The Case of the U.S. Marines and Photojournalist Zoriah Miller

By DAVID PAULIN

In the latest instance of the military's uneasy relationship in Iraq with the news media, U.S. Marine commanders expelled an embedded photojournalist for doing something they considered unforgivable -- snapping grisly photos of dead Marines, and posting them on his website.

The case of photojournalist Zoriah Miller, a 32-year-old American, has roiled U.S. Marines in Western Iraq for more than a month. Yet the mainstream media has largely ignored the controversy – until that is, a lengthy article in yesterday's New York Times, “4,000 U.S. Deaths and Just a Handful of Public Images.” While it strove to be circumspect about the issues at play, the Times failed to answer an important question: Who is Zoriah Miller?

The answer explains much about why America's military leaders are not interested in returning to the anything-goes days of media coverage that existed during the Vietnam War. And it explains why Marine commanders in Iraq do not relish the idea of Miller ever again accompanying American troops anywhere in the world.

Miller, a freelancer who uses his first name professionally, had been in Iraq nearly one year when he was expelled. He ran afoul of Marine commanders because of two photos of three dead Marines he published on his website. Initially, Marine commanders ordered Miller to remove the photos. He invited their full wrath with his response.

He refused to obey them.

Immediately, outraged commanders revoked the veteran photojournalist's media credentials. They ordered him aboard the next flight to Baghdad's Green Zone, saying he no longer was welcome in Marine-controlled Western Iraq. In a letter to Miller expelling him, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly -- commander of multi-national forces in Western Iraq – wrote: "By your actions, I have lost confidence in your trustworthiness and your ability to follow the rules vital for protecting U.S. forces assigned to the Iraqi Theater of Operations."

He added, “I have reason to believe that you present a threat all all Multi National Forces-West personnel and installations." A copy of Gen. Kelly's lengthy and detailed July 3 letter, citing specific embed rules Miller allegedly violated, was provided to the American Thinker after a query was made for this story. The general said the photojournalist's detailed blog commentary and graphic photos, about the aftermath of a suicide bombing, had provided the enemy with a valuable after-action report of the attack; it was blamed on Al-Qaida. In his letter, Gen. Kelly said Miller's photo essay offered the terror group valuable intelligence about the effectiveness of their attack and the Marines' response time.

Miller said two armed guards accompanied him as he awaited his flight. The guards were apparently for his own protection. Presumably, some Marines were in ugly moods on learning the photojournalist had posted photos to his website of dead Marines, two veteran officers and an enlisted man.

On his website, Miller has written at length about the arbitrary treatment he says he suffered, and he's defended his conduct. Specifically, he's accused Marine commanders of censorship and ignoring established rules for embedded reporters, rules concerning what photojournalist may or may not publish. He's also portrayed himself as an idealist -- one with an anti-war message. Recently, Miller returned from Baghdad to his native Colorado, having failed to get his embed credentials reinstated while in Baghdad, where he apparently visited the U.S. Embassy. He claims to have gotten a sympathetic hearing from unnamed officials about his efforts to reinstate his credentials.

As to those two photos of three dead Marines, they're still displayed at his website: Zoriah.com. And now thanks to the Times' story, they're displayed on the paper's website. Editors, presumably, believed that publishing them was necessary to tell the story of Zoriah Miller vs. the U.S. Marines -- and to highlight Miller's claims of alleged military censorship. Yet curiously, the Times has never been the sort of paper to publish similar grisly photos of people who died in violent car wrecks or of gunshot wounds. It's a matter of good taste for the Times; and yet this same consideration is not extended to soldiers killed in Iraq.

What exactly did Miller publish? His two close-up photos show Marines whose bodies seem mutilated beyond recognition. One shows a Marine lying face up, his face disfigured. Miller, noting he was sensitive to the Marines' families, said on his blog that the soldiers were are too disfigured for even their families to recognize. And in line with embed rules, he noted, he digitally removed the Marines' name tags from the photos. He suggested the photos were “dignified” and “artistic.”

Some of Miller's Iraq photos are indeed powerful and interesting. But his photos of three dead Marines resemble the tasteless photos found at some ghoulish Internet sites. Now, the Times has stooped to the same level for the sake of its high-minded journalism.

Miller says he's baffled by the angry reaction his photos provoked among Marines. "You're a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble," he complained at Camp Fallujah, shortly after losing his media credentials. He was quoted in a July 6 article in the Ventura County Star, “Blogger kicked out of Iraq province for war photos,” written by an embedded reporter for the California daily paper, Scott Hadly.

Miller's photos of the dead Marines were part of a graphic photo essay and written account he posted describing the aftermath of a suicide bombing on June 26 in the city of Garma, near Fallujah. The bomber blew himself up at a city council meeting that included shieks and local leaders. At least 20 people died and more than 100 were injured. The Marines killed in the blast were on hand to transfer control of Anbar Provence to Iraqi military forces. The province had been hotbed for the insurgency until the Marines enforced their will on the region.

Before publishing the photos, Miller, in his defense, said he waited until the families of the Marines had been notified of their deaths. Indeed, it was out of consideration for them, he said, that he even provided ample warnings on his website about photos being displayed there of dead Marines. Yet despite his concern, he apparently had no such reservations when granting the Times permission to publish the photos.

Miller's photo essay includes a number of graphic color shots of the dead and dying. One bizarre close-up shows a human hand on the ground above a small pool of blood. The dead included Garma's mayor and a tribal chief.

As to those dead Marines, Miller didn't mention their names, and neither did the Times. They were from the Hawaii-based 3^rd Marine Division: Battalion commander Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai, 42, of Pago Pago, American Samona; Marine Capt. Philip J. Dykeman, 38, of Brockport, N.Y.; and Cpl. Marcus W. Preudhomme, 23, an administrative assistant from North Miami Beach, Fla.

The Marines died outright in the powerful blast. Miller, moments later, arrived at the gruesome scene with a group of Marines he'd been accompanying; they were from the same division as the dead Marines. One of them vomited, Miller related. Quickly, the Marines set about restoring order: securing the area, helping the wounded, and even collecting body parts. Miller went to work too: He feverishly snapped off photos. Luckily for Miller, he'd reportedly opted to go out with the Marine patrol rather than accepting an invitation to the event.

Regarding his expulsion, Miller contends he followed the military's rules for embedded media members to the letter. Photojournalists, he says, are in fact allowed to photograph and publish photos of dead servicemen under certain circumstances. In his defense, he cited specific sections of the embed rules to support his case.

Why publish grisly close-ups of dead Marines? "I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show,” Miller told the Ventura County Star. He repeated those comments in the Times' story and during recent interviews with Editor & Publisher, a magazine covering the newspaper industry.

Miller, however, had other motivations, too – though they were not mentioned by the Times and Editor & Publisher which are sympathetic to his cause. Publishing the photos, Miller explained, was justified to show “the reality of the Iraq War.” And he offered some political reasons, too: At his website, he urges visitors who are “offended by the graphic images” to “please do something to stop the political situations and foreign policy that facilitate these atrocities.” What does Miller mean by political situations and foreign policies? He did not explain. But it's clear he has a political agenda, based on other statements at his website, which the Times did not bother to cite.

Miller, for instance, talks much about himself at two Q&A interviews he gave that are posted on his website. In one he says: “I just want to change the world...and I am pretty sure I can do it.”

For the rest of the article, go to The American Thinker.

The AP's New Man on the “Race and Ethnicity” Beat

By DAVID PAULIN

The Associated Press just announced an important change in a high-profile news beat that's overseen by its national desk -- a beat called “race and ethnicity.”

AP's editors, sensing a racially charged presidential election at hand, picked a writer from 449 candidates they'd been considering for their new “race and ethnicity” writer. And last week, they named the lucky writer, a long-time AP staffer named Jesse Washington. Previously, the 39-year-old journalist was the “entertainment editor” at America's most influential news outlet, the source from which most Americans get their news from outside the areas covered by their local newspapers and TV and radio stations.

Earlier in his career, Washington was an editor at two prominent hip-hop magazines. And recently, he published his first novel: “Black Will Shoot,” which is about America's hip-hop culture. Its cover jacket calls it a “compelling look at the most impactful (sic) and influential cultural movement of the past thirty years.”

For AP's editors, the race and ethnicity beat is obviously important. An opening on the beat occurred due to the resignation of AP writer Erin Texeira. Interestingly, the AP gave no reason for her resignation. Among the headlines of some of her memorable stories: “Duke Rape Scandal Reopens Old Wounds For Black Women”; "Slavery Reparations Gaining Momentum" and "Black Men Fight Negative Stereotypes Daily."

So what does the AP's “race and ethnicity” beat mean for the type of news coverage Americans can expect?

In the good old days of American journalism, reporting beats had pretty mundane names: police, city government, national politics, etc. But in the post-modern journalism world, beats like “race and ethnicity” have become popular. And in a sense, they often feed the perception – the false perception -- that America's race relations are in the dire state that's usually portrayed in the mainstream media's stories.

How come? First, consider the very first bias that invariably creeps into a news story: It's that reporters and editors even choose to write a story about something; and in the case of a news beat, they have to produce stories on a particular issue on a regular basis. By itself, the decision to create a news beat says a lot; for it defines a particular subject as being an issue -- one worthy of news space and air time. And a news beat also places a certain onus on reporters and editors. Those covering “race and ethnicity” beats, for instance, are expected to flesh out the basic elements of a story. And the very best stories, of course, invariably revolve around conflict and controversy.

But what if no obvious conflict or controversy exists? Well, for clever reporters entertaining a certain worldview, it's usually easy to come up with something. A beautiful sunset over an orderly middle-class suburb in Chicago or Los Angeles is not necessarily what it seems: It's merely the calm before a Perfect Storm of racial grievances. Basically, that's what's often going on at places like the AP and New York Times in respect to its ongoing and obsessive coverage of “race and ethnicity” in America.

