plane, a feat that seriously damaged U.S.-Soviet relations at arntime when they seemed to be on the mend. President Eisenhowerrntried at first to fob the incident off as the case of an unfortunaternweather-reconnaissance aircraft that had gone astray,rnbut he was compelled to admit the truth when it turned outrnthat the Russians had captured the U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers.rnI believe the modern loss of credibility of the Americanrnpresidency dates from that event.rnThat evening, riding down from the Post’s fifth-floor newsroom,rn1 found myself sharing the elevator with one of the paper’srnsenior editors. Seizing an opportunity to make conversationrnwith a newsroom personage I rarely got to meet, I saidrnsomething like, “That was quite a story today about the spyrnplane, wasn’t it?” “Yes,” he replied. “We’ve known aboutrnthose flights for some time, but we were asked not to say anything.”rnIn my youthful innocence, I was astonished. Could it be thatrnthis great newspaper I worked for—this great liberal newspaperrnI worked for—would come into possession of a news story ofrnmajor significance but suppress it because some they asked usrnnot to publish it? I subsequently learned, of course, that thernWashington Post, like other significant national media, hadrneditors who were designated to maintain liaison with the CIA,rnthe FBI, and—if need be—other national security agencies tornreceive briefings and guidance on sensitive stories.rnOne evening, while working on the Post’s foreign desk, I wasrncautioned about the handling of another story then in thernnews: an American pilot had been captured by the governmentrnof Indonesia’s President Sukarno while flying for anti-Sukarnorninsurgents. Sukarno charged that the pilot was employed byrnthe CIA; our government insisted—and the Post dutifully reportedrn—that he was a soldier of fortune freelancing for the Indonesianrnrebels. As the newspaper’s foreign editor left for thernevening, he instructed me, “Be careful with any wire-servicerncopy about that pilot in Indonesia; he’s CIA, you know.”rnSome years ago, when the New York Times had invested arngreat deal of time, effort, and expense in compiling an invesi:rnigative scries on the misdeeds and misadventures of the CIA,rnit circulated the finished articles among senior members of thernU.S. national security establishment to make sure all the newsrnwould be fit to print.rnAs editor of The Progressive, I encounter instances everyrnmonth where the mainstream media, in their eagerness tornprotect the status quo (or worse), have distorted or suppressedrnstories in pursuit of a political agenda that can only be characterizedrnas slavish devotion to conservative causes and values. Inrnfact, counteracting that sort of deception and suppression is thernraison d’etre of our magazine. A couple of examples.rnIn the September 1982 issue of The Progressive, the cover storyrnby contributing editor Samuel H. Day, Jr., was called “ThernAfrikaner Bomb,” and it began this way: “South Africa has itsrnown atomic bomb. It was conceived in the mid-1970s as anrnaee-in-thc-holc to ensure survival of Pretoria’s beleagueredrnwhite-minority regime. It was built in utmost secrecy by arnscientific-industrial establishment which, like those of otherrnadvanced industrial nations, has long had the potential to producernnuclear weapons. The successful test of that weaponrnmade South Africa the seventh nation to detonate a nuclear devicernand the first since the U.S. test at Alamagordo to haverndone so without immediate public acknowledgment. Despiternwidespread international suspicion about South Africa’s nuclearrnintentions, the impact of its entry into the nuclearrnweapons club has been obscured by uncertainties about thernfacts—doubts that have been sedulously fostered by the Pretoriarngovernment in tacit cooperation with the United States.”rnSam Day had spent seven weeks in South Africa conducting researchrnfor his article. He was a former editor of the Bulletin ofrnthe Atomic Scientists. We assumed that his carefully documentedrnfindings would get the media attention they deserved.rnWe sent out news releases and copies of The Progressive, butrnthey fell into a bottomless pit of media silence; our news wasrnnot officially sanctioned. The South African apartheid government’srndenials had more credibility with the mass media thanrnThe Progressive’s facts.rnIn March 1995, as the apartheid regime was on the verge ofrndissolution, President F.W. de Klerk acknowledged that SouthrnAfrica had begun building a nuclear arsenal in 1977. It wasrnfront-page news everywhere. The media referred to it as a “disclosure,”rnbut it was not; it was merely long-overdue confirmationrnof a story they had declined to publish when it was news.rnAnother cover story, in the May 1984 issue of The Progressive,rnwas headed “Behind the Death Squads: An Exclusive Reportrnon the U.S. Role in El Salvador’s Official Terror.” Alan Nairn,rna young investigative reporter with much experience in CentralrnAmerica, had put his life at risk by spending five weeks in ElrnSalvador interviewing military officers, civilian officials, membersrnof the security forces, American diplomats, and othersrnabout the death squads. He began his story this way: “Early inrnthe 1960s, during the Kennedy Administration, agents of thernU.S. Government in El Salvador set up two official security organizationsrnthat killed thousands of peasants and suspectedrnleftists over the next fifteen years. These organizations, guidedrnby American operatives, developed into the paramilitary apparatusrnthat came to be known as the Salvadoran DeathrnSquads. Today, even as the Reagan Administration publiclyrncondemns the Death Squads, the CIA—in violation of U.S.rnlaw—continues to provide training, support, and intelligence tornsecurity forces directly involved in Death Squad activity.”rnNairn went on to name names and provide specifics ofrnAmerican and Salvadoran government complicity in torture,rnmurder, and other atrocities. Once again, we sent out news releasesrnand copies of the magazine; we were sure the mass mediarnwould be unable to avoid reporting Nairn’s findings. Oncernagain, we encountered a virtually total blackout. We believedrnit was urgently important to call Nairn’s story to the attentionrnof Congress, so we scrounged up enough money to publish itrnas a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post—the onlyrnway we could get the news into that great “liberal” newspaper.rnhi March 1993, the United Nations Truth Commissionrnmade public its report on human-rights abuses in El Salvador,rnconfirming the sum and substance of Nairn’s nine-year-old article.rnFortunately, the U.N. commission did not have to buy advertisingrnspace to make its findings known; they were officialrnnews, and they made front pages and evening newscasts everywhere.rn1 have dwelled on these instances for two reasons: first, becausernthey involve media that are scorned by conservatives asrnquintessentially “leftist,” and, second, because they involvernforeign policy issues that obviously ought to be matters of thernbroadest possible public discussion and debate. It is easy to forget,rnalmost 30 years after the fact, that even the Vietnam Warrnreceived almost nothing but cheerleader coverage until dissentrnat home and failure abroad made the war unsupportable. IrnOCTOBER 1994/21rnrnrn