal

Adviser, Memorandum to Jeanne S. Archibald et al, "Meeting on

congressional requests for information and documents", April 8, 1991;

Congressional Record, April 2, 1992,p.H2285.



24a. Michio Kaku, "Operation Desert Lie: Pentagon Confesses", The



Guardian, March11, 1992, p.4.



24b. J. Max Robins, "NBC's Unaired Iraq Tapes Not a Black and White

Case", Variety Magazine, March 4, 1991, p.25.



25. Emory R. Searcy Jr., Clergy and Laity Concerned, Spring 1991

Letter to"Friends", p.1.



26. Jean Dimeo, "Selling Hispanics on Columbus -- Luis Vasquez-Ajmac

Is Hired to Promote Smithsonian Project", Washington Post, November

18, 1991, p.Bus.8.



27. Hans Koning, "Teach the Truth About Columbus", Washington Post,

September 3,1991, p.A19.



28a. James Kilpatrick, "Software-Piracy Case Emitting Big Stench", St.

Louis Post/Dispatch, March 18, 1991, p.3B. Elliot L. Richardson, "A

High-Tech Watergate", New York Times, October 21,1991.



29. "BCCI -- NBC Sunday Today", February 23, 1992, p.12; transcript

prepared by Burrelle's Information Services. The quote is from New

York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau who is running his own

independent investigation of BCCI.



30. Norman Bailey, former Reagan White House intelligence analyst;

from an interview with Mark Rosenthal of NBC News. See note 29, p.5.



31. Jack Colhoun, "BCCI Skeletons Haunting Bush's Closet", The

Guardian, September 18, 1991, p.9.



32. Robert Morgenthau. See note 29, p.10.



33. Russell Mokhiber, Corporate Crime and Violence, San Francisco:

Sierra ClubBooks, 1989 paperback edition, p.227.



34. See note 33, p.136-7.



35. Morton Mintz, At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon

Shield, NewYork: Pantheon, 1985. As cited in Mokhiber, see note 33,

p.157.



36. See note 33, p.164-171.



37. See note 33, p.172-180.



38. Michael Waldman, Who Robbed America?, New York: Random House,

1990. The quote is from Ralph Nader's Introduction, p.iii.



39. See note 33, p.217.



40. See note 33, p.235.



41. See note 33, p.277-288.



42. See note 33, p.323.



43. Katherine Hoyt Gonzalez, Nicaragua Network Education Fund

Newsletter, March1992, p.1.



44. William Blum, The CIA -- A Forgotten History, London: Zed Books

Ltd., 1986,p.232-243.



45a. John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, New York: Norton, 1978.



45b. See note 44, p.284-291.



46. See note 17, p.18.



47a. Letter to President George Bush from The Ad Hoc Committee for

Panama (James Abourezk et al)., January 10, 1990; published in The

Nation, February 5, 1990, p.163.



47b. Philip E. Wheaton, Panama, Trenton NJ: Red Sea Press, 1992,

p.145-7.



48a. Morton Mintz and Jerry S. Cohen, Power, Inc., New York: Bantam

Books, 1977,p.521.



48b. "The International Oil Cartel", Federal Trade Commission,

December 2, 1949. Cited in 48a, p.521.



49a. See note 44, p.67-76.



49b. See note 48a, p.530-1.



50. Ralph W. McGehee, Deadly Deceits, New York: Sheridan Square

Publications, 1983,p.60.



51. HR-3385, "An Act to Provide Assistance for Free and Fair Elections

in Nicaragua". Passed the U.S. House of Representatives on October 4,

1989 by avote of 263 to 136, and the Senate on October 17 by a vote of

64 to 35.



52. Jack Colhoun, "Gates Oozing Trail of Lies, Gets Top CIA Post", The

Guardian,November 20, 1991, p.6.



53. Carl Bernstein, Time, February 24, 1992, Cover Story p.28-35.



54. "The U.S. and the Vatican on Birth Control", Time, February 24,

1992, p.35.



55. "Time's Missing Link: Poland to Latin America", National Catholic

Reporter,February 28, 1992, p.24.



56a. Jim Lynn, "School of Americas Commander Hopes to Expand Mission",

Benning Patriot, February 21, 1992, p.12.



56b. Vicky Imerman, "U.S. Army School of the Americas Plans

Expansion", News Release from S.O.A. Watch, P.O. Bo 3330, Columbus,

Georgia 31903.



57. 60 MINUTES, CBS, March 8, 1992.



58. Jack Colhoun, "Tricky Dick's Quick Election Fix", The Guardian,

January 29,1992, p.18.



59a. Sean P. Murphy, "Several Probes May Have Ignored Evidence Against

Police", Boston Globe, July 28, 1991, p.1.



59b. Christopher B. Daly, "Pattern of Police Abuses Reported in Boston

Case", Washington Post, July 12, 1991, p.A3.



59c. Associated Press, "Dayton Police Probing Erasure of Arrest

Video", WashingtonPost, May 26, 1991, p.A20.



59d. Gabriel Escobar, "Deaf Man's Death In Police Scuffle Called

Homicide", Washington Post, May 18, 1991, p.B1.



59e. Jay Mathews, "L.A. Police Laughed at Beating", Washington Post,

March 19, 1991, p.A1.



59f. David Maraniss, "One Cop's View of Police Violence", Washington

Post, April 12,1991, p.A1.



59g. From News Services, "Police Abuse Detailed", Washington Post,

February 8, 1992,p.A8.



60. Michael Dobbs, "Panhandling the Kremlin: How Gus Hall Got

Millions", Washington Post, March 1, 1992, p.A1.



61. David Streitfeld, "Secret Consortium To Publish Rushdie In

Paperback", Washington Post, March 14, 1992, p.D1.



62a. See notes 48 and 49.



62b. See note 47b, p.63-76.



62c. "Fairness In Broadcasting Act of 1987", U.S. Senate Bill S742.



62d. "Now Let That 'Fairness' Bill Die", Editorial, Washington Post,



June 24, 1987. The Post opposed the Fairness in Broadcasting Act.



63. David E. Scheim, Contract on America -- The Mafia Murder of

President John F.Kennedy, New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1988,

p.viii.



64. See note 63, p.28.



65a. Chuck Conconi, "Out and About", Washington Post, February 26,

1991, p.B3.



65b. George Lardner Jr., "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland",

Washington Post, May19, 1991, p.D1.



65c. George Lardner, "...Or Just a Sloppy Mess", Washington Post, June

2, 1991,p.D3.



65d. Charles Krauthammer, "A Rash of Conspiracy Theories -- When Do We

Dig Up BillCasey?", Washington Post, July 5, 1991, p.A19.



65e. Eric Brace, "Personalities", Washington Post, October 31, 1991,

p.C3.



65f. Associated Press, "'JFK' Director Condemned -- Warren Commission

Attorney Calls Stone Film 'A Big Lie'", Washington Post, December 16,

1991, p.D14.



65g. Gerald R. Ford and David W. Belin, "Kennedy Assassination: How

About the Truth?", Washington Post, December 17, 1991, p.A21.



65h. Rita Kemply, "'JFK': History Through A Prism", Washington Post,

December 20,1991, p.D1.



65i. George Lardner Jr., "The Way it Wasn't -- In 'JFK', Stone

Assassinates the Truth", Washington Post, December 20, 1991, p.D2.



65j. Desson Howe, "Dallas Mystery: Who Shot JFK?", Washington Post,

December 20,1991, p.55.



65k. Phil McCombs, "Oliver Stone, Returning the Fire -- In Defending

His 'JFK' Conspiracy Film, the Director Reveals His Rage and

Reasoning", Washington Post, December 21, 1991, p.F1.



65l. George F. Will, "'JFK': Paranoid History", Washington Post,

December 26, 1991,p.A23.



65m. "On Screen", 'JFK' movie review, Washington Post, Weekend,

December 27, 1991.



65n. Stephen S. Rosenfeld, "Shadow Play", Washington Post, December

27, 1991, p.A21.



65o. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "The Paranoid Style", Washington Post,

December 29,1991, p.C7.



65p. Michael Isikoff, "H-e-e-e-e-r-e's Conspiracy! -- Why Did Oliver

Stone Omit (Or Suppress!). the Role of Johnny Carson?", Washington

Post, December 29, 1991,p.C2.



65q. Robert O'Harrow Jr., "Conspiracy Theory Wins Converts --

Moviegoers Say 'JFK' Nourishes Doubts That Oswald Acted Alone",

Washington Post, January 2, 1992, p.B1.



