On October 23, 1994 the CBS television network broadcast a fourteen minute program titled The Ugly Face of Freedom with host Morley Safer. Produced by Jeffrey Fager, the program wove an astonishing documentary about Western Ukraine today with a combination of footage from today and from World War II. It is an amazing program because after Morley Safer’s first two sentences it becomes a textbook example of distortion and propaganda about the relationship of Ukrainians with Jews.

This program was ready over a half a year ago but was only broadcast on October 23 to coincide with the first official visit to North America by the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. We can only wonder whose interests were served by such a biased program. Is it possible that in the interests of sensational reporting that the CBS program accidentally acquired such a strong bias? Our analysis will follow the sequence of the script.

Video Capture of the Introduction to the program in question by Morley Safer.

Let us look at the program and attempt to identify some of the errors, inaccuracies, innuendoes and the purposeful distortion of facts and images. It is necessary to view the program several times in order to fully recognize all the skill and deviousness that went into its preparation. Morley Safer opens the program with an accurate and factual statement:

"The collapse of communism, the breakup of the Soviet Union has brought independence and a measure of freedom to more than a dozen new states. The most powerful is Ukraine, a nation of 52 million people, the world’s third largest nuclear power, and now free after 300 years of outside rule."

Safer then starts the propaganda: "Ukraine is hardly a stable unified entity" and then he suggests that the country is facing imminent disintegration, a view propagated by an obvious hostile power. He then says that Western Ukraine is "on a binge of ethnic nationalism. Ukraine for Ukrainians..." Then comes Safer’s first large distortion. He says that "Ukraine is a nation that barely acknowledges its part in Hitler’s final solution" insinuating that Ukraine collaborated with Hitler in the final solution. In fact, however, Ukraine had no government on its territory during the German occupation, so Ukraine could not be a collaborator as was Vichy France, Hungary, Romania, or Slovakia , for example. Ukraine was divided by the Germans into five administrative areas, of which three were under German rule (Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Generalgouvernement, and Wehrmacht Military) and the others under Hungarian and Romanian rule. Ukrainians were unsuccessful in all their attempts to establish a Ukrainian government during the German occupation.

Safer is obviously ignorant of the fact that the Nazis classed Ukrainians as subhumans (Untermenschen) and that they were scheduled for destruction or exile on the list below the Jews. Hitler wanted the rich earth of Ukraine as Lebensraum for the German nation and the first steps were taken during the war for the elimination of Ukrainians to make room for German settlers. The Museum of World War II in the capital Kiev has a simple sign on marble which states: "In 1940 in Ukraine lived 41.3 million people. In 1945 - 27.4 million people."

Monument at the Ukrainian Museum of World War II. It translates to: "In 1940 in Ukraine the population was 41.3 million people. In 1945 - 27.4 million people."

On a list of populations killed in World War II the museum has, for example: Ukraine 8,000,00, Germany 6,500,000, France 600,000, Italy 460,000, USA 400,000, and England 360,000. About 8 million Ukrainian citizens (some estimates say 10 million) were killed in World War II. This includes about 600,000 Ukrainian Jews. About 2.5 million Ukrainians were taken as Ostarbeiters for slave labor to Germany during World War II, which was the largest group of all nationalities.

Safer suggests that the Ukrainians have an "old enemy," Russian communism and an "old, old enemy", the Jews. If the same logic were applied to the USA then the "old enemy" of the USA was Russian communism and the "old, old enemy" was the Jews (after all anti-Semitism in the USA is older than Russian communism.)

The second major distortion is the false translation of a Ukrainian speaker who says "We Ukrainians do not have to rely on America and the Jews." The translator distorts the speaker’s words into an illiterate sentence "We Ukrainians not have to rely on America and kikes." The speaker did not use the American word "kike" which does not exist in the Ukrainian language, he used the word Zhyd.

