Daily Nebraskan
Page 5
Leaders call victims either 'heroes' or 6 villains'
Tuesday, February 23, 1982
In Paris, where almost anything is obtainable, I am
looking at a book of documents taken from the American
Embassy in Tehran and published by radical Iranian stu
dents. The cover of the book says "secret" and the tille
is Israel Foreign Intelligence and Security Services. It tells,
among many other things, about a man named Wolfgang
Lotz. He was an Israeli spy.
Lotz was recruited by the Israeli espionage service to
fill a vacancy in Cairo. So thorough was his cover that he
posed as a former Nazi, took riding lessons so he could
Richard
Cohen
open a riding academy in Cairo, and even married a Ger
man woman. He was already married.
I bring up Lotz (who was caught by the Egyptians) in
the context of the Iranian documents because it seems to
me that if you happen to be on his side, the man is a hero.
And it seems to me that the people who allowed the docu
ments about Lotz to fall into the hands of the Iranian stu
dents, the employees of the UJS. Embassy in Tehran, were
not. Yet they have been treated as if they were.
It is the same with Gen. James Dozier, who spent 42
awful days as a prisoner of the Red Brigades in Italy. The
general suffered and his imprisonment couldn't have been
pleasant, but he has been treated as something he is not,
or has not had the opportunity to be: a hero.
With both the Iranian hostages and Dozier, the notion
of heroism has been stood on its head. They are not her
oes, but instead victims.
Goodman . . .
Continued from Page 4
There arc, of course, some flaws with this brilliant solu
tion to the economic woes of the average American. Pre
marital agreements, tor example. And love. The rich, you
see, can still afford to marry for love. All too often, they
have unpatriotically chosen to fall in love with each
ether.
- But not to worry. We are all rooting for a stronger
America. Surely even the rich realize that the only place
money really trickles down is over the sacrificial altar.
it) 1982, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company
Washington Post Writers Group
These words - heroes and victims - appear to have
lost all meaning. When Dozier was first abducted, Presi
dent Reagan called the kidnappers "cowards." That they
were not. They might be reprehensible or crazy or politic
ally stupid or many other things. But you cannot call peo
ple who plan and execute the kidnapping of an American
general "cowards."
With Reagan and others, it seems that cowards arc peo
ple you disagree with and heroes are people you agree
with. Thus, the victims of the "cowards" become heroes
when they are nothing of the sort. Both the hostages and
Dozier just happened to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time.
In fact, there is some reason to believe that both Doz
ier and the hostages were negligent. Dozier, for instance, is
the first to admit that he should have taken seriously the
warnings that he might be kidnapped.
As for the Iranian hostages, the captured CIA docu
ments and State Department cable traffic makes clear that
the embassy in Tehran had ample warning that it might be
seized by radical mobs. Just why, after all that, the embas
sy was virtually a library of material, ranging from secret
to just plain embarrassing, is something no one has yet explained.
Nebffskam
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It is, however, easier to explain why some victims be
come heroes and others become villains. It would be hard
to imagine Ronald Reagan holding a Rose Garden cere
mony for some welfare mother, born and raised in pover
ty, who managed not only to survive, but to have children
herself. She is no less a victim than the Iranian hostage or
Dozier, but her dependence on welfare is considered
praiseworthy by neither the President nor most Americans.
There is something awry here. People who become vic
tims through no fault of their own get talked about as it
they were villains. People who become victims through
some fault of their own or, at the very least, in the pur
suit of some job, get talked about as if they were heroes.
The upshot is that we tend to blame some people for their
own misfortune and not hold others accountable for what
might be their own mistakes. After all, someone ought to
have to explain why we all know about Wolfgang Lotz,
the Israeli spy.
And someone ought to have to account for why we
know all that secret material fell into the hands of the
Iranian militants. To a degree, we can thank the Iranians
because the seized documents add to our knowledge of a
critical period and fill in some gaps. But we can thank
them even more for pointing out that someone was asleep
at the State Department.
Still there is no accounting. Instead, the nation is asked
to rejoice in a succession of reversals and mistakes in
which victims become heroes and all mistakes are papered
over. The truth is often otherwise. I am looking at a book
supplied by Iranian students that says many interesting
things. One of them, if only by inference, is that not all
victims are heroes.
(c) 1982, The Washington Post Company
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