adduced so that comparisons can be made and the truth can be discovered. Send me your
      evidence, and I will publish it on the Ukrainian Archive web site the same day, and web
      visitors will be able to judge for themselves who is right. If you have no evidence on
      your side, I invite you to break your five-year silence by withdrawing the
      Wiesenthal-Safer Calumny.
      If you continue to remain silent, the public will continue to judge not only that you
      were in the wrong, but that you lack the integrity to admit it as well.
      Lubomyr Prytulak
      cc: Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike
      Wallace.
      HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 653 hits since 05Apr00
      Morley Safer Letter 18 05Apr00 Flip side of French drinking
      "In 1991, Morley Safer's '60 Minutes' report on the possible heart
      protective effects of drinking red wine led to a 44 percent increase
      in red wine sales among Americans." - David Jernigan
      "While men in Sweden can expect to live 76.5 years on average, a
      French man's average lifespan is 74.1 years." - Cardiologist
      Michel de Lorgeril
      April 05, 2000
      Morley Safer
      60 Minutes, CBS Television
      51 W 52nd Street
      New York, NY
      USA 10019
      Morley Safer:
      The weight of scientific evidence contradicts
      your French Paradox conclusions
      My letter to you of 21Apr99 on the question "Does drinking wine promote longevity?"
      demonstrated that your conclusion that drinking 3 to 5 glasses of wine per day promotes
      longevity could be seen to be unwarranted from no more than the data that you adduced in
      its support. Today, I was astonished to read literature published by the Marin
      Institute indicating that research literature that you have failed to bring to public
      attention, either in your two French Paradox broadcasts or afterward, reveals that the
      bulk of the evidence points to conclusions opposite to the ones that you advocated.
      Below, I reproduce excerpts which illustrate the nature of this evidence from two Marin
      Institute articles:
      The Flip Side of French Drinking
      by Hilary Abramson (c) 2000 The Marin Institute
      Johnny Carson [who underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery last year] has some advice for
      David Letterman [who is recovering from a quintuple bypass]:
      "Drink more red wine."
      That's the message Carson left for Letterman while he was in the hospital.
      - Associated Press
      One of the fathers of the "French Paradox" believes the time has come to "ban" the
      expression his research team published in the mid '80s.
      One of his countrymen, whose work helped make famous the paradox of having a high
      saturated fat diet and lower than expected death rate from heart disease nearly a
      decade ago on "60 Minutes," says that attributing a low rate of heart disease to
      daily consumption of wine or other forms of alcohol is wrong.
      A growing number of French health researchers have news for the rest of the world: It
      is myth that the French are healthier than most everyone else because they drink. In
      truth, the French are drowning in the grape and paying a hefty price for it.
      "There is no scientific consensus today over the protective effect of alcohol," says
      Dominique Gillot, France's secretary of state for health. "The link between the
      quantity of alcohol consumed and increase of risk of diseases, particularly cancer,
      is, on the other hand, scientifically validated."
      The fact is that according to data from the world's largest study of heart disease,
      conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) during the past decade in 21
      countries with 10 million men and women, French heart disease statistics appear to
      have been underestimated and the "French Paradox" overestimated. France's rate of
      heart disease is actually similar to that of neighboring Italy, Spain, and southern
      Germany - lower than many countries in the world, but hardly as remarkable as
      reported in the 80s and early 90s.
      The French drink one-and-a-half times more per capita than Americans and their death
      rate from liver cirrhosis is more than one-and-a-half times greater than that in the
      United States. According to WHO, France has the sixth highest adult per capita
      alcohol consumption in the world. (The U.S. ranks 32nd.) Alcohol may be involved in
      nearly half of the deaths from road accidents, half of all homicides, and one-quarter
      of suicides, according to the French equivalent of the U.S. Institutes of Health.
      And while coronary heart disease may be less pervasive in that country of 60 million
      people than in many others, it is still the number one cause of death.