The Encyclopedia of Ukraine, published by the University of Toronto Press, says that the word Jew has two Ukrainian equivalents: Zhyd and Yevrei. Zhyd is the common and correct word in Western Ukraine, as it is in Poland, while Yevrei is more common in Eastern Ukraine due to Russian influence. Some Jewish scholars such as Solomon Goldelman insist that Zhyd is the only correct word in Ukrainian for Jew. In the Ukrainian language Zhyd (Jew) and Yevrei (Hebrew) mean simply Jew and neither is pejorative. However, it should be noted that the Russian language uses Yevrei for Jew and does use Zhid as a pejorative. We suspect CBS is smart enough to know that there is a difference between the Ukrainian and Russian languages.

The speaker in Lviv was clearly speaking in Ukrainian so it was not a pejorative use of Zhyd. The CBS translator intentionally with calculation mistranslated the Ukrainian word for Jew as "kike" to impute anti-Semitism to the Ukrainian speaker where, in fact, it did not exist. We know that this distorted mistranslation was intentional since it is used four separate times in the program. When I asked Rabbi Bleich in Kiev which was the correct term in his opinion he answered that both Zhyd and Yevrei were acceptable in Ukrainian.

One example in the program is its use in a joke recounted by the Editor of Za Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine) which relates to the very large Jewish presence which existed in the Bolshevik/Communist party, Soviet government, and Cheka secret police during the 1920s and 1930s. The Editor of Za Vilnu Ukrainu probably says (it is not audible) that the letters CCCP (pronounced SSSR meaning USSR) represented three Jews (C=Srooli or Israelites) and one Russian (P=Russki). The word "kike" used by the CBS translator makes the joke completely meaningless.

For example, Stalin’s infamous henchman in Ukraine was Lazar Kaganovich who was of Jewish origin. Kaganovich, responsible for collectivization, engineered the terrible 1933 famine which took 5 to 7 million Ukrainian lives. On the famine see Harvest of Sorrow, by Robert Conquest who says "As to Stalin’s personal guilt (and that of...Kaganovich...) it is true that, as with Hitler’s responsibility for the Jewish holocaust, we cannot document the responsibility in the sense that any decree exists in which Stalin orders the famine." p. 328.

Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, Yaakov Bleich, is an American.

Safer then introduces Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, an American who became chief rabbi of Ukraine five years ago. Rabbi Bleich speaks five times on the program and his words are extremely critical of Ukraine and Ukrainians. His statements are such that each quote is so damning that it seems that every Ukrainian is anti-Jewish.

However, Rabbi Bleich told me during an interview in Kiev that CBS had actually misused his interview. Apparently 60 Minutes used the Rabbi’s interview in an inflammatory and piecemeal way. In a letter Rabbi Bleich released on October 31, 1994 he says: "...I feel that the broadcast did not convey the true state of affairs in Ukraine. I also would like to state unequivocally that my words were quoted out of the context that they were said." Rabbi Bleich was talking not about Ukraine or Ukrainians in general. His remarks were only about the lunatic fringe in Ukraine, exactly the same kind of anti-Semitic groups that exist today in countries like the USA, Canada, England, Japan and Germany.

Safer uses the name Lvov for the city in its Russian form rather than Lviv which is the correct Ukrainian name today. Safer and CBS are also weak in their knowledge of the English language. The use of the definite article "the" before Ukraine is incorrect in English, but Safer (except for the first instance at the opening of the program) and the translator both use "the" Ukraine several times.

Safer says that "Thousands of Ukrainians joined the SS and marched off to fight for Nazism." This is said simultaneously with marching men who four times in the program shout "Slava natsiyi!" (Glory to the nation!). To the viewer this sounds as if it is a cheer for Nazism but all it reflects is the phonetically similarity of the sound of the Ukrainian word for nation to Nazi. The Ukrainians did not join the Galicia Division No. 14 (Waffen-Grenadierdivision der SS) to fight "for Hitler" as Safer said. They were fighting against the USSR and the Russians in order to win independence for Ukraine.

Another interesting example of CBS distortion was applied to three groups of marching Ukrainians in the program, men and teenager boy scouts. The groups are out of step with the sound of marching feet. This seems to indicate that CBS has added a military marching sound track to these scenes. This is a serious distortion since an innocent group of Boy Scouts (Plastuns) is made to look like a sinister Hitler youth group.