And so then, the “news beats” created by editors say much about what those editors think is important, reflects the potential conflicts they believe are festering all around them. According to his memo on Washington's promotion, published at trade magazine Editor & Publisher, AP's manging editor of U.S. news, Mike Oreskes wrote:

Few subjects permeate every corner of American life more fully than issues of race and ethnicity. So, few assignments have more potential to expand our understanding of America than writing about race and ethnicity.

That is why we have conducted an extensive search for a new national writer to cover this important and complex territory.

That search, ably led by John Affleck, brought in 449 applicants. There were many strong candidates.

It turned out the top choice—and a very exciting one—was right here at home. I am very pleased to announce that our new national writer on race and ethnicity will be Jesse Washington, currently the AP’s Entertainment Editor.

Does race in fact “permeate every corner of American life” as Oreskes claims? There is good reason to believe that it does not, at least not in the way Oreskes and his AP colleagues think it does. And certainly not in the way Barack and Michelle Obama may say or imply. And definitely not the way that's described by Obama's former hate-filled minister and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, who recently resigned as pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

Put aside these issues for a moment, however, to consider some things about the AP's new “race and ethnicity" writer. No doubt, Jesse Washington was thanking his lucky stars upon hearing of his promotion. In recent months, after all, thousands of editors and reporters have lost their jobs as the newspaper industry has suffered its worst-ever downsizing bloodbath. Even top people at the New York Times and Washington Post are being shown the door.

Yet Washington, rather than considering himself a lucky insider, considers himself an outsider, at least if Oreskes' memo is anything to go by. The memo not only calls attention to Washington's considerable achievements, it portrays him as something of a scrappy contender – and even a victim. According to Oreskes' memo:

Jesse brings to this new assignment more than just a resume of achievements. He has lived the subject of race and ethnicity every day of his 39 years.

Son of an interracial marriage, Jesse is, as he puts it, “a kid from the projects who went to Yale and married a doctor. I’m a person who fits in everywhere and nowhere.” He and his wife live in suburban Philadelphia with their four children.

Given the AP's evident preoccupation with race and ethnicity, it's interesting that Oreskes' memo makes no mention of Washington's own racial or ethnic background; but a photo of him posted with the AP's online news release reveals what is all but obvious: He's black.

But perhaps the failure of Oreskes' memo to mention Washington's race is consistent with some of the AP's news coverage. Recent AP articles about gang violence in the nation's inner cities, Chicago in particular, made absolutely no mention of the racial or ethnic background of the young thugs rampaging through city streets with high-powered weapons. It took a little Googling to learn that Chicago's gangbangers are part of the city's dysfunctional black culture.

Washington himself has been guilty of such oversights during the early part of his AP career in the mid-1990s. Writing in October, 1993, about Detroit's annual “Devil's Night” – an arson spree occurring on Halloween -- Washington made no mention of the ethnic or racial backgrounds of the young thugs torching vacant buildings during a night of mayhem that “added insult to the city's already injured reputation.” (“Detroit Hopes to Stifle Devil's Night Fires Again,” AP, Oct. 1992.) Then again, maybe the story Washington submitted did mention such things, only to have them deleted by a politically correct AP editor.

According to a check of Factiva, the news archive, Washington wrote a variety of stories while assigned to the AP's national desk in the 1990s, the kinds of stories one might expect on the national beat – crime, political scandals, etc. But he returned repeatedly to stories about race. And invariably, the stories on race that really "moved” on the wires (got picked up by lots of newspapers across the country), involved those that highlighted an earlier period of racism in America's history.

Washington wrote one such story in mid-July of 1991: “White schoolmarm challenged New England's anti-black stance.” Reporting from Canterbury, Conn., he began:

When a strong-willed white schoolteacher in 1833 opened New England's first academy for black girls, she was tormented by her neighbors, made an outlaw by the state Legislature and even jailed.

Today, the clapboard house where Prudence Crandall operated her boarding school is a museum, a monument to one woman's courage and a reminder of a troubling episode in Connecticut history.

Americans, of course, ought to reconsider their history and look back on their past. But in the post-modern journalism world, the approach to news coverage that does that inevitably has a cynical tone -- the equivalent of repeatedly tearing a scab off an old wound. And invariably, progress in the nation's race relations is never noted; it never stresses what America has accomplished, thanks to Americans of all colors working together. Instead, news stories are invariably about what white Americans have done to black Americans; no matter if most white Americans today display little if any racial animus, an issue that Linda Chavez recently highlighted in a perceptive and lengthy piece in the magazine Commentary. She wrote:

To put the truth plainly: far from there being a racial stand-off in the United States, relations between blacks and whites have never been better. According to virtually every survey of racial attitudes taken over the last several decades, only about 10 percent of whites report generally unfavorable views of blacks. In a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, the relevant figure stood at 8 percent—lower, interestingly enough, than the percentage of blacks reporting similarly negative views of their fellow blacks.

Because of the nation’s rapidly changing demography, the whole issue of race and ethnicity in America has become much more complicated and variegated. One thing remains clear, though: in surveys assessing racial attitudes among all groups, non-whites display consistently less favorable attitudes toward each other and toward whites than whites display toward blacks and other minority groups. One such survey, taken in the mid-1990’s, found blacks and Hispanics significantly more likely than whites to regard Asians as hostile to non-Asians and as “crafty in business,” while both Asians and Hispanics were likelier than whites to think that blacks “like living on welfare” and “can’t get ahead on their own.” Nor have inter-minority stereotypes changed much since then. A 2007 poll found that a plurality of blacks would rather do business with whites than with either Hispanics or Asians.

Chavez is chairwoman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, the only conservative think tank devoted to race and ethnicity in America. Her conclusions about race in America are far different from what was found in the racist sermons of Jeremiah Wright, the Obama family's former minister.

For the rest of this article, visit The American Thinker.

DOWNSIZING BLOODBATH

What the newspaper industry's unprecedented wave of layoffs says about American journalism -- and what it means for newspaper readers and bloggers



By DAVID PAULIN

The downsizing bloodbath in America's newspaper industry is different from earlier waves of layoffs over the years. This time top editors and reporters are being let go at the most prestigious newspapers. What does all this say about American journalism? And what will it mean for newspaper readers and bloggers?

First, consider the financially troubled New York Times. Layoffs are being threatened there -- something once unimaginable at the liberal Gray Lady. Many veteran reporters in recent months have accepted buyouts. They're people in their 50s and early 60s: well-known reporters such as John Noble Wilford, Linda Greenhouse, Jane Gross, and Lawrence K. Altman, to name a few. In professions such as medicine and law, such people would be at the top of their game.

But that's not the case in newspaper journalism, and that's ironic.

Many MSM news executives claim to want well educated and able people in the newsroom – but not, it appears, any who are too able or well-educated. That was underscored by an article in the American Journalism Review in January, 1995, “Fellowship Folly.” James V. Risser, a two-time Pulitzer winner, complained of mid-career journalists who took prestigious fellowships – only to find that their post-graduate educational experience was “too often” not appreciated -- or not even utilized. He wrote: “News executives say that they want to staff their organizations with more intelligent and sophisticated journalists, equipped to better cover a complex world. But when it comes to taking steps to help bring that about, some of them balk.”

It was an interesting comment in light of the criticism that MSM executives and journalists often level at bloggers – that they are not qualified to be reporting on and interpreting news events. Some even complain of a reckless anti-intellectualism in the blogesphere (especially among conservative bloggers). Yet it can be found as well within the nation's newsrooms, as “Fellowship Folly” pointed out. Of course, that's no surprise to bloggers who have made their reputations snorting out errors and misdeeds in the MSM.

The unprecedented buyouts at Times and Washington Post underscore the severity of the current wave of layoffs and downsizing affecting newspapers across the country. For the past 20-plus years, the newspaper industry has undergone periodic downsizing, amid declining readership and advertising revenues.

And in the past few years, newspapers have been losing readers and credibility to a new competitor – bloggers.

Many MSM executives deny that bloggers are a competitive threat. But there can be little doubt that those executives are running scared. That was underscored by the Associated Press' recent edict that bloggers would have to pay the AP to quote from its articles.

In addition, the AP recently took a petty swipe at bloggers with a story, “Journalists Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two.” It focused on bloggers who were portrayed as well-intentioned amateurs prone to run afoul of libel laws – and thus in need of a formal journalism education.

That's hardly true for the best blogs and online magazines around, however. Their writers, editors, and publishers are among the best and brightest around. And they certainly could hold their own -- and then some -- against the very best of the MSM. Two examples on the conservative front are the American Thinker and FrontPage Magazine. On the liberal side there's the Huffington Post, which recently announced that it would be expanding into local news coverage.

Fewer staffers; more freelancers

What will the MSM's newsroom shake-out mean for newspaper readers? Increasingly, they won't be reading stories written by full-time staff reporters. Freelance and “contract” reporters will write them. Over the years, major newspapers and wires services have increasingly relied on such folks – and the MSM's coverage of Iraq has offered the most visible example of that.

In Iraq, most of the news-gathering has been done by “local hires” -- hastily trained Iraqis working for major newspapers such as the Times, and for wire services such as the AP and Reuters. Some have proven courageous and able journalists and news gatherers. But the loyalties of others have frequently been called into question; it's what you'd expect in a country that has all but been in a civil war.

In Iraq and elsewhere, such freelance and “contract” labor is problematic in two ways. First, it means that inexperienced people are writing and gathering the information that gets into newspapers in America and overseas. Indeed, many if not most of them would not even be qualified for a regular newspaper or wire service job in America; would not, ironically, even get through the front door with a job application at the organizations that readily hire them overseas.

The second problem regarding freelance and contract labor is that there is less accountability in the news-gathering process. After all, when Wal-Mart uses sub-contractors, it has less control over how they operate. The news business is no exception. A staff reporter is more accountable than a temporary hire -- a person with no long-term relationship to his employer.

