Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Extra! Extra!

How it could have been reported by the Washington Post:

Oct 20, 1962 (Washington, DC) - The Washington Post has learned that United States is on the verge of invading the island of Cuba, on the pretext of "offensive missiles" placed there by the Soviet Union, although the United States Government has not presented evidence to support this claim.

Post journalists report an enormous amount of preparation and staging of United States land, air, and naval forces in the southeastern United States and in the Carribean. Post reporters also have learned of round-the-clock meetings of White House National Security personnel and cabinet members in the Executive Office Building in the past several days.

The Washington Post has been approached by high-ranking members of the Kennedy Administration to suppress the publication of this information "in the most critical interests of national security", however in this morning's newspaper editorial Post Publisher Phillip L. Graham justified his refusal to delay publication of this story, stating:

As most of our readers know, there is a large wall between the news and opinion operations of this paper, and we were not part of the news side's debates about whether to publish the latest story under contention ...There have been times in this paper's history when editors have decided not to print something they knew. In some cases, like the Kennedy administration's plans for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seems in hindsight that the editors were over-cautious...Our news colleagues work under the assumption that they should let the people know anything important that the reporters learn, unless there is some grave and overriding reason for withholding the information. They try hard not to base those decisions on political calculations, like whether a story would help or hurt the administration...[this] story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since assuming office, this administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against the Soviet Union and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government...the country endured a long period of amorphous, global vigilance against an enemy who was suspected of boring from within, and history suggests that under those conditions, it is easy to err on the side of security and secrecy. The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process...*

The Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, upon learning of Post story, stated that the USSR will defend Cuba from any US attack, and by any means necessary. He also said, "clearly with the disclosure of its aggessive intentions there will now be an intensive effort by the United States Government to produce fabricated evidence to justify this unprovoked aggession." Gromyko also said that the USSR will call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council for a resolution to require the United States to halt all military manuevers in the Carribean and the SE United States, to put all of its nuclear weapons systems in a stand-down status, and an additonal resolution to require the US to pledge not to invade Cuba. Radio Havana reports that Fidel Castro has sent emissaries to all Latin American countries to assure them that no "offensive" weapons systems are in Cuba, and to ask them to resist a likely call by the United States for OAS support in invading Cuba.

*this quote, with some omission and rewording for grammar, is taken from the New York Times editorial "Patriotism and the Press", in response to the Times publication of the story disclosing the financial tracking of terror money. In actuality the Post delayed their story until after Kennedy disclosed to the nation of the Cuban missiles (and after it was clear that we had caught the Soviets in a lie).

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