ANOTHER VOICE
Why don't the poodles of the press ask the main Gibraltar question?
AUBERON WAUGH
Perhaps I am alone in deploring the glee with which certain newspapers have seized upon the evidence of a Gibraltar bank clerk that he lied to Thames Televi- sion about what he had seen at the time of the SAS shootings. The press itself 'has always been deeply unpopular with those in public life who regard any enquiry into their public activities as the greatest im- pertinence. This is part of a general resent- ment against the idea that public actions should be open to any scrutiny beyond the ministry hand-out and the unattributable briefing, slavishly and uncritically reported — sometimes even presented as an 'exclu- sive' insight. Newspapers, television and radio which query the official version are all in the same boat. Any government would happily torpedo it, as would most of the legal and financial establishments. Its chances of staying afloat are not improved if its three component divisions — the captain, the bosun and the chief steward, perhaps — keep chalking each other up as suitable targets for a government torpedo.
I thought that the Thames Television documentary on the Gibraltar shootings was an admirable piece of work, under- taken at a time when there was good reason to believe that the Government was pulling every string to hush the matter up. It was infantile to expect us all to keep quiet about what had happened for six months while the inquisitorial machinery of Gibraltar creaked into action and the Government got its witnesses together. Immediately after the Thames Television documentary, I urged the Government not to use the Gibraltar cover-up as an excuse for disciplining the media, warning that it would explode in their faces more effec- tively than any IRA bomb yet sent through the post, whatever the strength of opinion in Mrs Thatcher's favour.
'Only thugs like Bernard Ingham, used to handling the terrified poodles of the parliamentary lobby, can suppose that press and media are capable of being publicly intimidated and called to heel,' I wrote on 14 May. The poodles themselves, of course, can be excited to a yapping frenzy of bloodlust against their col- leagues, but that is not quite the same thing. 'Damnable conduct', exclaimed the Sunday Telegraph in the course of a page-one comment this week — an innova- tion borrowed, unless I am much mistaken, from the old Mirror:
This newspaper has always been prepared to give our security services engaged in fighting terrorism the benefit of the doubt . . . . But what is one to make of Thames Television, which not only refused to give the SAS the benefit of the doubt, but bent over back- wards to find them guilty, to the point of introducing dubious evidence?
Such conduct strikes us as damnable, and if the television company cannot come up at once with a convincing denial, then its broadcasting franchise should be revoked by the IBA.
The sound of dog calling for the with- drawal of dog's licence must indeed be music to Mrs Thatcher's ears, but let us examine the burden of the charge. Mr Kenneth Asquez, 20, a bank clerk, said at the inquest that he had lied to Thames Television when he claimed to have seen someone shooting a man on the ground. He claimed that the lie was told in response to pressure from Thames Television. It is normal practice when a witness admits to having lied, to ask what reason there is to believe his revised version — whether he might not now be giving false evidence in response to pressure from another source. At very least, his evidence tends to be taken with a pinch of salt. But not, it would appear, by the poodles.
`The ramifications of his confession go far beyond the confines of Gibraltar: they go to the heart of the standards and ethics of broadcasting journalism,' proclaimed the Sunday Times Insight team. There is no question about who is enjoying the benefit of doubt here — not their colleagues on Thames Television, but a 20-year-old Gib- raltarian liar.
The question of whether Asquez lied is peripheral, since his new claim to have seen nothing has no weight either way, but the question of whether or not the terror- ists were shot on the ground has assumed greater importance. Evidence from the Crown forensic scientist has been that the pattern of bullet marks on the pavement suggests they were fired into a body on the ground from above. Two SAS soldiers have vehemently denied this. Eye witnes- ses invariably produce discrepancies in their accounts, but if the SAS soldiers are lying on this point, which may not be crucial to the main issue, the question arises about what weight should be given to any of their evidence — on the purpose of the mission, their briefing or orders, on their intention in challenging the terrorists, on whether they did challenge them.
The main issue, as I say, is not whether the terrorists were shot on the ground to finish them off. It is whether the SAS were sent in to murder them — possibly in reprisal for the Enniskillen murders when they could easily have been arrested at the frontier before planting any alleged bombs; or whether the SAS were sent in to help arrest them #nd shot them on the basis of an erroneous (but sincerely believed) rumour that they were armed and in possession of a radio device which might have been able to explode a bomb, if they had planted it, as had been erroneously rumoured. If the first of these two alterna- tive explanations is accepted, the question arises of who ordered the murders.
Mrs Thatcher is said to have felt 'some- thing deeper than anger' when she saw the Thames Television documentary 'Death on the Rock', which included the testimony — now retracted — of the youth Asquez. I do not know what emotion goes deeper with her than anger — love? hatred? fear? nor do 1 see how she knew that Asquez, who was not named in the programme, was telling lies. It also included the evidence of Carmen Proetta, who was immediately denounced by the Sun as 'The Tart of Gib'. Under cross-examination, she agreed that she had not actually seen any smoke coming out of a pistol pointed at a body on the ground as the noise of gunshots reached her. It is the purpose of cross- examination to elicit such admissions, but I do not see that this amounts to 'crucial differences in her account', as claimed by the Sunday Times.
So now we come to 'the heart of the standards and ethics of broadcasting jour- nalism', advertised by the Sunday Times as being the main question raised by the Gibraltar inquest. Personally, I should have thought that the main issue is whether or not we have a Prime Minister who, like Henry II reckons she can send murder gangs galloping across Europe. So far as the standards and ethics of journalism are concerned, I should have thought that Thames Television, which made an attempt to explore this question, came out rather better than most. The general con- clusion about Henry II is that he probably did not intend to have Becket murdered. It was all a misunderstanding. Unintelligent sycophants can be the most dangerous friends.
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