      Within the past year, several other revelations have highlighted this
      little-publicized, other side of French drinking:
      According to the first French economic study of its kind, France is more like
      the U.S. than Americans might realize in that alcohol also ranks first - above
      tobacco - in its cost to society. Tobacco takes more of a toll than alcohol in
      the rest of Europe, Canada and Australia.
      The high premature death rate of French men is largely due to alcohol abuse. It
      is nearly double the premature death rate of French women, and the magnitude of
      the difference is the highest in Europe, according to the French government's
      most recent report on health.
      French youth, who can legally drink at age 16, prefer beer and distilled spirits
      to wine and have increased their consumption five-fold since 1996 in part
      because 12- to 14-year-olds are drinking and binge drinking. This has led to a
      new government "War Against Drugs" that includes alcohol.
      [...]
      The French Paradox. Even in English the expression sounded romantic to 33.7 million
      Americans who first heard it in a report by Morley Safer on "60 Minutes" in November
      1991. Although the French eat fatty foods and smoke more than Americans, said Safer,
      "if you're a middle-aged American man, your chances of dying of a heart attack are
      three times greater than a Frenchman of the same age. Obviously, they're doing
      something right - something Americans are not doing... Now it's all but confirmed:
      Alcohol - in particular red wine - reduces the risk of heart disease."
      Within four weeks, U.S. sales of red wine rocketed by 44 percent. American Airlines
      reported being unable to stock enough red wine to meet demand. By February 1992, a
      Gallup poll showed that 58 percent of Americans were aware of research linking
      moderate drinking to lower rates of heart disease. According to the poll, consumers
      had returned to drinking levels not seen since the mid-'80s. Although beer remained
      the preferred drink of Americans, wine preference increased from 22 to 27 percent.
      Five months after the 1992 poll, "60 Minutes" re-broadcast the "French Paradox"
      segment. Sales of red wine shot up 49 percent over the previous year. Safer was
      honored in France with a special "communication" prize from LVMH Moet Hennessy-Louis
      Vuitton.
      During the next few years, the Wine Institute lobbied officials of the U.S.
      Department of Health to reflect studies confirming the "60 Minutes" side of French
      drinking in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which the industry subsequently used to
      market wine as a health elixir. Food and Wines from France, which promotes Gallic
      products overseas, placed full-page newspaper ads announcing that French consumption
      of fatty food was counteracted by drinking French red wine.
      "[Health] announcements are increasing consumption more than anything else," said
      Stephanie Grubbs, marketing manager for Robert Mondavi Coastal, in Impact magazine in
      1997. That same year, three out of four readers in the January Consumer Reports on
      Health survey believed that moderate red wine consumption is more beneficial than
      drinking beer or liquor.
      Recently, the San Francisco-based Wine Institute helped some California wineries get
      permission from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to add a label
      referring consumers to the federal dietary guidelines to learn the "health effects"
      of alcohol. But anyone who actually sent for the document would discover that the
      government's advice on alcohol is mostly cautionary.
      Inflamed by the belief that the wine industry was using the label to make it appear
      that the government was suggesting Americans drink for their health, Senator Strom
      Thurmond (R-SC), whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver, recently won a battle
      for the BATF to hold hearings on whether the "health effects" label can legally be
      affixed to every wine bottle. They're scheduled to take place in a number of U.S.
      cities in late spring.
      Today the Wine Institute touts its product on its website with studies and press
      releases. One quotes David Pittman, Ph.D., researcher at Washington University in
      St. Louis: "In societies such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, where wine and
      overall alcohol consumption is higher than in the United States, they just don't have
      as many alcohol-related problems such as drunk driving and underage drinking."
      That would be news to France.
      The world view that the French are able to control their drinking habits is untrue,
      according to Pierre Kopp, professor of economics at the Sorbonne. Kopp recently
      released the first French study estimating the cost of legal (alcohol and tobacco)
      and illegal drugs. Kopp estimates that alcohol costs France $18.5 billion (U.S.)
      each year. Drinking is responsible for nearly 53 percent of overall social costs of
      alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs, he reports. (Annual cost to the state is $14.3
      billion for tobacco and $2 billion for illegal drugs.)
