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JVoPiace to Go Chomsky on H aiti Hiss Case Revisited Dioxin Watch Motives in Somalia ontents 3 "Understandable" Expulsions Nabeel Abraham Some deportations are better than other 's. '- 5 Letter From Lexington Noam Chomsky The "truth" about Haiti. 9 The Times Detoxifies Dioxin Peter Montague All the newsprint that'sfit to manufacture. 11 Second Takes on Hiss James W. Hamilton, M.D. Retractions unlimited. 12 David Wise Joins the Swiss Guards Edward S. Herman Sometimes you just can't win. 14 The Somali Invasion James Petras and Steve Vieux Ulterior humanitarianism. 16 Short Takes Edward S. Herman Magic Johnson, Richard Nixon, Nat Hentoff and others. 18 Politeracy Peter Rothberg Whither Bill Clinton? 21 The 1948 Arab Invasion of Israel Deconstructed Ronald Bleier Who are the real rejectionists? 23 Letters to LOOT Critiquing the critiques. 24 Seeing Red: The Johnnetta Cole Case Clarence Lusane The resurgence o f red-baiting. 28 Michael Wines: Old Ideology in New Bottles Edward S. Herman Rewriting Hiss-tory. Cover: The ousted Palestinians at the Lebanese Axpiy checkpoint, protesting Israel's refusal to take them back. crwttAP/wdswoidPhotos. A Note to Our Readers: We have reported extensively on the aftermath of the Gulf War and the longlasting effects it has had for the people of Iraq, especially the children. We are reminded that the plight of those in the U.S. military who resisted the slaughter of Desert Sterm is also far from finished. A recent issue of The Veteran, the newspaper of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, had a letter from Paul E. Cook, a Gulf War resister now in the Camp LeJeune brig. His application for conscientious objector status, filed after serving in the invasion of Panama, was denied. Then he was ordered to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. There, he refused to carry a weapon and was charged with "failure to the utmost to engage the enemy," which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. He asks that letters supporting his application for parole be sent to: Parole Coordinator, Marine Corps Brig, Camp LeJeune, NC 28542. Reminders: January-February is a combined issue, the first of 1993. You did hot miss an issue 1Also, we now have a Canadian bank account; subscribers and would-be subscribers in Canada can use Canadian checks in U.S. dollars. 2 LIES OF OUR TIMES Lies Of Our Times A Magazine to Correct the Record Published by Sheridan Square Press, Inc. Produced and Distributed by Institute for Media Analysis, Inc. 145 West 4th Street New York, NY 10012 Tel: (212) 254-1061 Fax: (212) 254-9598 Telex: 650-305-3524/MCI Executive Editor Ellen Ray Managing Editor William H. Schaap Editor Edward S. Herman History Editor William Preston, Jr. Associate Editors Ellen Davidson, Nancy Watt Rosenfeld. Peter Rothberg Columnists and Contributing Editors Nabeel Abraham. Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Stephanie Jed, Jane Hunter, Richard McKerrow, Sandra Rattley, William Worthy, JoAnn Wypijewski Business Manager Ellen Davidson Development Director Peter Rothberg Interns Mike LaCombe, June Yoshii Proofreader Bill Montross Lies O f Our Times. Volume 4, Number 1-2, whole number 34, January-February 1993. copyright 1993, by Sheridan Square Press, Inc., and Institute for Media Analysis, Inc. All rights reserved. Indexed in the Alterna tive Press Index. Available in microform from University Microfilms. Lie Of Our Times (ISSN: 1046-7912) is published monthly (except February and August) tar S2i per year by Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 148 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing office. POST MASTER: Send address changes to Lies Of Our Times, 145 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012. To Our Readers Lies O f Our Times is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times" are the times we live in but also the words of the New York Times, the most cited news medium in the U.S., our paper of record. Our "Lies" are more than literal falsehoods; they en compass subjects that have been ig nored, hypocrisies, misleading em phases, and bidden premises--the biases which systematically shape reporting. We can address only a sampling of the universe of media lies and distortions. But we hope LOOT will go a long way toward correcting the record. January-February 1993 000056 he Times the version published by the Times. For example, on October 9, Erich W. Bretthauer, the EPA's assistant administrator for re search and development, sent a memo to EPA chief William Detoxifies Dioxin Reilly giving the commissioner his own views on what EPA had learned so far about dioxin. Bretthauer's memo made several points, each of which was either contradicted or missed entirely Peter Montague by the Times: To understand the risks of dioxin, we must consider a broad range of health effects--not just cancer. In animals, dioxin has D been observed to cause certain