"Can Democracy Defend Itself?"

Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 March 1988 Volume 17, No. 3 world: South Africa. And they seem to sug "Can Democracy Defend Itself?" gest, moreover, that if only we were to treat the USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, By Arnaud de Borchgrave Angola and Ethiopia with a little respect, these countries would start behaving the way democracies behave. The members of Editor's Preview: In this issue, Arnaud de the liberal community also choose not to Borchgrave, one of the world's most recognize that the international peace intrepid and well-known journalists, asks, movement is used as a mere ploy in the "Can democracy defend itself?" low-intensity, low-risk warfare practiced by This presentation was originally our adversaries. In recent days with the delivered during the August 1987 Shavano Central American peace treaty proposals, Institute for National Leadership's seminar, this reality has been pointedly ignored. "Can Democracy Preserve Our Freedom? I have covered 17 wars as a journalist Constitutional Government and the Politics and I fought in World War II for four years of Self Interest" before an audience of 300 in the British Royal Navy. My first trip to business, government, media and com the Soviet Union was while on convoy duty munity leaders from around the country when I was 16 years old. Since then, I have at the historic Henry Ford Museum in been a peace activist, but not in the con Dearborn. ventional sense, for I happen to be what used to be called a "hawk." Why? Because ouglas Edwards, the senior anchor the lesson of the past is that world peace man at CBS, has called censorship was never more secure than when the crossed my mind that a journalist was sup United States was most powerful. Now, Done of the greatest threats to posed to make history. And that, sadly, is obviously, the Soviet leadership does not democracy, but in his various pro what the profession is intent upon. jour nouncements on this subject, he fails to want war. Their goal is, quite simply, vic nalists today are no longer spectators; they tory without war. Years ago, the Kremlin mention the most pernicious form of cen have become players in national politics sorship practiced by the media: censorship hit upon the brilliant strategy of using the and international relations, the game of slogan "peace" as if it were a weapon of by omission. Stories of vital concern to nations. And how they report events has national and international security are war. What the Soviets counted upon was a very important impact on the course of the West's gullible acceptance of the peace sometimes deliberately suppressed, ignored world affairs. Characteristically, however, or buried on the inside pages of movement as a genuine impetus for reform. journalists are unwilling to admit how Current negotiations could lead to the newspapers, for example, because they much influence they wield, displaying such might change perceptions in a way that denuclearization of Western Europe we are reluctance that their attitude is reminiscent told. But we keep forgetting that it is not the self-appointed opinion molders of the of Niccolo Machiavelli in the old tale which dominant media culture would disapprove nuclear weapons that killed two million says that on his deathbed his confessor Cambodians or one million Afghans, or of. This is not an unsubstantiated charge; pleaded with him to at long last renounce there are many well-known instances turned one-third of Afghanistan's popula the devil. According to the story, the Italian tion into refugees, or killed 12 million which are a matter of public record, and, philosopher leaned forward and with his of course, many which remain inside people in the 145 major conflicts since the last breath said, ''Please, Father, this is no end of World War II. Some civil wars in stories in the field of journalism. I can time to be making enemies.'' recite them from memory for at least an Africa since then have killed as many as hour. The Peace Ploy 250,000 people in a few days. A When I first joined this profession, right denuclearized Europe, in my judgment, after World War II, I thought that if I were o listen to them, you would think would make war once again thinkable and successful I might, with luck, get a ringside that today's liberals believe there leave the Soviet Union as the world's para seat to history in the making. It never Tis only one truly evil system in the mount military power. It is only the nuclear deterrent that has given Europe the longest featured a cover story on what we con invariably cast in the role of the villain on period of peace that it has known in its sider to be the book of the year. Simon the wrong side of history. America, history - 42 consecutive years. and Schuster, the publisher, originally according to them , is the imperialist, the estimated that this book might sell five or racist, the exploiter, the warmonger, and The Media and ''The Closing of the six thousand copies, but it topped the