Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [276]
19. Diana Johnstone, “Latest Scandal Leads to Reagan Administration,” In These Times, December 5–11, 1984.
20. Tana de Zulueta and Peter Godwin, “Face to Face with the Colonel Accused of Plotting to Kill the Pope,” Sunday Times, May 26, 1983, p. 50.
21. “Behind the Scenes of the ‘Agca Investigation,’” Milliyet, November 1984. This excellent two-part series by Milliyet’s correspondent in West Germany describes the Italian investigation then in process as an extremely biased and incompetently managed exercise. Its many inconvenient but highly relevant facts may also have contributed to it being entirely ignored in the Western press.
22. For a discussion of the various suspicious aspects of this photo identification, see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 110–11.
23. De Zulueta and Godwin, “Face to Face with the Colonel …,” p. 50. Even during the investigative phase of the case, it was disclosed that Agca’s sensational knowledge of the telephone numbers of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome was slightly compromised by the disclosure that he had “inadvertently” been left alone with a copy of the Rome phone directory. For other illustrations, see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 112, 118–19.
24. The first significant departure in the mass media from the SHK model, even though no alternative was offered, did not occur till May 12, 1983, on ABC-TV’s “20/20,” On the pattern of deviations here and later, see note 26 below.
25. Late in this long article, Newsweek does state in passing that “It is difficult to believe that the Soviets would expect the murder of the pope to solve their Polish problem. To some, it seems odd that the Soviets would put their fate in the hands of Bulgarians and Turks, depriving themselves of the control that is so essential to a ticklish intelligence operation.” These sentences, unusual in the mass media for raising such questions, sit alone and undeveloped, after a lengthy discourse that accepts the SHK analysis as valid.
26. The only programs on national television that challenged the propaganda frame were on ABC: one, and the only program in five years of television coverage that showed the slightest degree of network enterprise, critical capability, and honesty, was a program “To Kill the Pope,” aired on “20/20” on May 12, 1983. Subsequently, ABC also had a program in which Sterling debated with Alexander Cockburn, although this was arranged unbeknownst to Sterling, who was enraged at having to have her views contested. (See Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 123–24, for the story of this encounter.) Among the newspapers, a propaganda conformity prevailed until the time that prosecutor Albano’s report was made public in June 1984, when Michael Dobbs, of the Washington Post, began to take a more critical view, along with Don Schanche, of the Los Angeles Times. While skeptical of Agca’s claims over the next several years, Dobbs remained equally skeptical of the idea that Agca was coached, which he referred to as “the Bulgarian view.” Dobbs never seriously explored the coaching hypothesis. See Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, “The Small Voices of Dissent,” pp. 199–202.
27. Martella visited Washington, D.C., in October 1982, during which time he benefited not only from the insights of Arnauld de Borchgrave, but was also given a special viewing of the NBC-TV special on “The Man Who Shot the Pope” (see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 24–27). Ledeen may have had a more direct involvement in the initiation of the case in Italy, a charge made by Francesco Pazienza. See Diana Johnstone, “Bulgarian Connection: Finger-pointing in the Pontiff Plot Labyrinth,” In These Times, January 29–February 4, 1986.
28. For a statistical tabulation of the extent of this bias, see table 7–1, “Sterling-Henze-Ledeen Dominance of Media Coverage of the Bulgarian Connection, September 1982–May 1985,” in Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 182–83.
29. Their coercive