noncancer effects by disrupting uring August and September of 1992, the Environmental the body's endocrine system--effects that include reproduction, Protection Agency (EPA) released drafts of eight chap behavior of offspring, and changes in the immune system. ters of its long-awaited reassessment of the dangers of The amount of dioxin already present in the environment, dioxin. The agency prompdy convened a four-day meeting oafnd in the bodies of Americans, is at, or close to, levels that, in independent scientists from September 22 to 25 to review anadnimals, cause hormone shifts, reproductive disorders, changes discuss the drafts. in behavior, and immune system damage. The day after the meeting ended, the Times reported that "an Recent studies indicate that dioxin causes cancer in humans; independent panel of scientists concluded today that dioxin was they need further evaluation so that EPA can form a new official not a large-scale cancer threat except for people exposed to position about the chemical's hazard to humans. unusually high levels of the toxic compound in chemical facto Insufficient data are available to develop a reliable model ries and from accidents" (Keith Schneider, September 26, p. 9). with which to predict cancer hazards to humans from low-level According to several panelists the Times quoted, `The risks exposure to dioxin. ... are largely confined to chemical workers and people exposed Available data seem to indicate that dioxin will cause cancer to high levels of dioxin from industrial accidents. They said the in humans in proportion to the exposure-r-high doses will cause levels of dioxin ordinarily found in the environment had not been many cancers, lower doses will cause fewer cancers; the one dose shown to be dangerous to people." And, the article continued, that is risk-free is zero. "several panelists said today that they did not consider the levels Risks from existing background levels of dioxin in the gen-' of dioxin in most Americans, about 5 parts per trillion in fat, to eral population need to be "carefully considered." be an important health hazard." On October 16, the Wall Street Journal summarized Bret- Thus the Times asked its readers to believe that a panel of thauer's memo this way: "Data reviewed by an independent independent scientists reviewed the draft and concluded, appar scientific panel suggest that the danger from dioxin may be ently by consensus, that dioxin is only a danger to the health of broader and more serious than previously thought, according to heavily-exposed chemical workers and victims of rare accidents, an internal Environmental Protection Agency memo" (Ruth and that for them the sole danger is cancer; that existing levels Gutfeld, p. B9). of dioxin in the environment are not harmful to people; that the In its summary of the September conference, the business risks of dioxin are lower than previously believed; that laboratory journal, Environmental Reporter, interviewed EPA Office of animals and some wildlife may be at risk but this has little to do Health and Environmental Assessment Director William H. with humans because humans--for reasons unknown--seem to Farland, who summarized the meeting by saying dioxin is "a be uniquely unaffected by low doses of dioxin. major health threat" and that the draft report is "unlikely to ease Once this comforting Times account appeared on the wire, it public concern over dioxin" (October 2,1992, p. 1504). was immediately picked up by many other news organizations. Farland also said that "scientists at the recent meeting reported The result was a nationwide media blitz saying dioxin is basically a host of non-carcinogenic effects at very low dose levels--near harmless to humans. The Detroit News, for instance, repeated background levels--as well as the ability to cause cancer in the Times story, then capped it off September 29 with an editorial humans at high doses." entitled, "The End of Dioxin Hysteria?" which concluded, "But In brief, the EPA's reassessment of dioxin's toxicity--based the fact that dioxin has turned out to be something of a non-issue on several thousand studies of dioxin--while incomplete, shows where humans are concerned suggests the religious zeal with that dioxin is afar worseproblem than originally believed. Reilly which some environmentalists are trying to close down the initiated the reassessment in response to complaints by the paper chemical industry deserves to be greeted with extreme skepticism." and chlorine industries, who charged that EPA's regulation of dioxin was too strict because low levels of dioxin are harmless In a Different Voice and that there is a "threshold," a level ofexposure todioxin below Other accounts of the conference, however--by reporters and which no ill effects are seen. Not only has EPA's reassessment participants in the four-day meeting--bore little resemblance to substantiated its original view of dioxin as a potent toxin for which there is no observable threshold, the