We wonder what proof there is that the brutal filmclips and images shown are actually in Ukraine. There are no identifying indicators in the film itself, such as recognizable buildings, signs, or individuals and no proof that they relate to Ukrainians. The image of the distraught seated girl is known to be questionable since TIME magazine printed a retraction about it. The images of Lviv with swastika flags are obviously the German propaganda films made during World War II. Safer makes much of the temporary renaming of the Lviv square as Adolf Hitler Square but who would dare to argue with the powerful German military machine occupying the city?

The program emphasizes the brutality of the "Ukrainian" Police who were organized by the Germans and under German administration. It should be noted that the phrase "Ukrainian" Police was widely and indiscriminately used for all police on the territory of Ukraine as well as elsewhere. It does not mean they were Ukrainians or of Ukrainian origin. They were also Volksdeutsch, Russians, Poles, Balts, Tartars, Armenians, Hungarians, and Romanians. Particularly notorious were the "Ukrainian" police in the Warsaw ghetto who were not Ukrainians at all. They were Russians who were members of the Vlasov Russian Liberation Army (former Waffen SS No. 29) and not Ukrainians according to Professor Yaroslav Bilinsky.

Contrary to Safer the Ukrainians were not in the SS Division Galizien in 1941 when the Jews of Lviv were marched to their death. It was only late in the war in June 1943 that the Waffen SS Galicia Division was recruited, trained in Fall 1943 and first saw action in 1944. Since the Division did not yet exist in 1941 it could not have participated in the round up of Jews in Lviv as Safer said. Safer also always says only "SS" but the Germans did not allow the Ukrainians to join the SS Einsatzgruppen death squads because they were reserved only for Germans. Ukrainians were only in the Waffen SS which was a completely different military organization of regular army units. These are examples of other serious errors or distortions by CBS.

Simon Wiesenthal, a Ukrainian born Jew, who is interviewed, says a "Ukrainian" policeman shot his mother in Lviv. (Elsewhere he has said his mother was killed on the way to Auschwitz.) This is a personal tragedy which would certainly affect anyone and we can sympathize with his great loss. But as a result of this experience Wiesenthal has made unfounded accusations against Ukrainians and has spread much disinformation. (He does not mention that a Ukrainian saved his life.) For example, after World War II, the Governments of the United Kingdom, Canada and the USSR carefully investigated the Galicia Division for war criminals before they were admitted to England and later as immigrants to Canada. No war crimes were attributed to the Division and no war criminals were found in the Division. The Galicia Division was a Waffen SS unit which was an army unit and not a political SS unit. The head of the SS, Himmler, stated categorically on May 28, 1944 that a Ukrainian could not be an SS-man. There was no Ukrainian SS.

In the early 1980s Wiesenthal alleged that Canada was sheltering hundreds of war criminals including the Galicia Division. The Government of Canada in February 1985 established the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals headed by Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes which investigated all the "war criminals" supplied on lists by Wiesenthal including the Galicia Division.

In its final report, issued March 12, 1987, the Deschenes Commission completely cleared the Galicia Division of all charges of war criminal activity. Wiesenthal was severely condemned for his "totally useless" list of "war criminals" and the "large and grossly exaggerated figures" which had cost millions of dollars to research thoroughly. Does CBS have new information that two years of intensive Canadian legal research and the Canadian RCMP did not unearth?

Wiesenthal claims that the "Ukrainian" police killed 5,000 to 6,000 Jews in Lviv in "a three-day killing spree." Indeed, the Soviet secret police killed almost 10,000 Ukrainian prisoners in Western Ukraine before they retreated in June 1941, but a citizen of Lviv who was there told FORUM that there was no three-day gap between the departure of the Soviet Secret Police and the German occupation. Certainly the "Ukrainian" police were not yet organized under the German occupation.

Safer said to Wiesenthal: "I get the impression from people that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything, were worse than the Germans." Does Safer really mean to compare and equate The Final Solution and Hitler’s policy of extermination of all Europe’s Jewish population by a special German organization developed for the purpose, and huge resources in manpower, railway transportation, construction supplies and chemical manufacturing facilities as worse than the actions of some Ukrainian war criminals?

