More on Cockburn versus Behar
Paulettec
I asked Rich Behar (author of Time magazine anti-Scientology cover story) to
write up something for a.r.s. readers about the reasons Cockburn has been
attacking him and promoting Scientology. Here it is -- I think you'll find the
last paragraph especially interesting.
Paulette Cooper
Paulette, you can post this:
In the spring of 1992, I reported and wrote an expose of Terry Reed, who I
had concluded was a con man. Reed, you may recall, is the alleged "CIA"
operative who has linked President Clinton to contra training and drug running
at the Mena Airport in Arkansas. My in-depth investigation found that many of
Reed's former employers claimed he had stolen money from them (or attempted to
steal money). Reed then weaved some of these people into his Clinton tale,
which I concluded was just a fantasy.
Alex Cockburn had been Reed's biggest champion in the press and yet he never
bothered to fully investigate the guy. In my article, I decided to take a shot
at The Nation for being so "credulous." Unfortunately, I was in the Middle
East
on a vacation when my story ran and an editor decided to attack Cockburn by
name. The name he chose was "Andrew," Alex's brother, and a fact-checker at
TIME didn't catch the blunder. Nor did I.
Cockburn gleefully pointed out the mistake, and he went on to attack me in
column after column -- defending Reed (to my utter amazement), while also
condemning my Scientology story. Cockburn was so passionate that a few
publications (among them, Media Week, as I recall) ran some articles on the
so-
called Behar-Cockburn feud.
By the way, except for the Andrew-Alex mix-up, I argued at the time that my
Reed expose was accurate. Reed ultimately sued us for libel, and a federal
judge threw out the case after concluding that I had made a "thorough
examination" and that Reed "has been unable to come up with any evidence
suggesting that Behar did not in good faith believe that every fact stated in
his article was accurate, and that his characterization of plaintiff as a liar
was fully justified."
The judge, after reviewing my massive evidence (which included many tape-
recorded conversations), did not even permit Reed to depose me, which, as you
may know, is very rare in libel actions. That's how strong our story was.
Incidentally, we had a sworn affidavit in the case from a colleague at
TIME who claims that Reed told him (months before the suit was filed) that the
church had offered to pay for any lawsuit he wanted to bring against me and
TIME. Even if we assume that Reed was telling the truth about this alleged
offer, I have no proof whether he actually accepted such money. Freedom
Magazine published a positive story about Reed and his suit against TIME.
Interestingly, Reed's book ("Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA") briefly
made the best-seller list in the LA Times, which I find simply remarkable given
his
background.
JimDBB
>Subject: More on Cockburn versus Behar
>From: paul...@aol.com (Paulettec)
>Date: Wed, Apr 8, 1998 13:37 EDT
>I asked Rich Behar (author of Time magazine anti-Scientology cover story) to
>write up something for a.r.s. readers about the reasons Cockburn has been
>attacking him and promoting Scientology. Here it is -- I think you'll find
>the
>last paragraph especially interesting.
Thank you Paulette and Rich Behar.
JImDBB
William Barwell
In article <199804081842...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
It is interesting the cult tried to use this to fair game
Behar using Reed as a catspaw.
Obviously, 'fair game' policy is alive and well, despite
Scientology's lies.
Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope Of Houston
Slack!
Scott A. McClare
Paulettec (paul...@aol.com) writes:
> I asked Rich Behar (author of Time magazine anti-Scientology cover story) to
> write up something for a.r.s. readers about the reasons Cockburn has been
> attacking him and promoting Scientology. Here it is -- I think you'll find the
> last paragraph especially interesting.
Thank you Paulette and Rich!
That last paragraph, which bears repeating, notes how the Church might
have used self-described CIA man Terry Reed, whom Behar was skeptical
about, to get at Behar and _Time_:
> Incidentally, we had a sworn affidavit in the case from a colleague at
> TIME who claims that Reed told him (months before the suit was filed) that the
> church had offered to pay for any lawsuit he wanted to bring against me and
> TIME. Even if we assume that Reed was telling the truth about this alleged
> offer, I have no proof whether he actually accepted such money. Freedom
> Magazine published a positive story about Reed and his suit against TIME.
> Interestingly, Reed's book ("Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA") briefly
> made the best-seller list in the LA Times, which I find simply remarkable given
> his background.
Scott
--
Scott A. McClare SP4 GGBC#42 "I see you now and then in dreams
cj...@freenet.carleton.ca Your voice sounds just like it used to
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cj871/ I believe I will hear it again
PGP 1024/E7950B29 via finger/keyserver God how I love you" - Mark Heard
Tilman Hausherr
In <199804081737...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, paul...@aol.com
(Paulettec) wrote:
>I asked Rich Behar (author of Time magazine anti-Scientology cover story) to
>write up something for a.r.s. readers about the reasons Cockburn has been
>attacking him and promoting Scientology. Here it is -- I think you'll find the
>last paragraph especially interesting.
I have webbed this post and a table with a "history" of pro scientology
articles by Cockburn:
http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/prolinks/cockburn_is_a_bonehead.html
If anyone has a better suggestion for the filename, e-mail me :-)
Tilman
--
Tilman Hausherr [KoX, SP4]
til...@berlin.snafu.de http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/#cos
Keith [Henson] also assaulted the private investigator
while resisting arrest, which is why he got arrested.