Less Foreign News Coverage

What type of news coverage will suffer the most as a result of the cutbacks? No doubt, it will be foreign news; traditionally, it has been the first causality of budget cutbacks. Papers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal will, of course, continue to run lots of foreign news stories; but their foreign news may not have the same quality it did in the past due to budget constraints, and there may not be as much of it, either. Most Americans don't read those papers anyway. They read their hometown papers.

And in hometown papers across America, the foreign news that gets into the paper will be provided as always by two left-leaning wire services, the Associated Press and Reuters. Their coverage of the war in Iraq and Israeli's incursion into Lebanon took lots of hits in the blogesphere for its lack of impartiality; it's a problem sometimes traced to “local hires” who deliberately distort the news -- either for ideological reasons or to make a fast buck.

For Americans working abroad as freelancers, you'd think the downsizing trend would mean more work for them. Just the opposite is true. Because of declining advertising revenues, there is a smaller “news hole” for foreign news in America's newspapers.

Accordingly, the foreign news that gets published in most newspapers – those most Americans read -- will usually revolve around breaking news written mainly by the wire services, usually the AP and to a lesser extent Reuters. Of course, freelancers, contract reporters, and news assistants or "fixers" in places like Iran – those working for a variety of MSM outlets -- will have more work than they can handle if a war erupts there. Until then, many will be starving because there's less room for foreign news due to a loss of advertising space. Some will be tempted to cut corners to make ends meet. (More on that later.)

In respect to foreign news, the first type of news that will disappear from most newspapers will be trend stories -- the kinds of pieces that can suggest which way the wind will blow. Wire services tend not to do these pieces; it's not what they're good at. Usually, it's talented freelancers and full-time newspaper staffers (the handful still working as foreign correspondents) who do them. Over the years, news chains and big metro papers have drastically reduced the number of foreign bureaus they operate.

Good for bloggers?

How might the economic turmoil in the mainstream media affect the blogesphere? It may give it a boost.

In the past, news executives in the mainstream media have often criticized bloggers for failing to undertake on-the-spot reporting; all their work, many contend, is derivative from reports in the mainstream media.

Just the opposite is true.

Many able bloggers are undertaking on-the-spot reporting. They include Richard Landes, a history professor at Boston University. At his blog Augean Stables, he has been at the forefront of exposing how staged television footage taken in the Middle East – depicting alleged Israel-on-Palestinian violence – has easily found its way into the mainstream media. (See letters section for comment from Prof. Richard Landes.)

And in Iraq, former Army special forces soldier Michael Yon has written extensively about the war, providing a counterweight to the mainstream media's approach. The AP, from which most Americans get their news, usually defines news by a simple formula: “If it bleeds, it leads.” And if a scandal involving Americans troops can be uncovered, so much the better.

Early in the Iraq war, Steven Vincent – journalist, author, and blogger – brought a level of intelligence and moral clarity to his reporting that was seldom found in the mainstream media. He was murdered on August 2, 2005, in Basra, Iraq.

Elsewhere in the world, Michael J. Tottena has reported regularly from the Middle East and Eastern Europe in his blog, Middle East Journal. He has provided a perspective that the wire services do not provide.

Above all, the smartest bloggers will continue to distinguish themselves when critiquing and analyzing stories from the MSM – looking for the headline behind the headline, undoing the ideological spin that animates a story, whether from the AP, New York Times, or other news organization.

Given the trends taking place in the newspaper industry, expect more muddle than ever in respect to the news that makes it into America's newspapers. Bloggers will be busier than ever.

You also can expect more embarrassing incidents for the mainstream media -- such as one involving Cox News Service in late 2005. I wrote a piece about that incident for Editor & Publisher's online edition that ran on December 3, 2005. Republished below, it gives a blow-by-blow of how screwed up things can get when news organizations depend on some “local hires” to gather the news.


COLUMN - SHOPTALK
Cox's Tale of 'Fixer' Misconduct Abroad Has Familiar Ring
The news service may be shocked, shocked to learn that a local 'fixer' in the Middle East would fabricate and plagiarize quotes. But anybody who knows how foreign reporting has worked in recent years, amid an era of cost cutting and increasing reliance on freelancers, won't be surprised. Former foreign correspondent David Paulin offers suggestions on how the system can be made more honest.

By David Paulin

Cox News Service has joined the list of news outfits owning up to unethical reporting. None of Cox's employees, to be sure, were involved. Here, the protagonists were a "contract" foreign correspondent and his freelance Syrian news assistant, or "fixer," as such folks are known in the trade.

Does the term "freelance" ring any alarm bells here? It should.

For readers who missed Cox's correction or E&P's post-mortem, here's a recap: On Nov. 20, Cox moved a story on the New York Times News Service about an Arab version of the venerable Barbie doll. The only problem, according to Cox, is that the story contained fabricated quotes and plagiarized material from the St. Petersburg Times -- all supplied to Cox's unwitting contract freelancer, Craig Nelson, by well-known fixer George Baghdadi, who also has worked for Time magazine and USA Today, among other news outlets.

Cox placed the blame squarely on Baghdadi, but Baghdadi pointed the finger at his news assistant, Hussein Ali, whom he claimed had supplied the offending material. Baghdadi declined to make Ali available for questioning, although he said he had fired Ali, which was the same treatment Cox gave Baghdadi.

The news service may be shocked, shocked to learn of such chicanery in its midst. But anybody who knows how foreign reporting has worked in recent years, amid an era of cost-cutting and increasing reliance on freelancers, won't be surprised.

Consider how the process of foreign news gathering works these days -- a process I learned about firsthand while working as freelance foreign correspondent and, on rare occasions, a fixer in Venezuela in the 1990s.

First, fixers are the weakest chain in the news gathering process. Generally, they're local hires who get their jobs through an informal word-of-mouth process -- not through the organized vetting process news organization use to hire editorial staff. Indeed, it appears this was how Baghdadi got his job with Cox, or, as Cox's Washington bureau chief, Andy Alexander, told E&P: "Because of the reputation of George Baghdadi and the fact that he was used by many Western news organizations for years and years, we felt we were dealing with someone who was trustworthy."

Baghdadi was probably like fixers I have known in another respect. He apparently played a major role in shaping stories, doing just about everything in the news gathering process except for writing the finished piece. Indeed, fixers may decide who to interview, set appointments, lead visiting reporters around by the hand, and provide translation services -- all things Baghdadi apparently did for Nelson, Cox's contract reporter. Fixers also may provide quotes and local color to staff foreign correspondents holed up elsewhere, perhaps across town in hotel rooms or in offices in another country -- also something Baghdadi did for Nelson, although in this case it was fabricated or plagiarized quotes.

Fixers may be local residents or expatriates, and their journalism experience may be extremely limited. Those who are proven journalists and do terrific work are in demand, although proven and busy freelance journalists, to be sure, are often reluctant to work as fixers.

One day in Caracas, I got a phone call out of the blue from a staff reporter from the Washington Post. He'd just gotten into town and was in a panic to find somebody to go to Congress there, cover the proceedings, and send quotes back to him at his hotel room. He had gotten my name through the grapevine. Sight unseen, he seemed ready for me to go to work for him.

I was intrigued. But I rejected the offer: I was busy and, most importantly, I regarded myself as an able reporter, not a fixer who did gopher work for other reporters. I also reacted skeptically to his claim that doing fixing work for the Washington Post could "lead to something" at the paper. It's a line other expatriates in Caracas had heard from staff writers from big-time papers. None of the experienced journalists bought it, knowing as we did something about the hiring preferences of papers like the Washington Post.

Presumably, the Post guy got somebody more gullible or at least eager to please: somebody who needed the work and who, most importantly, could provide translation services.

This little anecdote is fairly typical. Caracas, during my seven years there until 2000, was at the time full of aspiring journalists eager to give their careers a quick start: American and British expatriates along with a few English-speaking Venezuelans. Most were recent college grads with limited journalistic experience. Most badly needed an extra paycheck to supplement whatever work they scrounged up: teaching English, working at the local English-language newspaper, or writing for a few English-language business magazines. Most were eager to work for a big-time foreign correspondent.

However, one can imagine the potential for abuse among freelances living from paycheck to paycheck.

Once in Caracas, my checking account was nearly empty. Yet up at the Dallas Morning News, a business editor was sitting on a story that was supposed to pay my rent. To give the story additional balance, she explained, I needed to provide extra quotes from a new source -- one that I could not immediately locate.

Relating my frustration to a Venezuelan journalist, he responded with wide-eyed surprise: "Why don't you just make up the quotes?"

Concocting quotes was not my style. But no doubt about it: I could have gotten away with it. Nobody would have phoned the paper to complain. My editor, as it turned out, tweaked the story to eliminate the need for additional reporting. I paid my rent.

How many fixers in Iraq and elsewhere, struggling to support families amid chaotic conditions, would be tempted to cut corners to ensure that a check arrives on time?

In an age of layoffs and declining profits, freelance "contract" reporters such as Nelson and freelance fixers such as Baghdadi are here to stay. How can the system be made more honest?

One would be to require that fixers be trained journalists. Besides working as fixers, they should write for the papers which contract them. Editors should vet them as carefully as they do perspective staff reporters, and they should meet the same professional requirements as new staff members. A base salary would deter the temptation to cut corners, such as fabricating quotes, to help maintain a cash flow.

Finally, fixers who provide quotes should be credited in stories as having done so; it's something some papers don't do. In the case of Cox's Barbie doll story, for example, Nelson failed to credit Baghdadi with having provided quotes, which was described as contrary to Cox's sourcing policy.

This reflects a problem inherent in foreign reporting as practiced today. Media giants such as the New York Times and Hearst regularly publish articles by freelancers -- yet fail to note those reporters are in fact freelancers and not on staff. In the case of one Hearst paper for which I have written, I was amused to see under my byline that I was part of the paper's "foreign service."

What I learned in Havana talking to ordinary Cubans


By DAVID PAULIN

The secret love affair between left-leaning elites and Cuba goes on no matter what. No sooner had Cuba's aging Fidel Castro resigned, than a common narrative emerged in liberal papers like the New York Times: positive changes could be coming to the hemisphere's last bastion of communism.