It is strange that there is not a word in the program about Ukraine’s rich Jewish heritage. The music of Hava Nagila, for example, comes from Ukraine, to be specific, the city of Chernivtsi. The Ukrainian Jewish Hava Nagila is a typical example of the Jewish music of Ukraine. Many of the most brilliant Jewish minds came from Ukraine as did Hasidism and other traditions. We might mention such Ukrainian Jews as Sholem Aleichem, Nahman of Bratslav, S.Y. Agnon, Isaac Babel and Vladimir Jabotinsky. However, the program was too busy being negative to even touch on the culture of Ukrainian Jews.

There is also no mention of the contribution Ukrainians have made to memorializing the tragic Jewish Holocaust in Ukraine. For example, two authors of Ukrainian origin aroused the world over Kiev’s Babi Yar tragedy. (It’s Babyn Yar in Ukrainian). A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov), a Ukrainian born in Ukraine, wrote the documentary novel Babi Yar which is an outstanding description of Babyn Yar and Kiev during the German occupation of World War II. The author lived through those years. Much of the novel reflects history but there are some statements which are questioned by historians. The famous poet Evgeny Yevtushenko, born in Siberia of Ukrainian origin, wrote the powerful poem "Babi Yar" in 1960 which attracted the attention of the world to the tragedy. Ivan Dzyuba, a brilliant literary critic and the first Minister of Culture of independent Ukraine, spoke eloquently at Babyn Yar on the 25th anniversary in 1966. On the 50th anniversary the Babyn Yar Requiem was created by two Ukrainians, composer Yevhen Stankovich and poet Dmytro Pavlychko, for performance at the commemorative program which I attended at Babyn Yar in Kiev on October 5, 1991. The government of Ukraine has erected two major monuments for Babyn Yar, including a giant menorah.

	Photograph of a German Military Authority Notice (in Ukrainian & German) commanding all Jewish residents of Kyiv & surrounding areas to gather at 8 AM on Sunday September 29th 1941 on Melnyk-Dokterivsky Street. Bring documents and money. Those who do not comply with this order will be shot. Other non-Jewish residents who hide/protect Jews will be shot (Ukrainian Museum of World War II).
	Photograph of a German Military Authority Notice (in Ukrainian, Russian & German) that 400 Ukrainian hostages have been executed in retaliation for sabotaged telephone, telegraph and cable connections. It urges that the German army or German police be informed to apprehend the saboteurs. Eberhard, Commander of the city of Kyiv; November 29th 1941 (Ukrainian Museum of World War II).

Not a word is said about the many Ukrainians who risked their lives to save Jews. For example, Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church hid and saved hundreds of Jews in his church buildings in Lviv and elsewhere but he is not mentioned. No mention is made of the many other Ukrainians who risked their own lives to save Jews. Yad Vashem in Israel has already officially recognized 520 Ukrainian Righteous who saved Jews at the risk of losing their own life and that of their entire family. Some entire Ukrainian families were executed by the German Army for sheltering Jews. According to the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, there is a list of over 1,100 Ukrainians who saved Jews from the Holocaust which is now being reviewed. Even President Kravchuk’s mother had saved a Jewish woman in World War II.

Films of World War II showing the Galicia Division in the Lviv square in 1943 are shown next to the 1993 reunion and the church blessing of both. Cardinal Lubachivsky, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, is interviewed by Morley Safer and unfortunately he fumbles his explanation of the Ukrainian viewpoint. Or else CBS censored out his better remarks. The Cardinal mistakenly said that "we didn’t fight anybody here" in Ukraine. In fact, however, the Galicia Division of 14,000 men, which was formed to fight only the Soviet Army not the Allies, actually fought at the Battle of Brody in Ukraine on July 18, 1944. Only 3,000 soldiers of 11,000 survived Brody.

