When the Kabul government expelled the Western media one month after the Soviet invasion, we jumped at the chance to get behind the propaganda and break the news blackout. Once we had secured the visas in the spring of 1981, a friend in local TV news connected us to CBS Foreign News Editor Peter Larkin. Larkin was an intense man--Saigon bureau chief during the Vietnam War--and wanted the story immediately.
What we saw in Kabul was indeed in stark contrast to the picture playing on evening news. After struggling with our footage for a month CBS finally aired a segment about the Soviet troops that we didn't see. Our involvement with CBS News was the beginning of an education in the MSM's fact-free restructuring of the Afghan narrative that continues to hold sway today.
Following the distribution of Afghanistan Between Three Worlds, a PBS documentary we produced in 1982, we got a call from Major Karen McKay of the Committee for a Free Afghanistan. She complained that we didn't mention anything about the Soviets' use of chemical weapons in the documentary.
We explained those charges hadn't been proved. But the Major countered that since the New York Times and the Washington Post had accepted her evidence why wouldn't we.
Because, we explained, the claims we'd reviewed came from second- or third-hand sources or were based on hearsay evidence. Then we politely suggested what seemed like common sense, that the Major could make a better case if she had some hard evidence. Major McKay's answer was revelatory as she snapped, "When it comes to the Russians we don't need proof. We know they're guilty."
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