On Cuba's northeast coast, meanwhile, 24 ordinary Cubans -- men, women, and children -- boarded a boat under cover of darkness. They set off across the Florida Strait to America -- presumably unaware of the media's upbeat Cuba narrative playing out in the country of their dreams. They landed in South Florida, reported the Miami Herald. They're among tens of thousands of Cubans who have escaped their island in recent years.

Coming when it did, their escape underscored yet again the glaring perception gap regarding Cuba dividing ordinary Cubans and leftist elites in America and abroad. You have to wonder if Cuba's apologists have ever talked with ordinary Cubans, those living in Cuba or who escaped from their island prison to America.

Nearly every night, boat loads of fleeing Cubans cross the Florida Strait -- and even more Cubans now take a longer and safer route through Mexico. That's according to official statistics cited in a New York Times article published a year and a half ago.

Given Raúl Castro's inability to inspire confidence among his subjects back then -- when he was acting president -- it's perplexing that the Times recently described the newly elected president as a "practical" and "no-nonsense" guy who is less wedded to ideology than his brother Fidel. All because of his "decision to begin his tenure by meeting the Vatican's top diplomat, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a possible go-between with the United States and Europe."

Cuba, however, has played this game before -- inviting Pope John II to Cuba for a historic visit in January, 1998. Back then, many liberals also interpreted this as being a sign of Fidel's good intentions, evidence that positive changes were coming to Cuba.

It never happened.

Within a few years, the government cracked down on peaceful pro-democracy initiatives -- most notably the Valera Project -- by tightening its grip on power and making mass arrests. Kangaroo courts sentenced 30 journalists up to 28 years in prison in April, 2003, provoking international outrage.

So much for the Vatican's influence on Raúl and Fidel.

Why does nobody take Raúl at his word? After the National Assembly voted him president -- unanimously, of course -- he pledged to make no radical changes. And he noted that he'd closely consult with his ailing big brother. Members of Cuba's privileged communist elite must have been happy to hear all that.


Visiting Havana

The media's problematic reporting on the Castro brothers brought to mind a week-long reporting trip I made to Havana in 1996, 12 years ago, in mid-December. While reading recent news reports about Raúl Castro's government -- including cautiously upbeat ones -- I was struck by how things in Cuba today are as bad as when I visited.

Then and now, salaries average about $19 a month, not enough to pay for basic goods such as soap, cooking oil, and medicine. Then and now, Cubans giving interviews to foreign reporters insist that only their first names be used, fearing they'll be punished for speaking their minds. Some won't talk at all, of course.

It has been like this for nearly half a century. Accordingly, if Raúl Castro is indeed a democratic reformer in disguise, he'll face a major challenge in repairing the psychological and social damage that he, his brother, and members of the communist elite have wrought in a state that owns all property, most businesses, and punishes those who dare to exercise civil liberties we take for granted. Some Cubans have bravely protested or fled the island. Others play along with the charade and pay lip service to it.

Take religion, for example. When I asked a Havana school teacher how she'd be spending Christmas, she told me: "Why, there is no Christmas in Cuba!" Pointing to a little girl, she added, "She has never known a Christmas!" It was one of many telling anecdotes I gleaned during my week-long trip to the hemisphere's last bastion of communism. Coming to power in 1959, Fidel Castro eradicated nasty bourgeois influences such as Christmas -- a holiday no longer fit to celebrate under his communist ideology.

I was a Caracas-based journalist when I went to Havana. On assignment for the Dallas Morning News, my subject was what Cubans thought about the historic visit to Cuba being planned for Pope John Paul II.

Traveling alone is no fun. I'd gotten an absurdly low-priced package trip to Havana that was for two people, not one. So I invited along a Venezuelan acquaintance named Fiffy. She had a gift for putting people at ease, and she occasionally helped me out with my not-so-perfect Spanish.

Like more than a few sophisticated and well-educated Venezuelans, Fiffy was not a huge fan of the United States, but nor was she a raving anti-American. Neither of us had ever visited Cuba. The place fascinated us.

It was during our first afternoon stroll in Havana that a cheerful teacher beckoned us inside to visit her classroom, having spotted us looking into the grade school's street-level windows. She introduced us to her charming and smiling class of uniformed students. They greeted us on command. I didn't tell the teacher I was a journalist.

"We're tourists," I said. It seemed like the safe thing to say.

Soon after arriving the previous afternoon, I ran into serious problems with customs at Havana's Jose Marti airport -- all because my well-worn U.S. passport raised eyebrows among Cuban officials. They claimed it was too shabby to be taken seriously. Having traveled for years in the back pocket of my Levis, it was a bit creased around the edges. A tiny corner of my photo was unglued.

"No señor, this is not acceptable!" a man wearing dark military-style fatigues told me. "I don't think they'll let you in." He added, "You'll have to take another flight back to Caracas."

Alternatively, he explained, I could spend a week in a detention facility and then leave on my return flight. "Don't worry. It's not like a prison."

Read the rest of the article at The American Thinker.

The Wacko Journalist Narrative

BY DAVID PAULIN

Are the hard economic times facing the newspaper industry stressing newsroom denizens beyond the breaking point? While willing to entertain stories of wacko-vets, newspapers seem singularly uninterested in exploring the human cost of their own continuing economic troubles. In place of worries about soldiers allegedly returning home and committing suicide and murder in unusually high numbers, liberal papers like the New York Times and Washington Post might look at the nation's newsrooms -- their own included -- for a fascinating new narrative. You could call it the wacko journalist narrative.

No parody is intended here.

Trade magazine Editor & Publisher, considered the bible of the newspaper industry, says many newspaper staffers may be at risk for suicide as their industry faces yet another round of painful downsizing and layoffs, along with other work-related pressures.

In a story last June, E&P warned that newspaper staffers affected by the current shake-out should be "watched for suicidal tendencies" according to two health professionals, whom it quoted. Both are familiar with the newspaper business.

E&P's article and a related one in mid-June concerned the possible suicide of a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, Richard Ramirez, 44. He was reportedly concerned about impending layoffs at the McClatchy-owned paper; it's now a shadow of the powerhouse it was years ago under its previous owner, the now-defunct Knight Ridder.

Ramirez, according to E&P, had been "troubled just days before his death by personal problems," and his wife was quoted as saying he was worried about impending layoffs. He was found in his backyard with a fatal knife wound. His death was later ruled a suicide.

Putting Ramirez's death into a larger context, E&P interviewed two public health experts. Both raised concerns about the mental health of newsroom staffers in the face of another round of cost-cutting and downsizing.

"All mid-career journalists are now dealing with enormous uncertainty in the future and enormous doubts about what choices they face. This is a time when we can be looking out for each other," according to E&P's interview with Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr. Frank Ochberg, a Dart psychiatrist and founder of center, told E&P: "Conditions of employment are not very good right now -- and often it is more upsetting dealing with conditions of employment than vicarious trauma."

According to E&P, both men agreed that if Ramirez's death was indeed a suicide (as it was indeed ruled to have been) it "will be a reminder that anyone affected by the current news industry downsizing must be watched for suicidal tendencies."(Emphasis added.)

Part of the University of Washington's Department of Communication, the Dart Center, according to its website, "is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy." It also says it "addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism."

E&P deserves credit for covering the newsroom suicide angle. Yet E&P's left-wing editor Greg Mitchell has nevertheless demonstrated far more interest in covering the suicides and emotional problems of veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Along with echoing the agenda of the loony left in his online column, he has exhorted newspaper editors to vigorously cover the suicides of American troops. On the other hand, he's urged no such pile-on in respect to covering journalists who, in increasing numbers, are themselves committing suicide.

Whether journalist suicides are in fact on the rise is hard to say, for no statistics measuring such things are available; at least nothing comparable to the extensive data the U.S. Army keeps on its soldiers -- and that it obligingly shares with the Washington Post.

Even so, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence available on journalist suicides -- and it's troubling. In June 2005, E&P referred to a spate of journalist suicides in a heart-rending story, "In Texas, the death of a reporter."

The in-depth piece (4,646 words) focused on the suicide of a well-respected and award-winning journalist at the Austin-American Statesman, 46-year-old Kevin Carmody. He specialized in investigative and environmental reporting, and, according to E&P's story, was dealing with a number of personal issues and work-related pressures.

Among other things, Carmody was taking the antidepressant Paxil and faced a court date for DUI charges two days before his death, E&P reported. And a week before his death, he brought his will to work: He had two colleagues witness and sign it, and another one notarized it.

Putting the reporter's suicide into a larger context -- that of possible a trend -- E&P writer Joe Strupp wrote:

"Does Carmody's suicide say something about the effect investigative reporting can have on those who may already have emotional problems? In the past year or so, several reporters have taken their lives following stressful assignments.

"Just last December, former San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb shot himself in the head following months of growing depression, much of it caused by his inability to return to daily newspaper reporting (he left the newspaper in the wake of criticism over a 1997 series he wrote on CIA drug connections). Others include former Iraq embed Dennis O'Brien of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, who hanged himself in February 2004, and author/journalist Iris Chang, who shot herself last fall."

It's a list, to be sure, that is hardly complete, as any Google search will reveal.

Troubled Industry

The current shake-out is nothing new. Over the past few decades, the newspaper industry has undertaken one wave of downsizing after another -- part of an effort to remain profitable amid declining readership and ad revenues. One popular downsizing tool has been "voluntary buyouts" of senior editorial staffers -- usually folks in their 60s, 50s, and even 40s, who earn the highest wages. The Washington Post is now undertaking such an effort.

At the same time, newspapers have gone on a minority-hiring binge (sometimes hiring not-so qualified people) under firm affirmative action/equal opportunity quotas. In today's politically correct newsrooms, the goal is to create the same ethnic and racial composition that exists in the local community, state, or even the nation; whichever criteria news executives feel is appropriate (or feel pressured into using). William McGowan's book Coloring the News dealt with the consequences of such multiculturalism.

