Friday, April 20, 1962
University Daily Kansan
Page 7
Reds Not Only Users of 'The Big Lie'
By Terry Murphy
The success of Communist propaganda has popularized the use of the Big Lie, the half-truth and methods employing guilt by association.
Use of these devices has not been restricted to Communist activities. It is used effectively here in the United States in speeches, magazine articles and other forms of news media.
Norbert Muhlen's Feb. 13, National Review article entitled, "Why the Hate-Germany Campaign" is an example of such tactics.
Muhlen tried to show that by opening old sores between the United States and Germany, Communism was preventing the rearmament of West Germany as a NATO deterrent. Apparently, Muhlen feels Russia is getting cooperation from the Free World.
MUHLEN EMPLOYED a classic example of the Big Lie. He claimed that no U.S. Government official publicly refuted a Russian allegation that NATO Gen. Adolf Heusinger, a former officer in Hitler's Wehrmacht, was guilty of war crimes.
Muhlen also said that the same papers who gave the Russian charges front page display, carried nothing in Heusinger's defense.
Those two statements are examples of the Big Lie.
Page one, column six, paragraph three of the December 13, 1951 edition of the New York Times reads as follows:
"U.S. officials branded it a 'crude and ludicrous' propaganda move—part of the campaign against West German participation in NATO."
The story was continued on page seven and carried the complete statement made by State Department Press Officer Lincoln White. As a spokesman for the U.S. Government, White did refute the Russian allegations.
Condemnation through guilt-by-association seemed to be Muhlen's prime objective in the article.
IF MUHLEN did not employ the Big Lie, he is guilty of irresponsible reporting which resulted in the same thing.
Statements made by Eleanor Roosevelt were taken out of context in an effort to align her with extremists who harbor beliefs that the Eonn Republic is in the hands of Nazis who are just waiting for the opportunity to replicate a new Third Reich.
Muhlen also tried to tie some significance to the 1945 statement of Henry Mongantheau, Jr., that "we have nothing to fear from the Russians." Times have changed. Morgantheau no longer influences the foreign policy of the U.S.
Mubhen tried to tie a 17-year-old statement made under different circumstances to the foreign policy of the present. They do not fit.
What was the point that Muhlen was trying to make? As an explanation for the question, "Why the Hate-Germany Campaign," he covered a rather large field.
LIKE THE PLATTE River, his explanation was a mile wide and an inch deep.
Muhlen took parts of several different puzzles and tried to put them together into one big picture. Close investigation of the facts proves his story to be as closely knit as a badly-stretched burlap
Engine of Future
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — (UPI) — Automobiles of the future may have engines that start immediately in 25-below-zero weather, need no antifreeze because they are air-cooled and use almost any inexpensive fuel.
Such an engine has been developed for the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps by Avco Corporation's Lycoming Division. Intended primarily for use in light tracked and wheeled military vehicles, it ignites by compression, has no valves and has only three moving parts for each of its four cylinders.
Weighing only 600 pounds, it is 30 inches long and wide and 28 inches high. The manufacturers say it operates underwater as efficiently as on land.
bag. And just as smooth in texture.
This type of reporting rubs roughly against the grain of truth and fact.
Muhlen was using elusive reasoning that was motivated more by emotion than by fact. He attempted to tie Stanley Kramer, commercialism, Eleanor Roosevelt and Communism into one neat bundle.
The public was given this bundle as a fog-shrouded panacea that would cure a national problem. Like most patent medicines which are supposed to work wonders, a close investigation of the ingredients proves it to be a rehash or at best a new combination of old cure-alls.
Regardless of the author's intention and purpose, he certainly did make a false statement. The facts of the Heusinger case could have been easily checked if the author had cared about reporting the truth.
THIS TYPE of writing presents a major problem and challenge to the reading public in a country that does not censor writing for being inaccurate.
To meet this challenge the reader must search out different views on important subjects. True, this is time consuming. But when the truth is at stake, it is time well invested, and if the subject is important, many other publications will carry articles on it. These views are readily available.
After sampling several different articles or news sources the reader can judge for himself which publications are the most dedicated to presenting the facts clearly and without bias.
It is a responsibility that is presented to every reader who enjoys and suffers the mixed blessings of a free press.
The problem would be greatly eased if the publishers of news media would assume the responsibility of being certain that at least the facts that they publish are accurate. Naturally different opinions will be expressed on the facts of a situation.
HOPING FOR TOTAL acceptance of this responsibility is just that—hoping. And any plan to insure or try to enforce a standard
of responsibility other than the already existing laws against libel, would be to infringe on freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
In speaking to the English Parliament for freedom of the press in 1644, John Milton counseled
that anyone who speaks his conscience should be heard with patience and humility. In Milton's view this should hold true "however they be miscalled."
But this toleration need not mean passive acceptance. Norbert Muhlen and others like him are
entitled to their say and it should not be different. A safeguard is provided when articles such as Muhlen's face close reading by an informed public. Under this condition the absence of truth is evident and distortions are seen for what they are.
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