[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H5052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               MISLEADING STORY BY CNN AND TIME MAGAZINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Diaz-Balart). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I don't know how many can remember, but 
about 2 weeks ago CNN started their headline news. Their leading story 
on CNN was how the United States military used a poisonous gas that by 
international treaty is a violation and considered a war crime. CNN did 
not say there was speculation. CNN did not say there was an allegation. 
The CNN/Time article said it was used to go in and get American 
defectors.
  What CNN/Time failed to mention to the American public was their 
source of information. The original source of information was a 
lieutenant. The lieutenant did not remember this gas. In fact, he said 
he forgot it for 25 years, went without this memory, until he happened 
to be interviewed by one of the reporters with CNN and Time.
  During that interview on Easter Sunday, and by the way, the gentleman 
is a heavy drinker, he all of a sudden recalled that 25 years ago the 
United States military went and used poisonous gases on the Viet Cong. 
It is an international war crime.
  So CNN goes to their second source. CNN does not mention to the 
American public that their second source has filed for a full 
disability, so he has every incentive to come out and agree with the 
first source's story.
  Guess what? Thank goodness, Newsweek decided to look a little closer, 
to investigate the facts, not to run a story that impugns the United 
States government, impugns the United States military, impugns the 
commanding officers during that period of time, impugns the President 
of the United States, Richard Nixon, by alleging that this poison gas, 
a war crime, was used in secret.
  No, Newsweek decides to do their homework. Guess what they find out? 
They are the ones that come out and say, wait a second, the other 
people involved in this say this is a bunch of nonsense. The pilots 
say, it could not possibly happen, we did not have masks. The general, 
who by the way was a third source for Time/CNN, 88 years old and in an 
assisted care facility, denies that he said what Time and CNN said he 
said.
  Peter Arnett, we all know Peter Arnett, what was his response to 
Newsweek? ``It is one side of the story. I think it was a fair 
article.'' Yes, well, Mr. Arnett, you were not on the receiving end of 
this thing. How would you like to have your integrity, and to the 
executives at CNN and Time, how would you like your integrity impugned? 
How would you like that to happen to you before they went and verified 
the facts?
  Not a credit to Time magazine, not as the partnership of Time/CNN, 
but in credit to Time, I will say, and in reverence to full disclosure, 
Time magazine has said that they are going back to the story, they are 
going to reinvestigate the story, and they will report the facts as 
they find them. So at least they have acknowledged that they need to 
look at this just a little closer.
  But does this remind Members of a Richard Jewell kind of case? 
Remember Richard Jewell, the so-called alleged Olympic bomber, who the 
press could not wait, within hours, and in fact, they were there at the 
time the police went to Mr. Jewell's apartment? They destroyed the man. 
Just remember this story. All of us remember 2 weeks ago what Time and 
CNN did.
  Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Members that Time and CNN and every other 
press, every other publication or every news media in this country 
expects the United States Congress to have integrity, expects us to 
check our sources. We know any time or a lot of times we do not, we get 
barbecued by them. That is as it should be. But it should also run in 
the other direction.
  In my opinion, the United States of America has a military that is 
second to none, has a military that has lots of officers and lots of 
enlisted people who have very high integrity, are people of strong 
dedication, strong moral values.
  How do Members think they felt when on the lead story out of CNN, and 
Time runs a big story in Time magazine, that says that the United 
States military committed war crimes, war crimes? The same kind of 
crimes, war crimes, that people were executed after World War II for 
committing war crimes. These national publications accused our 
government of committing a war crime by using, by the way, the chemical 
sarin, of using that chemical.

                              {time}  1930

  My gosh, these are two of the leading media institutions in this 
country, and they have an ethical obligation to check those sources. 
Thank goodness that Newsweek stepped forward and ran the kind of 
investigation they ran.
  I beg of Time magazine, to all those executive officers, and I hope 
some of them are listening tonight as I speak to my colleagues here, I 
beg of these people, go back, check that story. And if that story is 
not true, give the United States military, the United States military 
personnel, President Nixon and everybody else that was impugned by 
those articles and by that press release, give them the same kind of 
coverage and retraction of this article as you gave in attack as a 
result of this article.

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