      But even these high alcohol economic cost figures are underestimated, cautions the
      researcher, because he left out alcohol-related crime and accidents, which comprise
      some of the largest costs to society in the United States. Kopp focused on public
      and private money spent on medical treatment, lost productivity, absenteeism,
      uncollected taxes, unpaid health contributions, and preventive measures.
      [...]
      "Consumption is exceptionally high and the final bill is extremely heavy. Alcohol
      accounted for 42,963 deaths in France in 1997."
      [...]
      When "60 Minutes" introduced the French Paradox to America, Morley Safer featured
      only one French scientific authority - Serge Renaud, a trendsetter in alcohol
      research who still maintains that "there is no doubt that a moderate intake of wine
      (one to three glasses per day for a man) is associated with a 30- to 40-percent
      reduction in mortality from all causes." In its first issue of the new millennium,
      the prestigious British journal Lancet noted in a short profile of Renaud that his
      enthusiasm for alcohol and the French Paradox is hardly unanimous today among his
      French peers. In fact, at least two of the scientists instrumental in early French
      Paradox research today disagree with Renaud's belief in the central role of alcohol
      in a lower coronary heart disease rate.
      [...]
      What's new for both men is the MONICA Project established by centers around the world
      to MONItor trends in Cardiovascular diseases and relate them to risk factor changes
      over a 10-year period. Established in the early 1980s by WHO, its final data were
      highlighted last September at the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona. De
      Lorgeril reported there that the WHO data were 75 to 90 percent higher than France's
      statistics for coronary heart disease deaths.
      The cardiologist said he scrutinized alcohol-related deaths and found that French
      men, "who drink too much," have the highest rates of liver disease and - by far
      more upper gastrointestinal cancer, and were more likely to die in accidents, by
      suicide, or as a consequence of crime than men of other nationalities. While men in
      Sweden can expect to live 76.5 years on average, a French man's average lifespan,
      said de Lorgeril, is 74.1 years.
      Dr. Ian Graham, a professor of epidemiology at Trinity College in Dublin, said that
      de Lorgeril's statistics suggest that the lower rate of coronary deaths in France are
      due "to competing causes of death" - many more French men might die early from
      alcohol-related causes before they have the opportunity to die of heart disease.
      [...]
      In 1998, a pharmacist who is a director at the French counterpart of the U.S.
      National Institute of Health handed then French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner a
      report that had the effect of "a sort of a bomb." In what has become known as the
      Roques Report, Bernard Roques classified drugs on the basis of their danger to the
      public rather than their legal status. Based on scientific data, alcohol took first
      place along with heroin and cocaine; tobacco took second place with amphetamines and
      LSD; and marijuana was in the third, least dangerous group.
      [...]
      Written by Hilary Abramson; edited by James F. Mosher; copy edited by Pam Glenn
      Copyright 2000 Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol Other Drug Problems
      The original article from which the above excerpts were taken can be found on the
      Marin Institute web site at www.marininstitute.org/NL2000.html.
      Drink Like the French,
      Die Like the French
      by David Jernigan
      The truth is finally starting to come out: If Americans drink alcohol like the
      French, we will die like the French.
      [...]
      Nearly 43,000 French people die each year from alcohol-related causes, roughly the
      equivalent of 200,000 American - double the number who currently die annually of
      alcohol-related causes in the United States.
      According to the World Health Organization's Global Status Report on Alcohol, the
      French drink 54 percent more alcohol than Americans, and die of liver cirrhosis 57
      percent more often.
      Yes, fewer French people die of heart disease than would be expected given their
      fatty diets. However, French men in particular die prematurely in disproportionate
      numbers, and alcohol-related problems are often the cause.
      In 1991, Morley Safer's "60 Minutes" report on the possible heart protective effects
      of drinking red wine led to a 44 percent increase in red wine sales among Americans.