Newsroom jobs are even being outsourced to India. Reuters has done that. And recently the Miami Herald was on the verge of doing it but backed down in the face of strong criticism. Interestingly, the Herald's outsourcing initiative was launched under Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal -- a man you would not expect to be overseeing such things. After all, he's the former editor of the left-wing Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Newspapers, like liberals, are suffering from high levels of cognitive dissonance these days. They love to run showcase exposes on Wal-Mart -- excoriating the retailer (wildly popular among working folks) for its allegedly cut-throat business practices. Another hate-object is the military, whose members are often portrayed as both killers and victims. Yet neither the New York Times nor Washington Post nor anyone else has ever done any comparable pieces about it own industry, focusing on the heart-rending human costs of another wave of downsizing. And make no mistake about it; there are human costs to such shake-outs: Many middle-aged staffers face a future of joblessness; part-time work; or irregular income working as freelance editors and reporters. And because journalism salaries are paltry in comparison to other fields, many have little savings to fall back on to launch new careers.

Ramirez, of the Mercury News, knew first-hand how bleak things could be. He'd been "looking for a new job for at least a year," according to E&P. 

Lack of Accountability

All in all, some news outlets do a lousy job when it comes to covering scandals within their ranks. Consider how the American-Statesman reported the death of its long-time staffer, Kevin Carmody.

A well-known reporter, Carmody had written some prominent stories -- and some controversial ones. His work had spurred much public discussion. So you'd think the American-Statesman's readers would have wanted to know what led up to his suicide - and how it occurred. His wife found him near a favorite fishing hole by Austin's popular Barton Creek -- a well-traveled public area. He was hanging from a length of rope tied to the branch of a tree.

Yet none of that ran in the newspaper where Carmody had worked; the 522-word piece about his passing focused only on what a talented reporter and wonderful guy he'd been. Indeed, E&P's article pointed out:

When the American-Statesman reported on Carmody's death, the story offered few details about how he died, stating only that his death was "being investigated as a suicide," and it has written nothing more. Although his body was found in a public location, Editor Rich Oppel contends it was not "public" enough to merit more information for readers.

Well, Oppel must know what he's doing; he's a member of the board that awards Pulitzer Prizes, after all. Still, you have to wonder: How would his paper have covered the suicide of a local solider who -- to the shock of his family and colleagues -- hung himself in a public area?

The New York Times, for its part, found very little that was fit to print following the highly public suicide of a senior staffer. Allen R. Myerson, 47, who jumped from the paper's 15^th floor at 10 a.m. on August 22, 2002. Minutes earlier, the business and financial reporter had left a suicide note on his desk.

In the next-day's Times, readers learned only that Myerson "fell from a parapet above the 15th floor." Police suspected a suicide, the paper noted.

Interestingly, a little over two years earlier, the body of reporter Agis Salpukas, 60, was found floating in the Hudson River. He'd reportedly suffered from depression -- a common thread in many suicides.

Could the two deaths be part of a trend at the Times? Well, probably not. Yet imagine if some Times' sleuth had learned that two soldiers at a military base had killed themselves within a number of months of each other? Imagine the next-day's headline: "Amid Iraq turmoil, military investigates another suicide."

Recently, satirist Iowahawk pulled together numerous news reports of journalists who had turned to crime; everything from wife beating to child molestation to murder. It's yet another possible trend that the mainstream media has yet to explore, and to quantify.

If only the Fourth Estate kept as many statistics on its personnel as the military did. Imagine the interesting trends it might dig up pertaining to suicide, crime, and other mayhem.

And who knows: Such stories might even boost circulation -- helping to ward off yet another round of downsizing, buyouts, and the outsourcing of editorial work to India.

Originally published at The American Thinker.

Author's Note: The men in the photo are, of course, two heroes of the mainstream media -- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Whether these two actually deserve their hero status, however, is another question, as is noted by Stratfor's George Friedman in his article, "The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism." That article echoes some of the points made years ago in a fine article by Edward J. Epstein, "Did the Press Uncover Watergate?" published in his book "Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism."

The Return of the Wacko Vet Media Narrative


BY DAVID PAULIN

As the troop build-up in Iraq produces positive results, many media outlets have seized upon a new anti-war narrative. It's right out of the Vietnam War-era: wacko and self-destructive vets running amok on the home front.

"Soldier Suicides at Record Levels," trumpeted a 1,500-word front-page piece in the Washington Post this week. And for three recent Sundays, the New York Times has dished up a front-page series of more than 10,000-words called "War Torn." It's about veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned home -- only to kill again.

According to the Times' series:

"Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Taken together they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak."

The story is flawed, however. Commenting on "War Torn" in his column last Sunday, Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that the series "tangled itself in numbers right from the start." It was "analytically shaky" and relied upon "questionable statistics." His analysis followed howls from conservative bloggers, who were all over "War Torn" long before Hoyt's piece came out.

But give the Times credit for creating the position of public editor, a decision designed to restore its credibility after the Jayson Blair scandal and other problems.

Who is responsible for such agenda-driven reporting at the Times and other media outlets? Mostly senior reporters and editors who are in their 50s and 60s, folks who came of age during the 1960s.

For the rest of this article, visit The American Thinker.

After 50 Years: An Air Force Pilot's Bravery Outshines His Public Humiliation



(This was originally published at The American Thinker. For more on the case of Lt. David Steeves, see another post at this website: "Shooting Star: The Last Flight of Lt. David Steeves."


By DAVID PAULIN

Fifty years ago this month, President Eisenhower and Sputnik were in the news – and so were the marital travails of an Air Force pilot named David Steeves. The 23-year-old 1st lieutenant – once a national hero – was now under a cloud of innuendo and suspicion stirred up by the nation's news media.

Decades before media abuse became a hotly debated topic, Lt. Steeves was a victim of it, suffering a public humiliation he did not deserve. The Air Force, for its part, may have contributed to this guilt by innuendo. But ultimately it was the mainstream media that put the pilot's head in a noose in the court of public opinion.

In its watchdog role, the media should have endeavored to get to the bottom of the case of Lt. Steeves and his missing T-33 jet trainer. Instead, it played up the sensational aspects of the case, thereby helping to destroy an Air Force officer's reputation.

Lt. Steeves captivated the nation that previous July 1, 1957 when he wandered out of California's Sierra Nevada. Weeks earlier, the Air Force had declared him dead after he disappeared on a cross-country flight. Yet 54 days after ejecting from his disabled jet over ice and snow-covered mountains, he hobbled out of the wilderness with a heavy beard and tattered flight suit. In a hastily arranged news conference at Castle Air Force Base in Merced, California, he told a harrowing story of survival.

Lt. Steeves was front-page news for days, a media darling. And his photogenic 21-year-old wife, Rita, quickly became part of the story. There were TV and radio appearances, even talk of a book deal. But six weeks later, the story of Lt. Steeves, the hero, fell apart after the Saturday Evening Post claimed to have found “discrepancies” in his survival story. The weekly magazine's claims were not fully explained at first, and when they were explained months later, they proved baseless. But no matter. Thereafter, there was a media pile on.

The Steeves-as-hero narrative was quickly scrapped, and recast. Now he was a man telling tall tales – perhaps even perpetrating a hoax (though for what purpose was never explained).

And though not apart of their official narrative, some reporters may have heard wild rumors said to be floating about, or that were perhaps slipped to them by conspiracy-minded Cold Warriors in the Air Force or Pentagon: Steeves flew his jet to Mexico, then sold it to the Russians or some other malevolent nation.

None of this ever proved true. And in 1957 there was no evidence that it might be true. Yet this was of no consequence to the vast majority of media outlets. Putting on their brass knuckles, they went on a journalistic gang bang, trampling facts and decency as they infused story after story about Lt. Steeves with suspicion and reckless innuendo. And no matter that top officials in the U.S. Park Service and U.S. Air Force (those speaking on the record) supported Steeves' story. A close reading of newspaper archives, primarily from 1957 and 1958, makes all of this crystal clear.

Just a few years earlier, ironically, crusading members of the high-minded Fourth Estate told themselves they'd saved the country from Wisconsin's irresponsible senator, Joe McCarthy. Yet now they engaged in what amounted to McCarthy-style reporting on Lt. Steeves and his wife, Rita. Both eventually moved on with their lives, perhaps owing to their faith and resilient spirits, though the media's glare may have complicated their already troubled marriage.

The story of Lt. David Steeves started on a clear and sunny day on May 9, 1957 as he soared over the High Sierras at 33,500 feet. As he later related, an explosion ripped through his T-33 jet. He blacked out, regained consciousness and then ejected over some of America's roughest terrain. After a few weeks, the Air Force sent his wife a death certificate, believing nobody could have survived in the icy and snowy mountains.

“I was officially a widow. I had to start a new life,” she related. Determined to be strong and positive, she enrolled in a local university near her husband's hometown of Trumbull, Connecticut to become a school teacher. “I knew I must now be the head of my family — families, I know, can fall apart when there's a death. I resolved this would not happen to us.”

Survival Story

Yet her husband was alive, and fighting for his life.

In published accounts, Lt. Steeves' wilderness ordeal reads like a Hollywood script. One top Air Force officer called it a “remarkable feat.”

Two of Lt. Steeves' parachute panels were burned out, so he landed hard at the 11,000-foot level, badly twisting his ankles as he hit snow and ice. He had no survival kit or warm clothes to protect himself against temperatures that, according to an accident report obtained for this article, ranged between 25 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Bundling himself in his parachute, he huddled against giant boulders to stay out of the wind for four days. Then he gave up that a rescue party would be coming.

Setting off down the mountain, he told of crawling, sliding, and hobbling for 15 days, consuming only melted snow, until coming upon an empty ranger's cabin 15 miles away. There he found enough food to regain his strength. He told of then living on dandelions, grass snakes, and fish caught with some rusty hooks he found. Utilizing a snare rigged to his revolver, he even killed a deer.

