In short, the only research that can prove that prolonged drinking of three to five
   glasses of wine per day can extend life is the non-feasible experiment that we have
   already discussed above in which subjects are required to drink different amounts of
   wine over an extended period of time, and the effects on longevity noted.
   The Harm That You May Have Done.
   What the above reasoning leads us to, then, is that you were without justification for
   promoting the conclusion that you did - that drinking three to five glasses of wine each
   day extends life. Quite possibly, your conclusion had the effect of increasing the
   consumption of alcoholic beverages, particularly wine, and possibly, the effects of this
   increased consumption have been uniformly bad.
   These may be among the damaging effects of your advice. The level of alcohol
   consumption that you advocate slows reaction times and interferes with coordination and
   impairs judgment, and therefore invites accidents. Certainly no airline pilot would be
   permitted to consume a fraction of your recommended daily intake and still be allowed to
   fly, and certainly every driver should recognize that he is putting himself at risk
   drinking as much as you advocate. We recognize the damage that your advice may have
   inflicted when we take into account that except for infants and the aging, accidents are
   the leading cause of death.
   The level of alcohol consumption that you advocate interferes with, or makes quite
   impossible, difficult mental work. Thus, a university student who follows your advice
   and has a couple of glasses of wine with his dinner is finished for the day - he might
   as well head out to a pub after that, because he will find his calculus homework quite
   incomprehensible. A chemistry professor who follows your advice and has a couple of
   glasses of wine with his lunch will find himself making mistakes as he tries to lay out
   the electron configuration of aluminum for his class - he had better find some simpler
   topic to treat in that lecture if he doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of his
   students. A lawyer arguing a complex case who follows your advice and has a couple of
   glasses of wine with his lunch will find himself losing the thread of his argument in
   court - he had better let his junior take over that afternoon if he wants to maintain
   his reputation.
   The level of alcohol consumption that you advocate may damage health. The level of
   alcohol consumption that you advocate possibly saps energy and depletes motivation,
   possibly leads to more time spent in small talk and in television viewing, and less in
   productive work and creative effort. Undoubtedly, the level of alcohol consumption that
   you advocate promotes outright alcoholism. Yours has been a call based on
   pseudo-science to abandon sobriety and embrace intoxication - hardly a direction that
   American culture needs to be pushed in.
   The French Paradox and The Ugly Face of Freedom were equally flawed. And to return to
   the comparison of your 23Oct94 broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom to your 5Nov95
   broadcast The French Paradox, I do see a striking parallel. In both cases, you didn't
   know what you were talking about, but stepped forward and talked anyway. Given that you
   had not studied the subjects to which you addressed yourself, given that you had not
   thought about them, given that you were capable of nothing better than passing along the
   most superficial, man-in-the-street, off-the-top-of-my-head conclusions, the truly
   remarkable thing is that you would have the arrogance to think yourself worthy of
   standing up in front of tens of millions of people and telling them what was your
   opinion. Yet that is what you did, and in each case, you got it wrong. Your many
   conclusions in these two broadcasts ranged from totally opposite to the truth to totally
   unsupported by the evidence. The Ugly Face of Freedom for which you will always be
   remembered in the Ukrainian community was wrong and destructive. The French Paradox
   which judging from its Internet prominence appears to be your best-remembered broadcast
   among your total audience - was also wrong, and also destructive.
   A word concerning self-help. If you yourself subscribe to the prescription of drinking
   three to five glasses of wine each day, then I would recommend that you attempt to break
   yourself of the habit, and substitute for the many hours of inebriation thus avoided
   some sober study. Had you substituted for many hours of inebriation the sober reading
   of history, you might have spared yourself the fiasco of The Ugly Face of Freedom. Had
   you substituted for many hours of inebriation the sober study of scientific method, you
   might have spared yourself the fiasco of The French Paradox. Perhaps you have no more
   than to look at these two pratfalls in your own career to see how damaging is the effect
   of making a habit of indulging in alcohol.
   Disclosure would be a step toward restoring professional credibility. As enthusiasm for
   your French Paradox broadcasts seems to have its source in the wine industry, and as
   your integrity has been brought into question on the matter of The Ugly Face of Freedom,
   I wonder if your professional standing would not be enhanced by your assuring 60 Minutes
   viewers that you have received no benefits from the wine industry in gratitude for the
   increased sales that your French Paradox broadcasts have brought it. The absence of
   such an assurance will invite some 60 Minutes viewers to construe your French Paradox
   broadcasts more as infomercials than as investigative reporting.
