PETER'S PRINCIPLES

anybody who covers the Arab world
as long as Peter did would run into
these charges. You pick up the local
color, just as you would in Wash-
ington.
"But I don't believe that Peter's
anti-Israel. He's a good journalist
and a very generous journalist.
Many times, when I went to the
Middle East, Peter would be there
because that was his beat. And he
would always help me with sources,
even though we worked for corn-
peting networks. You can't say that
about everybody.
"When Peter had his sudden rise,"
recalled Mr. Kalb, "and people
accused him of being anti-Israel, I
was perplexed."

Beirut to Munich

uspicion about the ABC an-
chor dates as far back as
1969, when he opened an
ABC bureau in Beirut, the
first for any U.S. network in the Arab
world. Several critics point to this as
evidence that Mr. Jennings yearned
to tell the Arab side of the Middle

East story to the detriment of the
Israeli side.
But the newsman denies that he
set out to report any one version of
the Mideast story.
Or that he has done so.
"Listen," he said, "you send me to
Asia and part of my job is to under-
stand the various Asian mindsets.
You send a responsible reporter to
the Middle East and part of his or
her job is to inform the audience
about what the mindsets are in that
culture, what the mores are and
what the national and individual
aspirations are of the people you're
covering.
"I didn't set out to correct any
`imbalance' (in reporting from that
region). I just happened to physically
be on 'the other side' from some
people's point of view."
Mr. Jennings has said he was
"ecstatically happy" while working
the Middle East full-time for ABC.
Contributing — for a while, at least
— to this ecstasy was his marriage
in 1974 to photographer Anouchka
Malouf, a Lebanese Christian
schooled in Switzerland and fluent
in French, English and Arabic.

Mr. Jennings' critics still say that
the marriage, which lasted only
about two years, reflects the
newsman's supposed pro-Arab lean-
ings. But does anyone now claim he
is pro-Israel because his third wife,
author Kati Marton, is Jewish?
"They may," guessed Mr. Jenn-
ings. "But the suggestion that my
wife, whatever she may be, should
have that kind of influence on me as
a journalist is an inaccurate
estimate of my own intellectual
capabilities.
"It's also slightly spurious to sug-
gest that because one is married to
someone, one has a bias one way or
the other."
Even more incriminating, to some
people, was Mr. Jennings' reportage
from the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Earlier that year, Roone Arledge,
head of ABC News, had asked Mr.
Jennings to handle the interna-
tional news stories that would be
coming out of that year's Olympics.
Neither man knew that Mr. Jenn-
ings' Mideast expertise would be in-
dispensable in Munich.
On Sept. 5, Palestinian terrorists
seized 11 Israeli athletes in Building

Jennings, with his wife, Kati Marton: "It's spurious to suggest that because one is married to someone, one is biased either way."

40

FRIDAY, MAY 31, 1991

31 in the Olympic Village. For much
of the drama, Mr. Jennings posi-
tioned himself in a dormitory direct-
ly across from the besieged building.
He was often able to peer directly
into the room where the terrorists
held the Israelis. He reported for
ABC through a walkie-talkie.
What he reported — and how he
reported it — is still disputed. In The
Evenings Stars: The Making of the
Network News Anchor, media critic
Barbara Matusow wrote that his
broadcasts were "among the most

"Jennings didn't like the
Iraqis," said Martin
Peretz. "That muddled
my view of him just a
little bit."

gripping . . . ever shown on live tele-
vision."
ABC won an Emmy for its
coverage of the athletes' massacre.
But the New Republic's Martin
Peretz would probably be delighted
if the award was rescinded. Mr.
Peretz recently recalled that "a
young and callow Peter Jennings
explain(ed) away the terrorism (in
Munich) as an example of despera-
tion.
"Jennings came on the screen,"
Peretz wrote six years ago in the
New Republic, "quite cool about the
victims, . . . but eager to explain the
act from the victimizers' point of
view: the massacre was a demon-
stration of the misunderstood .. .
Palestinians' frustration at an
unappeased grievance .. .
"With authoritatively clipped
speech and a mannequin-handsome
face," wrote Mr. Peretz, "I thought,
here was someone whose banalities
were destined to be with us for
years."
To determine what Mr. Jennings
said from the Olympics, the
Baltimore Jewish Times viewed
tapes of the Sept. 5, 6 and 7, 1972
"ABC Evening News." It also view-
ed tapes of all the live news specials
broadcast on the network on Sept. 5
and 6 regarding the attack on
Building 31.
On these, Mr. Jennings said the
terrorists had come from "an ex-
treme left-wing group," which he
speculated (correctly, as it turned
out) was the then-little known Black
September. And at a memorial ser-
vice for the slain athletes the day
after their murder, he reported that
"hearts and minds were heavy with