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Perplexed and bewildered by the summer's events, I finally tracked down my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler. A retired USAF lieutenant colonel, Ziegler started his career in Vietnam, sending out home-town press releases and inflating enemy body counts while making sure his commanding officer always looked good.
After his return to civilian life a decade ago, Ziegler became one of the nation's leading public-relations consultants while avoiding any personal publicity. He recently joined the staff of the Committee That Really Runs America.
How are things going?
I asked after exchanging
the usual pleasantries.
Great,
he explained. We couldn't have asked
for a better response to the Iran-Contra hearings.
Great?
I wondered aloud. The Reagan
administration is collapsing amid reports of deception and
duplicity. Somebody was trying to set up an extra-legal
system to do things that even the CIA wouldn't touch. All
this is coming out, and you say things are great?
Of course,
Ziegler assured me. Look at the
polls. Ollie North is a national hero now. Here's a guy who
took an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the
United States, and he found dozens of ways to violate that
oath. But is anybody demanding that he be prosecuted? Is
anyone saying he's a disgrace to his uniform? Is anyone
upset that the president seemed totally unaware that some
sort of tinhorn military junta was making plans for an
extra-constitutional government?
Just the usual bleeding-hearts like me who get upset
about such things,
I conceded. In the eye of general
public, he's a great patriot, a noble symbol of the
American ideal.
So you can see what a good job we've been doing,
Ziegler boasted. We're proving Lincoln wrong. We're
showing that you can nixon some of the people all of the
time, you can reagan all of the people some of the time,
and that you can even north all of the people all of the
time.
That is quite an accomplishment,
I granted.
But I keep remembering what Huey Long said: If fascism
came to America, it would be on a program of
Americanism.
Ziegler sighed and said that I really didn't understand
what the Committee That Really Runs America was really all
about. We're not trying to subvert the constitution and
install a military dictatorship here,
he explained.
Instead, we're trying to solve all of America's
problems.
How's that?
Okay, we've got Ollie North. He's a hot item right
now. Nobody knows this, but we're collecting all the
proceeds from his upcoming book and movie contracts and the
$15,000 personal appearance fees he'll be able to command.
We're putting the money in a special fund.
I doubt it's for charity.
Of course not. It's for financing the contras in
Nicaragua.
And?
Well, in a way, you were right about our goals, but
only up to a point. We are indeed setting up Ollie North to
be a military dictator. But not here. There. We'll have the
money to launch an invasion of Nicaragua, and he'll become
some banana-republic generalissimo, the kind of ally that
America has always preferred.
That could solve many of our foreign-policy problems, I
agreed. But isn't that a lot of work to solve something
that really isn't that big of a problem?
I
wondered.
It isn't Nicaragua per se,
Ziegler admitted.
The real issue here is preserving the American way of
life, especially the great American game.
You mean baseball?
Right. They make baseballs in Haiti. Back when Haiti
was run by a greedy right-wing dictator, they knew how to
make baseballs there. But ever since Baby Doc left -- well,
something went wrong. Those uppity peasants started winding
the balls too tight. Major league games look like home-run
derbies.
I've noticed.
Can't you see how we're going to restore the American
Way? North raises the money and leads the invasion. Our
hemisphere gets another military dictatorship in a
poverty-stricken nation. Thus we again have a place to
manufacture baseballs. No more rabbit ball, no more 17-14
games. The return of the pitchers' duel.
And that's it?
I asked.
Of course,
Ziegler re-assured me. You didn't
really think we were up to anything else, did you?
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