study has added a An earlier version of this article appeared in Rachel's Hazardous Waste Hews, #310, November4,1992. Published weekly, Peter Montague's newsletter is $40 per year from the Environmental Research Foundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403, host of new concerns which were discussed at length. These included concerns about disruption of the reproductive system, harm to the immune system, and behavioral changes in offspring of dioxin-exposed parents. January-February 1993 LIES OF OUR TIMES 9 000057 One way to solve the problem; At a town meeting, residents of dioxin-infested lim e s Beach, M issouri, listen as a regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency offers to buy the entire town. One of the most important revelations of the meeting was that these endocrine-system effects in animals are observable at body burdens similar to the body burdens in Americans today. If upheld in the coming weeks and months ofscientific review, this view would provide a scientific foundation for a demand that "zero-discharge" be adopted as the basis for control of dioxin. In this case, even the earlier argument over a threshold is moot, since exposures due to residual toxins are sufficient to cause health problems. Farland said as much in his interview with Environmental Reporter. "We have to be very cautious about any additions of dioxin to the environment We must be very concerned about these high background levels ofdioxin and what they may mean for human health." High Stakes Industries that emit dioxin into the environment--paper pro ducers, waste incinerators, metal smelters, and herbicide produc ers and users--are feeling tremendous pressure to curtail emis sions, pressure that seems likely to increase. Newspapers, of course are dependent upon paper for their existence and have a material interest in keeping paper prices low. According to the Wall Street Journal, the paper industry has already spent more than a billion dollars trying to control dioxin. The New York Times, with its heavy stake in Maine and Canadian paper mills, has taken an editorial stance decidedly in favor of the reclassification of dioxin (see RHWN #248,#249, #275; and James Ledbetter, Village VoiceyNovember 27,1991, p. 5). The Times received at least three letters to the editor complaining about its misleading coverage of the September meeting--two of them from scientists who participated in the meeting and who strongly objected to the Times's reporting. The newspaper also received a letter from a consultant to the incin erator industry who said it was "comforting" to leam that the dioxin now found in the bodies of Americans is "less toxic than previously assumed." The Times did not print either of the letters from the scientists, but did prim the letter from the consultant, who argued that automobiles are the leading source of dioxin. This theory, which is no doubt comforting to the incinerator industry, and to the paper and newspaper industries, is almost certainly false. W toxin's gruesome reputation, derived from disclosures of its effects in mass exposures like Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and the 1983 evacuation of Tunes Beach, Missouri, has fueled extensive research. After discovering that the streets of Times Beach had been contaminated with dioxin, the federal government bought out and evacuated the entire town. At the time, minuscule amounts of dioxin had been proven to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Descriptions of dioxin have frequently been accompanied by the epithet, "most toxic substance known to man." It has retained this undisputed heavyweight title, and the question of how to regulate and control the chemical has become an important political and economic issue. In 1990, the EPA announced plans to regulate the effluent of paper mills, after discovering dioxin was a byproduct of paper manufacturing. In response, the paper and chemical industries began an extensive public relations campaign in an effort to influence a process certain to lead to requirements for costly new methods and equipment. The New York Times, with its large stake in the paper industry, was a natural ally in this campaign. After the EPA's revelation concerning dioxin in paper mill effluent, the headlines around the country on May 1,1990, tell the story: "U.S. Plans to Cut Paper Mills' Dioxin Discharge" --Los Angeles Times "EPA to Issue Rules to Reduce Amount of Dioxin Released in Making of Paper" --Wall Street Journal "EPA Seeking to Reduce Dioxin in White Paper; Cancer Risk Said to Justify Mill Restrictions" -- Washington Post "Little Danger Found in Dioxin From Paper Mills" --New York Times The Times' s apologetics did not end on this date. It has continued to print every doubting voice on the subject In three articles published August 15 and 16,1992, the Times dissected new "data" questioning the dangers of dioxin. The Times's reporting set the tone for how many others in the media chose to play the story. --Michael LaCombe 10 LIES OF OUR TIMES oooqjjfl,^ 1 Guatemala: The Complicity of Silence 000059 A Contents 3 Media Thugs Slug It Out Edward S. Herman and Peter Rothberg Bonner's bullies get their comeuppance. 