   Lubomyr Prytulak
   cc: Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike
   Wallace.
   HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 1553 hits since 26Apr99
   Morley Safer Letter 8 26Apr99 One out of 40 escaped shooting
   It looks very much, Mr. Safer, as if on your 60 Minutes broadcast of 23Oct94, The Ugly
   Face of Freedom, your chief witness testifying to Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis
   was himself a war criminal of substantial proportions, a former Gestapo agent with the
   blood of many on his hands, perhaps much of it Jewish blood.
   April 26, 1999
   Morley Safer
   60 Minutes, CBS Television
   51 W 52nd Street
   New York, NY
   USA 10019
   Morley Safer:
   I bring to your attention the following excerpt from an article by L. A. Ruvinsky
   published in the Ukrainian Historical Journal in 1985:
   After the end of the Second World War, the former head of the Lviv
   Gestapo, P. Krause, replying to a question put by the writer V. P.
   Bieliaev, testified: "If on our side, in the Gestapo, there had not
   worked several agents from among the Zionists, we would never have been
   able to capture and destroy such a large number of Jews, who were
   living under false documents and assumed names." For example, in July
   1941, Zionist Simon Wiesenthal, together with 39 other representatives
   of the Lviv intelligentsia, found himself in prison. Somehow, as a
   result of a "mysterious confluence of circumstances" all the arrested
   except for himself were shot, and he was freed. It is not surprising
   that after this, this Zionist provocateur became a regular Nazi agent.
   Polish journalists have established this as an indisputable fact. That
   is why the Hitlerites did not throw Wiesenthal into prison, which he
   frequently confirms, but rather sent him there to organize subsequent
   provocations. Evidently he was not lying when he said that he passed
   through 5 Nazi prisons and 12 prison camps. In any case, it is not
   difficult to imagine how many innocent victims are on the conscience of
   this impenitent Zionist provocateur. It is such loathsome services for
   the Fascist killers that were performed in the Yanivsky concentration
   camp, in which people of various nationalities found themselves
   Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews.
   L. A. Ruvinsky, The criminal conspiracy of Zionists and Fascists on the
   eve of, and during the years of, the Second World War, Ukrainian
   Historical Journal, 1985, No. 9, pp. 99-109, p. 105, translated from
   the Ukrainian by Lubomyr Prytulak.
   The above statement, by itself, is certainly insufficient to establish that Simon
   Wiesenthal passed the war years as a Gestapo agent. However, it is even by itself
   sufficient to lead an investigative journalist to ask Mr. Wiesenthal certain questions:
   (1) Was Simon Wiesenthal in fact arrested along with 39 other members of the Lviv
   intelligentsia?
   (2) Was Simon Wiesenthal the only one of the 40 who avoided execution?
   (3) Did Simon Wiesenthal pass through 5 Nazi prisons and 12 prison camps?
   (4) How could Simon Wiesenthal have avoided execution, and how could he have passed
   through so many Nazi institutions, unless he had agreed to serve as a Gestapo agent?
   Had you asked Mr. Wiesenthal any such questions in your 60 Minutes broadcast of
   23Oct94, The Ugly Face of Freedom, you would have taken a step toward digging
   underneath the surface, a step of the sort that some 60 Minutes viewers have come to
   expect as standard from investigative journalists.
   I bring to your attention further that the above quotation from Ruvinsky is not the
   only reason that we have for thinking that Simon Wiesenthal may have worked for the
   Gestapo. Further reasons can be found in my following three letters to Simon
   Wiesenthal:
   (1) 15Dec94 in which I ask Simon Wiesenthal, among other things, why he kept detailed
   notes on the Polish partisans who were sheltering him, and why he allowed these notes
   to be captured by the Nazis.
   (2) 14Aug97 in which I ask Simon Wiesenthal why the Nazis allowed him, a Jew and
   supposedly a prisoner, to keep two pistols.
   (3) 28Aug97 in which I ask Simon Wiesenthal why, where other prisoners were shot upon
   being recaptured following their escape, he was instead relieved from work and put on
   double rations.
   It looks very much, Mr. Safer, as if on your 60 Minutes broadcast of 23Oct94, The Ugly
   Face of Freedom, your chief witness testifying to Ukrainian collaboration with the
   Nazis was himself a war criminal of substantial proportions, a former Gestapo agent
   with the blood of many on his hands, perhaps much of it Jewish blood, and who may have
   used your interview with him to cast blame on Ukrainians so as to deflect attention
   away from his own guilt.
