Community reaction is swift and angry (10/30/94)

Community reaction is swift and angry

by Khristina Lew

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - With a precision both swift and crystalline, Ukrainian institutions and Ukrainian communities in the United States and Canada lashed out at CBS and its news program "60 Minutes," jamming CBS telephone lines, writing letters, demonstrating and scheduling meetings with CBS corporate and affiliate officials in reaction to an inflammatory "60 Minutes" segment on anti-Semitism in western Ukraine titled "The Ugly Face of Freedom" that aired on October 23.

Ukraine's Embassy to the United States was quick to react. In a letter to CBS News Division President Eric W. Ober dated October 25, Valery Kuchinsky, charge d'affaires, relayed the Ukrainian government's "utter resentment at the stridently biased segment on the alleged rise of anti-Semitism" in western Ukraine, demanding that CBS carry a retraction and "present an official apology for its gross injustice to Ukraine and its people in the highly abusive report" (for full text, see page 8).

Embassy Press Counselor Dmytro Markov added that Ukrainian government officials in Kyyiv have communicated with the Jewish Council of Ukraine, the Jewish community's largest association in Ukraine, and The Council of Ethnic Associations of Ukraine, and that joint action will be taken. "We found understanding on issuing a joint statement. We believe that the Jewish community in Ukraine would be very active in making their voice heard here," he stated.

Mr. Markov also said Ukraine's newly appointed ambassador to the U.S., Dr. Yuriy Shcherbak, currently Ukraine's ambassador to Israel, has been apprised of the situation.

The Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church, too, has reacted, issuing a statement by its primate, Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky, on October 26 from Rome. In his statement, the cardinal said that the producer of the segment, Jeffrey Fager, had misrepresented the thrust of the report, claiming that piece would focus on "post-Communist Ukraine."

"If the reasons why such anti-Semitic sentiments exist in Ukraine were of interest," wrote the primate, "they could have been discussed and debated. I can only deduce that the goal of the report was to present all western Ukrainians as rabid anti-Semites."

People's Deputy Yaroslav Kendzior of Lviv, in the United States to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, viewed the segment a day after it was aired on October 24, and voiced his indignation over its "brutal insinuations." He said, "Today, to portray Ukraine and its people in such a light, to suggest that Ukrainians are somehow genetically anti-Semitic, to portray us as destroying Jews on our territory, this is an all-encompassing lie."

Mr. Kendzior called the segment a "gross political provocation geared at complicating Ukrainian-Israeli relations" and criticized Simon Wiesenthal's motives. "If we were to take the '60 Minutes' segment and Mr. Wiesenthal's behavior in it as an example, then the Ukrainian people could identify the Jewish people and the Israeli nation with Kaganovich, who organized the Ukrainian famine, who organized the repressions of the 1930s. His efforts destroyed millions of Ukrainians.

"But we do not do this today, because this has remained in history. Today we understand that we do not have the right to identify Kaganovich in general with the Jewish people, even though he was a Jew by nationality. We would expect that Mr. Wiesenthal and these leaders [interviewed in the segment] of the Jewish community in Ukraine would act honorably in this situation."

Mr. Kendzior called on Ukrainian organizations in the diaspora to protest the segment. The community needed no prompting.

On October 24, 100 Ukrainian Americans demonstrated before the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia, demanding a meeting with "60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt (see sidebar on this page). That demonstration and the subsequent flurry of letters and telephone calls to CBS prompted Mr. Hewitt to agree to a meeting with members of the Ukrainian American community scheduled for October 31.

The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Ukrainian National Association have advised their branches to telephone/fax CBS in protest and demand the dismissal of correspondent Morley Safer. The UCCA has tasked its branches with communicating with CBS affiliates, many of whom are fleeing CBS for the Fox network, to request a meeting with the Ukrainian American community. Representatives of the Rochester area community are scheduled to meet with a CBS affiliate on October 28.

The UCCA and the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council are also urging Ukrainian Americans to contact the sponsors of the "60 Minutes" segment, the Democratic State Committee for Cuomo and Sprint, in protest.

Bishop Basil Losten of the Ukrainian Catholic Church's Stamford Diocese has alerted all pastors in the diocese to advise parishioners to telephone, fax, write and telegram CBS.

The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute is drafting a letter to CBS detailing the historical inaccuracies in the segment, and a HURI representative will attend a meeting of community organization heads scheduled for October 28 at the UNA headquarters in Jersey City. That meeting will focus on further action by the community in response to the segment.

In light of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's October 23-27 visit to Canada, the World Congress of Ukrainians and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress have been unable to organize a concerned action from their respective organizations. Individual Ukrainian Canadians, however, are communicating with CBS affiliates. The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta is preparing a brief on the historical inaccuracies presented in the segment for the UCC.

WCU President Dmytro Cipywnyk, who has not had an opportunity to view the segment, did comment on its timing, which coincided with President Kuchma's first state visit to the West. "The segment certainly got the ear and the sight of many people. People are most disturbed by it because it happened to coincide with President Kuchma's visit to Canada, and I think that was probably unfortunate. I don't know to what extent this thing was contrived to deliberately coincide with his visit. We can speculate about the motivations for that."

In past months, CBS has raised the ire of the Asian American community, airing a report in May about Chinese spies in the U.S. The Organization of Chinese Americans, the Committee of 100 and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association protested, claiming the report may have stirred anti-Chinese feelings.

According to The Washington Post, CBS refused to meet with representatives of the organizations for four months. Following an October 12 letter from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to CBS expressing its concern over the issue, CBS met with the Chinese organizations in New York. That meeting was followed by a letter of apology from Mr. Ober and a public apology from Connie Chung on the "CBS Evening News."

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