Park rangers estimated he wandered 20 to 40 miles in attempting to hike out of the wildest part of the Sierra Nevada, where imposing peaks, canyons, and raging streams would challenge even an experienced mountaineer. He shed about 40 pounds from his fit 6-foot 195 pound frame, and his wife later commented that he felt “skinny.” Hunger, however, was the least of Steeves' worries, according to a lengthy article by noted journalist William E. Peters in the January 1958 issue of Redbook, the woman's magazine.

He wrote, “There were times when he told himself he had gone mad, that he was dead and this was some form of icy hell. In waves of panic he felt he was being punished for his sins; he prayed for forgiveness, despaired, then prayed some again."Although raised in a church-going family, Lt. Steeves said he didn't consider himself deeply religious, though he enjoyed Billy Graham's sermons. Later, he admitted to shortcomings as a father and husband. Yet in the wilderness, it was thoughts of “God, my wife, and my baby daughter” that pulled him through, he always maintained.

'Incoherent with Joy'

Lt. Steeves came upon four campers (two married couples) in Kings Canyon National Park on July 1, 1957. The next day, Steeves and one camper rode on horseback to a ranger's station. Steeves promptly phoned home.

Describing the call from her once-dead son, his mother told reporters that he'd “felt every prayer” said for him. His wife Rita, no longer a window, was too “incoherent with joy” to make much sense according to a reporter who tried to interview her. But she later described her feelings with a burst of eloquence: “I'm afraid at this point the experience is taking its effect, it's true. It's marvelously true. That's all I can say. I don't know what to do. I'm usually a pretty rational person but this thing is beyond the bounds of rationalization. I don't know what bounds it's beyond but it certainly is marvelous.”

After these initial stories, the media shifted its attention to Lt. Steeves' family in Trumbull. In the next days, newspaper stories focused on their immediate reactions; and after that on the joyous reunion days later, when the young pilot came home.

“Wife Refused to Let Hope Dwindle,” declared the front-page headline in the Reno Evening Gazette on July 3, 1957. The story of Lt. Steeves dominated the upper half of the page. “I don't think a wife, deep down, ever really gives up hope,” Mrs. Steeves was quoted as saying in an Associated Press story. A photo of the remarkably attractive Air Force wife, holding her infant daughter, ran next to one of her heavily bearded husband in his flight suit.

Elsewhere on the Evening Gazette's front page were indications of the mood of the times. A banner headline shouted: “U.S. May Share H-Bomb Data.” And over the right-hand column another, quieter headline explained: “Advisers Suggest Providing Reds Fallout Prevention.” According to the AP story, “President Eisenhower said today some advisers have told him Russia should be given the secret of how to make 'clean' hydrogen bombs — if the United States itself finally figures out how to do it.” And a news item from “Nevada's Atomic Test Site” was placed inconspicuously in the middle left-hand column, below a more important story about a local rodeo, and above a less important one about a wind storm in the Midwest. Its small headline advised: “July 4 Atomic Test Postponed.”

All in all, Lt. Steeves and his heroic story of survival – one man with courage against the elements -- was surely an uplifting antidote for the unease of the times, when nuclear bombs seemed to render battlefield heroics and self-sacrifice meaningless, and perhaps unnecessary. And the previous year, Sloan Wilson's bestseller “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” was a hit movie, revolving around a WW-2 combat veteran (Gregory Peck) -- now a suburban family man and public relations executive on the unsatisfying corporate treadmill.

Days after returning to Trumbull, Lt. Steeves made radio and TV appearances, including on the popular Art Linkletter, Dave Garaway, and Arthur Godfrey shows. Writing about a news conference in New York, a reporter observed that Lt. Steeves responded to every question “patiently, earnestly, and with good humor, giving every indication that he understood his incredible experience was something to be shared.”

Parade magazine called the story of Lt. Steeves one of the year's “most inspiring.” And in its story on Mrs. Steeves in early August, editors said she had a “message for the woman of America.”

As for Lt. Steeves' future plans, his mother had summed them up when she described that wonderful phone call from her once-dead son. She asked him if he'd be “going back to flying,” according to a newspaper account.

"I sure am,” he said.

"Oh, he loves it,” she explained. “All the Air Force boys love it. He wanted to be a pilot since he was a child."


'McCarthy'-style Reporting

Then came the Saturday Evening Post's announcement in mid-August that it had withdrawn a $10,000 offer for the lieutenant's exclusive story – all after associate editor Clay Blair Jr., a noted military writer and former WW-2 submariner, claimed to have found many “discrepancies” in it.

Whether Blair came to his own conclusions, or got them on “background” from military contacts, is not known. But after getting a whiff of conflict and scandal, the media piled on. Never again was anything said by Lt. Steeves and his supporters taken at face value. Now, every story about him was injected with skepticism and innuendo, as the Air Force watched him twist in the wind.

By this time, the story of Lt. Steeves was a wire service story -- one being told by the Associated Press and several other wire services that no longer exist. Most big metropolitan papers had written all they would about Lt. Steeves after a week.

Wire service reporting is highly competitive. Reporters must crank out a steady stream of copy for their clients -- news-hungry newspapers and broadcast stations. And when perceiving a seemingly legitimate controversy or difference of opinion, they fancy themselves as being impartial "truth-seekers" and referees, writing “balanced” stories that give equal weight to all viewpoints – all so that the public can make up its own mind. Such a journalistic formula, together with a certain mindset, produces news that today's political conservatives criticize as reflecting a philosophy of "moral equivalence."

Above all, wire service reporters must put out attention-grabbing stories -- stories that get published. Often this involves putting “fresh angels” and interesting new twists on old stories. And after the Saturday Evening Post's claims of “discrepancies,” there were plenty of opportunities to do that. Now, Lt. Steeves was on the defensive: It was his word against the Saturday Evening Post's. “AF Lieutenant Stands By Story; Magazine Doubts 54-Day Ordeal” blared the headline of an AP story in The News of Newport, Rhode Island that ran August 15, 1957.

The story continued in that vein, pitting Lt. Steeves' word against Clay Blair's. But ultimately, it was probably the story's controversial headline that readers remembered -- not remarks from Supt. Thomas J. Allen of Kings Canyon National Park. He was quoted as saying that rangers found evidence that Lt. Steeves had hiked some 25 miles through "very, very rough country."

By late summer, marital troubles were known to exist between Lt. Steeves and his wife, with papers reporting about Rita Steeves' plans to seek a divorce. No explanation was given, only that it had to do with problem's preceding her husband's wilderness ordeal.

But no matter.

Connecting the dots, the headline of one wire service story declared: “Magazine Cancels Story, Wife Plans Divorce of Pilot.” The innuendo had been created: Steeves was lying about his Sierra story -- and now his wife was walking out on him.

Rita Steeves from the start had been part of the Steeves-as-hero narrative. They were a very photogenic couple: Lt. Steeves cut a dashing figure in his beard; and he continued to wear it for a while, to his wife's dismay. Rita Steeves was often described, in the journalistic fashion of the day, as an “attractive blond” or “Steeves' blond wife.”

One reporter even wrote of the “blond and beautiful” Rita Steeves, when describing her and the lively scene at New York's LaGuardia Field, as her husband disembarked a commercial flight and walked quickly into her arms. “Kiss him!” shouted reporters and photographers, according the reporter's account. “Don't know where!” she shouted, referring to the bushy beard.

She kissed him anyway.

Whether she wanted to be or not, Rita Steeves was drawn into the journalistic glare as it changed from the upbeat to the tawdry. “Wife of Pilot Who Survived in Wilds 'Mum,'” declared a headline. According to the wire story from Fairfield, Connecticut, “The wife of Air Force Lt. David A. Steeves, 23, who told a tale of remarkable survival after an airplane crash, declined today to discuss his literary or marital troubles.”

Connecting the dots, other stories played up the Steeves' marital troubles, while simultaneously casting doubt on Lt. Steeves' wilderness story. “Wife won't go back to 'lost' Airman,” declared an AP story published December 27, 1957. The parenthesis around “lost,” of course, suggested Lt. Steeves was never lost at all.

Yet another angle involved raising false suspicions about what the Air Force was calling a routine investigation. “Post Kills Story of Lost Airman/AF PROBE 'ROUTINE,'” declared one headline. Of course, words like “probe” along with those tiny but incriminating parenthesis around “routine” left little doubt that Lt. Steeves had some explaining to do. Referring to Blair's allegations of “discrepancies,” the headline of an article by United Press, a wire service, stated: “True or False: Air Force Searches to Find Answers.”

And so it went.

Soon enough, two of America's most influential news magazines, Time and Life, joined the pile on. “Certain Discrepancies” was the title of a condescending piece Time ran on August 26, 1957, written in the breezy pseudo-literary style invented by Time’s Ivy League editors.

Suggesting Lt. Steeves was hiding something, it mentioned his marital troubles, subtly derided his survival story, and implied he was improperly cashing in on his fame.

It concluded with a literary flourish that portrayed him as something of a cad:

“...Steeves waved emptily at the brand new grey (sic) Jaguar he bought shortly before his famed adventure.'Look. I've lost everything in the world—my wife. What have I got with all this publicity? I've got a nice car. I'm lonesome as hell.'"

Life gave new meaning to the word “hatchet job” with a two-page spread published September 2, 1957: “The Strange Case of the Sierra Survivor; Pilot's tale of mountain ordeal arouses some strong suspicions.” Amply illustrated with eleven photos and a map, its brief main story summed up previously published suspicions and innuendos – and created some of its own. It noted that not “a trace” of Lt. Steeves' jet had been found. In addition, Life claimed the pilot's wife, “who is planning to divorce him for reasons that antedate this adventure, does not know what to believe.”

Life published three different photos of Lt. Steeves -- including one of the nattily dressed pilot leaning against his prized Jaguar sports car, and smoking his pipe. The article raised a troubling issue: How could Lt. Steeves possibly afford the car on his meager Air Force pay? However, no response from the pilot was published; and there was no indication Life even asked for one. Readers were left to ponder the innuendo.

