Holocaust version of the Babyn Yar story, and (3) that he was tortured to death along
with his mother, then it would take a mental paralysis with which I have not as yet been
seized to refuse to consider the first two of these events as possibly having caused the
third.
I don't accuse you of having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination.
As you broadcast the Ugly Face of Freedom on 23 October 1994 and Volodymyr Katelnytsky's
assassination did not take place until 7-8 July 1997, I obviously do not accuse you of
having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination in your broadcast.
But I do accuse you of having missed the big story of which Katelnytsky's
assassination is but one piece.
However, the persecution and assassination of Ukrainians did not begin in 1997. It
began hundreds of years earlier, carried right up until your broadcast in 1994, and
continued through 1997 to this day. What I do accuse you of, then, is ignoring a
centuries-long stream of evidence attesting to the persecution of Ukrainians, and of
broadcasting instead the story of the persecution of Russians and Jews even in the
absence of evidence. Your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up anything like a
story of a prominent Russian activist being tortured to death in his apartment, whether
along with his mother or alone. And your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up
anything like a story of a prominent Jewish activist being tortured to death in his
apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. The story that you would have been
able to document, but that you chose to ignore, is that Ukraine is a nation which is
ruled by Russians and Jews, and in which Ukrainians are routinely persecuted and
murdered.
And I do accuse you of having helped cause Katelnytsky's assassination.
But even though you could not have covered Katelnytsky's assassination in 1994, you
could have in 1994 avoided giving encouragement to assassins who were at that time
plotting such assassinations. Instead, you did give encouragement to Katelnytsky's
assassins by demonstrating to them that the world press can be counted upon to continue
broadcasting anti-Ukrainian calumnies even while Ukrainians were being victimized in
their own land. It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom,
Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had
you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their
oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.
Lubomyr Prytulak
cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 630 hits since 30Jun99
Morley Safer Letter 11 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko?
We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is reported that
8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to their television sets exploding,
we all believe that Vadim would have survived this kind of accident.
June 30, 1999
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Morley Safer:
The conclusion that you offered in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of