a single "SS" can be discovered anywhere among the many medals and insignia worn by the
veterans. So devoid is this reunion of any of the signs that one might expect in any open
celebration of the SS that one wonders what led Mr. Safer to the conclusion that that is what it
was. Perhaps it is the case that Mr. Safer was so carried away by his enthusiasm for the
feelings that he was sharing with 60 Minutes viewers that he quite overlooked the absence of
corroborative evidence. But if so, then is it not the case that he was taking another step
toward turning a broadcast that purported to be one of investigative journalism into an Oprah
Winfrey-style I-bare-my-secret-emotions-to-all-fest, with the secret emotions bared being those
of the correspondent himself?
What do you think? - Would this paragraph be worth adding or not? Perhaps it is too strong, and would only
weaken the critique? On the other hand, how else to get CBS to retract and to winnow its staff of offending personnel
than by stating the defects of "The Ugly Face of Freedom" boldly?
Yours truly,
Lubomyr Prytulak
cc: Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft, Michael Jordan, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace.
Morley Safer Letter 3 24May98 Your name inevitably comes up
If you cannot find instances of unfairness or inaccuracy in the many accusations that
have been leveled against The Ugly Face of Freedom, then I wonder whether your
refusing to retract and apologize satisfies standards of journalistic ethics.
May 24, 1998
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Dear Mr. Safer:
I am enclosing a copy of my letter to Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich dated 23May98
asking him to corroborate or to retract certain of his statements broadcast on the 60
Minutes story The Ugly Face of Freedom of 23Oct94. The subject of that letter leads
to further questions that I would like to put to you.
As your broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom was devoid of evidence supporting the
extreme conclusions that you were offering, and as the documentation of the two
attacks on Jews that Rabbi Bleich describes would have begun to provide some such
missing evidence, why did you not get in touch with the two sets of victims, as well
as with law enforcement officials, and interview them for the 60 Minutes broadcast?
In the case of the knife attack on two elderly Jews, Rabbi Bleich describes the
victims as having been left "for dead." Thus, the severity of this attack possibly
resulted in the taking of police and medical photographs, and possibly resulted in
newspaper coverage, and these photographs and newspaper stories, together with any
on-camera testimony of the victims and police officials would have begun to add
substantiation to your broadcast. In fact, if the perpetrators of any of the attacks
had been apprehended, you might have been able to interview them as well. Any of
these steps would have done much to enhance the quality of your work and yet you
seem to have failed to take any of these elementary and obvious steps. I wonder if
you could explain why.
The suspicion that you would be attempting to refute in your answer is that you
did indeed take the obvious steps of attempting to interview the victims and
attempting to confirm the stories with law enforcement officials, discovered that the
stories did not pan out, but finding yourself thin on material, broadcast Rabbi