SOVIET VIEW OF NIXON MOSCOW RADIO PLEADS FOR ‘FAIRNESS’ FROM U.S. PRESS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33611, 13 August 1974, Page 12

SOVIET VIEW OF NIXON MOSCOW RADIO PLEADS FOR ‘FAIRNESS’ FROM U.S. PRESS

(Bu

VICTOR ZORZA)

A Moscow radio commentator, back from a visit to the I nite. ales, told his audience last week that the "stunned Americans horn. he had spoken believed it was "about time io gag some ot l r .er-zealous reporters.” American media, he said, had tailed to P r " Vl ” fair” coverage of Watergate, "objective” information, and "balances .eporting. His commentary was not broadcast for the home audience, wi a i gets virtually no Watergate news, but. was beamed in English to Nora America. Why?

Some foreign Communist leaders suspect a deal between the Kremlin and the White House to stretch the doctrine of co-existence to the point where it provides mutual protection against their enemies. The Spanish Communist Party journal said it. was, “surprised” at the silence of the Soviet press on Watergate, “The cancer of the Nixon team which reveals all the putrefaction of Yankee imperialism.” The Soviet press, Moscow Radio has explained, does not think it “fitting” to go into all the details of Watergate. It limits itself to “brief, objective items.” because it “adheres to the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other nations.” The items are, indeed, brief to the point of obscurity, usually only a couple of paragraphs or so. They appear on the average once a month, and sometimes report merely Mr Nixon’s denial of some vague charge of wrong doing. But “non-interference,” as another Moscow broadcast to America explained, is not the only reason. Watergate was, indeed, “your internal affair,” but also “we all feel that it has, dragged out way too long, beyond all limits.” Did Watergate deserve “so much” prominence? “Why this lust, this striving for sensationalism?” Why this

“endless washing of your dirty linen' 1 in public? I “Some people tell us that Watergate is democracy in action,” said one broadcaster. “I. personally, feel there may be other forces at : work using Watergate for (their own ends." Some of these “forces" were prompted by presidenitial ambitions, he said. Others might want to alter the direction of American foreign policy, to “promote their own careers," or to divert attention “from more burning problems inside America today.” These simplistic explanations are certainly not shared by the more experienced Soviet students of the United States in the diplomatic and academic community. But such broadcasts reflect the view of at least some members of the Soviet establishment who are only too ready to accept the conspiracy interpretation of history. They are igndrant of the realities of Western life and they have no experience of Western politics. Their own experience prompts them to look in the West for the same power struggles that removed Khrushchev from office, and for the intrigues that accompanied Stalin’s years in office. Moscow Radio, shedding crocodile tears for the good name of the United States, appeals to its mass media to

desist. “I cannot understand what they are doing." >ay< one broadcaster. "Don't the realize that Presidents conv and go. but th? bitter taste ;of all this, which i> being ladled out with sadistic zea in the American papers and television, will remain fm imany years to come?” Did they not see that this gravely undermined the prestige lof the United States in the eyes of the entire world, not ijust the prestige of one indi vidual, the Moscow broadcaster asked. What they were doing he said, tended to undermine I “all faith in the American Government machinery, all j that the people of America hold so highly and value so I dearly." I They were providing ammunition for those "who want to smear the good I name of America and the (Americans, who want to sling mud at the things the Americans are justly proud of. by portraying the Americans as being in a state of I decay, forgetful of moral lvalues and human decency ” ■ After the tumult had died down only one thing woulc (remain, not just in American (hut in world history — “a | very soiled image of Amer ica.” These words, uttered h people whose broadcast have often in the past gonto the very’ limit to discredi the United States, beg ;. whole series of questions Could it be that they havt so completely changed theii minds? If so, why do they reserve these sentiment. 1 only for their broadcasts to the United States? Why are Soviet newspaper readers not being told how “good’ the American system is? Why, indeed, are they not being told about Watergate? One reason might well have more to do with Soviet domestic politics than with the explanations about “nonI interference.” If the Soviet press indulged in regular and detailed reportage of the anguished process by which a powerful nation searches its own conscience and examines the hidden actions of its rulers, the Soviet people might begin to get ideas about their own rulers. . They might well come to (believe that the political actions of their own Government, shrouded in far greater secfecy, much less subIject to the people's will, I ought also to be brought out (into the light of day. And if Watergate should lead to the removal of President Nixon, extensive coverage of the whole affair in the Soviet press could create a feeling that Soviet leaders too are removable — by an open, public, democratic process, not by backstage intrigues in the Kremlin. (This article was written (several days before Presi(dent Nixon announced hi (resignation.) I (Copyright, 1974. Victor iZorza.)