   If this blunder of yours is allowed to stand, then it threatens in the end to be
   remembered as your chief legacy to 60 Minutes. Would it not be better to finally break
   your long silence and by embracing truth to make some attempt to redeem your
   reputation?
   Lubomyr Prytulak
   cc: Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike
   Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
   HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 979 hits since 15May99
   Morley Safer Letter 9 15May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk?
   But in the meantime, those who come too near to the truth concerning what happened to
   Volodymyr Ivasiuk have been the victims of an unusual number of accidents. One man's
   wife unexpectedly hangs herself, another man throws himself from a balcony, still
   another drowns, yet another falls under the wheels of a car.... But remember, butchers,
   God's punishment will descend even upon you!
   May 15, 1999
   Morley Safer
   60 Minutes, CBS Television
   51 W 52nd Street
   New York, NY
   USA 10019
   Morley Safer:
   Who Murdered
   Volodymyr Ivasiuk?
   Volodymyr Ivasiuk is best known as a composer and poet,
   author of the widely popular song Chervona Ruta whose first
   two lines appear below as he wrote them in his own hand,
   which song more than anything else made him beloved
   throughout Ukraine, and even beyond the borders of Ukraine.
   On top of that, Volodymyr was a man of many talents, having
   earned a degree in medicine, and having demonstrated talent
   in art, photography, and cinematography.
   However, having reached his prime
   showing so much promise, it was not
   given Volodymyr Ivasiuk to develop his
   talents further. He was dead at the age
   of 30. To the right is a photograph of
   his funeral procession, attended by
   thousands of mourners despite the
   suppression by the state of the
   publication of information concerning
   his burial, despite official warnings to
   not attend funeral services, and despite
   the calling of Komsomol meetings, which
   carried mandatory attendance, on the
   same day. The magazine Halas, on whose
   information I rely in the present
   letter, states that Rostyslaw Bratun who
   was the first to step forward and speak
   at Volodymyr's funeral lost his job two
   months later. Words spoken at the
   funeral by the Sichko family landed them
   in prison.
   To the right is a second photograph
   showing the statue that was eventually
   erected in Volodymyr Ivasiuk's memory.
   And just how did Volodymyr Ivasiuk meet
   his end? His death certificate which
   appears below states that he died on
   24-27 April 1979 from mechanical
   asphyxiation caused by hanging in a
   noose, and attributes the hanging to
   suicide.
   The details of Volodymyr Ivasiuk's death, however, do not support the official view that
   he killed himself:
   They waited and searched for Volodya for 24 days. Following the
   mysterious disappearance of the composer, the search for him was not
   disclosed to the public, the explanation being given that such an
   announcement would create a disturbance. However, the mass media are
   daily used not only to help locate people, but sometimes even their
   pets. [...]
   It was not until May 18, 1979 that Volodymyr Ivasiuk's body was
   accidentally discovered in the heavy forest near the village
   Briukhovych near Lviv.
   One couldn't bring oneself to believe it. The parents were allowed to
   identify their son only on the following day, even though it was only a
   five-minute walk from the apartment where Volodya lived to the morgue;
   and the identification was conducted with gross violations of law. The
   father was allowed to view the body only after he repeatedly telephoned
   the Oblast Procurator threatening to send a telegram of complaint to
   the General Procurator of Ukraine. The local authorities eventually
   gave in with the exasperated reply: "Take your son home, and look at
   him there at least a hundred years!" His death certificate reported
   that he died 24-27 April 1979 at the age of 30. The cause of death:
   mechanical asphyxiation. Hanging from a noose - suicide. The death
   certificate was issued on May 21, 1979, and even back then, a mere
   three days after the body had been discovered, without any evidence or
   investigation it had been written in black and white that Volodymyr
   Ivasiuk had committed suicide.
   There immediately arises the question that if the composer had indeed
   hung himself on 24-27 April, and was not found until 18 May, whether he
   could have remained hanging from a tree for 21-24 days. Volodya
   weighed 80 kg (176 lb), such that hanging for so long, the noose would
   have cut into his neck to the depth of the bones. Also during May the
   weather was warm and dry. The body would have decomposed during this
   interval, and from it would have emanated an intolerable odour. All
   these substantiating signs were missing, and missing too were the
   autopsy photographs.
