Nicaragua:
Warsaw in Spanish?
On a sweltering hot day the marchers
moved patiently to a plaza in front of
the national Cathedral pausing along
the way to say the stations of the cross.
They were led by the Archbishop of
Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo, in
an explicit rebuff to Sandinista leaders
who had said he was out of touch with
the people. Marchers shouted “Free
Nicaragua” and “Christ Forever.”
None of the Sandinista leaders was
present, most are declared atheists.
ABC News, April 20, 1984
Was ABC’s Good Friday scoop too
good to be true’? That question remains
in the wake of a report the network
aired in April on its World News To-
night. From Managua, ABC’s Peter
Collins reported that the city’s annual
Good Friday march-with its 100,000
marchers-turned into a “passionate
demonstration of solidarity with the
Catholic Church and opposition to the
Sandinista regime.” The report empha-
sized the atheism of the Sandinista Di-
rectorate, the popularity of Managua’s
anti-Sandinista archbishop and the con-
clusion that Catholicism in Nicaragua,
“as in Poland, means ‘no’ to Marx-
ism. ”
Free-association is one of the more
persistent hobgoblins affecting televi-
sion-and politics. Witness the Iran-
Grenada “hostage” crises. It has been
especially persistent in coverage of
Central America.
Nicaraguan Christians have played a
pivotal role since the beginnings of the
Sandinista movement, and the popular
base communities continue as a frame
of support, yet the ABC dispatch ap-
peared to ignore the special nature of
the Church. Clifford Krauss, former
reporter for Cox News Services who
has spent seven years covering Central
America, says that any report on the
Nicaraguan Church that does not men-
tion the “popular Church” and Chris-
tian base communities is not giving the
full picture of Catholicism in Nicara-
gua today.
The ABC report, which Krauss has
not seen, made no such mention. Nor
in its rush to paint the Sandinista lead-
ers as atheists did it mention the fact
that three government ministers are or-
dained priests. “Nicaragua may well
be the region’s most devout Catholic
country,” Krauss continues, “but there
is no proper analogy between the Church
in Nicaragua and the Church in Poland.”
What looked like an ABC exclusive-
the story wasn’t carried by CBS, NBC,
The New York Times, The Washington
Post or the major wire services-turned
into something of a cause celebre over
the next three weeks. The Wall Street
Journal ran an editorial– Warsaw in
Spanish”–calling attention to ABC’s
coverage, and in May President Rea-
gan repeated the Good Friday story in a
nationally televised speech on Central
America. Without acknowledging ABC,
the president threw down the gauntlet
saying, “You may be hearing about
that demonstration for the first time. It
wasn’t widely reported.”
The demonstration “scoop” arrived
at just the right time to buttress the
White House campaign on Sandinista
suppression of the Church. On March
16, Reagan’s liaison to the Catholic
community hosted a “special White
House briefing” for laypeople at which
he distributed an 18-page report entitled
“Persecution of Christian Groups in
Nicaragua.” No mention was made of
the Good Friday march in the original
version of the May 9 speech distributed
to the press two days before the presi-
dential address.
Between mention on World News
Tonight and, again, in the president’s
speech, the story of the Good Friday
demonstration surfaced in two conser-
vative Washington newspapers. Both
the Unification Church’s Washington
Times and the Washington Inquirer, a
weekly published by the conservative
Council for the Defense of Freedom,
gave the story prominent play. The In-
quirer, in a virtual rewrite of ABC’s
script, charged a “dramatic story” had
been subjected to a media “blackout.”
The Moonies’ Times launched its own
investigation, asking the State Depart-
ment why its version of the Good Fri-
day march differed so sharply from
ABC’s.
The State Department referred to
telexes cabled by its staff at the U.S.
Embassy in Managua and called the
Good Friday event religious, not politi-
cal. By week’s end the Times reported
continued on page 4
continued from page 2
North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms
was demanding to see those telexes,
and was asking whether Secretary
George Shultz “personally” endorsed
his department’s analysis.
Was there a blackout? NBC, CBS
and UPI say they covered a religious
march, not an anti-Sandinista rally.
Don de Cesare, senior producer for in-
ternational news for the CBS Evening
News with Dan Rather said 100,000
Catholics marching in Managua on
Good Friday was not reported since
such processions occur each year. De
Cesare didn’t think the story was “bird-
able,” meaning he didn’t think the
story was important enough to transmit
to New York via satellite (“the bird”).
“We rely on our people in Mana-
gua,” de Cesare said “and they said
there was nothing compelling enough,
or newsworthy enough, about this year’s
march to use it on the Evening News.”
“The Good Friday march is an an-
nual event,” agreed NBC’s foreign
producer, Tom Cheatham. “Our peo-
ple [in Managua] said this year’s march
had no anti-Sandinista meaning what-
soever.” The UPI ran a story refuting
the president’s version, saying his de-
scription of an anti-Sandinista Good
Friday demonstration had been contra-
dicted by witnesses at the scene.
The New York Times appeared un-
able to pick a dance tune. In its early
edition on May 10 the paper ran the
UPI refutation, only to give credence to
the president’s version in a longer piece
in the second edition. By the late edition,
the story had disappeared altogether.
For its part, the White House, in an
interview with The New York Times,
said the Good Friday story was backed
up by reports by both ABC News and
The Washington Times. And as for
Collins, the reporter stands by his story.
Collins said he, too, is disturbed that
his account was used as ammunition
for a right-wing assault on the Sandi-
nistas, but explained the phenomenon
as an inevitable consequence of cover-
ing stories in the ideologically charged
region.
As to the exclusive nature of his
story, Collins insists that there were no
other reporters from the major news
agencies on the scene. “They blew it,”
he says, “and the U.S. Embassy peo-
ple claim to have passed by, but they
didn’t get out of their vehicles.”
As for the analogy to Poland’s anti-
communist Church, the reporter feels
the reference is apt. Collins says he
may have spoken too soon in calling
the Sandinista Directorate “atheist.”
“It’s politically in error in Nicaragua,
obviously, to declare yourself an athe-
ist,” he explains, “from my informa-
tion most of them are what you might
call ‘practicing atheists.’ ”
The State Department official–after
requesting anonymity-suggested the
White House preferred the ABC-Wash-
ington Times version of the story to that
of its own diplomats.
JOEL MILLMAN
Democracy, Salvadorean Style
Sen. Jeremiah Denton (R., Ala.),
another member of the U.S. observa-
tion team, said Salvadorean officials
“made more effort to conduct fair elec-
tions than we do in the state of Ala-
bama.”
“Ididn’t say the elections were fair
and honest,” Denton said at a news
conference.
Philadelphia Inquirer
March 28, 1984
On the suggestion of Jeane J. Kirk-
patrick, the United States delegate to
the United Nations, Mr. Magafia said,
he ruled his country through a political
commission, which included represen-
tatives of all the political parties and the
military.
He said nothing was done without
the agreement of the commission, which
included the far-right National Repub-
lican Alliance, known as Arena. This
meant that by the time legislation reached
the Assembly floor there was at least
partial agreement among the political
parties.
“It was Mrs. Kirkpatrick who gave
me this idea,” Mr. Magafia said. “She
told me to take the power away from
the Assembly and put it in this com-
mission.”
The New York Times
May 30, 1984
Moved Efficiently Toward What?
One effect of the Somozas’ concen-
tration of wealth was the growth of
Managua, which had been largely de-
stroyed by earthquake and fire in 1931.
It became a bustling and modern city,
while the traditional centers of Leon
and Granada decayed and declined in
importance. In numerous ways, the
Somozas concentrated economic, po-
litical, social, and cultural power in the
capital city at the expense of the old
rival centers. (The 1972 earthquake, of
course, demolished most of Managua,
but the regime moved efficiently toward
its reconstruction.)
Central America-A Nation Divided
Oxford University Press 1976
Girls Will Be Girls
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 3 (AP)-
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatch-
er opposed the U.S. invasion of Gre-
nada because she is a woman, U.S.
Information Agency Director Charles
Z. Wick said.
After he made the statement Friday
night to the winter meeting of the Cali-
fornia Press Association, he asked his
audience of newspaper publishers,
“Please don’t print what I just said.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say this public-
ly, and this is just my own personal
opinion,” he began. After recalling
that Reagan had called Thatcher just
before the October invasion and had
been urged not to invade, Wick said,
“Margaret Thatcher’s a great prime
minister. She’s also a woman.”
The Washington Post
December 4, 1983.
More Reagan Era Newspeak
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (UPI)-
The word “killing” has been stricken
from State Department reports on hu-
man rights. Officials said today that the
Government considered it more precise
to say “unlawful or arbitrary depriva-
tion of life.” [. . . ]
“There are a few differences in the
categories this year,” [Assistant Sec-
retary of State for Human Rights El-
liott] Abrams said. “We found the
term killing too broad and have sub-
stituted the more precise, if more ver-
bose, unlawful or arbitary deprivation
of life.'”
The New York Times
March 3, 1984
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