      Assiduous lobbying by wine makers prompted the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for
      the first time to make positive mention of alcohol consumption in its Dietary
      Guidelines for Americans.
      Now wineries want to label their products as health food. In 1999 several wineries
      convinced the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to permit an
      ambiguous label on wine bottles suggesting that people write the USDA to learn more
      about the "health effects" of drinking alcohol.
      Further pressure from the Wine Institute and complaints from Senator Strom Thurmond,
      author of the warning label currently on alcohol bottles, prompted BATF to open the
      entire issue of putting health claims on alcohol bottles for public comment. The
      BATF is expected to hold hearings on the topic around the nation this spring.
      To date, no U.S. government agency has recommended that Americans drink alcohol to
      protect themselves against heart disease.
      [...]
      The push to put a health benefits label on alcohol bottles is a marketing ploy, pure
      and simple.
      [...]
      David Jernigan directs international programs for The Marin Institute. He is the author of
      Thirsting for Markets: The Global Impact of Corporate Alcohol.
      Copyright 2000 Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol Other Drug Problems
      The original article from which the above excerpts were taken can be found on the
      Marin Institute web site at www.marininstitute.org/NL2000a.html.
      What you are obligated to do
      (1) Retract and correct The French Paradox. You must bring to public attention two
      things: that the evidence presented in your two French Paradox broadcasts was
      insufficient to justify your conclusions to the effect that drinking wine prolongs life
      (as explained in my letter to you of 21Apr99, already cited above); and that broader
      scientific evidence than you reported in your broadcasts, or since, contradicts your
      conclusions (as illustrated in the Marin Institute excerpts above). Your unwarranted
      and false conclusions advocating wine consumption cannot be left to continue inflicting
      harm upon the public as they do today. Your obligation to journalism, to 60 Minutes, to
      the public, and to your conscience, demands that you issue such a retraction and
      correction without reservation and without delay.
      (2) Disclose any conflict of interest relating to The French Paradox. Please
      disclose any consideration that you may have received, or that 60 Minutes or CBS may
      have received, from the wine or alcohol industries for your two French Paradox
      broadcasts. In the absence of affirmations on your part that no such consideration has
      traded hands, your broadcasts may tend to be viewed less as defective reporting than as
      infomercials. Of particular interest would be the nature of any relationship between 60
      Minutes and Edgar Bronfman Senior, chairman of liquor giant Seagram.
      (3) Retract and correct The Ugly Face of Freedom. Every day, growing numbers of
      people become convinced that you owe a similar retraction and correction for your
      similarly incorrect and damaging 23Oc94 broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom.
      (4) Disclose any conflict of interest relating to The Ugly Face of Freedom. Please
      disclose the degree to which your broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom was requested by
      external sources, who these sources were, and what benefits to 60 Minutes or to CBS
      accrued from complying with such external requests. Of particular interest would be any
      request originating from the direction of Edgar Bronfman Senior. You need to take some
      such step in order to disarm the suspicion that your broadcast was no better than an
      eruption of the hatred toward non-Jews, and particularly of the special hatred toward
      Ukrainians, which is endemic to Jewish culture.
      Lubomyr Prytulak
      HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 747 hits since 18Jan98
      Wiesenthal Letter 14 Sep 4/97 The forgotten Bodnar
      September 4, 1997
      Simon Wiesenthal
      Jewish Documentation Center
      Salztorgasse 6
      1010 Vienna
      Austria
      Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
      In your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994 "The Ugly Face of Freedom" I notice a startling
      omission:
      MORLEY SAFER: I get the impression from people that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything,
      were worse than the Germans.
      SIMON WIESENTHAL: About the civilians, I cannot say this. About the Ukrainian police, yes.
      That's all you said! You just left it at that! But in that case, there is something very big missing from your
      statement, isn't there Mr. Wiesenthal - something very interesting, very important, very relevant? Something that the
      60 Minutes viewer would have found to be quite remarkable? Do you know what it is?
      It is the story of the Ukrainian policeman with the surname Bodnar the one who saved your life? Remember him?
