"The Resurrection of Jacqueline and Other Ghosts"

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, Prensa Latina

A new style is making headway in US journalism: to reveal
that some of its main stories were the spurious work of
frauds violating every ethical principle in order to lie,
falsify and plagiarize.Take the case of Jayson Blair, who last year cost the
principal editors of The New York Times their jobs,
continues making celebrity waves and has been invited by
the media to promote his book on his adventures.

Then came USA Today. On March 19 the daily informed its
readers in two long detailed articles, that its star
journalist, Jack Kelley — with the most awards accumulated
in a brilliant career of 22 years, five-time nominee for
the Pulitzer — is really a liar of Olympic proportions.

USA Today discovered this in a thorough investigation that
uncovered a long series of grossly fabricated reporting.

We will address only one case, which USA Today considered
the worst, and which refers to Cuba.

Summary: In February 2000, Kelley wrote -and USA Today
published — a horrifying story completely invented from
start to finish, in which each fact was absolutely false.
It concerned the supposed death of a group of illegal
emigrants shipwrecked on the way to Florida, guided by the
moon in the middle of a fierce storm.

To give the melodrama more flavor, the article carried the
photo of a young Cuban woman, identified as Jacqueline,
photographed by the shrewd reporter, which -according to
him — was taken shortly before the unlucky girl lost her
life together with her baby son in the fury of the sea.

USA Today´s inquiries proved there was no such attempt to
emigrate that day, no shipwrecks, no storm — the sea was
calm that night — and no moon; to top it off, Jacqueline
isn"t Jacqueline. Her true name is Yamilet, and she appears
in the explanation that offers the US newspaper alive and
well, and holding the famous photo of her that Kelley took
… in the balcony of her house.

She and her husband are currently living in the United
States, to which they came calmly and legally, by plane, in
a flight of less than 50 minutes in June 2003, and they
bitterly complained of the crude fabrication.

The "tragedy" of Jacqueline was not only published, it was
big news for its editors and given cover headlines in the
daily that circulates all over the United States. It was
also reproduced in Reader´s Digest.

Kelley gave solemn conferences about her to tireless
promoters of "human rights", as serious and honest as he,
the USA Today most brilliant correspondent.

More than a few deceived North Americans cried for
Jacqueline. Her tragic "death" was manipulated by the
annexationist rabble in Miami. Soon we can expect a book
from Mr. Kelley.

And the media will promote it, those who now devote space
to how offended they are by this violation of, what they
would have us believe, their professional ethics.

Will this be the end of this story? How will Jacqueline´s
return to the land of the living be reduced, what will be
the sacred mystery of her resurrection? After all, Kelley
lives in a country where lies and deceptions are practiced
naturally, day and night, from the White House down, by an
administration that has a mortal allergy to the truth.

They lied about the worst terrorist attack ever suffered by
the US people, they lied to the entire world in order to
unleash terror and war everywhere, and they lie constantly
to perpetuate a senseless policy.

Following the example of their political leaders, the
executives of huge corporations alter data, deceive their
stockholders and the State, and become illegally rich.

One after another the scandals flood the media, which of
course counts among its membership some of the most
notorious frauds, who lied under oath to Congress —like
Oliver North and certain Watergate thieves — now managers
of public opinion.

As for Cuba, what Kelley did is repugnant. But he is not
unique, far from it.

The poor man follows a tradition that, with rare
exceptions, has been the US media norm from January 1,
1959. The list of news peddlers that have lied and deceived
about Cuba for 45 years would make an interminable
narrative. How many tons of paper have been wasted
defending Batista´s torturers and murderers from the first
days? How many melodramatic stories have presented them as
innocent victims of revolutionary justice? Who remembers
the illustrious reports that described an exceptional
landing in 1961 at the "port" of Bayamo, the village that
since its founding in 1514 has always been very far from
the sea? Who transformed the terrorist and Batista henchman
Armando Valladares into a poet? Who invented the lie that
he was paralyzed? Who begged pardon from the Parisian
authorities who awaited the athletic figure with a
wheelchair? Has anyone explained to avid readers awaiting
the first poem from the one US media claimed was an
inspired and prolific bard? These are just a few examples
of what has been a campaign as shameless as it has been
prolonged.

And the worst is that it hasn"t stopped. At the same time
that USA Today recognized the unacceptable anti-Cuban lies
of its reporter, the latest Village Voice included an
article by a Mr. Hentoff, another professional calumniator.
At the end of his gibberish he echoed something that
already was published in The Nation, the respectable
liberal North American publication. That was a curious, not
to say unusual, article by the famous writer Arthur Miller,
someone who does have a Pulitzer Prize.

It must be recognized that in his quick visit to Cuba,
Miller neither invented shipwrecks nor "killed" anyone.
But he was no less delirious. It appears that his feverish
imagination led him to talk with ghosts and prevented him
from learning the reality.

Miller passed through Havana, but didn"t see it. That is
the only way to explain his description of the Plaza de
Armas as a place occupied by government institutions where
official employees sell Marxist pamphlets.

Everyone knows, because this Plaza is always full of
visitors, that there are numerous private merchants, who
sell their books according to the rules of supply and
demand. The government has nothing to do with these
bookstalls. As in all used book markets, one can find many
titles, and that includes those by US authors. Presumably
the vendors offer Marxist books because someone wants to
buy them. Should they be prohibited? Are there doubts about
the free market or McCarthy's type yearnings? If The Nation
or the Village Voice wants to be in style, they don"t need
an investigation as meticulous as that of USA Today.

It would be enough to send someone to look at the books and
interview the famous vendors.

Preferably someone who understands Spanish, because not all
of the ghosts of Havana speak English.

[The author is president of the
Cuban National Peoples Power Assembly.]