Caught By the Camera

By James Kelly

The man on the screen seemed distinctly ill at ease. Puffing on Marlboros, his eyes darting nervously between camera and interviewer, he vowed to launch terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. That was not all; he labeled Ronald Reagan "enemy No. 1," implying that the President of the U.S. is a prime target for assassination.

Until last week, Americans had seen Mohammed Abul Abbas Zaidan, better known as Abul Abbas, only in a few still photographs and snippets of TV footage. The accused plotter behind last fall's hijacking of the Achille Lauro and hence a suspect in the murder of cruise ship Passenger Leon Klinghoffer, Abbas is on most-wanted lists in the U.S., Italy and Israel. Suddenly, however, the elusive Palestinian showed up on American television last week. In exchange for the exclusive 3 1/2-min. interview, NBC News executives agreed not to disclose Abbas' whereabouts, an arrangement that stirred up almost as much debate among U.S. officials and journalists as the larger issue of whether a hardened terrorist like Abbas should be allowed to use American television as a platform to air his deadly views.

"Obviously, terrorism thrives on this kind of publicity," said Charles Redman, a State Department spokesman. Robert Oakley, head of the State Department's counterterrorism office, called NBC's decision to keep Abbas' location secret "reprehensible" and accused the network of becoming, in effect, the terrorist's "accomplice."

There is nothing novel about a news organization acceding to ground rules in pursuit of a story, and that includes pledging not to disclose details of where interviews took place. Most reporters also seem to shy away from any definitive prohibition on interviewing fugitives, even those wanted for murder. "We as journalists don't see ourselves as an extension of any law- enforcement agency," says John Seigenthaler, editorial page editor of USA Today. "What the journalist has to consider is whether the information to be gained is so vital that it tips the scale in favor of granting protection to a fugitive."

In the view of many editors, including Seigenthaler, the Abbas interview did not pass that test. Abbas uttered only predictable propaganda, offering little that was new or surprising. "I didn't see anything that was remarkable or enlightening," says George Cotliar, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. Comments Karen Elliott House, foreign editor of the Wall Street Journal: "We are not in the business of spreading propaganda but in the business of analyzing why things happen and what they mean. I don't see (the interview) as a great journalistic coup."

Some journalists criticized NBC not so much for conducting an interview with a wanted terrorist as for agreeing to give up the most newsworthy element of the story. Warren Hoge, foreign editor of the New York Times, says that his paper was offered an Abbas interview several weeks after the ship hijacking, but turned it down. "We can't agree to an arrangement where we can't publish the single most important fact, which is (Abbas') whereabouts," says Hoge. Chicago Tribune Editor James Squires was so incensed by the NBC deal that he wrote his paper's editorial denouncing it. "They missed the news," says Squires. "We're in the news business and the news is 'Where is Abbas?' " (Though the U.S. Government refused to speculate, Italian authorities last week said the terrorist was in Tunisia and an extradition request has been made.)

Several terrorism experts and lawmakers argued that the NBC interview only plays into the hands of terrorists, providing a media spotlight that a man like Abbas needs to dramatize his cause. Indeed, Abbas received extraordinary mileage out of his appearance. Asked at the Tokyo summit about the implied threat against his life, Reagan said, "Let him try," thus elevating a terrorist's bark to something worthy of a presidential response in front of hundreds of reporters from around the world.

Some journalists endorsed NBC's decision. Charles Lewis, Washington bureau chief of the Associated Press, argues that Abbas' "enormous mystery" made the interview worth doing. Ed Turner, executive vice president of CNN, says, "We would have run it. There's no question that Abbas is a major news figure, for good or for ill."

NBC News President Lawrence Grossman says there was no debate within the network over whether to agree to Abbas' secrecy request. "It's critical that people know about terrorist leaders and what their plans are and what they are like," says Grossman. According to Correspondent Henry Champ, it took two months for NBC to make contact with Abbas and secure his consent; other than asking that his location not be revealed, Abbas set no conditions for the interview, which took place two weeks ago.

The Abbas incident is not likely to inspire news organizations to write fresh guidelines about interviewing terrorists or cutting deals with fugitives. Such rules can never cover all possible contingencies anyway. Nonetheless, greater care should be exercised to ensure that a terrorist does not use the interview simply for his own means. If Correspondent Champ asked tough, probing questions of Abbas--about the murder of Passenger Klinghoffer, for example--the televised excerpts did not reflect it. NBC may have won a scoop, but it lost the larger battle for first-rate journalism.

With reporting by Elizabeth L. Bland/New York and Ricardo Chavira/Washington