George Beres - An Independent View: Major Scoop

Oregonian choice to ignore a story gives Beacon a major scoop

By George Beres
For the Beacon

It's rare the Springfield Beacon could get a story that is a national scoop over the Oregon daily press especially The Oregonian and Register-Guard of Eugene. But it can happen, and this column is proof.

Back on Oct. 24, two distinguished and controversial authors in the nation spoke at the Hilton Hotel in Portland. Professors John Mearsheimer of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard made a one day-stop on their tour of the nation. They spoke about their new book that has brought them attention worldwide: "The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."

I got an invitation to the news conference that preceded the talk, and battled rush hour traffic to get there. I walked in just in time-- and was stunned. The guests were seated at a table, and I was the only reporter there. The Oregonian did not show. No TV nor radio reporters were there. The guests were courteous to me in the half-hour before their ballroom talk for the World Affairs Council of Oregon. They answered my questions at length.

But for the big question – where was everybody else – there was no answer.

The next day I called the lead columnist at the Oregonian, an old friend, Steve Duin, to ask if he knew why his paper did not cover the story.

"I'm not the right person to ask," said Steve. "I know you realize the paper can't cover all stories."

That last comment was tongue-in-cheek. Steve knew this was the big story in Portland that day. Outside of a terrorist attack, nothing would have kept the major media from being there. There was no other competing story, especially for a paper that has dozens of reporters.
The incident was nothing new to the speakers. Mearsheimer said their talk a few weeks earlier for the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs had been cancelled at almost the last minute. The Council told him it was reacting to complaints from several Jewish and Zionist groups, mainly AIPAC, that objected to the talk. The explanation, he implied, was in the title of his book, a subject the Israeli lobby nationwide has gone to great lengths to silence.

They are not alone as lobby targets. It succeeded in having an invitation to Archbishop Tutu withdrawn before he was to speak in Minnesota. President Jimmy Carter has been taken to task by Israel apologists because his book referred to Apartheid in Palestine. These are significant people facing efforts to prevent them from freely expressing themselves.
Here is part of what Mearsheimer and Walt told me at my "private" news conference:

"AIPAC has boasted – and it's true – that it defeated for re-election candidates who raised any kind of question about Israel. They include prominent Illinois Senators Charles Percy and Adlai Stevenson, a Republican and a Democrat. That was enough to strike terror into the hearts of senators who were reconsidering their Middle East votes in behalf of Israel. Party backers of Stevenson wilted under pressure. One-time AIPAC executive director, Tom Dine, said: "American politicians got the message."

The AIPAC lobby's muscle has been flexed in Oregon, too. Former Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Oregon to stump in behalf of Sen. Gordon Smith when he made his successful run for the Senate. Smith did not need Israeli money. But the visit was a clear message about the importance of his votes for Israel.

Its efforts paid unexpected dividends for a former Oregonian, the late Illinois Sen. Paul Simon. Simon was a big underdog running against Percy in the mid-1980s. Simon, a long-time friend, told me: "My campaign manager was astounded by the unexpected flow of money my effort was getting. It was coming from Jewish groups I'd never encountered. Their point, I guess, was to teach Sen. Percy a lesson about loyalty."

The lesson, Simon told me in private, was learned by many elected officials. Unfortunately, it was that loyalty went to a foreign nation instead of to the United States.