Another incriminating photo was taken near the ranger's cabin where Lt. Steeves stayed: It was a mug shot of a big deer with enormous antlers. In the photo, the seemingly calm animal stares blankly at the photographer as it stands just feet away. According to Life: Such “tame deer...easily approachable by man, raised suspicions of Steeves' claim he had to set up (an) elaborate trap to lure and kill deer.”

Several grizzled locals were interviewed by Life, and they had their pictures published; all were all men in the 50s and 60s. A local sheriff elaborated on how the Air Force pilot might have indeed staged a hoax. And Life interviewed Supt. Thomas Allen, of Kings Canyon National Park. Months earlier, he'd told the AP about evidence of Steeves' heroic wilderness ordeal. But Life put a different spin on those remarks, saying Allen thought the escape “was extremely difficult but possible.”

Redbook's January article, however, rose above such inane pack journalism. Peters, the author, a WW-2 pilot who'd been shot down, observed that "what had been for more than a month the heroic story of a pilot's winning battle against the Sierra became, overnight, a front-page story of a possible hoax.” He quoted Steeves as saying that “to be the subject of hero worship for having saved my own skin was strange enough, but to lose everything I loved – my wife and child – and then be thought a liar...well it was rough.”

Most significantly, the article provided the first comprehensive account of Steeves' wilderness ordeal (the story the Saturday Evening Post turned down); and it explained some of the “discrepancies” the magazine had alleged. Peters also took the trouble to interview Steeves' commanding officer at Craig Air Force Base in Alabama, Col. Leo F. Dusard Jr. A decorated WW-2 pilot, he was quoted as saying:

"All office of security investigation reports are classified. I cannot reveal the content of this one. As for my personal opinion, I do not doubt Lt. Steeves' integrity. I believe he bailed out of his plane where he said he bailed out. I accept his statement as to the explosion (which prompted him to parachute). "I believe Steeves was in the mountains for 54 days, survived and walked out, and I consider it a remarkable feat.

Reacting to the Redbook piece, several newspapers across the country ran stories about it – writing their own pieces for a change, rather than letting the wires do the work. But some still gravitated toward the sensational, playing up revelations of Lt. Steeves' marital infidelity. A piece the Modesto Bee ran on December 27, 1957, played up Lt. Steeves' romantic life -- and Col. Dusard's comments were cited in the last few paragraphs. Similarly, the front-page headline in the Big Spring Daily Herald (Texas) on December 31, 1957 announced: “Steeves Tells of Love Life in Current Magazine Article.

Redbook was not stooping to tabloid journalism to discuss such things. By now, details of the Steeves' private life had become relevant in light of wire service stories that had for months implied a connection between Steeves' wilderness ordeal and his marital troubles.

Even as Redbook's article appeared, the wire services were still cranking out copy about Lt. Steeves. Two items ran on the “jump page” of the Modesto Bee's Redbook piece. “Wife Sees No Chance of Future Together,” declared a headline. Another announced: “Steeves Plans to Sue Magazine On Lost Contract.” Steeves ended up wining that legal action, apparently recovering the $10,000 he'd been promised for his exclusive story.

Along with its Redbook piece, the Reno Evening Gazette on December 26, 1957 published a wire service item: “Steeves Released By US Air Force.” According to the AP story, Steeves had “been returned to civilian life at his own request.” Citing an Air Force spokesman, the article said the Air Force “is under orders to trim its active officer rolls by about 2,500 during the year ending June 30. The spokesman cited this circumstance and said acceptance of requests like Steeves' is routine.”

Lt. Steeves remained in the reserves, however. The news item quoted an unnamed “former associate” of Steeves as saying the lieutenant's resignation may have had something to do with a “reconciliation” he'd had with his wife.

Before it was published, Steeves was shown the Redbook article, which portrayed his complicated personal life in a negative light. He was quoted as saying, “If Mr. Peters has been harsh with me as a human being, he has also been fair. He has told the truth."

A year and a half later, Rita Steeves was granted a divorce -- though not before suffering the indignity of having private details of her marriage described in local papers. She later married an accountant. Today, a phone number listed under her name in Connecticut is unlisted.

Steeves eventually remarried, but the scandal that enveloped him haunted him until his death. Indeed, a former airman in the squadron that searched for Steeves said in a 1997 interview: “(W)e heard that he faked the whole thing. If he'd have walked into our squad, we'd have killed him." Redbook, with its limited circulation, could not restore Steeves' reputation.

In defending himself against skeptics in 1957, Steeves always faced a major hurdle. No trace of his jet was found -- not until 20 years later in 1977. Some Boy Scouts hiking in Kings Canyon National Park came across an airplane's bubble canopy: Its serial number showed it had come off Steeves' T-33. AP put out a story, but not many papers ran it. A bittersweet headline ran in Pacific Stars & Strips: “Discovery Backs Story of Disgraced Pilot of '50s.”

The discovery was of no help to Steeves. Twelve years earlier, he and a passenger were killed in Idaho during a take-off mishap involving a light plane, reportedly a Stinson Mule. Then 31, Steeves reportedly had modified the single-engine plane and was demonstrating it to his passenger. At the time, he owned an aviation firm in Fresno, California. He had remarried, and with his new wife had two children, a daughter and a son who was born ten days earlier. According to some accounts, Steeves had rented planes over the years and gone out to look for his lost jet.

'Kangaroo Court'

In their reporting, the wire services fancied themselves to be producing balanced stories on Lt. Steeves. It was their job to tell the truth, and let the public decide, based on an even-handed presentation of all viewpoints. But in the case of Lt. David Steeves, the court of public opinion was Kangaroo Court, a court so named because of the “leaps and bounds” in reasoning it takes in coming to a guilty verdict.

Interestingly, Lt. Steeves was not the first Air Force officer to be enveloped in scandal in the 1950s. In 1953, Lt. Milo Radulovich was discharged from the Air Force after being deemed a security risk for his alleged communist ties. Liberals rushed to his defense, with legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow his most visible defender. Murrow's efforts were portrayed in the 2005 movie about the newsman, “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

For self-congratulatory journalists, the defense of Lt. Milo Radulovich was considered one of journalism's finest hours. An innocent man was saved -- and the country was saved from McCarthyism. Yet curiously, no such journalistic crusade came to the support of Lt. Steeves. Neither Murrow nor anybody of his stature came forward to evoke the most famous line attacking Wisconsin's irresponsible senator: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Perhaps Lt. Steeves would have been a more interesting and sympathetic figure if he'd been accused of harboring communist sympathies and had some complicated ethnic background. But, alas, he was merely a 23-year-old Air Force pilot eager to grab his piece of the American dream -- earn a good living and move his family out of the trailer homes and garage apartments they'd been living in on his Air Force salary. And he wanted as well to enjoy his prized Jaguar that, to the outrage of Life's editors, he apparently could not afford.

'Possible Causes'

The media played a major role in the public humiliation of Lt. Steeves. But the Air Force played a role too. In newspaper articles, Air Force spokesmen were quoted as saying there was no reason to believe that Steeves “was a phony.” But the Air Force undertook no pro-active effort to defend him, and a look at the Air Force's accident report makes it clear way.

Recently, this author obtained some 50 pages of the 1957 report from Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. No testimony or statements are included, which is reflected in scores of missing pages. There's page after page of mostly dry technical details, which include a number of blacked out sentences and spaces -- from Lt. Steeves' year of birth to potentially interesting remarks here and there.

Lacking a wrecked airplane, investigators obviously had a tough time reaching a conclusion; and so the accident's cause was undetermined. Or as the board stated: It was “able to come to no conclusion as to the probable causes of the accident.”

Yet three “possible causes” were listed, and the first was tantalizing. Contradicting the Air Force's official and public positions, the No. 1 possible cause stated: “That Lt. Steeves perpetrated a disappearance and ejected from a normally functioning aircraft.”

No media outlet appears to have ever reported that; it appears a Freedom of Information request for the accident report was only made recently. Yet it's a bombshell on several fronts. First, Lt. Steeves was never charged with anything; the Air Force publicly maintained he was cleared in a routine investigation. He supposedly resigned voluntarily, then remained in the reserves.

Yet some Air Force brass privately doubted him all along. Their doubts never made it into news reports, to be sure; not officially anyway. But they certainly could have been talking privately with reporters, giving “background only” interviews that politely suggested how to spin the story of Lt. Steeves and his missing T-33.

How the accident board reached this “hoaxer” conclusion cannot be known for sure. Under the Air Force's usual guidelines, all statements and testimony were stricken from the material made public. But those familiar with the case contend Lt. Steeves never would have come under such suspicion if his T-33 had been found. "If they had found the wreck, they would have know it was not a hoax, because the whole case of it being a hoax was they thought he had sold it to the Russians,” observed Allen J. Schuh, 67, a retired psychology professor at California State University (Hayward), who taught in the School of Business and Economics. For years, Schuh has been piecing together the puzzle of Lt. Steeves and his missing T-33, a case that has fascinated him since he was a boy.

“I always felt he (Lt. Steeves) suffered a terrible injustice,” he said, during a telephone interview.

A Proper Search?

While suggesting that Lt. Steeves absconded with his jet, Air Force brass overlooked an interesting detail: It appears that only a half-hearted effort was made to find Lt. Steeves and his downed jet.

In its “mission statement,” the 41st Air Rescue Squadron admits that rescue units failed to search promising areas -- where the jet might have crashed -- due to low clouds, fog, and treacherous terrain. There's no indication rescue units later visited these areas, once the weather cleared up.

One excuse after another is mentioned in the mission report of June 6, 1957. “Extended area search commenced at daylight on 10 May by all participants in the mission. Weather left much to be desired.”

“On several days during this mission, it was impossible to dispatch any aircraft because of weather," it noted, elsewhere. "Ground parties were sent out at these times, but their efforts were often nullified due to inability to negotiate the mountainous terrain under the weather conditions which prevailed.”

