Subject NATIONAL MEDIA IGNORING CIA MISDEEDS Written 441 pm Feb 25, 1991 by christic in cd

Subject: NATIONAL MEDIA IGNORING CIA MISDEEDS
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 Written 4:41 pm Feb 25, 1991 by christic in cdp:christic.news 

   NATIONAL MEDIA IGNORING CIA MISDEEDS 

  Project Censored: Nomination for the "Ten Best Censored Stories of 1990" 

  In the wake of Watergate, it appeared that journalists were intent on 
exposing a wide range of government and corporate misdeeds. And scandalous 
activities of the Central Intelligence Agency seemed to be on top of the 
list ... and deserved to be there.  

  These days, however, the investigative journalism successes of the 
Watergate era seem like a distant memory. And our national news media--in 
particular network television--have shown little interest in a number of 
scandals involving the CIA, including stories such as: 

  --The CIA and the savings and loan scam. Houston Post reporter Peter 
Brewton was virtually the only mainstream journalist to tackle this complex 
story.  Brewton's reporting traced the CIA's involvement in the failure of 
dozens of thrifts, ranging from the se of fraudulent proceeds to finance 
covert operations, to CIA intervention in criminal investigations involving 
agency operatives.  

  --The CIA and drugs. Little media attention was paid to the 1989 Costa 
Rican Congressional Commission major investigation of narcotics in that 
country, which concluded that the contra resupply network, set up by Oliver 
North and CIA station chief Joseph Fernandez had facilitated cocaine traffic 
through Costa Rica into the U.S.  

  --The CIA's role in the secret war on Nicaragua. Among other things, the 
agency was responsible for the mining of harbors, advising Contra rebels 
with handbooks on how to assassinate Sandanista officials, and the LaPenca 
bombing.  

  --The CIA and Nelson Mandela. The Cox Newspapers' mid-1990 report that the 
CIA, using an agent inside the ANC, gave the South African government the 
information it needed to find and arrest Mandela in 1962.  

  --The CIA's role in the slaughter of suspected communists in Indonesia in 
1965. The Spartanburg, S.C., Herald Journal's May 1990 report that CIA and 
State Department officials passed lists of "possible communists" to the 
Indonesian government which were used in the extermination of more than 
250,000 people.  

  Logic and experience tell us that it is time to question the system of 
secret government. It is a system alien to American principles and defective 
in practice. But to question it, we must first become aware of it. And if 
the media won't expose it, who will?  

  SOURCES: THE OREGONIAN, 5/17/90, "National Media Ignoring CIA Misdeeds," 
by Martin A. Lee; NEW YORK TIMES, 6/12/90, "An Alien System," by Anthony 
Lewis.  


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