   On May 22 of every year let us remember that Volodymyr Ivasiuk became
   another innocent victim of a totalitarian regime.
   M. Masly, Volodymyr Ivasiuk: Light and Shadow of a Legend, Halas
   (Clamor), 3Jun97, pp. 11-12, as translated by Lubomyr Prytulak.
   Halas is a Ukrainian-language magazine which reviews popular music and
   is published in Kyiv. The section commemorating Volodymyr Ivasiuk in
   the 3Jun97 issue was sponsored and supported by Coca Cola Ukraine.
   And truly, the administration hated him while he was alive, and feared
   him once he was dead. Volodya's mother, Sophia Ivanivna Ivasiuk met
   with the first secretary of the Lviv administration, V. Dobryk to plead
   with him to permit a monument to be placed on the grave of her son.
   "The war took from me my father and three brothers. My sister's
   husband did not return from the front," wept the woman, "and now my son
   too has been lost. Do I not after all that have the right to
   consecrate his memory?" In reply, Dobryk (what evil irony that such a
   soulless individual should have a name denoting goodness) pressed a
   concealed button and said in Russian to the lackey who entered, "Take
   that lady out." Following this visit, Sophia Ivanivna Ivasiuk received
   the "insult in the name of Dobryk." She has been in ill health ever
   since.
   Sooner or later will arrive the day when truth will emerge victorious.
   But in the meantime, those who come too near to the truth concerning
   what happened to Volodymyr Ivasiuk find themselves the victims of an
   unusual number of accidents. One man's wife unexpectedly hangs
   herself, another man throws himself from a balcony, still another
   drowns, yet another falls under the wheels of a car.... But remember,
   butchers, God's punishment will descend even upon you!
   M. Masly, Volodymyr Ivasiuk: Light and Shadow of a Legend, Halas
   (Clamor), 3Jun97, p. 12, as translated by Lubomyr Prytulak.
   Mr. Safer, you went to Ukraine determined to come back with a story of Ukrainians
   persecuting Russians and Jews. You failed to find any substantiation for such a story.
   You failed to find any Russian composer and poet who had been found hanging in a forest
   under mysterious circumstances. You failed to find any Jewish composer and poet who had
   been found hanging in a forest under mysterious circumstances. And you were not
   interested in a Ukrainian composer and poet who had indeed been found hanging in a
   forest under mysterious circumstances. You went to Ukraine determined to prove that
   Ukrainians persecute Russians and Jews, and you reported that story to tens of millions
   of 60 Minutes viewers despite a lack of evidence, and despite plentiful evidence that it
   is Russians and Jews who persecute Ukrainians, as they have done throughout history.
   In your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, then, you sided with the
   strong against the weak. You sided with the oppressors against the oppressed. You
   sided with the butchers against the butchered. You sided with those who hang composers
   and poets and against Volodymyr Ivasiuk.
   Lubomyr Prytulak
   cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
   Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
   HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 669 hits since 17May99
   Morley Safer Letter 10 17May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
   It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, Volodymyr
   Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had you used
   the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their oppressors,
   Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.
   May 17, 1999
   Morley Safer
   60 Minutes, CBS Television
   51 W 52nd Street
   New York, NY
   USA 10019
   Morley Safer:
   Who Murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
   The death of Volodymyr Katelnytsky
   My source is a Ukrainskyi Holos (Ukrainian Voice) article mailed to me by someone that
   knew Volodymyr Katelnytsky. The citation that is hand-written on the article is "4-20
   August, 1997, p. 1."
   The Ukrainskyi Holos article reports that Volodymyr Katelnytsky was tortured to death in
   his apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine on the night of 7-8 July 1997. His mother, Lykeria, who
   was 81 years old, was tortured and died before the eyes of her son; her body was found
   with 21 stab wounds. When Katelnytsky's sister tried to enter the apartment in which
   the crime had been committed, she was roughed up by Kyiv police. Some members of the
   Katelnytsky family were arrested. The murders are considered to have been politically
   motivated. Volodymyr Katelnytsky's funeral was attended by some two thousand mourners.
   The life of Volodymyr Katelnytsky
   Volodymyr Katelnytsky was a professional journalist. He was active in the Ukrainian
   Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate, was head of the Brotherhood of St. Andrej
   Pervozvanyi in Kyiv, and supervised the tour of the chief cities of Ukraine by
   Metropolitan Wasyl in May 1993. He was also active politically, serving as Deputy Head
   of the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party. In Canada and the United States, he may be
   best remembered for the role he played as President of the Committee for the Defense of
   John Demjanjuk.
