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


Morley Safer:

Perhaps the approaching sixth anniversary of your 23-Oct-1994 broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, will differ from the previous five by demonstrating a shift in the balance of power away from those who spread disinformation to those who attempt to correct it.

Specifically, as the world switches to efficient search engines such as Google at www.google.com — a switch which might be completed in weeks rather than months or years — it will increasingly discover as it searches for “Morley Safer” or “60 Minutes” that it is being directed toward documents on the Ukrainian Archive (UKAR) at www.ukar.org.

For example, I have just done a Google search for “Morley Safer,” and find that four of the first ten links are ones to UKAR, in positions 2, 3, 4, and 5.  Nor are these four links reflective of the volume of material being offered — for example, clicking on "similar links" in the uppermost of these four produces thirty UKAR documents which contain “Morley Safer.”

On top of that, if I elaborate my search my adding search words, the attention directed toward UKAR grows even stronger:

Morley Safer	2, 3, 4, 5
Morley Safer, 60 Minutes	1, 2, 9
Morley Safer, Ukraine	1, 2, 3, 4
Morley Safer, Lviv	1, 2, 3, 4
Morley Safer, disinformation	1, 2, 3, 4
Morley Safer, holocaust	1, 2, 3, 4
Morley Safer, wine	1, 2, 3, 4
Morley Safer, French paradox	1, 2, 3
Morley Safer, heart disease	1

As might be expected, searching for The Ugly Face of Freedom broadcast alone brings similar results:

Ugly Face of Freedom	1, 2, 5, 6
Ugly Face of 60 Minutes	1, 2, 5, 6
Ugly Face	1, 2
zhyd	1, 2
genetic anti-Semitism	1

When the search centers on “60 Minutes” without mention of your name, users are directed toward UKAR only a little less overwhelmingly:

60 Minutes	12
60 Minutes, calumny	1, 2, 3, 4
60 Minutes, Ukraine	1, 2, 5, 6
60 Minutes, disinformation	1, 2, 5, 6
60 Minutes, Lviv	1, 2, 6, 7
60 Minutes, ugly	1, 2, 6, 7
60 Minutes, rabbi	1, 2, 6, 7
60 Minutes, Galicia Division	1, 2, 7, 8
60 Minutes, war crimes	1, 2, 9
60 Minutes, Nazi	1, 2, 10
60 Minutes, error	1
60 Minutes, retract	2, 3, 10
60 Minutes, deceit	2, 3
60 Minutes, wine	2, 3
60 Minutes, malfeasance	2
60 Minutes, pogrom	3, 4, 5, 6
60 Minutes, French paradox	4, 5
60 Minutes, holocaust	4

Searching for the names of your two chief guests on The Ugly Face of Freedom similarly points readers to UKAR:

Simon Wiesenthal	3, 5
Simon Wiesenthal, 60 Minutes	1, 2, 9, 10
Simon Wiesenthal, Ukraine	1, 10
Simon Wiesenthal, Morley Safer	1, 2, 3, 4
Yaakov Bleich	1, 2, 3
Yaakov Bleich, 60 Minutes	1, 2, 5, 6
Yaakov Bleich, Ukraine	1, 2, 10
Yaakov Bleich, Morley Safer	1, 2, 3, 4
Rabbi of Kyiv	1, 2
Simon Wiesenthal, Yaakov Bleich	1, 2, 3, 4

Even the names of CBS representatives who were more distantly involved in the creation of The Ugly Face of Freedom are now beginning to lead to UKAR:

Laurence Tisch	2, 4
Laurence Tisch, 60 Minutes	1, 3, 4
Laurence Tisch, Ukraine	1, 2, 3, 4
Eric Ober, 60 Minutes	1, 2, 4
Eric Ober, Ukraine	1, 2
Don Hewitt	6
Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes	6
Don Hewitt, Ukraine	1, 3
Jeffrey Fager	7
Jeffrey Fager, 60 Minutes	1, 2, 4
Jeffrey Fager, Ukraine	3, 4, 6, 7
Ed Bradley, 60 Minutes	13
Ed Bradley, Ukraine	4, 5, 7, 8
Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes	15
Steve Kroft, Ukraine	7, 8
Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes	11
Lesley Stahl, Ukraine	1, 2, 4
Mike Wallace	14, 19
Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes	3
Mike Wallace, Ukraine	1, 2, 3
Mike Wallace, Steven Rambam	1, 2, 3

It would appear, then, that the CBS attempt to limit damage by stonewalling is not working — rather, over time, the names of those involved are becoming ever more tightly connected to the errors of The Ugly Face of Freedom and to the cover-up that followed.  The outcome that threatens them is that in the end, their complicity in The Ugly Face of Freedom is all that the world will remember them for.

That the Google breach in the anti-information dyke will not widen is a hope that CBS cannot seriously entertain — the Internet user is dissatisfied with search engines that dump vast numbers of sites on him, most of which are vacuous.  Google has discovered a method for ranking sites according to interest, and all other search engines have no choice but to follow suit.  A search for "Morley Safer" on different search engines giving the UKAR rankings below suggests that the adoption of efficient search algorithms is already well under way, or even nearing completion:

SCRUB THE WEB	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
EXCITE	2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
LYCOS	1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10
GOOGLE	2, 3, 4, 5
YAHOO	2, 3
HOT BOT	2, 8
GO	1

Perhaps, then, efficient search engines constitute a revolution in information technology which will once and for all break the stranglehold that organizations like CBS have held on the flow of information.  If this is the case, then it would seem that you, and others that were involved in the production of The Ugly Face of Freedom, must finally after six years of running either turn and defend yourselves against the charges that have been made against you, or go down in silent defeat.



Lubomyr Prytulak

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