(from wg...@loop.com, scientology bigot)
Tilman Hausherr
I just received the full article. So this time Cockburn attempts to get
at the rescue of John Travolta, because Primary Colors is flopping at
the box office. Note that he says that the germans promote the
Travolta/Clinton deal idea. Wrong - it is John Travolta himself, in
"George".
====
Seattle Times, Opinion Page: April 2, 1998
ALEXANDER COCKBURN - Syndicated columnist
Germans lose their cool on the topic of Scientology
"Primary Colors" is now playing in all the movie houses, with John
Travolta in the role of President Groper. There's a theory, mooted in
the press, that a bargain was struck whereby Clinton would fight boldly
in the cause of Scientology and in return, John Travolta, a
Scientologist, would make Bill seem nice on screen. The prime
Scientological cause fitting this calendar of supposed events would be a
nudge from the White House, prompting the State Department to condemn
Germany for its treatment of Scientologists.
Travolta - known in Scientology circles as J.T. - did meet
Clinton at the conference on excellence in Philadelphia last summer.
Bill greeted J.T. warmly, told him he knew all about the situation in
Germany and said that he would do his best to help out.
The Germans have been particularly keen to promote the notion of
a secret Travolta/Clinton deal. This is because the German government is
- and indeed has been for many years - unhinged on the topic of
Scientology, which it seems to regard as some sort of Ebola virus likely
to bring down the nation. Heber Jentzsch, president of the International
Church of Scientology, told me with an air of quiet triumph a few days
ago that over the past 10 years, Scientologists in Germany have been the
target of no less than 160 criminal investigations, with the German
investigators coming up with nothing to justify all their time and
effort.
The closest to triumph the investigators got was when they
discovered pills in a Scientologist's home, which they promptly
announced to be poison, presumably associated with hellish
Scientological rites.
Jentzsch, a man with a sense of humor, told the German
investigators he would take 5,000 cubic centimeters of the pills and the
German probers could take 5,000 cubic centimeters of cyanide - and
they'd see who died first. The pills were vitamin C, no doubt associated
with the ancient rite of trying to live forever. The Germans didn't
think it was funny.
The way the German federal and regional governments have treated
Scientologists isn't funny either. Scientologists have seen their
children kicked out of kindergartens. Unlike unreconstructed Waffen-SS
men, Scientologists can't join any major political party and are subject
to state-sanctioned wiretaps and other intrusions. The same,
incidentally, is true of Muslims. Jehovah's Witnesses also get harsh
treatment.
Smarting at the adverse publicity, the German government is now
mounting a campaign whose ambitions are disclosed in a file of
confidential government memoranda leaked to Barry Fisher, a human-rights
attorney in Los Angeles, by an anonymous whistle-blower in the German
government.
The German government's plan is to get the think tanks for the
two major political parties - the Christian Democrats' Adenauer
Foundation and the Socialists' Ebert Foundation - to lobby in Washington
and organize encounters with influential Americans, putting forth the
German view.
The nature of this "German view" was debated ponderously in the
German Foreign Ministry in mid-November of last year in a top-level
session with high-ups from all the major ministries. The assembled
company concluded that the reason Americans can't understand why the
German government hates Scientologists is that "constitutional freedom"
in the United States means absolute freedom, whereas in Germany, the
freedom of citizens is limited by the desire of these citizens for the
government to protect them against the danger of such groups as the
Scientologists. (This same desire for protection on the part of the
citizens led Nazis, back in the 1930s, to ban the Seventh Day Adventists
and other religious groups and embark on the extermination of all Jews.
Once you start "protecting" the citizens, there is no telling where it
will end.
While German professors are fanning across America to do battle
with Scientology and convince Americans of the true evil of J.T.'s
faith, the German government is limbering up its campaign on the home
front. Shortly after the November meeting, another secret memo
summarized the state of the German government's network to "combat the
so-called Sects and Psycho groups." In command is the Federal Ministry
for Family, Elderly, Women and linked closely with the Federal
Administration Office, which compiles data on "youth sects and Psycho
groups."
The prime spies on behalf of the government bodies are the main
Protestant and Catholic churches, which, the memo says proudly, "have
set up a network of information and counseling offices, which cover
almost the entirety of the whole country."
What emerges from this memo is a paradigm of how a government
can plan to intrude into matters of faith and conscience. The state
isolates an enemy (Scientologists in this instance). Under a law
authorizing such onslaughts against any outfit deemed to be a threat to
their Constitution, the enemy is wire-tapped, followed, harassed.
(Scientologists can't hold any civil-service post.) The major churches
enthusiastically join in the onslaught. Government funds are
(unconstitutionally, as is admitted in the memo) poured into another
network of private counselors and shrinks, who organize their own
brainwashing/surveillance strategies.
As I often say, whatever the Scientologists may have done,
whatever foul evils they may have perpetrated, are but micropimples when
compared with the horrors done in the name of Catholicism,
Protestantism, Judaism and the other tolerated faiths.
(Copyright, 1998, Creators Syndicate, Inc.)