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Page 8 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 26, 1986 Pulitzer Prize winner Bernstein details famed reportorial effort bv Mitch Earle l SI contributing writer Celebrated Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein returned to Atlan ta last week to scold the Ameri can press for not practicing basic journalism. Speaking to 500 members of the Atlanta Jewish Federation’s Young Leadership Council and guests, Bernstein said the press, and especially television, doesn’t stick around long enough on a given subject to find out w hat has happened. “Reporting is not stenography. It’s the best obtainable version of the truth, and it usually involves wearing out some shoe leather.” Bernstein said there have been some improvements in television news, citing Ted Turner’s CNN as one of them. But generally, the three networks “glitz up" the daily news, and the TV “stars" have become more important than the news they present. The 1972 Pulitzer Prize winner said he and Washington Post col league Bob Woodward were ac curately portrayed in the movie version of their bestseller, “All the President’s Men," as wearing out shoe leather in pursuing basic fact-gathering. He and Woodward started from the bottom and worked their way up. They interviewed the same people that the FBI and prosecu tors talked with, but did so in the witnesses’ homes and at night. In this way, they were able to obtain more information because the witnesses did not feel the pressure of answering questions during the day in government offices, Bernstein said. Of the 2,000 reporters in Washington, D C., in the eariv 1970s. Bernstein and Woodward were two of only 14 reporters assigned to Watergate full-time during the first six months of the unfolding scandal. Only six of the 14 were doing investigative reporting, Bernstein added. “We did basic, empirical police reporting,” Bernstein said, dis missing the awed mystique of the press during the Watergate era. Wearing long, greying hair, Bernstein told The Temple audi ence t hat it was “good to be back in the Jewish community of At lanta." Bernstein is a former Dis trict 5 AZA Aleph Ciadol. After his distinguished career at the Washington Post, Bern stein went on to become the Washington bureau chief lor ABC News. He is currently working on a book on the Joseph Mc Carthy era. which he said will be available in fall 1987. He told the enthusiastic crowd about one of his early interchanges with tormer Attorney General John Mitchell. Three months after the break-in of the Watergate hotel, Bernstein, at the age of 28, had learned that Mitchell con trolled secret funds for use in countering Nixon’s political op ponents. Upon asking the attor ney general to comment over the phone, Mitchell responded, “Jeee- sus!" Bernstein then read him the first paragraph of his unprece dented story, to which Mitchell again replied, “Jeee-sus!” On the Watergate beat, Bern stein said he discovered that the Nixon White House was organ ized along the same lines as the Soviet KGB, that is, shrouded in secrecy: secret funds, political sabotage. White House burglars, surveillance, wiretapping, and obstruction of justice in the at- WASHINGTON -President Reagan has signed an executive order reducing Israel's annual payment of interest on its indebt edness to the United States by about SI. 100 million over the next four years but the reduced amounts will be added to Israel's borrowings for payment later. The president's order, signed Dec. 9. is based on existing legis lative authoritv for restructuring of loans. An official announce ment is to be made once details are completed on the complicated financial arrangements for six countries on the varied interest rates on loans to them, this re porter was informed by compe tent sources following a report in London. In effect, the order follows the Carl Bernstein tempted cover-up. As with the Nixon administra tion, the present administration is utilizing the effective tactic of angrily maligning the press and making its conduct the issue, Bernstein said. Meanwhile, he added, Reagan and his aides sidestep the substantive issues put to them. “For six years, (Reagan) has routinely blamed the press for proposal of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) who had recommended more than a year ago that the interest burden on Israel be reduced by cutting the rates car ried on its debts to the current rate. Inouye’s proposal was strongly supported by Sen. Bob Kasten (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. H owever, the president's action, which affects the interest on loans to a half-dozen countries which borrowed U.S. funds to buy American military equipment and ser\ ices, is based on the adminis tration's desire to ease Egypt’s burden. Israel, in effect, is aided by the assistance primarily de signed to help the financially dis tressed government in Cairo. The order is limited to the U.S. . Foreign Military Sales program, this country’s and h.s problems.” Bernstein contended. Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin did the same thing after the Beirut inva sion. Thev lied about only desir ing to go 25 kms. into Lebanon, when their objective all along was to reach Beirut. However. Israel “relies on the truth for its existence and to keep it free," Bernstein argued. Still, debate is lacking over Israel's actions and this is harmful to the state of Israel and presents a problem within the American Jewish community. The present Iranian arms crisis grew out of the broad policies and attitudes of the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Day- to-day operations are conducted in secret and with contempt for Congress, the public and the press, Bernstein stated. “Make no mistake. (CIA Di rector) William Casey's concern and Ronald Reagan's concern today are not about national security.” The Iranian arms deal has been evident for two years, Bern stein said, as has been Reagan’s private funding of "freedom figh ters” in Nicaragua. The real story involves the United States’ covert operations in Latin America. under which Israel owes about $5,500 million; Egypt, $4,600 million; Turkey, $1,400 million, and South Korea. Pakistan and Spain, each in the neighborhood of more than $500 million, these countries have been paying interest of between 12 and 13 percent on their loans. The order reduces the rate to the present prime rate of about 7 to I'/i percent. As a result, Israel will pay about $200 million less in interest during the 1987 fiscal year which began last Oct. I, and about $.300 million less in each of the next three years ending in 1990. Israel and other countries will still have to repay their original debts and then reimburse the U.S. Treas ury for the difference between the new and old interest totals.' This means that the $1,100 mil- Analogizing to Watergate, Bernstein said the press made a big mistake then in looking f or “the smoking gun. 1 would hate to see the same thing happen here.” Reporters need to ask how these secret channels got set up in the first place and what was l.t. Oliver North's understanding regarding funding to the contra rebels in Nicaragua. Yet, the press’s immersion into "an orgy of self-congratulation" during Watergate and its eleva tion of the trivial over the signifi cant today has caused it to cover what the media believes readers want to see and hear, rather than what is news. “This is the time for the press to look at its own conduct, as well as the conduct of the Presi dent and his men.” Rather than being too aggres sive, the press has been too pas sive and lazy, he said. Journalists must get back to basics and wear out some shoe leather. In the final hour, the press must do as John Mitchell once told Bern stein, “Watch what they do and not what they say.” Mitch Earle is Editor of Geor gia Law Letter. —Editor. lion Israel won’t pay over the next four years will be repaid sometime in the next decade, with the current interest rate being applied to that amount. Egypt is to benefit by annual savings of more than $200 mil lion annually to 1990 to help replenish its depleted hard cur rency reserves. “The U.S. action is understood to have been pri marily motivated out of concern for Egypt's parlous financial state,” the Financial Times of London said in a despatch front Jerusalem. "Israel, in effect, climbed on the back of the Egyp tian deal." In the last three years both Egypt and Israel have been re ceiving military and economic assistance as grants without repayment. Israel receives $3 bil lion and Egypt $2,150 million. Reagan restructures Israel’s indebtedness by Joseph Polakoff MAKE THIS A SUMMER TO REMEMBER! REGISTER NOW...For CAMP BARNEY MEDINTZ 1987 Summer Season Over 550 Campers have already registered LIMITED SPACES STILL AVAILABLE Staff-in Training Two four-week programs offer 1 1 th graders the opportunity to develop leadership skills, program skills and time management. Interviews now in progress. 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