Safer accusingly said to the Cardinal "you held a Mass for these people" (Galicia Division) as if they were war criminals. But, as we have already noted, they are not according to the Government of Canada. Incidentally, the Ukrainian churches, both Catholic and Orthodox do not celebrate Mass, they celebrate Sluzhba Bozha (Divine Liturgy). Safer then says, unrelated to the Division, that "the Ukrainian militia, the police killed 3,000 people in two days here (Lviv)" to which Cardinal Lubachivsky replies "It is not true."

	Janowska Camp near Lviv and Memorial Rock which Safer says "Nothing marks what happened here".
	Janowska Memorial in Ukrainian, Hebrew and English.

Safer visits the site of the Janowska Road Concentration Camp established by the Germans near Lviv where he says 200,000 Jews were killed. Safer states boldly "Nothing marks what happened here." Then there is a fleeting view of a huge rock, which he notices, with an inscription only a few feet from the camp. It is only possible to read the full text by stopping the video. In fact, the stone is actually the memorial to the Jews of Janowska Camp and Safer’s first statement is seen to be not true. The text is in Ukrainian, Hebrew and English. Here is the English text on the stone:

Let the memory of all
the Nazi genocide victims
in Janowska death camp
remain forever.
1941-1943

A Toronto survivor of the Janowska Camp told FORUM that there were about 10,000 people in the camp at one time of which about 3,000 were Ukrainians and Poles. Since the Star of David on the inscription shows the rock especially represents the Jews one wonders about the others who perished here. Where is their memorial?

Rabbi Bleich gives an example of two elderly Jews who were stabbed apparently somewhere in central Ukraine as proof of Ukrainian anti-Semitism. However this is not a compelling example as there are criminals in every society and Jews in New York face the same kind of mugging problem.

Commander-in-Chief Simon Petlura is accused by Safer as "a man who slaughtered 60,000 Jews in 1919", which, in fact, he did not. Petlura was assassinated in Paris in 1926 by Sholem Schwartzbart, a Jew who was a Soviet agent according to CIA director Allen Dulles. Petlura had actually issued orders to his army not to be involved in pogroms. There is no evidence that Petlura murdered any Jews, but he was head of a government army that had no control of bands of bandits on its territory. Historian Taras Hunczak of Rutgers University concludes his study Symon Petlura and the Jews: A Reappraisal (1985) with this statement: "...to convict Petliura for the tragedy that befell Ukrainian Jewry is to condemn an innocent man and to distort the record of Ukrainian-Jewish relations." (p. 33). Because the USSR saw Petlura and Ukrainian nationalism as a threat it blackened his reputation and mounted a propaganda campaign including accusing him of anti-Jewish crimes.

Who would know Petlura’s true character and deeds better than Jewish members of the Ukrainian government who had high positions as ministers and ambassadors? Arnold Margolin who was a defense lawyer in the infamous Beillis case is a Jew with unimpeachable integrity. As Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to Great Britain he was in a position to know the inside of Petlura’s government and he strenuously defended Petlura’s reputation.

In his book The Jews of Eastern Europe (New York 1926), Arnold Margolin says: "It is noteworthy that there was not a single pogrom under the Ukrainian Government of the Central Rada nor during the regime of Hetman Skoropadski." (p. 124). Margolin also stated:

"Even as we Jews, justly disclaim responsibility for the acts of the Jewish Bolshevist commissars and for the disgraceful actions of those Jews who participated in the work of the Bolshevist chekas (Secret Police), the Ukrainian people has a full right to disclaim any responsibility for those who have besmirched themselves by pogrom activities" (p. 136). 60 Minutes is guilty in this program precisely of condemning all Ukrainians, not the small number of the lunatic fringe.

Solomon Goldelman, who held high posts in the Government of Ukraine also defended the record of the government in relation to the Jews. For the first time in history the government of a country had established a Ministry of Jewish Affairs, included Jewish or Hebrew words on the currency, legislated Jewish national autonomy and provided a budget which included special support for destitute Jews and victims of pogroms.

Professor Stefan Possony of Stanford University, in his study "The Ukrainian-Jewish Problem" (Plural Societies, Winter 1974) says: "The records of Israel’s War Crimes Investigations Office indicate that throughout occupied Europe some 95,000 nazis and nazi collaborators were directly connected with anti-Jewish measures, massacres, and deportations, including 45,000 Germans, 8,500 Austrians, 11,000 Balts, 7,500 Poles, 3,000 West Europeans, 9,000 Russians and Byelorussians and 11,000 Ukrainians." (p. 91)

Prof. Possony provides a table on p. 92 to explain the above statistics:

Prof. Possony notes that Jews also were forced to participate in the exterminations although they are not included in the above statistics. The Judenrat (Jewish Councils) were appointed by the Germans and forced to collaborate. The Jewish Police, or Kapos, were appointed by the SS and in concentration camps they were brutal and cruel collaborators. They were forced to carry out Nazi orders, just as the "Ukrainian" police also had to take orders. The above statistical table provides a useful comparison of Ukrainians to other nationalities. It should also be noted that an important factor is that most Jews in Europe lived in Poland and Ukraine.

The program seems to focus considerable attention on the Bandera group in Ukraine. Stepan Bandera (1909-1959) is inaccurately described by Safer as "the father of the modern state" (of Ukraine). Safer says he is accused by the Jews who "remember him as the leader of a notorious army of murderers." This sounds like an old Soviet propaganda phrase. But Bandera himself was actually arrested by the Germans and incarcerated in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin from July 1941 to September 1944. Two of his brothers were killed in Auschwitz. Bandera was assassinated with a poison gas pistol on October 15, 1959 in Munich, Germany by a Soviet KGB assassin, Bogdan Stashynsky. Over many years the USSR produced a flood of propaganda against Bandera, his organization, and the Ukrainian nationalist independence movement.

A farmer and some women are shown working their fields in a very primitive manner while Safer says about Ukraine: "Independence only underlined its backwardness; uneducated peasants deeply superstitious in possession of this bizarre anomaly; nuclear weapons capable of mass destruction.... Western Ukraine also has a long dark history of blaming its poverty, its troubles on others."

Safer and the images of primitive farmers and wagons give the impression of Ukraine as a very backward, ignorant and prejudiced society. He seems to suggest that the primitive Ukrainians have no relationship to the powerful military rockets depicted in the images contrasted with the farmers. What Safer is ignorant of is the fact that it was a Ukrainian scientist, Serhiy Korolev, who conquered space with Sputnik and also put the first man in space. The rockets shown were made in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, in the world’s largest rocket and aerospace factory. Does he or CBS know that the world’s largest airplane, the Mriya, was built by the Antonov Aircraft factory in Kiev, Ukraine, and not in the USA?

The Government of Ukraine is nowhere represented in the program. The fact that the Ukrainian government has established absolute equality before the law for all ethnic groups in Ukraine, including the Jewish and Russian, is not mentioned. Ukraine has been internationally recognized for its human and civil rights laws. On the other hand Russia is notorious for its anti-Semitic leaders like Vladimir Zhirinovsky, anti-Semitic parties and its persecution of the Jews. Russian Jews are coming to Ukraine to escape persecution. Ukraine has not been the scene of serious violence in society like Russia has. For example, Ukraine has seen nothing like the battle at the Parliament of Russia which Yeltsin ordered destroyed by tanks in October 1993.

The first President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, had a policy of always speaking about the "people of Ukraine" not of the "Ukrainian people" in order to emphasize the fact that every citizen of Ukraine has legal rights. Ukraine has no anti-Jewish legislation. In fact, Ukraine has been generous towards its Jewish community of 300,000. For example, the 50th Anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy in September 1991 was marked by major commemorative events sponsored by the government. Jewish delegations from around the world came to Kiev for the event. The Ukrainian government paid for a second menorah monument at Babyn Yar so that the famous poem Babi Yar by the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (who is of Ukrainian origin) is no longer true.

Safer mentions "traditional anti-Semitism in the (sic!) Ukraine" which is as useful and accurate a term as is "traditional anti-Semitism in America." It is nonsense in both cases. Congressman Sander Levin also stated that "the reference, by Morley Safer, to ‘genetically anti-Semitic’ [Ukrainians - Ed.] is totally reprehensible".

Monsignor Dacko, the deputy of Cardinal Lubachivsky, attempted to explain some of the reasons for the prejudice against the Jews but Safer suggests Dacko is contradicting himself. No attempt at objectivity is in evidence in the 60 Minutes program and every effort by Ukrainians to explain is dismissed as evidence of anti-Semitism. Dacko attempted to explain that Ukraine had not been under Ukrainian political control so the nation was not accountable for events in World War II when German and Soviet forces controlled the country. Dacko concluded logically that "...identifying the Ukrainians as a strictly anti-Semitic society is an injustice."

Morley Safer says "that Ukrainians... are not genetically anti-Semitic" but it seems he really means to imply that they are. The program then concludes with Ukrainian teen-age Boy and Girl scouts (Plastuns) carrying torches at night, to which CBS has added artificial marching sounds as if they were German Nazi youth. Simon Wiesenthal watches the young people on a TV screen and says "Not to believe." Then the scene on the TV he is watching shows a different scene of marching soldiers and he finally says "They have not changed."

What conclusions can we draw from our study of this CBS 60 Minutes program?

1) The program was carefully planned and produced by CBS with an intentional viewpoint and there was no attempt to reflect objectivity.

2) The purpose of the program was to blacken Ukraine and its 53 million people, and by implication, the government of Ukraine since it was released to coincide with the first visit of the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma to North America on the day of his arrival, October 23.

3) The program shows evidence of hate propaganda against Ukrainians and stereotyping of Ukrainians. Since hate propaganda is illegal in Canada and the USA, the FCC in the USA and the CRTC in Canada should investigate CBS.

4) The program’s purpose was to arouse the prejudice of Jews and others against Ukrainians and create hostility towards Ukraine.

5) CBS turned down an offer from Prof. Lubomyr Luciuk, Research Director of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, in the Spring to review this program for accuracy so they knew of its bias.

6) 60 Minutes, CBS and Morley Safer have lost credibilty with this program. If this segment of 60 Minutes is so inaccurate and so biased how can we trust any other 60 Minutes episode?

7) There is a need for CBS to face up to the fact that this program does not reflect the expected standard of objectivity in journalism. The CBS network should issue an apology and make a retraction of this program. The video of The Ugly Face of Freedom should not be sold and CBS should never broadcast this program again nor allow any TV station to telecast it again. A new CBS program should be telecast in prime time reflecting accurately the reality of Ukraine today.

8) The Ukrainian and Jewish nations have both suffered terrible oppression over the centuries but it is time to build bridges for the future. Today Israel (3.9 million) and Ukraine (53 million) are independent nations and friendship and understanding are in the best interests of both the Jewish and Ukrainian peoples.

Local Links:

Return to CBS 60 Minutes Program Page
Return to the Politics Page
Jewish-Ukrainian Bibliography by Andrew Gregorovich
Return to FORUM: A Ukrainian Review Page
Return to InfoUkes Home Page

Disclaimer

Please note that this site is not affiliated with CBS 60 Minutes. Any e-mail/mail addressed to the CBS Program 60 Minutes will not be responded to. The purpose of this site is to protest the CBS 60 Minutes Program "The Ugly Face of Freedom" which had defamed Ukraine and Ukrainians.

InfoUkes Inc. Management

Document Information

Document URL: http://www.infoukes.com/politics/cbs60minutes/gregorovich/index.html

Copyright © 1994-1998 Andrew Gregorovich

Reprinted from FORUM Ukrainian Review No. 91, 1994
First published in Fall-Winter 1994 and revised April 1998
Published by the Ukrainian Fraternal Association
440 Wyoming Ave., Scranton PA, 18503 USA
Telephone: (717) 342-0937

Copyright © 1998-2000 InfoUkes Inc.
E-mail: webmaster@infoukes.com

since Apr 16 1998

InfoUkes Inc. Suite 185, 3044 Bloor Street West Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada M8X 2Y8 Tel: (416) 236-4865 Fax: (416) 766-5704