Most incredibly, the statement admitted no visits were made to two sites where aircraft wreckage was spotted – wreckage that was “not in the Air Rescue Squadron Crash Locater Index. Ground parties were dispatched to check both of these leads, but they were unsuccessful due to weather which at times limited visibility to 25 feet in fog, rain and snow.”

Eventually, Lt. Steeves was declared dead.

The Air Force briefly faced some pointed questions about the hasty issuance of a death certificate, after Lt. Steeves turned out to be very much alive. Responding to a reporter, a Pentagon spokesman said a death certificate was issued only after "a thorough search was made and no trace was found of the pilot."

Apparently, Lt. Steeves' father had his doubts about the Air Force's search effort, a point he mentioned when telling a newspaper reporter about the phone call from his once-dead son. When Lt. Steeves asked if he'd been given up for dead, his father replied: “I told him 'no'. I said I was just getting ready to come out to see if I could do something.”

“The accident board and 41st Air Rescue Squadron didn't do their jobs,” Schuh says.

The 'Hoaxer' Narrative

The discovery of the jet's bubble canopy in 1977 was the final coup de grace for conspiracy theorists, both in the Air Force and news media. They destroyed a man's reputation, yet none of them ever answered a simple question: What did the young lieutenant hope to achieve?

Even back in 1957, there were obvious holes in the narrative casting Lt. Steeves as a hoaxer. For one thing, he never took along a survival kit, which suggested he anticipated a routine flight. And when ejecting over some of America's roughest terrain, he carried only a .32 caliber handgun and knife. Left in the cockpit were a Bible (New Testament) and can of pipe tobacco.

That he never planned a trip lasting 54 days also is underscored by the precarious state in which he left his personal life, as Redbook revealed. Before his ill-fated flight, he'd fessed up to his wife that he'd been having an affair with a San Francisco woman, and he promised to end it. His wife had expected him to do that before his jet vanished on a training flight, en route from San Francisco to Craig Air Force Base near Selma, his home base. But while Lt. Steeves was in the wilderness, munching on grass snacks and raw deer meat, the “other woman” contracted his wife. Very quickly, she realized her husband had not ended the affair. She told Redbook, “After that, I couldn't even cry. I felt robbed even of a widow's natural grief.”

Somehow, Lt. Steeves patched things up, but only for a while. The couple would have an on-and-off again relationship, making for entertaining wire service copy and helping to nourish conspiracy theories.

Other Possible Causes

According to the accident board, the second “possible cause” of the jet crash was: “That an explosive decompression occurred, filling the cockpit with vapor, and the pilot panicked and ejected as a result of believing that the explosive decompression was an explosion and the vapor was smoke.”
If that indeed happened, Lt. Steeves would certainly not be the first military pilot to eject prematurely from an airplane in an emergency. However, he would be the first military pilot to suffer nationwide humiliation for such an error.

Readers who are pilots will find it interesting that Lt. Steeves had logged a total of 922 flight hours, including 540 in the T-33; and within the last 90 days he'd logged 87 hours. One newspaper described him as a “rookie” pilot, yet he was doing quite a lot of flying during his Air Force career, after graduating from a college in Connecticut where he attended ROTC. With all those hours, he must have felt confident as he leveled off at 33,500 feet on the day of his ill-fated flight. How likely is it that a well-trained and level-headed pilot would eject in a “panic” over mountainous terrain -- unless he had very good reason to believe his jet was uncontrollable, in flames, or breaking up?

When discussing the pilot's temperament, his father described a son who was “resourceful,” deliberative in his thinking, and “afraid of nothing or nobody,” according to a newspaper account. He also was in good physical shape. If he safety ejected, his father had figured he had a “50-50” chance of survival.


Aviation Mystery Solved?

Lastly, there is “possible cause” No. 3: “That a combustion explosion did occur and disabled the aircraft.”

Curiously, there is no elaboration; and below the statement are blacked out sentences. Presumably, this is the possible cause to which investigators attached the least weight. Yet today this is the cause that's most widely accepted among those familiar with the accident report, according to Schuh, the retired professor.

Through a Freedom of Information request, the 1960's Navy veteran obtained a more complete accident report than this author obtained directly from Kirtland Air Force Base. Recently, he published a fascinating analysis about the jet's final moments in The Forensic Examiner, a professional journal.

Not only does Schuh provide a new twist on the jet's final moments, he pinpoints its probable location. During certain times of the year, he says, he's even obtained Google satellite images of what he thinks may be a straight-wing jet among the rocks and bush, not far from where Boy Scouts found its bubble canopy.

What triggered the explosion?

According to his article, the jet had a history of “ maintenance problems” so problematic that the U.S. Navy, which had flown it previously, stopped using it. One problem was that the “aircraft's fuel cap, which was behind the (back) ejection seat, occasionally leaked.”

The smell of jet fuel in the cockpit, however, would not have been noticed by Lt. Steeves: He was breathing through his oxygen mask. This would have been standard operating procedure, and Schuh's article noted the lieutenant was regarded as a good pilot. This is contrary to Life magazine's article in September 1957, which described him as merely “average” -- a claim that failed to cite any sources.

Most who read the accident report believe a spark from an electrical source ignited the fuel-air mixture. It ripped through the cockpit, knocking Lt. Steeves unconscious, and burning part of his parachute. He said he quickly came to, and ejected upon finding “the flight surfaces and controls had been fatally damaged.”

In his article, however, Schuh recasts this scenario with some intriguing twists. Drawing on information from the accident report, he contends that Lt. Steeves touched off the explosion when he set his autopilot. In Schuh's account, though, things happen slightly differently after that.

Lt. Steeves did not black out for seconds, but for minutes – and perhaps for a number of minutes. Waking up, he suddenly found himself in a smoke-filed cockpit and seemingly life-or-death situation. Schuh wrote: “He said the aircraft was spinning, but perhaps his head was spinning and the aircraft was still flying straight and level.” Lt. Steeves began fighting the controls -- forgetting he'd just set the autopilot – but the controls seemed unresponsive to him, his article explained.

So he ejected.

Yet the jet's controls were in fact “not damaged...there was nothing wrong with the flight surfaces,” Schuh explained; and while the jet flew off on autopilot, it did not maintain it's programmed course. Lacking a canopy, pilot, and ejection seat, it now possessed different flight characteristics.

When the explosion occurred, moreover, Schuh thinks Lt. Steeves had his hand on the rudder trim tab. This “could have caused his hand to put in too much left rudder (input) as he was knocked unconsciousness.” As a result, the jet went into a wide left turn.

Interestingly, Schuh's article notes that Lt. Steeves did not report seeing his jet while descending under his parachute. He neither saw it crash into the ground or a lake, suggesting it did indeed fly off on its own.

Convinced the unmanned jet entered a wide left turn after Lt. Steeves ejected, Schuh wrote: “By calculation, this turn would have a diameter of about 70 miles and could take him in a loop from his initial south heading, first east and then north, eventually over Kings Canyon,” he wrote. “The aircraft continued the wide circle until fuel exhaustion.”

Schuh, speaking on the phone, also held out the possibility that a spark from another source ignited the fuel-air mixture; and he said the T-33 could have flown off in stable configuration without its autopilot being engaged.

With this hypothesis, Schuh set out to pinpoint the jet's location. He established points on a map that included Lt. Steeves' landing spot near Lake Helen; his last radio transmission; and its bubble canopy that some Boy Scouts discovered.

The T-33, he concluded, rests at a site where rescue units spotted wreckage, yet never checked due to poor weather and difficult terrain. Elaborating on the thinking of rescue personnel, Schuh's article note this site was “far east of Steeves' expected flight path, with no indication of recent fire or explosion or the presence of a sign of life.” It was presumed to be another of the many wrecks dotting the mountainous. A Google image he took, however, showed what he thinks may be the missing T-33.

He forwarded the photo to Air Force officials, telling them: “'You've got a straight-wing jet down on the rock.'”

“All they responded was that it made sense,” he said.

Even after 50 years, Schuh said the case of Lt. Steeves is an embarrassment to the Air Force. “I think the Air Force would rather have the whole thing just go away,” he said.

That Lt. Steeves was cast as a possible hoaxster by the accident board probably occurred because of what Schuh described as a certain military mindset: Once a determined senior officer makes up his mind, lower-ranking ones tend to follow along. Faced with a lost jet, Schuh said “it became easy to blame a junior officers, and to accuse him of a hoax.”

Schuh fine-tuned the Air Force's coordinates for the aircraft wreck that air rescue units never checked out, and that may well be the missing T-33's resting place. It's located in Kings Canyon at these coordinates: 36.2333N...118.6833W.

“If I was 20 years younger, I would have gone there last summer,” Schuh said.

The site is not far from a campground. Had he gone, he says, he would have looked for the tail number of Lt. Steeves missing T-33: 52-9232A. Verifying that, he knows what he'd have found in the cockpit of the long-dead pilot who “suffered a terrible travesty” -- his can of pipe tobacco and a New Testament Bible.


POSTSCRIPT: The Crash Site

Allen J. Schuh explained in an e-mail message how to find the site where Lt. Steeves' T-33A might be found:

“From the mission report of the 41st Air Rescue Squadron, as mentioned in the accident report, I got 36 14 N...118 41 W which was converted by one of the Internet photograph viewers to be 36.2333N...118.6833W.

“I looked at a few of the Internet viewers and realized rather quickly that if you input those coordinates you don't always get the same picture. So I looked for a feature and found Frasier Mill Campground on TopoZone (a satellite image website) to get a look at the topology. Hedrick Pond Campground is Southeast. Draw a line between the two and look very carefully about half way between. Follow the 6400 grid line.

“I saw an anomaly, printed it, and asked my wife what it looked like. She independently thought it was a straight-winged jet with drop tanks attached. This was with nothing sophisticated optically, just the viewer on the PC. I wondered if I could get better pictures historically before and after May 1957 but stopped when I thought I had enough. There is no substitute for the check on the ground. You are looking for tail number 52-9232A.”

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