By the left, march - depiction of Eastern European events in the press - editorial

National Review, March 5, 1990 by John O'Sullivan

My esteemed colleague, senior editor Joe Sobran, and I were recently dining with the head of news and current affairs of Denmark's new private-enterprise television station. (Yes, perestroika has reached even Scandinavia.) She complained that, what with the daily more exciting developments in the Eastern bloc, Europeans were getting no news from America.

"Don't worry," said Joe, "We're not getting news from America either."

I quote this to explain that here at NATIONAL REVIEW we are uncomfortably aware that we are providing our readers with an unusally heavy diet of articles on events abroad, particularly in Eastern Europe. There is, however, no alternative. The collapse of Communism is a major historical event (a.k.a. big story), and the U.S. is economically more prosperous and politically more tranquil than it has been for many a year. Under Jimmy Carter, we had more news from America than we wanted to print. n Still, now that the West has won the cold war, more or less, the battle is on between liberals and conservatives as to who will win the interpretation. In this issue |p. 381, Tom Bethell details how the mainstream press is ingeniously depicting the West's victory as a defeat for conservatives. Indeed, he had so many examples that he had to leave out one particularly crass attempt to pressgang Eastern European anti-communists into the liberal column. It came from the pen of Michael Gartner, president of NBC News, who moonlights as the Wall Street Journal's cracker-barrel philosopher. Supposedly as independent-minded as all heck, but always spouting liberalism of the most conformist kind in the end, he recently worried that young Americans were not following the revolutionary example of young people in Eastern Europe and suggested that they should "march for" good causes like gun control.

Well, here goes. The reason why young Poles, Czechs, and East Germans marched and demonstrated was that their Communist rulers did not allow the expression of dissenting opinion in the press and broadcasting. They were seeking, among other things, the free speech that American young people take for granted and that advocates of gun control regularly exploit. Had the literate and articulate young people of Eastern Europe already possessed it, they would probably not have marched since marching is, in itself, an extremely primitive method of communication. A skeptic is more likely to be persuaded by a syllogism than by a quickstep.

I never imagined I should have to explain this to a journalist.

I once introduced the late T. E. "Peter" Utley to a Philadelphia Society audience in New York as "the William F. Buckley of the United Kingdom." That was not wholly accurate (though flattering to both), but it conveyed an important point of similarity. Both men had managed to inspire a generation of young conservatives by being manifestly cleverer and more amusing than their opponents on the Left, and to influence in particular a generation of young conservative journalists. (There is a cost to this: the literary style of each is inimitable but widely imitated.)

Peter died last year, but a selection of his journalism, with a foreword by Margaret Thatcher (to whose speeches he occasionally contributed), has just been published in Britain under the title, Tory Seer (Hamish Hamilton). Those who enjoy watching my colleague eviscerate heretics with the utmost politeness on television will derive a similar pleasure from reading Peter's cool Tory ironies at the expense of socialists, left-wing churchmen, compassioneering liberals, Tory backsliders, and an entire paddywagon of the usual suspects. They will also imbibe much political wisdom without noticing.

Is Soviet military still a threat? With dramatic changes in Soviet Union (namely, Communists giving up monopoly on power) West is more likely to offer assistance. Richard Gasparre, in Jane's Soviet Intelligence Review, states: military reform |in USSR~ is necessary to create the psychological conditions under which the West will make substantial contributions. . . . Western loans -would help Soviet economic planners avoid a massive increase in the money supply, and therefore would help contain the short-term costs of perestroika." . In two reports, CIA Director William Webster says the Soviet active measures and espionage have increased despite talk of easing tensions. And end-of-year New York Times story concludes, Soviets "have not slackened their vigorous efforts to steal Western technology." . . . Back at home, January New York Times poll found 61 per cent of Americans believe Defense budget should either be increased or should remain the same. Some 45 per cent in Wall Street Journal/NBC poll believe cold war is not yet over. Some 61 per cent have a favorable opinion of George Bush, 51 per cent of Soviet leader Gorbachev. . . . Lithuanian parliament approved resolution declaring Soviet annexation of Baltic state "unlawful and invalid." Resolution calls for abolishing all ties to Soviet Union.