      Don't you think that this forgotten Bodnar is someone who should have been mentioned in your statement? And doesn't
      the story of the forgotten Bodnar somewhat contradict your unqualified statement that the Ukrainian police
      collectively were worse than the Germans? And if among what you say is the worst of the Ukrainians (the auxiliary
      police) some are saving Jews, then what heroic acts can we expect among the rest of the Ukrainian population?
      To refresh your memory about this story which seems so forgettable to you now, I may remind you that you were
      about to be executed, but:
      The shooting stopped. Ten yards from Wiesenthal.
      The next thing he remembers was a brilliant cone of light and behind it a Polish voice: "But
      Mr. Wiesenthal, what are you doing here?" Wiesenthal recognized a foreman he used to know, by
      the name of Bodnar. He was wearing civilian clothes with the armband of a Ukrainian police
      auxiliary. "I've got to get you out of here tonight."
      Bodnar told the [other] Ukrainians that among the captured Jews he had discovered a Soviet
      spy and that he was taking him to the district police commissar. In actual fact he took
      Wiesenthal back to his own flat, on the grounds that it was unlikely to be searched so soon
      again. This was the first time Wiesenthal survived. (Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon
      Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 8)
      But the story of the forgotten Bodnar is even better than that - Bodnar not only saved you, not only risked his
      life to save you, but possibly gave his life to save you. I say that because Bodnar must have known that the
      punishment for saving a Jew from execution and then helping him escape would be death. And how could he get away with
      it? In fact, I ask you now, Mr. Wiesenthal, whether the forgotten Bodnar did get away with it, or whether he paid for
      it with his life, for as you were tiptoeing out, you were stopped, Bodnar offered his fabricated story, and then:
      The German sergeant, already a little drunk, slapped Bodnar's face and said: "Then what are you
      standing around for? If this is what you people are like, then later we'll all have troubles.
      Report back to me as soon as you deliver them [Wiesenthal along with a fellow prisoner]." (Alan
      Levy, The Wiesenthal File, 1993, p. 37)
      These passages invite several pertinent conclusions which a man of integrity and conscience would have insisted
      on bringing to Morley Safer's attention:
      (1) You yourself, Mr. Wiesenthal, can see a Ukrainian police official having his face slapped by a German
      sergeant, which serves to remind you that Ukraine is under occupation, to show you who is really in charge, to suggest
      that the German attitude toward Ukrainians is one of contempt and that the expression of this contempt is
      unrestrained.
      (2) You yourself see also that Bodnar's flat is subject to searches, indicating that although he is a participant
      in the anti-Jewish actions, he is a distrusted participant, and a participant who might feel intimidated by the
      hostile scrutiny of the occupying Nazis.
      (3) But most important of all, you see that the German sergeant is waiting for Bodnar to report back. Alan Levy
      writes that "Bodnar was ... concerned ... that now he [Bodnar] had to account, verbally at least, for his two
      prisoners" (p. 37). If Bodnar reports back with the news that you, Mr. Wiesenthal, escaped, then how might Bodnar
      expect the face-slapping German sergeant to respond? For Bodnar at this point in the story to actually allow you, Mr.
      Wiesenthal, to escape is heroic, it is self-sacrificing, it is suicidal. And yet the forgotten Bodnar does go ahead
      and effect your escape, probably never imagining that in later years this will become an event unworthy of notice
      during your blanket condemnation of Ukrainians.
      What I urge you to do now, Mr. Wiesenthal, is the following:
      (1) Conduct a search to determine the fate of the forgotten Bodnar, and bestow upon him the recognition that he
      deserves for his heroic action. Hopefully, Bodnar is still alive, so that the recognition will not be posthumous.
      Hopefully, Bodnar did not sacrifice his life to save yours, as then your ingratitude would be truly black.
      (2) Bring the forgotten Bodnar to the attention of Morley Safer at 60 Minutes, and ask for some correction of the
      negative image created of the Ukrainian police.
