SELLING THE PENTAGON, SELLING THE WAR IN IRAQ, SELLING THEIR HONOR

Selling_of_the_pentagonIn 1971, when I worked at CBS News in Washington, the network
aired a documentary called The Selling of the PentagonThe Museum of Broadcasting  website says:  "The
aim of this film, produced by Peter Davis, was to examine the increasing
utilization and cost to the taxpayers of public relations activities by the
military-industrial complex in order to shape public opinion in favor of the
military." 
The Congress tried to cite CBS for contempt – it was
a real drama.  In his book The Place to Be, my mentor
Roger Mudd tells the whole story better than I ever could – he was the
correspondent on the award-winning program.  Despite all that happened,
there was real satisfaction in knowing that the film had made a difference –
that our defense dollars would go to protect and support our soldiers, not a
military PR campaign.

Ah, but like all good news, it was short-lived.  Maybe not too short – we
made it to 2008 — but the whole thing is back – and because it’s about Iraq
and Guantanamo this time, not just some recruiting and appropriations
manipulation, it’s far more malignant.

Sunday, the New York Times reported on the courtship of
those military "experts" who show up on the TODAY SHOW and NIGHTLINE
and CNN to tell us the facts behind our country’s military initiatives.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar
fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as
“military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative
and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11
world.

Hidden behind that appearance of
objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those
analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the
administration’s wartime performance
, an examination by The New York Times has
found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit
ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic:
Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war
policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever
disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But
collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts
represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives,
board members or consultants.

Of course, this one is a little different – these
guys are consultants to the media, and while the Pentagon enables their
"expertise" and offers the heft of the tours of Guantanamo and classified briefings, their money comes from their lucrative  consultancies with military vendors, not from the Pentagon directly.  But think about it.  If we really
were manipulated; if the arguments for the Iraq war were as flawed as we now believe, then these consultants — follow the bread crumbs — are at least partly responsible for the attitudes that permitted the war to take place and discouraged many of those who might have stopped it
I don’t know about you, but when I hear stories
about Abu Ghraib and the things that
were done in our names, and think of how little I’ve done to instigate change,
resting instead on the actions of my youth. I think about all the Germans who
said the "didn’t know" what was going on.  I don’t mean that a
few soldiers, none of whose leaders has been prosecuted and who are taking the
rap for things that went way beyond them — are the equivalent of Nazi
Germany.  That would be stupid and facile.  What I am saying is that
the horrible things that emerged from this war are on all our heads – and that
these guys whose testimony to us via countless talking head interviews
legitimized what was going on, enabled it all.

The reason I started with The Selling of the
Pentagon
is that it’s such a lesson.  Whatever change we help to
implement won’t last – Abolitionist Wendell Phillips was
right when he said that "eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty."   In 1971 the documentary outraged Americans who
demanded change.  Today we still recall the events at Abu Ghraib the same
way – with a deep and painful sense of outrage.  Once again, on our watch
this time, bad things have been done in our names.
Once again, dissemblers reign.  The consequences of their betrayal,
whether the story is true or not, are tragically visible.  Once again —
our hearts are broken.  Once again – we must share the blame for what
happened there.

Once again, whatever is left of our better angels
looks warily about, frightened, silenced, sad and ashamed.

 

NEW FRIENDS ON MY OLD TURF: MOMMY BLOGGERS VISIT KATIE AT CBS NEWS

Katie_shakes_hands
What are the odds?  I spent what would have been my prime mommy-blogging years, before the Interweb was anyone’s darling, working at CBS News at 524 West 57th St.  Now, some of my sweet, funny mommy blogging friends went through the same door I used every day for 7 years to meet with Katie Couric.  Here’s what happened:

Pretty cool, huh?  My 9 years at TODAY never crossed with Katie and clearly my CBS years were the "Place to Be" years, well before hers but it sure was fun to see the girlfriends sashay on in and charm her to pieces.  But then, that’s what they do.

Blogger roll call for The Visit – drawn from original host SV(Silicon Valley) Moms:

THE PLACE TO BE: ROGER MUDD’S NEW BOOK AND SO MANY MEMORIES

Roger_mudd_book
In 1968, when I was working in the McCarthy Campaign against the Vietnam War, one of the producers traveling with the campaign asked me to come work with her at the CBS News Washington Bureau when the campaign ended.  I was thrilled.  I had, however, no idea how thrilled I really should be. Imagine a 21-year-old, just out of college and the trauma of the riots in Chicago and McCarthy’s loss of the Democratic nomination (yes, we knew it would happen, but not in our hearts), walking through the door of 2020 M St. NW – the august CBS News Washington Bureau — (Walter Cronkite‘s Washington Bureau!) because I had a job there.

Working there when I showed up: Bruce Morton, Bob Schieffer, George Herman, Daniel Schorr, Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb and his brother Bernie... and my mentor and friend Roger Mudd.  They were, really, giants (yes, I know they were all men.  Marya McLaughlin died a long time ago; Leslie Stahl arrived a couple of years later).  CBS News ruled the Hill and the White House and everywhere else inside the beltway.  And we did it with enormous scruples; I was trained to be a journalist by these guys, as well as Bureau Chief Bill Small and Face the Nation Producer Sylvia Westerman.  And have been grateful the rest of my life for the privilege.

Roger wrote a book about those years — it’s called The Place to Be because, really, that’s what the bureau was in those days.  And last night, on publication day, there was a party. It was better than a class reunion.  Everyone from the teen-aged desk assistant (now I think in his 40s) to the Washington director  to the octogenarian make-up lady, to those guys we’ve all heard of, were there.  All having a blast remembering those remarkable years.

I’ve been out of the daily news business for some time, and in a way the party reminded me why.  The classy, funny, unpretentious, smart, great people who taught me how to listen and pay attention, ask questions and check my sources, feed the crew first and never leave a person without getting their phone number… I hate to sound like an old fogey but there really aren’t so many like that any more.  For me, Roger is the dean of all of them, not only because I know him best but also because of his deep sense of honor and love of history, humor, curiosity and devotion to his family, and his unfailing kindness and generosity to me.  It was wonderful to hear everyone so happy and proud for him, glad he’d finally written down some of the historic understanding and institutional memory we all treasure. 

I suppose it’s the same when anyone we love finds special success – a promotion, a graduation, a painting or a no-hitter, for that matter.  But because of what’s become of the news business, because it’s now so much more business than news, because of the great joy and pride we felt and how hard we worked to earn the right to feel it, I felt a special warmth and longing last night: grateful for the opportunity I had to share what is universally regarded as a golden moment in journalism – those years in the Washington Bureau — and so very sorry that it’s so hard to find that gold – any gold — anymore.