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43. The comprehensiveness of the Time’s protection of its disinformation sources was shown amusingly in February 1987 when Charles Babcock, of the Washington Post, revealed that Ledeen had very possibly been dismissed from Washington University in St. Louis in 1972 for plagiarism. On the very same day, an article by Stephen Engelberg in the Times, on Ledeen, describes Ledeen’s history as follows: “After being denied tenure at Washington University in St. Louis in 1972, Mr. Ledeen became …” This was all the news fit to print about a useful asset.

44. “McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,” program of May 27, 1985.

45. See our reference earlier to its wholly uncritical presentation in the Newsweek article of January 3, 1983.

46. For a discussion of the compromised character of the photo identification of the Bulgarians on November 9, 1982, as well as the general conduct of the case by Investigating Judge Martella, see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, chapter 5.

47. On the likelihood that this Antonov photo had been “manufactured” as an instrument of disinformation, see Howard Friel, “The Antonov Photo and the ‘Bulgarian Connection,’” Covert Action Information Bulletin 21 (Spring–Summer 1984), pp. 20–21.

48. This was treated outstandingly in the ABC “20/20” program of May 12, 1983; and Agca’s shifting testimony was also discussed well by Michael Dobbs in the Washington Post, beginning in June 1984. These were exceptional, however, as pointed out in note 26 above.

49. Dobbs is an honorable exception, although he remained very cautious in generalizing about Martella’s handling of the case, and, as noted, he failed to take seriously the obvious alternative model.

50. Initially, Sterling suggested obliquely that any retracted claims had already been “corroborated”—a falsehood. Later, Sterling followed Italian prosecutor Albano’s solution to the problem: that Agca really was in Antonov’s apartment but was denying it to signal the Bulgarians that they had better break him out of jail.

CHAPTER 5: THE INDOCHINA WARS (I)

1. Among these, the most comprehensive, to our knowledge, are unpublished studies by Howard Elterman: The State, The Mass Media and Ideological Hegemony: United States Policy Decisions in Indochina, 1945–75—Historical Record, Government Pronouncements and Press Coverage (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1978); and The Circle of Deception: The United States Government, the National Press and the Indochina War, 1954–1984 (ms., n.d.). See also Daniel C. Hallin, The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). The latter is based on a complete coverage of the New York Times from 1961 through mid-1965, and an extensive sample of television network news from August 1965 through January 1973. Elterman’s work covers the New York Times and the newsweeklies, contrasting their coverage with that of the “alternative press.” The most extensive analysis of a particular incident is Peter Braestrup, Big Story, 2 vols. (Boulder: Westview, 1977), on the Tet offensive, published in cooperation with Freedom House. For detailed examination of this highly influential study, to which we return in “The Tet Offensive,” pp. 211–228, and appendix 3, see Noam Chomsky, “The U.S. Media and the Tet Offensive,” Race & Class (London) XX, 1 (1978), and an excerpted version in the journalism review More (June 1978); also Gareth Porter, “Who Lost Vietnam?” Inquiry, February 20, 1978.

2. Inside Story Special Edition: Vietnam Op/ED, Press and the Public Project, Inc. (1985), transcript of the AIM critique with discussion; Robert Elegant, cited from Encounter by narrator Charlton Heston, on camera. Transcripts of the PBS series Vietnam: A Television History are published by WGBH Transcripts (Boston: 1983). See also the “companion book” by the chief correspondent for the PBS series, Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking, 1983).

3. Samuel Huntington, in M. P. Crozier, S. J. Huntington, and J. Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability