Death of the Liberal Class - Chris Hedges [98]
“Then something very interesting happened,” Nader told me:The pressure of these meetings by the corporations like General Motors, the oil companies, and the drug companies with the editorial people, and probably with the publishers, coincided with the emergence of the most destructive force to the citizen movement mise-en-scène: Abe Rosenthal, the editor of the New York Times. Rosenthal was a right-winger from Canada who hated communism, came here, and hated progressivism. The Times was not doing that well at the time. Rosenthal was commissioned to expand his suburban sections, which required a lot of advertising. He was very receptive to the entreaties of corporations, and he did not like me. I would give material to Jack Morris in the Washington bureau, and it would not get in the paper.
Rosenthal, who banned social critics such as Chomsky from being quoted in the paper, decreed that no story built around Nader’s research could be published unless there was a corporate response. Corporations, informed of Rosenthal’s dictate, refused to comment on Nader’s research. This effectively killed the stories. The Times set the agenda for national news coverage. Once Nader disappeared from the Times, other major papers and networks did not feel compelled to report on his investigations. He found it harder and harder to be heard.
Much as Mr. Mister of The Cradle Will Rock hires a detective to spy on his enemies, General Motors hired detectives to dig up dirt on Nader’s personal life. They found none. The company had Nader followed in an attempt to blackmail him. They sent an attractive woman to his neighborhood Safeway in a failed bid to seduce him while he was shopping. GM’s campaign was exposed and led to a public apology by the company. Nader was awarded $425,000 in damages, which he used to fund citizen action groups.
But far from ending the effort to destroy Nader, the defeat in court only spurred corporations to unleash a more sophisticated and well-funded attack. Lewis Powell, who was the general counsel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and would later be appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote a memo in August 1971 that expressed corporate concern over Nader’s work: “Perhaps the single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader, who—thanks largely to the media—has become a legend in his own time and an idol of millions of Americans.” Powell goes on to recommend: “There should be no hesitation to attack the Naders, the Marcuses, and others who openly seek destruction of the system. There should not be the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it.
“Moreover,” Powell went on:much of the media—for varying motives and in varying degrees—either voluntarily accords unique publicity to these “attackers,” or at least allows them to exploit the media for their purposes. This is especially true of television, which now plays such a predominant role in shaping the thinking, attitudes and emotions of our people. One of the bewildering paradoxes of our time is the extent to which the enterprise system tolerates, if not participates in, its own destruction .28
The eight-page memo, entitled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” became the blueprint for corporate dominance. Powell’s memo led to the establishment of the Business Roundtable, which amassed enough money and power to direct government policy and mold public opinion. It inspired the activities of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy,