CBS - Communist Broadcast Service

Todays broadcast of CBS’s “60 Minutes” Bob Simon “interview” with Elian Gonzalez is the worst kind of exploitation. Using an indoctrinated child as a mouthpiece for a murdering dictator's propaganda. Advance excerpts mention how Elian thinks of kaSSTro as a friend. How he misses his relatives in Florida, even if they were awful to him. (I can’t wait for the blurb that blames the all powerful Cuban American Community and the evil U.S. embargo for not allowing visits with his Florida Uncles.)


Of course Mr. Simon won’t ask him any hard questions. For decades, CBS has worshiped at the bearded dictators feet and licked his putrid ass.

Someone should should ask the crew at CBS if they would let their children hang out with a dictator who is responsible for the deaths and imprisonment of hundres of thousands of his citizens, who has turned Kuba into a leading destination of choice for sex tourists, who tortures and starves his citizens. Who has created an island prison that is such a living hell that mothers put their children on rafts, risking their lives in the Straights of Florida in a desperate attempt for freedom. The waters are a graveyard for those who didn't make it, like Elians mother.



The first TV interview with Castro was by Robert Taber of CBS News, and on August 30, 1957 it was aired in a one-hour documentary, building up Castro as a national hero. Taber later became the executive secretary of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a Castro-funded group whose New Orleans chapter was headed by Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.

Edward R. Murrow conducted an interview with Cuban Leader, Fidel Castro on February 6, 1959. CBS aired the interview with Castro which set the pattern for the "soft" approach that we have seen ever since. Murrow portrayed Castro in idealistic terms unmarred by any semblance of skepticism. He saw Fidel as a young revolutionary thirsting for freedom and democracy and as a family man. To sustain that image, Castro was shown throughout the entire program at "home" in his Havana Hilton suite wearing pajamas. Actually, Castro always wore fatigues during his waking hours, and he slept in a different place almost every night. Although he was separated from his wife and rarely saw his little son, Fidelito, the boy, holding a lovable puppy, was put on camera to bolster the image of Fidel, the family man.
Ed Murrow, the scourge of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, asked Castro only one serious question, "Are you concerned at all about Communist influence in Cuba?" Castro replied, "Oh, I'm not worried, because there is not threat about Communism here in Cuba."

In June 1977, Bill Moyers aired a special for CBS Reports called "The CIA's Secret Army," which was rebroadcast in February 1981 on his PBS program, "Bill Moyers Journal." It was an expose of alleged attempts by the U.S. to assassinate Castro. It included efforts by Cuban exiles to overthrow the dictator, going back to the Bay of Pigs invasion, with Watergate thrown in for good measure. Its intent appeared to be to smear the Cuban exiles.
The program included excerpts of an interview with Castro that cleared him of any blame for the conditions that have led a million people to flee Cuba. It exuded sympathy for Castro as a target of CIA machinations, but there was no sign of sympathy for Castro's victims. It was a propaganda bonanza.

CBS’s Dan Rather who holds the record for the most Kasstro interviews, led the media manipulated return of Elian to the dictator. In a carefully staged interview with Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian’s father, Rather played mouthpiece for Clinton, reading from the script provided by Clintons lawyer who was paid by donations from the Andreas family. Castro wanted Elian back, and Rather happily played his part in the disgraceful deceit that delivered the goods. Don’t doubt Rather’s intentions, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Marxist propaganda cabal whose goal is a totalitarian Socialist world government in which our country would be submerged.


Walter Cronkite - In "A Reporter's Life, ''Cronkite prided himself for his hands-on approach to the anchor job, directing the program's news coverage and using his clout to land interviews with heads of state like Cuba's Fidel Castro and Egypt's Anwar Sadat, as well as a slew of American presidents.

Playboy asked Castro to respond to President Reagan's charge that he is a "ruthless military dictator." Castro, after claiming that he has fewer prerogatives than the pope, said: "I don't give orders," (but Reagan does). Who, then, is more of a dictator: the president of the United States or I?" Castro assured his questioners. "I play my role as a leader with a team." That is how he was characterized, in almost identical terms, by the Harvard expert, Jorge Dominguez, on the CBS Evening News on the 25th anniversary of the revolution.

Our media used to call Somoza a dictator, and they frequently apply the term to Chile's Pinochet, but Castro and other Communist dictators dictate even the terminology used by our media

The notion that Castro is not a Communist underneath it all, but is essentially a believer in a "unique brand of nationalism combined with communism," to use Rather's words, is fundamental to the deception that began with Herbert Matthews and The New York Times 48 years ago. The media's persistent refusal to label Castro truthfully and accurately stems from their ongoing romance with the idealistic young revolutionary that Matthews, and later Ed Murrow, thought they found. As long as that romance continues it is probably futile to expect future interviews or the forthcoming spate of books on Castro to expose the realities of Cuba's tragedy--the Castro dictatorship.

There are, of course, many Americans, including some in the news media, who have no romantic illusions about Fidel Castro and who could question him at least as sharply as the White House press corps questions any American president. But Castro, unlike such foreign targets of our media's scorn as Pinochet, does not permit just any journalist to enter his domain, much less interview him. One of the tasks of Cuban intelligence is to keep dossiers on foreign journalists and to evaluate their potential usefulness to Cuba. Those journalists who are invited to interview Castro may deem it an honor, but the real meaning of the invitation is that they are considered to be reliable or usable for purposes of transmitting the Cuban propaganda line.