A New Kind of Crisismonger

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency Hugh Sidey

Congressman George Hansen is 6 ft. 6 in. tall and .025 mm thick. He is a piece of video tape, an electronic actor raised to global status through a system gone a bit mad.

Here's Jimmy Carter with 19 warships in the Indian Ocean area, trying to figure out the Ayatullah Khomeini, neutralize Henry Kissinger, keep abreast of the Shah's gallstones, and suddenly this Idaho character wanders into Tehran and tries to take over the President's job.

Hansen seems to be a new kind of crisismonger, jetting to trouble spots, flaunting congressional credentials to gain access and then making his own bizarre foreign policy on TV film. An ultraconservative Republican member of the House Banking Committee, Hansen flew to Nicaragua a week before the fall of Anastasio Somoza and by his presence implied a support for Somoza that the U.S. Government was discouraging. Hansen also joined a mail campaign to encourage the American residents of the Panama Canal Zone to oppose the new treaty.

Hansen's colleagues in Congress are embarrassed and even a little frightened at the thought of this untutored man careening through the world's tragedies under the protective banner of the House of Representatives. Speaker Thomas O'Neill called Hansen "out of bounds." Nor, in hindsight, did the Iranians feel kindly about the Hansen mission. Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh summed it up: "I don't think that was of any good whatsoever."

There is not much that Carter can do about Hansen but fume, which he did to congressional leaders. He pointed out that U.S. intelligence contradicts Hansen's report, after the Congressman had seen about 20 of the hostages, that they were being reasonably well treated.

But the high priests of television could do something. They could cut down his tape and his air time. Starting with a few lines on the networks on Nov. 22, Hansen grew bigger and bigger through the next days. The TV drama took on a life of its own. One wonders whether, if Walter Cronkite had ignored him, Hansen would even have been allowed into the besieged embassy. He was, however, and that was a spectacle of sorts, but not as big as what came through the tube. By last week Hansen was more than electronic news--he was entertainment. He was being filmed for the Today show and Good Morning America. There was plenty of criticism voiced along this strange journey, but attention is often what registers on television. That Hansen had and kept.

He did little in Iran but get a glimpse of the hostages, confuse American purpose by suggesting congressional hearings on the Shah and make it more difficult for Carter to convince the world of American resolve. As a nation we come face to face again with this marvelous media machine we have created, which can enlighten so totally and swiftly. It can also complicate and distort these extraordinary situations that now arise all over the globe as power shifts and collides.

There was a warning about George Hansen in his record. He served two terms in Congress, ran unsuccessfully twice for the Senate, returned to the House in 1975. He was convicted in 1975 on two counts of violating campaign finance laws, and the judge who suspended a two-month jail sentence said, "I had assumed when I sentenced him to jail he was evil. Now, I am not so sure he was. Stupid, surely."

Last week the hostages were still being held, the crisis deepening. George Hansen was home, and one of the first things he did was call a press conference to explain how his critics had misinterpreted his efforts. A dozen cameras blinked on to record his unorthodoxy. Aglow in the sustained interest, he allowed as how he was toying with the idea of going back to Tehran. Soap opera verite.

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