   Also prominent among Volodymyr Katelnytsky's activities was the dissemination of a
   Ukrainian version of what happened at Babyn Yar, similar, I believe, to the version
   advocated on the Ukrainian Archive. One result of Volodymyr Katelnytsky's Babyn Yar
   activities is that he was sued for them by Jewish organizations in Ukrainian court, that
   in his defense he brought forward historical aerial reconnaissance photographs showing
   that none of the activities said to have taken place at Babyn Yar was visible from the
   air - not visible, that is, were signs of the execution and burial of 33,771 Jews, or
   the later disinterment and burning of their bodies. As a result of his convincing
   defense, the court acquitted Volodymyr Katelnytsky of the charges brought against him.
   Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
   As we have no direct evidence of who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky, we can only perform
   a Cui bono? analysis which will at least tell us where to start looking. That is, if it
   is the case that the three most prominent events in Volodymyr Katelnytsky's life were:
   (1) that he defended John Demjanjuk, (2) that he contradicted the Soviet-inspired
   Holocaust version of the Babyn Yar story, and (3) that he was tortured to death along
   with his mother, then it would take a mental paralysis with which I have not as yet been
   seized to refuse to consider the first two of these events as possibly having caused the
   third.
   I don't accuse you of having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination.
   As you broadcast the Ugly Face of Freedom on 23 October 1994 and Volodymyr Katelnytsky's
   assassination did not take place until 7-8 July 1997, I obviously do not accuse you of
   having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination in your broadcast.
   But I do accuse you of having missed the big story of which Katelnytsky's
   assassination is but one piece.
   However, the persecution and assassination of Ukrainians did not begin in 1997. It
   began hundreds of years earlier, carried right up until your broadcast in 1994, and
   continued through 1997 to this day. What I do accuse you of, then, is ignoring a
   centuries-long stream of evidence attesting to the persecution of Ukrainians, and of
   broadcasting instead the story of the persecution of Russians and Jews even in the
   absence of evidence. Your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up anything like a
   story of a prominent Russian activist being tortured to death in his apartment, whether
   along with his mother or alone. And your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up
   anything like a story of a prominent Jewish activist being tortured to death in his
   apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. The story that you would have been
   able to document, but that you chose to ignore, is that Ukraine is a nation which is
   ruled by Russians and Jews, and in which Ukrainians are routinely persecuted and
   murdered.
   And I do accuse you of having helped cause Katelnytsky's assassination.
   But even though you could not have covered Katelnytsky's assassination in 1994, you
   could have in 1994 avoided giving encouragement to assassins who were at that time
   plotting such assassinations. Instead, you did give encouragement to Katelnytsky's
   assassins by demonstrating to them that the world press can be counted upon to continue
   broadcasting anti-Ukrainian calumnies even while Ukrainians were being victimized in
   their own land. It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom,
   Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had
   you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their
   oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.
   Lubomyr Prytulak
   cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
   Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
   HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 630 hits since 30Jun99
   Morley Safer Letter 11 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko?
   We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is reported that
   8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to their television sets exploding,
   we all believe that Vadim would have survived this kind of accident.
   June 30, 1999
   Morley Safer
   60 Minutes, CBS Television
   51 W 52nd Street
   New York, NY
   USA 10019
   Morley Safer:
   The conclusion that you offered in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of
   Freedom was that Ukraine is a place where Jews and Russians are oppressed by militant
   Ukrainian nationalists, and where they are the targets of Ukrainian violence. The
   closest that you came to substantiating this claim was to broadcast Rabbi Bleich's
   allegation that an elderly Jewish couple had been attacked and robbed somewhere in
   Western Ukraine. However, this allegation was devoid of substantiating detail, and my
   request for specifics (both in my letter to you of 24May98, and in my letter to Rabbi
   Bleich of 23May98) was answered with silence. I repeat that request to you now - please
   inform me of the details of this attack, which minimally would include the time, the
   place, the names of the victims, and the address where a police report is available. If
   you do not have such information, please retract the allegation.