65r. Michael R. Beschloss, "Assassination and Obsession", Washington

Post, January 5, 1992, p.C1.



65s. Charles Krauthammer, "'JFK': A Lie, But Harmless", Washington

Post, January 10,1992, p.A19.



65t. Art Buchwald, "Bugged: The Flu Conspiracy", Washington Post,

January 14, 1992,p.E1.



65u. Ken Ringle, "The Fallacy of Conspiracy Theories -- Good on Film,

But the Motivation Is All Wrong", Washington Post, January 19, 1992,

p.G1.



65v. Charles Paul Freund, "If History Is a Lie -- America's Resort to

Conspiracy Thinking", Washington Post, January 19, 1992, p.C1.



65w. Richard Cohen, "Oliver's Twist", Washington Post Magazine,

January 19, 1992, p.5.



65. Michael Isikoff, "Seeking JFK's Missing Brain", Washington Post,

January 21,1992, p.A17.



65y. Don Oldenburg, "The Plots Thicken -- Conspiracy Theorists Are

Everywhere", Washington Post, January 28, 1992, p.E5.



65z. Joel Achenbach, "JFK Conspiracy: Myth vs. the Facts", Washington

Post, February 28, 1992, p.C5.



65A. List of books on the best-seller list: On the Trail of the

Assassins is characterized as "conspiracy plot theories", Washington

Post, March 8, 1992,Bookworld, p.12



66. See notes 65n, 65w, 65l, 65b, 65c, and 65i.



67a. Peter Dale Scott, "Vietnamization and the Drama of the Pentagon

Papers". Published in The Senator Gravel Edition of The Pentagon

Papers, Volume V,p.211-247.



67b. Peter Dale Scott, The War Conspiracy -- The Secret Road to the

Second Indochina War, Indianapolis/New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972, p.

215-224.



67c. L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team, Copyright 1973. New

printing, Costa Mesa CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1990,

p.402-416.



67d. See note 63, p.58, 183, 187, 194, 273-4.



67e. John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam, New York: Warner Books, 1992.



67f. Peter Dale Scott, Letter to the Editor, The Nation, March 9,

1992, p.290.



68a. See note 65b.



68b. Oliver Stone, "The Post, George Lardner, and My Version of the

JFK Assassination", Washington Post, June 2, 1991, p.D3.



69. See note 65b.



70. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of The Assassins, New York: Warner

Books, 1988, 315/318.



71. Associated Press, "Garrison, 2 Others, Found Not Guilty Of Bribery

Charge", Washington Post, September 28, 1973, p.A3.



72. See note 65c.



73. See note 65i.



74. See note 67e, p.438-450.



75. John G. Leyden, "Historians, Buffs, and Crackpots", Washington

Post, Bookworld, January 26, 1992, p.8.



76a. Tad Szulc, "New Doubts, Fears in JFK Assassination Probe",

Washington Star,September 19, 1975, p.A1.



76b. Tad Szulc, "Warren Commission's Self-Doubts Grew Day by Day --

'This Bullet Business Leaves Me Confused'", Washington Star, September



20, 1975, p.A1.



76c. Tad Szulc, "Urgent and Secret Meeting of the Warren Commission --

Dulles Proposed that the Minutes be Destroyed", Washington Star,

September 21, 1975,p.A1.



77. "Cable Sought to Discredit Critics of Warren Report", New York

Times, December 26, 1977, p.A37.



78. Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, 1979,p.141-2.



79a. Eve Pell, "Private Censorship -- Killing 'Katharine The Great'",

The Nation, November 12, 1983.



79b. Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, Bethesda MD: National Press,

1987. Davis says, "...corporate documents that became available during

my subsequent lawsuit against him [Harcourt Brace Jovanovich chairman,

William Jovanovich] showed that 20,000 copies [of Katharine the Great]

had been "processed and converted into waste paper"".



79c. Daniel Brandt, "All the Publisher's Men -- A Suppressed Book

About Washington Post Publisher Katharine Graham Is On Sale Again"

National Reporter, Fall 1987, p.60.



79d. Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, New York: Sheridan Square

Press, 1991. "...publishers who don't give a shit", p.iv-v; bullying

HBJ into recalling the book, p.iv-vi; lawsuit and settlement, p..