5 Inside the POW/MIA Lobby Jack Colhoun No compelling evidence, no compelling coverage. 7 Shoot First, Ask Questions L ater William H. Schaap The remarkably short life o f a forgery. 9 Polluters and Their Friends Peter Montague A breathtaking ignorance o f the facts. 11 The Complicity of Silence Gary Grass and Babette Grunow Violence and murder in Guatemala are ignored. 14 Angola: No Changes in U.S. Policy Elaine Windrich How the Washington Post sucks up to UNTTA. 15 Where Have All the Palestinians Gone? Nabeel Abraham Forgotten, but not gone. 17 Fashion Comes First Herbert I. Schiller There's no such thing as non-commercial. 19 Uruguay: Free Markets and Polo Shirts James Petras and Steve Vieux More lazy Latin stereotypes. 21 The "Worst" T errorist Act in O ur History? Jack Bradigan Spula WTC? What about Hiroshima? 22 Short Takes Israel, Timor, Russia, and other hot spots. 24 Politeracy Peter Rothberg Same old violence in the "new" South Africa. 25 Letters tp W O T Taking issue on Somalia. 28 Women and Kids: Pipe Down John L. Hess Who alienates whom ? Coven How can one express the heartbreak? A Mayan woman displays a photo graph Of her missing son. Credit: Jim Tynan/ impact Visual*. A Note to Our Readers: T h a n k s to all our subscribers who generously contribued to our recent fundrais ing drive. Your donations will allow us to go ahead with much-needed outreach work so we can put the magazine into the hands of more people. We're not out of the woods yet, though. So if you feel LOOT has an important role to play in holding the mainstream media accountable, and you haven't yet contributed, please consider doing so. Your money will be well spent. And if you have already contributed, try this: Convince a friend to subscribe. Our subscribers are our lifeblood. When you see your friends and neighbors eagerly reading your copy of LOOT, suggest that they subscribe. Many thanks. ^ v ino n n r s * in Hies f ur Climes A Magazine to Correct the Record Published by Sheridan Square Press, Inc. Produced and Distributed by Institute for M edia Analysis, Inc. 145 West 4th Street New York, NY 10012 Tel: (212) 254-1061 Fax: (212) 254-9598 Telex: 650-305-3524/MCI Senior Editor Edward S. Herman Executive Editor Ellen Ray Managing Editor William H. Schaap Editors Nancy Wait Rosenfeld, Peter Rothberg Associate Editors Chandler Brossnrd. Ellen Davidson History Editor William Preston, Jr. Columnists and Contributing Editors Nabeel Abraham, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Stephanie Jed, Jane Hunter, Richard McKerrow, Sandra Rattley, Elaine Windrich, William Worthy, JoAnn Wypijewski Business Manager Ellen Davidson Development Director Peter Rothberg Interns June Yoshii, Tom Mintz Proofreader Bill Montross Lies O f Our Times, Volume 4, Number 6, whole number 37, June 1993, copyright 1993, by Sheridan Square Press, Inc., and In stitute for Media Analysis, Inc. All rights re served. Indexed in the Alternative Press In dex. Available in microform from University Microfilms. Printed in the U.S.A, Lies QJ Our Tunes (ISSN: 1046-7012) is published monthly (except February and August) lor S24 per year by Sheridan Square Press, Ina, 145 West 4th Street. New York, NY 10012. Second-das* postage paid at New York. NY, and additional mailing otftce. POST MASTER: Send address changes to Lies Ol Our Times, 145 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012. To Our Readers Lies Of Our Times is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times" are the times we live in but also the words of the New York Times, the most cited news medium in the U.S., our paper of record. Our-"Lies" are more than literal falsehoods; they en compass subjects that have been ig nored, hypocrisies, misleading em phases, and hidden premises--the biases which systematically shape reporting. We can address only a sampling of the universe of media lies and distortions. But we hope LOOT will go a long way toward oooosocorrecting the record. June 1993 f Polluters and This third wave "has moved into universities, city halls, state capitols, and even to the highest levels of the E.P.A." At this point the Times quoted the EPA Science Advisory Board's 1990 Their Friends complaint that Congress had passed laws based on "public perceptions of risk [rather] than of scientific understanding of risk." Peter Montague_____________ The dour message of these third wave environmentalists is that the "experts" have not been allowed to set the United States' environmental agenda; instead we have had "environmental agenda-setting by episodic panic." In other words, our problem As Congress prepares to consider renewing the nation's two major toxic waste laws-- Superfund and the Re source Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)--the