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that “A police state is especially responsible for the actions of its police” (“Murderous Poland,” Oct. 30, 1984). It freely applied words like “thuggery,” “shameless,” and “crude” to the Polish state. The fact that police officers were quickly identified, tried, and convicted it attributed to the agitation at home and abroad that put a limit on villainy. This is a good point, and one that we stress throughout this book: villainy may be constrained by intense publicity. But we also stress the corresponding importance of a refusal to publicize and the leeway this gives murderous clients under the protection of the United States and its media, where the impact of publicity would be far greater.10 The Times also fails to note the contrast between murderous Poland and murderous El Salvador—in the latter country, no murders of Salvadorans by the security forces or the death squads connected to them have ever resulted in a trial. The absence of such a comparison, as well as the failure of the Times to produce an editorial entitled “Murderous El Salvador,” illustrates how a serviceable terrorism is protected in a propaganda mode.11

2.2. RUTILIO GRANDE AND THE UNWORTHY SEVENTY-TWO

As shown on table 2–1, the unworthy seventy-two on Penny Lernoux’s list of martyrs were subject to a grand total of eight articles in the New York Times, one in Newsweek, and none in Time, and they were never mentioned on CBS News in the years of index coverage (1975–78). A total of seven names on the Lernoux list were mentioned in the eight Times articles, and two different ones were discussed in Newsweek, which means that sixty-three of the murders were blacked out entirely in these important media vehicles. None of the eight articles in the New York Times had any details or dramatic quality that might evoke sympathetic emotion. They described the murders as remote events in a distant world (see the Times’s description of the murder of Michael Jerome Cypher, in table 2–2). But that is a matter of editorial choice. The drama is there for the asking—only the press concern is missing.12

TABLE 2–2

The Savageries Inflicted on Worthy and Unworthy Victims,

as Depicted in the New York Times

WORTHY VICTIMS

Jerzy Popieluszko, a Polish priest, murdered on October 19, 1984.

(1) Account at finding of body: “The sources who saw the priest’s body on Tuesday, said it was badly bruised, indicating he had been beaten after he was kidnapped on a highway near the town of Torun. The autopsy also showed that Father Popieluszko had been gagged at the mouth and apparently tied with a rope from neck to feet so that if he struggled he would strangle himself, they said. The sources said they could not confirm reports quoting members of the slain priest’s family as saying he had suffered injuries to his jaw and skull” (Dec. 29, 1984).

(2) Account at trial of murderers: “The film showed clearly that the priest’s bent legs were tied to a noose around his neck in such a way that if he straightened them he would be strangled. The rope binding his hands had evidently come loose in the water. Several gags had also worked free and lay covering his clerical collar and the front of his cassock. From his legs hung a sack of rocks that, according to earlier testimony, had been carried all over Poland for the week that the three assailants were pursuing the priest. When the cameras were trained on the priest’s face, the narration by a police officer at the reservoir declared that ‘there are clear signs of beating.’ This was confirmed by medical evidence offered Thursday by Dr. Maria Byrdy, a pathologist, who said Father Popieluszko had been struck more than a dozen times with a club” (Jan. 26, 1985).

UNWORTHY VICTIMS

Michael Jerome Cypher, an American priest murdered in Honduras.

“The bodies were found in a dynamited well on an eastern Honduran estate . . .” (July 19, 1975). Note: There was no arrest or trial.

Jaime Alcina, a Spanish priest of the Catholic Action Workers

movement, following his arrest in Chile:

“Several days later a body with 10 bullet holes in the