   You must be aware that I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well as
   of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine has questioned whether such an attack on
   the two elderly Jews ever took place. Levitas's doubt was first expressed in an open
   letter to you, and I reminded Rabbi Bleich of it in my letter to him of 23May98, of
   which you were mailed a copy. In view of I. M. Levitas's doubt, and in view of your and
   Rabbi Bleich's silence in response to my request for particulars, the impression grows
   daily stronger that you and Rabbi Bleich made the incident up.
   The chief purpose of the present letter is to demonstrate to you yet again that your
   conclusion which I summarize in my first sentence at the beginning of the present letter
   is exactly backward. Ukraine is not a place where Ukrainians attack and murder, it is a
   place where Ukrainians are attacked and murdered, as has been the case for the last
   three hundred years, at least. Below is documented one further instance in support of
   this conclusion. It is the story of Vadim Boyko, member of parliament, and popular
   television investigative journalist. I would have expected that the story of Vadim
   Boyko would have appealed to you, and for that reason that you might have included it in
   any broadcast that you prepared about Ukraine, as his life - at least up to the final
   moments - was not unlike your own:
   February 23, 1992
   Journalist's notebook in Ukraine
   by Marta Kolomayets
   Kiev Press Bureau
   A colleague's tragic death
   "He was a man engaged to a young Ukraine," said Volodymyr Yavorivsky, as
   he bid farewell to Vadim Boyko, who died tragically on February 14, at
   the age of 29.
   Hundreds of mourners crowded into the third floor atrium of the
   Ukrainian State Television and Radio headquarters, tearfully passing
   each other on the steps Vadim so often bounded, rushing to the studios
   where he recorded his popular television programs.
   Now, on February 17, the mourners paid their last respects to Vadik (as
   he was affectionately known), searching for a reason why such a
   promising, talented life was cut short. As slow dirge-like music played
   over the loudspeakers, they filed past the closed coffin, sewn up in
   black cotton and laden with bunches of carnations of all colors.
   At the foot of the coffin stood a black and white photo of the young
   journalist and politician. An enlarged copy of the same photo,
   decorated with a black mourning band, hung above the coffin. To the
   left, the newly adopted Ukrainian national flag, also decorated with
   black bunting, kept guard over its native son. Wreaths from the
   Ukrainian Parliament, co-workers and friends surrounded the coffin.
   Perhaps as a carryover from the Communist-atheist state of the past, the
   wake of devoid of all Christian symbols and rites.
   Vadim's father sat at the foot of the coffin, numb to the proceedings.
   As a few speakers addressed the crowd, he wiped tears away from his
   weary, red eyes. Vadim's mother was too weak to make the trip from the
   family's home in Svitlovodsk to Kiev.
   Mykola Okhmakevych, the stagnant, Communist head of the State Television
   and Radio, whose removal has been pressed for by both democratic
   deputies and workers of the television station, said a few uninspiring
   words. Often harshly criticized by Vadim and his colleagues, Mr.
   Okhmakevych now spoke of how Vadim had always loved his job. An angry
   mourner, who saw this hypocrisy, cried out: "He loved Ukraine above
   all. He loved Ukraine, say it."
   We all descended the steps with Vadim for the last time. The coffin was
   then placed in a vehicle for Vadim's journey home to Svitlovodsk,
   Kirovohrad Oblast, his final resting place.
   x x x
   It has been almost a week now since my phone rang just before midnight,
   on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was my friend and colleague Dmytro
   Ponamarchuk. Yet his voice sounded different.
   "I don't know how to say this, Marta. Vadim Boyko burned to death
   tonight." I could not believe what I was hearing: "What is this, a
   cruel joke?"
   Dmytro, working at the radio station, had been called about a fire at
   Vadim's apartment; the fire department reported that his television had
   blown up. Dmytro arrived at the scene just an hour or so after the
   reported fire, only to find Vadim's body sprawled across the floor,
   burned beyond recognition. There was nothing left of his apartment, a
   dormitory-type dwelling in a building that housed quite a number of
   State television and Radio workers.
   News of Vadim's death spread quickly among fellow journalists - many of
   whom had attended Kiev State with Vadim, many of whom worked with him on
   numerous projects.
   He was an elected democratic deputy from Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast. He
   had come from the neighboring town in Kirovohrad oblast, just across the
   Dnipro River, arriving in the capital city of Kiev in the early 1980s to
   obtain a college education.
   And from then on, he gained popularity as the founder and host of
   "Hart," one of the first serious investigative shows on Ukrainian
   television, reporting on everything from Chornobyl to Shcherbytsky.
