Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA       10019


Morley Safer:

Fifth anniversary of The Ugly Face of Freedom

Now that we have arrived at the fifth anniversary of your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, I think that all might agree that five years has given us sufficient time to reflect on that broadcast, to arrive at a reasonable understanding of its defects, and to decide what corrective action remains for 60 Minutes to undertake.  It is the purpose of the present letter to propose that the corrective action should be a 12-minute 60 Minutes story under the title The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes, and necessarily hosted by yourself.

Given the severe time limitation of a 12-minute segment, not to mention the public's lack of interest in excessive detail, The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes will be forced to overlook scores of lesser inaccuracies and biases, and will be forced to omit mention of any defects that contain the least element of doubt.  Rather, The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes will have no option but to outline only those major defects and errors concerning which there is no dispute.  Below is my listing of the points which — being the most important and the least disputable — are ones that The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should include.

Who did it?

The authorship of The Ugly Face of Freedom was Jewish.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should start by acknowledging that The Ugly Face of Freedom was not just an attack upon Ukrainians and upon the nation of Ukraine, but that it was a Jewish attack.  You will be able to convince your viewers of this merely by disclosing that every last person bearing responsibility for the story, from the very top of the chain of command to the very bottom, was Jewish:

(1)   Laurence Tisch, Chairman and CEO of CBS
(2)   Eric Ober, President of CBS News
(3)   Don Hewitt, Executive Producer of 60 Minutes
(4)   Jeffrey Fager, Producer of The Ugly Face of Freedom
(5)   Morley Safer, Program Host
(6)   Simon Wiesenthal, one of the two featured program witnesses
(7)   Yaakov Bleich, the other of the two featured program witnesses

Moreover, The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should acknowledge that it was unethical for CBS to run a story on Ukraine without acknowledging its conflict of interest — the conflict being that it is an integral part of Jewish culture to nourish fear and hatred of Ukrainians, and yet 60 Minutes which was owned and operated by Jews undertook to broadcast what purported to be an objective, investigative-journalism story on Ukraine.  If, to imagine a comparable case, CBS management jointly owned a chicken-packing plant that had been cited for sanitation violations, then it would be unethical for 60 Minutes to run a story defending the plant without disclosing its ownership.

One of the authors of The Ugly Face of Freedom may have been a Gestapo agent.

Of all the individuals in the above list, I see no need to discuss transgressions beyond those committed in creating the broadcast, except in one case where it is of the highest relevance — and that is the case of Simon Wiesenthal whom you bring forward to testify concerning Nazi collaboration when he himself appears to be a Nazi collaborator of major proportions, possibly with the blood of many on his hands, and possibly much of it Jewish blood.  The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose the suspect nature of Wiesenthal's past, as for example the occasion on which Simon Wiesenthal was allowed by his German captors to keep two pistols, or the occasion on which other Jews were executed following their recapture after escaping, whereas Simon Wiesenthal was relieved of work and put on double rations.  This information is highly relevant, as it suggests the possibility that Simon Wiesenthal used 60 Minutes to offer false testimony concerning Nazi collaboration partly in order to conceal his own guilt.

What did they do?

The attempt on the part of CBS Jews steeped in a culture of hatred toward Ukrainians to report on Ukraine resulted in outstanding distortions which can be corrected as follows:

(1)  In the pre-German interval, Ukrainians did not kill Jews.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose to its viewers that the Wiesenthal-Safer calumny — that prior to the arrival of German forces, Ukrainians killed some five to six thousand Jews — is without support.

(2)  In the pre-German interval, Jews did kill Ukrainians.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose that in the days prior to occupation by German forces, the Jewish-dominated NKVD tortured and murdered Ukrainians by the thousands.

(3)  The Yaakov Bleich stories cannot be substantiated.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose that the Yaakov Bleich stories of elderly Jews being stabbed and left for dead in two different locations in Ukraine cannot be substantiated.

(4)  Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian patriot.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should balance negative Stepan Bandera coverage by disclosing that Bandera was arrested by the Germans in the first days of their invasion of Ukraine, spent most of the war in German captivity, lost two brothers in Auschwitz, and upon release from German captivity toward the end of the war, devoted his efforts to fighting the Germans.

(5)  Symon Petliura protected Jews from anti-Ukrainian provocateurs.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should balance negative Symon Petliura coverage by quoting his own words, as for example this excerpt from his Army Order No. 131: "I most positively order that all those who are instigating you to pogroms be thrust out of the army, and as traitors to the fatherland be handed over to the court.  Let the court punish them according to their crimes by giving them the severest lawful penalty."

