Bailouts for journalists?

Then there was Herbert Matthews, another New York Times man, who whitewashed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.  In December 1956, United Press International reported that Castro had been killed, but Matthews learned that Castro was alive, and he arranged to meet the revolutionary leader in his Sierra Maestra mountain hideout.  There was a long interview that resulted in a succession of New York Times front-page stories.  They convinced people that Castro was a decent fellow and that he headed powerful democratic forces almost certain to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

“Castro’s personality was overpowering,” Matthews wrote.  “It was easy to see that his men adored him and to see why he has caught the imagination of the youth of Cuba.”  According to Matthews, Castro had “no animosity toward the United States or the American people” – which encouraged U.S. policymakers to stop helping Batista.  To a significant degree, Matthews “made” Castro, because he wasn’t the only rebel against Batista, and before the New York Times coverage began, Castro’s forces were neither the largest nor the best-armed.  Castro’s comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara said that Matthews’ articles were more important than a battlefield victory, in terms of fundraising and recruitment.

When Castro seized power in 1959, did he usher in the era of enlightened social democracy he had promised?  Actually, he ordered executions of his political opponents, shut down dissident publications, postponed elections indefinitely, asserted his control over the economy and the Catholic Church in Cuba.  Nonetheless, Matthews continued portraying Castro as a friend of the people.  In addition to writing articles, Matthews wrote almost all of the New York Times editorials having to do with Latin America from 1949 until 1967 when he resigned because of widespread ridicule for failing to recognize that communism was a totalitarian movement.  He hoped that his fantasies would be vindicated, but since 1959 Castro’s regime imprisoned more than 100,000 people and executed more than 15,000.

Lord Acton’s epic warning applies as much to intellectuals as to the rulers they admire:  “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is the author of The Triumph of Liberty, FDR’s Folly, Wilson’s War, Bully Boy, Greatest Emancipations and other books.