   After he was elected a deputy to the Ukrainian Parliament in March 1990,
   he was appointed vice chairman of the standing parliamentary Committee
   on Glasnost and the Mass Media, a job he took very seriously, often
   going to Moscow to discuss problems of disinformation in Ukraine, as
   presented by central television.
   But Vadim never forgot his first vocation - journalism - and he would
   often join his colleagues, including a few of us foreign correspondents,
   on the press balcony of Parliament during the sessions to give us some
   inside news or highlights of his commission's work.
   He was our friend, and with his death, our circle has been broken. Many
   of us - Ukrainian journalists and foreign correspondents, as well as a
   few of his close friends outside this journalistic fraternity - spent
   last week trying to come to terms with the tragedy that has struck us.
   We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is
   reported that 8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to
   their television sets exploding, we all believe that Vadim would have
   survived this kind of accident.
   We have gone through the story over and over. Most of us saw him in
   Parliament on Wednesday afternoon; he was excited and invigorated by new
   opportunities: he was applying for a National Foundation internship for
   the spring in Washington, D.C., he was going to travel on business with
   Ukraine's deputy prime minister. His dancing blue eyes were smitten
   with the possibilities of new TV shows and programs in an independent
   Ukraine.
   None of us saw Vadim in Parliament on Thursday or Friday, February
   13-14; he missed a few meetings he had scheduled on Friday.
   Currently, there are many rumors flying around Kiev surrounding Vadim's
   death, based on political, business and personal motivations.
   Parliamentary committees have promised to work on an investigation,
   although no special committee has been formed to investigate what many
   democratic deputies, among them Les Taniuk and Stepan Khmara, have
   labelled as murder. Some speculate that Vadim's TV work in Chornobyl
   may have triggered an early death...
   On Friday, February 14, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) in
   Moscow ran an interview with Vadim on journalists' responsibilities and
   cooperation between Moscow and Kiev.
   "At this time, we (referring to Russian and Ukrainian journalists) can
   be friends, if we are honest to the end. We are currently living in a
   commonwealth, the root of the word is found in the word "druh,"
   friend... We will never become true friends, until we journalists
   understand that we are the ones who can, who have the responsibility to
   stop our peoples from total degradation, from the catastrophe that can
   occur between our peoples," he said. "If we cannot prevent this we stop
   being journalists. We will become persons who today do their work and
   tomorrow, one by one, are destroyed."
   Vadim's deep sense of responsibility, his courage and commitment to the
   truth will always be admired by his friends and colleagues. And we are
   all committed to learning the truth.
   Given the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, I can only
   hope that his last interview prophecy did not become self-fulfilling.
   Mr. Safer, you travelled to Ukraine looking for stories of persecution and violence
   against Jews and Russians, you failed to find the evidence, but you broadcast the story
   anyway. All the while, you were surrounded by stories of persecution and violence
   against Ukrainians, but that plentiful evidence you ignored. In other words, you went
   to Ukraine not to discover its reality, but to confirm your prejudice. You played the
   role not of journalist, but of propagandist. Given the opportunity to make a
   contribution toward protecting the lives of journalists in Ukraine by broadcasting the
   story of Vadim Boyko, you declined. Showing anything on 60 Minutes that might win
   sympathy for Ukrainians was contrary to your plan.
   Had you managed to find a Jewish member of parliament and television broadcaster who had
   died in Ukraine under mysterious circumstances, then you would have had one small piece
   of evidence for the anti-Ukrainian conclusions that you offered. Had you managed to
   find a Russian member of parliament and television broadcaster who had died in Ukraine
   under mysterious circumstances, then you would have had one small piece of evidence for
   the anti-Ukrainian conclusions that you offered. However, you found neither of these
   things. In Ukraine, death under mysterious circumstances is reserved for prominent
   Ukrainians, which conclusion you had no interest in broadcasting.
   Below, I identify four incidents which I have brought to your attention either in three
   earlier letters, or in the present one. Although the first two cases occurred before
   your broadcast of 23Oct94, and the second two occurred after, all serve to support the
   conclusion that within today's Ukraine, it is Ukrainians who are the targets of
   violence:
   Date of my letter
   Subject of my letter
   Date of Attack
   Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom
   15May99
   Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk?
   April 1979
   30Jun99
   Who murdered Vadim Boyko?
   February 14, 1992
   Violence that you might have caused by your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom
   09Apr99
   Who blew the hands off Maksym Tsarenko?
