January 13, 2018

Word: The Washington Post and Vietnam

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy:  Katharine Graham’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers was indeed laudable, helping to expose lies that had greased the wheels of the war machinery with such horrific consequences in Vietnam. But the Washington Post was instrumental in avidly promoting the lies that made the Vietnam War possible in the first place. No amount of rave reviews or Oscar nominations for ‘The Post’ will change that awful truth.

2 comments:

Amarantha said...

Yes, indeed. I was a copygirl for a brief period during this crucial time in America's history. One of my fellow copygirls made the horrific mistake of hand sketching a dove on the mimeographed sheet that went upstairs (Graham and crew) with the list of the possible front page articles.

All - ahem - broke loose. Mrs. Graham herself wanted to "fire" the peon who had such audacity.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Anonymous said...

Sapir,our greatest cultural anthropologist, created in 1917 the notion of culture as that which produces fulfilled lives. Great tribal cultures that produced a Crazy Horse or a Nanook of the North are genuine cultures whereas the urban industrial culture of the telephone operator is spurious. Within journalism a limited hangout such as the pentagon papers is spurious culture. Genuine whistleblowing is always rejected out of hand such as the verdict in the Jowers case proving the official conspiracy in the murder of MLK which went unreported and is treated as an embarrassment if mentioned, as Jim Garrison could understand. Journalism in our culture is merely gatekeeping not genuinely fulfilling as with the muckrakers or Mencken.