RETREAT FROM RADICALISM: THE TIMES IT IS A-CHANGIN'

In: Policy review: the journal of American citizenship, Heft 30, S. 20-27

Abstract

THE MOST GLARING EXCEPTION TO THE TIMES'S OTHERWISE EXEMPLARY COVERAGE HAS BEEN ITS TREATMENT OF COMMUNIST MOVEMENTS AND REGIMES IN THEIR EARLY STAGES. FROM STALIN IN THE 1930S, TO FIDEL CASTRO IN 1957 AND 1958, TO HO CHI MINH AND THE VIET CONG IN THE LATE 1960S AND EARLY 1970S, TO THE SANDINISTAS IN NICARAGUA FROM 1979 TO 1982, THE TIMES HAS ROMANTICIZED COMMUNIST LEADERS, SOMETIMES EVEN DENYING THEIR MARXISM ITSELF AND THEIR CONNECTIONS TO THE SOVIET UNION. IN THE LAST TWO DECADES THE TIMES HAS GIVEN FAR MORE ATTENTION TO THE REPRESSION UNDER RIGHT-WING DICTATORSHIPS THAN TO THE OFTEN MORE SANGUINARY CONSEQUENCES OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVERS. THIS HAS UNDERMINED THE LEGITIMACY OF THE UNITED STATES' ANTICOMMUNIST FOREIGN POLICY AND ADVANCED THE INTERESTS OF LEFT-WING TOTALITARIANISM IN THE WORLD.