From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive Auto-Poster)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: THE OCTOBER SUPRISE: "Probes and Possibilities" (2)
Date: 29 Aug 92 06:22:06 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB


    "It doesn't have sex in it, but it has morality, human suffering, 
    wrongdoing in high places and an issue people are going to be 
    concerned about -- the future of our democracy. What we have here 
    are men who were willing to sacrifice the liberty and health of 
    their fellow Americans to win an election. This is a very basic 
    moral issue. 

   "There has to be signals sent to members of Congress who are 
    coming up for re-election that they want to be on the right side 
    of the issue.  People are outraged. This is going to spread." 

                    ============================= 
                    T H E   F I R S T   S T O N E 
                    ============================= 
                           By Joel Bleifuss 
                [In These Times, May 1-7, 1991, page 4] 


                          ================= 
                          c o n t i n u e d 
                          ================= 

According to former hostage Moorehead Kennedy, there are 
two legal grounds on which to bring suit. Kennedy, who 
graduated from Harvard Law School but chose a career with the 
foreign service, explains, "Number one, this is kidnapping, and an 
accessory or a co-conspirator to a kidnapping has the same guilt 
as one who has been involved since the beginning.  Two, there is 
an old-fashioned tort called false imprisonment." Kennedy is 
hopeful that the hostages and their attorneys can all "pull to- 
gether on this." 

Besides Weinglass, two other lawyers may be possible counsels 
to the former hostages -- Los Angeles attorney Jim Davis, who 
represented 13 hostages in a 1981 suit that contested the U.S. 
government's negotiated settlement with Iran, and Alan 
Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor who represented 
Claus von Bulow and who now has been consulted by some hos- 
tages. 

ON ALL FRONTS: Kennedy is the director of the Moorehead Ken- 
nedy Institute, an educational organization that gives seminars on 
political ethics. He is also an Episcopal lay minister and the Re- 
publican Party's deputy district leader in Lower Manhattan, an 
area of the city that he claims is home to some yuppies who are 
closet Republicans. 

In addition to legal recourse by former hostages, Kennedy ad- 
vocates a probe by a non-partisan citizens' committee, as well as 
the formation of a hostages' committee. This committee, as he 
envisions it, would publicize the issue by raising money and put- 
ting ads in newspapers and on TV. 

Further, he says, pressure should be put on Congress. "There 
has to be signals sent to members of Congress who are coming 
up for re-election that they want to be on the right side of the 
issue. People are outraged. This is going to spread. It doesn't 
have sex in it, but it has morality, human suffering, wrongdoing in 
high places and an issue people are going to be concerned 
about -- the future of our democracy. What we have here are men 
who were willing to sacrifice the liberty and health of their fellow 
Americans to win an election. This is a very basic moral issue. 

"Some people are concerned that, with the pressures that the 
Bush administration are under, anybody who is critical is going 
to pay for it," he continues. "But this just shows the state of our 
democracy that people would express such an idea." 

"I have good old-fashioned Christian faith. I believe in original 
sin. I'm not surprised and it doesn't bother me when people do 
bad things. But I am Bothered when they end up in high places 
and nobody dares to criticize them,' says Kennedy "We've got to 
purge this." 

SERVANT OF POWER? One news organization that has recently 
covered the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign is the Washington Post. 
On April 21 it featured an opinion piece in its "Outlook" section 
by Mark Hosenball, the same journalist who in October 1988 
deemed the 1980 arms-for-hostages story "a rumor that just won't 
die," one that was being spread by "aficionados of intrigue" and 
"rumor mongers." (See In These Times, Oct. 19,1988.) 

Picking up where he left off two and a half years ago, Hosenball 
wrote on April 21. "The allegations have knocked around in fash- 
ionable publications and among the chattering classes in New 
York, Washington and Hollywood for years, but last week they hit 
the big time. The New York Times article by former Carter admin- 
istration official Gary Sick, and the subsequent PBS [Frontline] 
broadcast gave a new lease on life .... to a story which has ob- 
sessed a small brigade of conspiracy theorists and journalistic 
gadflies for years ... a mischevous interpretation of highly cir- 
cumstantial evidence." 

As a result of these and other articles, a new verb has entered 
the Washington lexicon --  "Hosenballed." 

Can't they find a new person?" wonders Robert Parry, the 
former Newsweek journalist who reported the Frontline expose. 
It became sort of a pattern. Any journalist who would quote or 
investigate these charges is attacked by Hosenball.  The effect of 
having Hosenball in the 'Outlook' section is to delegitimize the 
story. When reporters feel they are going to be ridiculed in 
Washington in this snotty, sophomoric way, they pull away from 
following leads. 

"As the psy-ops [psychological operations] people always tell 
you, the best way to neutralize your opponent is to make them an 
object of ridicule. The effect of such ridicule has kept this story 
from being seriously treated for years, and right now Hosenball is 
working overtime being sure it goes back to the fringes." 

Parry believes that someone miscalculated when they assigned 
Hosenball the story. "I think this is a rear-guard action," says 
Parry "There are now millions of Americans who think the elec- 
tion was interfered with and that they were denied the use of 
their franchise. And a democracy can't let that continue." 

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