(6)  The Galicia Division was an anti-Bolshevik combat unit.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose that the Galicia Division was not part of the SS, but only of the Waffen-SS, and so was a combat unit; that there were a total of 38 Waffen-SS divisions comprised of several nationalities, including four Dutch divisions, two Belgian, as well as French, Norwegian, and Russian; and that the Galicia Division did not "march off to fight for Hitler," but rather marched off to fight against the Bolshevik re-occupation of Western Ukraine.

(7)  The Holocaust story has been adulterated.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose that the history of the Holocaust has been adulterated by the admixture of fantasies concocted by unprincipled opportunists — Jerzy Kosinski being the most widely known example, and the Wiesenthal-Safer calumny providing the instance closest to home.

(8)  CBS stone-walled.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose that 60 Minutes illegally destroyed the 16,000 pieces of mail which protested The Ugly Face of Freedom, and that 60 Minutes also delayed for five years (and maybe a little bit longer)  before informing its viewers of the defects in the original broadcast.

(9)  Mistranslation.

Conceding for present purposes that 60 Minutes was not clearly in the wrong to always translate Zhyd as Kike, nevertheless The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should disclose that when the editor of Za Vilnu Ukrainu used the word Yevrei, 60 Minutes was obligated to translate that as Jew, and was clearly in the wrong to have translated it as Kike.

(10)  Ukrainian sacrifices to save Jews.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should tear up its picture of unrelieved Ukrainian hostility to Jews by disclosing that a large number of Ukrainians risked their lives, and gave their lives, to save Jews, and that no comparable reciprocity has ever been observed from the Jewish side.  The case of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky hiding large numbers of Jews on church property could be featured in this context, as could the Ukrainian Bodnar's saving the life of Simon Wiesenthal.

(11)  The chief Ukrainian roles during WW II were those of victim and of victor.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should tear up its picture of unrelieved Ukrainian sympathy for Nazism by disclosing that Ukrainians were among the foremost victims of the Nazis, suffering losses much greater than Jewish losses, and were in the forefront of the battle which defeated the Nazis.

Why did they do it?

Jews have motives for calumniating Ukraine.

The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes should finally inform its viewers of Jewish motives for calumniating Ukrainians and Ukraine, among these being the following:

(1)  Brain drain.

Magnified and incited Ukrainian anti-Semitism is needed in order to increase the brain drain from Ukraine to Israel.

(2)  Image of the Jew as victim.

Inculcating the image of Jews as victims of the Nazis, and Ukrainians as the leading collaborators of the Nazis, serves to crowd out, and give the appearance of implausibility to, a series of other images: that Ukrainians were leading victims of the Nazis, that Ukrainians played a leading role in the defeat of the Nazis, that Jews collaborated with the Nazis more than Ukrainians did, that Ukrainians risked their lives and gave their lives to save Jews, and that in today's world, among the leading perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity are the Israelis.

(3)  The Lviv massacre.

Promoting the false story of Ukrainians massacring Jews prior to the arrival of the Germans is particularly useful in winning disbelief of the true story that the Jewish-dominated NKVD massacred Ukrainians prior to the arrival of the Germans.

(4)  Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

The Jewish calumniation of Ukrainians strengthens a frame of mind that will more readily accept the Jewish revision of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky uprising of 1648 from the accurate view that it was a rebellion against severe Polish-Jewish oppression to the false view that it was a spontaneous outburst of gratuitous and genocidal anti-Semitism.

(5)  US aid.

The Jewish calumniation of Ukrainians weakens competition for US aid, as by discrediting Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma who was at the time of the 60 Minutes broadcast paying an official visit to the US.

(6)  Group cohesion.

The incitement of fear and hatred in Jews increases popular support for, and the flow of private donations to, Jewish leaders.  A focus is needed for that fear and hatred.  At the moment, Ukrainians have been chosen to be that focus.

Most of the above assertions have been documented, sometimes at length, on the Ukrainian Archive at www.ukar.org.  If you would like me to direct your attention to documentation concerning any particular assertion — whether that documentation is on the Ukrainian Archive or elsewhere — please let me know and I will be happy to oblige.

Twelve minutes to restored credibility

I think you will have no trouble accomodating all of the above points into a single 60 Minutes segment.  If you do, and if you broadcast that segment, you will turn your currently failing grades for competence and integrity into high As, and you will lift the status of 60 Minutes to a level never before reached in American journalism.  If you do not, you will credit 60 Minutes with the dubious achievement of having broadcast the most concentrated segment of hate propaganda ever to make its appearance in the mainstream media.



Lubomyr Prytulak

cc:  Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace.