that Jews typically victimize Ukrainians by inculcating the opposite image of Ukrainians
victimizing Jews.
On 15 Nov 1994, I mailed a letter to then CBS Chairman Laurence A. Tisch which consisted of a
lengthy critique of the 60 Minutes broadcast. I simultaneously mailed copies of this letter to
the host of the broadcast, Morley Safer, as well as the co-hosts Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft, Lesley
Stahl, and Mike Wallace. I received no reply from any of them. On 17 Dec 1994, I mailed a
covering letter to Laurence Tisch together with an expanded version of my critique (the critique
was now titled The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes, and was dated 11 Dec 1994), with copies to the same
host and co-hosts. I again received no reply.
In an attempt to clarify the accuracy of the 60 Minutes broadcast, other letters were sent,
among them letters to Michael Jordan, Chairman of Westinghouse, following the Westinghouse
purchase of CBS in 1995, letters to Simon Wiesenthal, star witness on The Ugly Face of Freedom,
and letters to Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, supporting witness on the same program. Nor were my letters
the only ones sent - in fact, CBS received some 16,000 pieces of mail protesting the 60 Minutes
broadcast. To my knowledge, not a single one of these letters has ever been answered, or even
acknowledged, the muteness of CBS and others involved leaving the impression that they are
unable to muster any defense for the 60 Minutes broadcast.
At that time, and since, I have circulated copies of my critique widely, and have received many
favorable comments. In a small number of instances, I was grateful for helpful suggestions as
to minor revisions; however, no one challenged any of my major criticisms or arguments,
encouraging me to believe that these were fundamentally correct.
Below you will find the latest version of this same critique, substantially longer and more
detailed than the original, but basically offering no more than an elaboration of the material
already long in the hands of CBS. I will not again waste postage mailing this critique to CBS
with the advent of the internet, there are less costly ways to disseminate information; if CBS
wants to see this latest version, it will have no trouble finding it.
The defects of the 60 Minutes broadcast as so multifarious, that it is difficult to capture them
in one brief statement. If one were to attempt to do so, then the statement might mention that
60 Minutes misrepresented the historical record, provided mistranslations of statements
originally made in Ukrainian, suppressed pertinent information concerning Ukrainian-Jewish
relations during World War II, encouraged retrogressive notions of collective guilt, altered the
dates on which events were supposed to have occurred, doctored the sound track, accepted dubious
and implausible statements from sources whose credibility had not been established or whose
credibility should have been suspect, and generally in numerous instances employed questionable
evidence to point to conclusions that were untrue, provocative, and inflammatory. There follows
below an outline of the chief defects of this 60 Minutes broadcast.
CONTENTS:
Preface
The Galicia Division
Quality of Translation
Ukrainian Homogeneity
Were Ukrainians Nazis?
Simon Wiesenthal
What Happened in Lviv?
Nazi Propaganda Film
Collective Guilt
Paralysis of the Comparative
Function
60 Minutes' Cheap Shots
Ukrainian Anti-Semitism
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Mailbag
A Sense of Responsibility
What 60 Minutes Should Do
PostScript
The Galicia Division
60 Minutes' chief piece of evidence for Ukrainian anti-Semitism and predilection for Naziism
seems to be the official celebrations commemorating the Galicia Division. Elderly men in
civilian dress are shown wearing military insignia in a recent reunion in the city of Lviv,
Ukraine (Lvov in Russian, Lwow in Polish, formerly Lemberg). Mr. Safer informs us that
"Thousands of Ukrainians joined the SS and marched off to fight for Naziism," and that "Nowhere,
not even in Germany, are the SS so openly celebrated," and that "Many of the Ukrainian men of
Lvov who marched off as members of the SS never returned - killed fighting for Hitler."
The impression created in the viewer's mind is that these veterans are unanimously guilty of war
crimes and crimes against humanity, that they were once supporters of and now continue to be
admirers of Hitler, that they sympathized with Nazi ambitions during World War II, that they are
the remnants of a much larger group of Ukrainians who shared a similar orientation, and that as
their reunion was sanctioned by the Lviv City Council and the Ukrainian Catholic Church, similar
charges must apply to Ukrainians generally. To all this, however, I must echo Cardinal
Lubachivsky's words: "It is not true!"
The Galicia Division was recruited by the Germans only well into the war, in the summer and fall
of 1943 when they were beginning to experience setbacks on their Eastern front. That the
Galicia Division was considered an "SS" division does not bear the significance given it by 60