   Summer 1995
   17May99
   Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
   July 7-8, 1997
   As the first two of the above attacks occurred prior to your 23Oct94 broadcast, then
   your fault is that you neglected to report them. And as the second two attacks occurred
   after your 23Oct94 broadcast, then your fault is that you may have helped cause them.
   That is, your 23Oct94 broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, served to demonstrate to
   Ukraine's assassins not only that violence against Ukrainians would go unreported in the
   world press, but also that even as Ukrainians continued to be butchered, the world press
   would portray them - the victim Ukrainians - as themselves butchers. You did not
   yourself wield any knife or pull any trigger or tighten any garotte, but you informed
   those that were predisposed to do so that they might expect impunity if they did. For
   this reason, I consider you to have blood on your hands, some of it Maksym Tsarenko's,
   and some of it Volodymyr Katelnytsky's.
   Lubomyr Prytulak
   cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
   Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.
   HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 1302 hits since 01Jul99
   Morley Safer Letter 12 01Jul99 Who murdered Borys Derevyanko?
   The plainest moral to be drawn from the Derevyanko-Hurvits story is that when a
   muckraking Ukrainian editor takes on a corrupt Jewish politician, the Ukrainian editor
   ends up dead.
   July 1, 1999
   Morley Safer
   60 Minutes, CBS Television
   51 W 52nd Street
   New York, NY
   USA 10019
   Morley Safer:
   The Committee to Protect Journalists described the contract killing of Ukrainian editor
   Borys Derevyanko thusly:
   Borys Derevyanko, Vechernyaya Odessa
   Date of Death: August 11, 1997
   Place of Death: Odessa
   Derevyanko, editor in chief of Vechernyaya Odessa, a popular and
   influential thrice-weekly newspaper, was fatally shot at point-blank
   range on his way to work on the morning of August 11 near the Press
   House, where the newspaper's offices are located. Colleagues believe
   the killing of Derevyanko, who was editor of Vechernyaya Odessa for 24
   years, was related to the newspaper's opposition to the policies of
   Odessa's mayor. The chief regional prosecutor declared the murder a
   contract killing and launched an official investigation. Local
   authorities announced in September that they had arrested a suspect,
   described as a professional assassin, who confessed to killing
   Derevyanko, but they gave no details about his confession.
   I would add that the Odessa mayor which the above account neglects to name was the
   corrupt Eduard Hurvits, who was particularly threatened by Borys Derevyanko's opposition
   because of municipal elections that were coming up in 1998. The comment concerning the
   arrest of an assassin gives a misleading impression - in today's Ukraine, contract
   killings are never solved, and those who order them are never punished.
   Today, Borys Derevyanko is dead, and Eduard Hurvits, barred by his corruption from
   holding the office of mayor of Odessa, continues his criminal career as a member of the
   Ukrainian parliament. Photographs of Derevyanko and Hurvits are shown below:
   Newspaper editor
   Borys Derevyanko
   Odessa Mayor
   Eduard Hurvits
   The table which I began in my letter to you of 30Jun99 can now be elaborated with
   another entry:
   Date of my letter
   Subject of my letter
   Date of Attack
   Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom
   15May99
   Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk?
   April 1979
   30Jun99
   Who murdered Vadim Boyko?
   February 14, 1992
   Violence that you might have caused by your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom
   09Apr99
   Who blew the hands off Maksym Tsarenko?
   Summer 1995
   17May99
   Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
   July 7-8, 1997
   01Jul99
   Who murdered Borys Derevyanko?
   August 11, 1997
   As the conclusion of your 23Oct94 60 Minutes story, The Ugly Face of Freedom, was that
   Ukraine is a place in which Ukrainians practice violence against Jews, it is highly
   relevant that Borys Derevyanko is Ukrainian and Eduard Hurvits is Jewish. You went to
   Ukraine looking for evidence of Ukrainians harming Jews, you failed to find such
   evidence, but you broadcast your conclusion anyway. The true story that you would not
   broadcast, and that was readily documentable, is that Ukraine is a place in which Jews
   harm Ukrainians. The plainest moral to be drawn from the Derevyanko-Hurvits story is
   that when a muckraking Ukrainian editor takes on a corrupt Jewish politician, the
   Ukrainian editor ends up dead. That is the reality of Ukraine. It was the reality of
   Ukraine when you visited it in 1994, it was the reality of Ukraine before 1994, and it