      (3) Search your memory long and hard and determine a version of the story which appears to be closest to the
      truth, and then publish it as the official account, because at present, the wildly different versions in your several
      biographies create the negative image of someone who just spews tall tales off the top of his head, without any
      consideration for making them consistent with earlier versions of those same tales. For example, Mr. Wiesenthal, what
      impression do you imagine is created in the mind of a reader who is told in Justice Not Vengeance that Bodnar saved
      you alone and took you to his apartment, but then is told in The Wiesenthal File that Bodnar saved you together with
      another prisoner and took the two of you to the office of a "commissar" which office the two of you spent the entire
      night cleaning? I will tell you what impression is created, Mr. Wiesenthal - it is that of a person lying so
      clumsily, that one almost imagines that he does so in order to be caught and exposed so as to finally be able to
      confess and to purge his conscience.
      Sincerely yours,
      Lubomyr Prytulak
      HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 879 hits since 18Jan98
      Wiesenthal Letter 15 Sep 8/97 The elusive Lviv pogrom
      September 8, 1997
      Simon Wiesenthal
      Jewish Documentation Center
      Salztorgasse 6
      1010 Vienna
      Austria
      Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
      According to your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994, "The Ugly Face of Freedom," in three
      days following the evacuation of the Communist forces and before the arrival of the German troops, Ukrainian police
      killed between five and six thousand Jews:
      SAFER: He [Simon Wiesenthal] remembers that even before the Germans arrived, Ukrainian police
      went on a 3-day killing spree.
      WIESENTHAL: And in this 3 days in Lvov alone between 5 and 6 thousand Jews was killed.
      ...
      SAFER: But even before the Germans entered Lvov, the Ukrainian militia, the police, killed 3,000
      people in 2 days here.
      Now before going beyond what was actually said in the broadcast, we already see a discrepancy which I ask you to
      comment on. Specifically, you are the expert on the Holocaust who is testifying on 60 Minutes, and more than that you
      are the eyewitness to the Lviv pogrom - the only eyewitness - and you tell Morley Safer that 5 to 6 thousand Jews were
      killed in three days - but then Mr. Safer turns around and changes it to 3 thousand killed in two days. This does not
      seem fair - after all you were there and Morley Safer wasn't, and whereas for Mr. Safer, this is just a story that he
      is covering, for you it is the pivotal experience which determined the course of your life, the experience which in
      the words of Mr. Safer, "compelled Wiesenthal to seek out the guilty, to bring justice."
      So I wonder why Morley Safer changed your numbers? As you are the only witness adduced, Mr. Safer seems to have
      lowered your figures on his own initiative. I wonder if you have contacted Mr. Safer concerning his revision of your
      estimate, or if in your subsequent discussions with Mr. Safer, you might have by now arrived at a mutually-agreed
      estimate? If you have, I wonder if you would be able to tell me whether Mr. Safer has agreed to raise his estimate,
      or if you have agreed to lower yours?
      Be that as it may, it must surprise you to learn that when I consulted Leni Yahil's The Holocaust: The Fate of
      European Jewry, Oxford, New York, 1990 for further information on the Lviv pogrom, I found nothing. There is no
      indication in Yahil's book that such a pogrom ever took place. If Yahil's book were cursory or carelessly researched,
      then the oversight of the single largest pogrom of the War might be understandable, but if we are to believe the
      book's dust jacket, then it is one of the best works on the Jewish Holocaust ever written:
      When The Holocaust first appeared in Israel in 1987, it was hailed as the finest, most
      authoritative history of Hitler's war on the Jews ever published. Representing twenty years of
      research and reflection, Leni Yahil's book won the Shazar prize, one of Israel's highest awards
      for historical work.
      Well, in my continuing quest to learn more about the Lviv pogrom which you describe on 60 Minutes, I turned next
      to Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews, Holmes Meier, New York, 1985. This work too cannot be
      accused of being either cursory or carelessly researched. For example, the publisher's promotional material claims:
      This landmark work, now substantially revised and expanded, is destined to remain the foremost