Editor’s Note: The following letter from distinguished author James A. Michener to media critic Dorothy Rabinowitz was recently obtained by C in C. Mr. Michener raises searching questions concerning the television coverage of the hijacking of TWA flight 847 this summer and concerning the manipulation of the hostages by their Shiite captors. With the kind permission of Mr. Michener and Ms. Rabinowitz, we share Mr. Michener’s queries with our readers.
3 July, 1985
Ms. Dorothy Rabinowitz
Media Critic
New York Post
New York, New York
Dear Dorothy,
Your finest hour. I’ve just finished hearing your interview on the Larry King Show and was inspired to shout hosannahs that at last someone was speaking out as you did so ably.
The hostage situation developed while I was alone in a log cabin in Alaska, so I had ample time to follow it, but only on television as I did not have access to newspapers. And as the infamous affair droned on I kept waiting for someone to put this thing into perspective, or even to identify the components. As one who knew the area intimately I pleaded in vain for a voice of reason, one of balance. None came.
I used to laugh at stories of little old ladies in tennis shoes who talked back to radio and television, but here I was, a little old man in bedroom slippers shouting: “Why don’t you cut through this nonsense and explain the real forces at work? Why do you allow yourselves to be so abominably misused by your own enemies?” The machine never replied why it was suffering this abuse.
The problem was simple. Television did a splendid job of providing grim theater. It was energetic, innovative, often totally compelling. And it did provide certain pictures, rare and not emphasized, which did help tell the inner story, but as one who lived long with these matters I developed a series of caveats which the tube really should have handled, especially when it permitted an unbroken series of tirades against our government. These were the questions television should have answered and didn’t, at least in what I saw:
1) What was the working relationship between Beirut’s Shiite Muslims and Khomeini’s Iran?
2) What was the Shiite minority’s role in Islam and why has the movement declared war against the United States?
3) What role had Nabih Beni played in the Shiite war against the United States prior to his emergence as a great friend of ours?
4) What role did the Shiites play in the murder of the Marines and the destruction of our Embassy?
5) What role did the Shiites play in the kidnapping and holding of the seven other American hostages?
6) Did the self-appointed spokesman have any possible interests in maintaining good relations with the Arab states?
7) Did none of the other hostages protest when he spoke as he did, criticizing by implication both the United States and Israel?
8) What had been the American attitude toward Syria eight months ago? Two months ago?
9) Did no one see that the Shiites, working cleverly and extremely ably through the hostages were striving to rewrite American policy?
10) And why did the networks not admit that through their use of American media, the two high-jackers pulled off the most strikingly successful high-jacking in history? They literally got everything they wanted, and three times as much.
It seemed to me, denied as I was what might have been the fuller and more sophisticated coverage of two or three good newspapers, that the world had turned upside down, and that one of ,the most powerful agencies of our government was being turned against it. The enemy not only had access to our media but received from them an approving pat on the back. I was shocked.
You know that I do not write in this anguished way heedlessly. I am a strong Democrat but it galled me to hear our entire government vilified in a time of crisis by its own citizens. It distressed me to find that none of these hostages appeared to be immune to the brandishments of their captors. And the speech in which one of the hostages protested that it was unfair for the President and the Secretary of State to link the fortunes of the 39 with those of the long-held 7 really sickened me.
I believe there are standards of deportment which ought to govern us all, and I was frightened by what I saw happening in Beirut. I would guess that in retrospect a lot of them will feel ashamed of themselves for having been so cheaply and easily bought. We heard a lot about the “Stockholm Syndrome” and in its limited way the definition made sense. But we can now establish the “Beirut Syndrome” in which the hostage takes on also the political coloration of his captors. I believe the situation revealed in this performance will have grave repercussions, for it amounted to a display of national cowardice.
Liberals like me sometimes chuckle at the right-wing posturing of Senator Denton of Alabama. A little too much flag waving for me. A little too much 1843 Old South and the happy plantation. But as I watched this drama unfold and recalled his deportment when a captive for years of the Viet Cong, I had to ask myself: “How must he be reacting to this television display?”
In the midst of my applause for you I did feel that you probably drew too sharp a line between video media and newspapers, but I do wish I had seen during this sad affair a copy of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Keep them honest, Dorothy. The nation needs them more than ever, because what we witnessed here was the redrafting of American foreign policy by foreign gunmen using as their pawns American citizens who knew little about the issues involved. If that is allowed to continue we could all be in deep trouble.
James A. Michener
Distinguished Faculty Scholar
Sheldon Jackson College
Sitka, Alaska