A special investigation into Radio Free Europe’s two broadcasts of its interview last spring with alleged Nazi war criminal Archbishop Valerian Trial concludes that the “administrative shortcomings” of the director of REFS Rumanian service who arranged them, presents “a serious problem” to the radio’s management, while “the conduct” of two employes who had denounced him “is complete justification for their discharge.”
According to the report of the investigators, the employes, Jacob Popper and Edgar Rafael, had “acted in bad faith in taking the position that they were shocked and alarmed at the Trial broadcasts and they genuinely believed that Iron Guarding and anti-Semitism were infiltrating the Rumanian service (of RIFE). No one in the service has such a suspicion.”
Rather, according to the investigators — Roy Q. Minton, an Austin, Texas lawyer and Edward Alexander, of the U.S. International Communications Agency — Popper and Rafael were motivated by bitter personal animosities toward Noel Bernard, the director, end their superior in the REFS Rumanian service. In extensive oral testimony, supplementing the report before the House Subcommittee an International Operations, Minton said he and Alexander agreed that if they were to criticize REFS management it would be “why didn’t you fire them (Popper and Rafael) a long time ago.”
COMMITTEE HOLDS OFF DECISION
Minton and Alexander reported that termination of Rafael and Popper was “based on the content of two letters, one written by Popper on Aug. 10, 1979, and distributed to members of Congress by Rafael, and the other written by Popper and Rafael on Oct. 12, 1979, and sent to Alan Schwartz, of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.” The report said the letters contained “the same kind of venom.”
The subcommittee, of which Rep. Dante Fascell (D.Fla.) is chairman, is looking into the matter at the request of Rep. Elizabeth Holzman (D.NY), who both praised and challenged aspects of the report and complimented the investigators for their efforts. Members of the subcommittee also complimented Minton and the report, but made no immediate recommendations on the issues. Fascell adjourned the hearing late Thursday “subject to the call of the chair.” Four other Congressional and governmental bodies have been asked by Holzman to examine the circumstances of REFS activities and accountability.
Popper and Rafael were notified of their dismissal Dec. 27 before Minton and Alexander began their 15-day investigation in Washington, New York and Munich. The investigation was ordered by former Postmaster General John Grossness, chairman of the U.S. Board for International Broadcasting which oversees the operations of RIFE and Radio Liberty, both of which broadcast from Munich to Communist countries.
EXPLAIN REASON FOR DISMISSAL
Grossness and REFS top officials deplored the interview when it came to light in Washington through reports in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Trial, of Grass Lakes, Mich., and head of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in the U.S., is accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of having failed to disclose his membership in the fascist Rumanian Iron Guard during World War II. He is charged with being a leader of a program against Jews in 1941 in Bucharest in which 4000 Jews were killed. The RIFE interview was based on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. church.
Glenn Ferguson, REFS president, told the subcommittee that the dismissals of Popper and Rafael were made despite Gronouski’s request that no action be taken against Popper and Rafael until the investigation was concluded because under German low an employee has six months notice that can be given only in December or June. If dismissals were delayed until January the effect would have been to have given them a year’s notice at full pay.
While noting “Bernard is outstanding as a broadcast journalist,” and “fully aware of who Bishop Trifa was,” the report said “it did not occur to him that he could be arranging a program that would lend some dignity to a war criminal about to go on trial in the United States.”
CITE ‘BAD JUDGEMENT’
The investigators reported that “it is the conviction of the radio (RFE) from top management clear down and through the Rumanian staff that in initiating the Trifa broadcast Bernard exercised incredibly bad judgement.” Minton testified that Bernard’s motive was to attempt to drive “a wedge” between the church Trifa heads and another Rumanian church in the U.S. which reportedly adheres to the Budapest Patriarch. Ferguson testified that Bernard exceeded his responsibility in attempting the wedge.
Responding to questions from subcommittee members why no reprimand was placed in Bernard’s file, Ferguson replied, “Because we don’t have such a mechanism” in the Munich operation and Bernard has not been replaced because the Rumanian service “has no one to take his job.”
Former Ambassador John Hayes, who is chairman of the RFE and RL boards, testified “It is difficult to put statements in his file; he is the director of the service” which was described both in the report and by Ferguson and Hayes as performing excellently.
Holtzman pointed out to the subcommittee that “in addition to being outraged that RFE would provide a suspected moss murderer with a public forum, I was disturbed about the potential effect of the broadcast on the pending Trifa litigation and the willingness of foreign governments to provide judicial assistance to the U.S. in other cases involving Nazi war criminals.” Testifying “to our government’s 35-year history of indifference and inaction to investigating alleged war criminals in the U.S.,” Holtzman said “the broadcast could only be viewed as further evidence of our government’s ambivalence on this issue.”
The Minton-Alexander report said that after the 31-minute Trifa interview was broadcast on April 30 and May 1 “it was by no means considered a matter of great importance” at RFE in Munich. “No one blew the whistle, certainly, not Popper and Rafael,” the report said. Popper made “his first outcry” on May 25 “when he wrote a letter to Dr. Charles Kramer of the Nazi War Criminal Committee with a copy to Congresswoman Holtzman.” Gronouski and Holtzman both said they learned of the matter from the JTA.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