80. Benjamin C. Bradlee, Letter to Deborah Davis, April 1, 1987. See

note 79d, p.304.



81. See note 79d, p.119-132.



82. Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media -- How America's Most

Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence

Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up", Rolling Stone,

October 20, 1977, p.63.



83a. Daniel Brandt, Letter to Richard L. Harwood of The Washington

Post, September 15, 1988. The letter asks for the Post's rationale for

its policy of protecting government covert actions, and whether this

policy is still in effect.



83b. Daniel Brandt, "Little Magazines May Come and Go", The National

Reporter, Fall 1988, p.4. Notes the Post's protection of the identity

of CIA agent Joseph F.Fernandez. Brandt says, "America needs to

confront its own recent history as well as protect the interests of

its citizens, and both can be accomplished by outlawing peacetime

covert activity. This would contribute more to thesecurity of

Americans than all the counterterrorist proposals and elite strike

forces that ever found their way onto Pentagon wish-lists."



83c. Richard L. Harwood, Letter to Daniel Brandt, September 28, 1988.

Harwood's two- sentence letter reads, "We have a long-standing policy

of not naming covert agents of the C.I.A., except in unusual

circumstances. We applied that policy to Fernandez."



84. See note 79d, p.131.



85. Katharine Graham, "Safeguarding Our Freedoms As We Cover Terrorist

Acts", Washington Post, April 20, 1986, p.C1.



86. "conspire", ß4ßRandom House Dictionary of the English Language,

Second Edition Unabridged, 1987.



87. Howard Kurtz, "Media Notes", Washington Post, June 18, 1991, p.D1.



88. See note 65y.



89. See note 65n.



90. See note 65d.



91. William Casey, Private Communications with JCH, March 1992.



Richard Harwood, "What Conspiracy?", Washington Post, March 1, 1992,

p.C6.



93. p. 29-32.



94a. Washington Post Electronic Data Base, Dialog Information Services

Inc., April 25, 1992. In 1991 and 1992, the name Bill Clinton appeared

in 878 Washington Post stories, columns, letters, or editorials;

"Jerry" Brown in 485, Pat Buchanan in 303, and Larry Agran in 28. In

those 28, Agran's name appeared 76 times, Clinton's 151, and Brown

105. In only 1 of those 28 did Agran's name appear in a headline.



94b. Colman McCarthy, "What's 'Minor' About This Candidate?",

Washington Post, February 1, 1992. Washington Post columnist McCarthy

tells how television and party officials have kept presidential

candidate Larry Agran out of sight. The Post's own daily news-blackout

of Agran is not discussed.



94c. Scot Lehigh, "Larry Agran: 'Winner' in Debate With Little Chance

For the Big Prize", Boston Globe, February 25, 1992.



94d. Joshua Meyrowitz, "The Press Rejects a Candidate", Columbia

Journalism Review,March/April, 1992.



95. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Effete Conspiracy And Other Crimes By The

Press, NewYork: Harper and Row, 1972, p.36-7.



96a. 28 USC Section 455. "Any justice, judge, or magistrate of the

United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his

impartiality might reasonably be questioned." [emphasis added]



96b. Alpo Petfoods, Inc. v. Ralston Purina Co., 913 F2d 958 (CA DC

1990)..



96c. Monroe Freedman, "Thomas' Ethics and the Court -- Nominee 'Unfit

to Sit' For Failing to Recuse In Ralston Purina Case", Legal Times,

August 26, 1991.



96d. Paul D. Wilcher, "Opposition to the Confirmation of Judge

Clarence Thomas to become a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court on the

grounds of his JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT", Letter to U.S. Senator Joseph R.

Biden, October 15, 1991.



97. Al Kamen and Michael Isikoff, "'A Distressing Turn', Activists



Decry What Process Has Become", Washington Post, October 12, 1991,

p.A1.



98. January 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 1992, p.A1 each day.



99. See note 86.



100. Thomas W. Lippman, "Energy Lobby Fights Unseen 'Killers'",

Washington Post,April 1, 1992, p.A21. This article explains that

"representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National

Association of Manufacturers and the coal, oil, natural gas, offshore

drilling and nuclear power industries, whose interests often conflict,

pledged to work together to oppose amendments limiting offshore oil

drilling, nuclear power and carbon dioxide emissions soon to be

offered by key House members".



101. "cartel", Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1977.