on it goes. American Mind'' bestseller list for months. The book is Openness as it was inculcated in this University of Chicago Professor Allan country in the '60s and '70s became he sum total of all the knowledge Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. synonymous with ''doing your own accumulated throughout recorded His provocative thesis is that in the name thing.'' Students were encouraged to Thistory is now doubling every 10 of openness, American minds have actually repudiate everything that did not jibe with years or less. Yet extraordinarily few people become closed. Millions of readers want to their own interests while at the same time seem to understand that one of the most significant events of our era is the often successful seizure of popular cultural ''Years ago, the Kremlin hit upon the brilliant institutions- the press, radio, television, strategy of using the slogan ''peace'' as if it were a the theater and the film industry - by the Left. The battle is by no means decided, weapon of war.'' but its outcome will determine whether we succumb once and for all to the "totalitarian temptation ," in the words of know how and why this happened. Bloom remaining ''value-free.'' This is the genera French journalist Jean-Francois Revel, or suggests some serious answers, and one tion that is teaching, making movies, run whether we will continue to expand the of them is the reason for my own continu ning TV news programs, editing frontiers of freedom and live as free people. ing involvement in journalism. Our great newspapers and magazines. And these are Sidney Hook's latest book, Out of Step: open society tolerates an incredible the people who believe that they liberated An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, "Johnny-one-note" quality in its media. the blacks, and women and the poor documents how intellectuals have con Although there are 25,000 media outlets misunderstood Soviet Union. To lecture on sistently taken the line of least resistance in this country including 1, 700 daily the need for discipline; on the restraints in this century. All the totalitarian regimes newspapers, 4,000 television stations and liberty must impose on itself; on the need which have been led in my own lifetime approximately 10,000 radio stations, these to defend democracy, with blood if by the likes of Lenin , Stalin , Hitler, Mao are rarely in competition when it comes necessary, against communist-sponsored Tse Tung and Pol Pot were to a very large to differing viewpoints and they seem to wars of "national liberation"; to talk about extent intellectual constructions designed, exhibit an extraordinary lack of balance in family and country ; all this is still con shaped and served by intellectuals. And the their reportage. In any Western European demned as right-wing and reactionary. capital one will find many contending dominant liberal media community to Our Weakening which I have belonged for 41 years often newspapers, for example: nine in Paris, blindly follows the pilot fish of the eleven in London, four or five in Brussels Foreign Policy Resolve academic community. and so on. All espouse different views. And A few months ago, Insight, the weekly yet our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., iding and abetting these new and magazine which I serve as Editor-in-Chief, the center of the free world, was for some questionable leaders of our society time a one-newspaper town until The Aare the old devices of semantic Washington Times was established (and this infiltration and historical revisionism . About the Author was possible only with foreign backing). According to the latter, we drove the As Newsweek 's chief foreign Openness, as Professor Bloom points National Liberation Front of South Vietnam correspondent and a senior editor for out, is no longer considered to be the into Hanoi's arms, just as we drove Castro 25 of his years there, Arnaud de means to exploring different answers to the into Moscow 's and Ortega into Cuba's. This Borchgrave covered most of the world's great questions of our time but is, rather, is an intentional distortion of events, but major news events from 1950-1980. The an excuse not to answer them at all. We who can find an influential challenge to recipient of numerous journalism face this same problem particularly in the it in the media or the university? Such awards, in 1980 he turned to fiction , media. On American campuses, a new myths paralyze the intellect just as effec co -au tho ring two international generation of teachers, many of them tively as nerve gas, making it all too easy bestsellers with Robert Moss: The Spike, former anti-Vietnam war activists with of to sell out the Contra resistance in course, academic tenure, do not seem' to Nicaragua or to leak the nation's most sen on the KGB and the western media ' and , Monimbo, a novel about Cuban- believe that the old books have anything sitive secrets, or to trash the CIA , or to give sponsored terrorism.

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