is too much democracy. Congress Listens to the Voters major polluters and their friends are preparing their own initia As a result of Congress's refusal to listen to the experts, the tives. For a taste of what to expect, consider the New York U.S. is spending $140 billion per year on the environment ($100 Times's five-pan series on toxics and waste that ran between billion by the private sector, $40 billion by the government), March 21 and March 26,1993. roughly half what we spend on the military (Ruth Leger Sivard, The first article, Keith Schneider's "New View Calls Envi World Military and Social Expenditures 1991, 14th Edition ronmental Policy Misguided," set the tone and the themes for the [Washington, D.C.: World Priorities, 1991]). However, not all series (p. 1). It began by stating that the environmental money is wast "many scientists, economists and ed, said the Times. "Few experts Government officials have reached the dismaying conclusion that much of America's environmental The Times is clearly, and threateningly, an apologist question the value of spending roughly $3 billion each year on new sewage treatment plants." But: program has gone seriously awry. These experts say that in the last 15 for those who are poisoning us. "Many experts ... question the wisdom of spending billions of dol years environmental policy has too lars to protect people from traces of often evolved largely in response to toxic compounds." popular panics, not in reaction to sound scientific analyses of The Times then quoted Richard Goodwin, who was identified which environmental hazards present the greatest risks." as a "private environmental engineer," saying we're wasting money on toxic dumps. What the Times did not mention is that Toxic Dumps Dangerous? Not to Worry Dr. Goodwin is a consultant to the incineration industry and has The critical message the Times stories presented is this: The conducted a campaign to have toxic ash exempted from federal nation's toxic waste program is itself a colossal waste because and state regulations. toxic chemicals, and especially toxic wastes, are not dangerous "The toxic waste program stands as the most wasteful effort at all. Furthermore, we got ourselves into this expensive mess of all" because "many of the [abandoned chemical dump] sites because Congress didn't listen to the technical experts but lis- pose little if any danger," the Times said, without offering any - tened, instead, to the voters. substantiation. Here is the Times argument in a nutshell: "Billions of dollars are wasted each year in battling problems Guess What? Dioxin Isn't Really Bad for You that are no longer considered especially dangerous." Examples To support its claim that dumps pose little or no danger, the the Times cited are toxic dumps and asbestos in schools. "Since 1980,... thousands of regulations were written to restrict compounds that had caused cancer in rats or mice, even Times then offered still another unsupported assertion; "New research indicates that dioxin may not be so dangerous after all. None of the former residents of Times Beach [Missouri], have though these animal studies often fail to predict how the com been found to be harmed by dioxin, and two years ago. Dr. pounds might affect humans." There is a "new, third wave of environmentalism... sweep Vernon N. Houk, the Federal official who urged the evacuation [of Times Beach], declared that he had made a mistake" (see ing across America" composed of "fanners, home-owners and "Letters to LOOT," LOOT, May 1993, p. 24), ' others who are upset largely by the growing cost of regulations The Times went on to maintain that while we're spending that didn't appear to bring any measurable benefits." The only billions to protect the public from relatively harmless substances spokesperson Schneider quoted for this "third wave of environ like dioxin, we're allowing real problems to grow unchecked. mentalism" was Richard J. Mahoney, chairman of Monsanto, the chemical company. Examples are mercury in fish and lead in children. But back to the Times's central theme; "Perhaps no environ mental program has come under more criticism than the Super This article is adapted from Peter Montague's article in the March 23. 1993. Rachel's Hazardous Waste News. #330. Published weekly. Montague's news letter is $25 per year from the Environmental Research Foundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403. fund and its progeny." The Times launched into a lengthy description of a Superfund site in Mississippi where soil was cleaned up to a standard that would allow children to eat a half a teaspoonful of it every month June 1993 G00061 LIES OF OUR TIMES 9 for a lifetime without getting cancer. (Half a teaspoon a month for 70 years equals 3,000 grams of soil.) The Times ridiculed such cleanliness as a goal: "E.P.A. officials acknowledged that at least half of the $14 billion the nation has spent on Superfund cleanups was used to comply with similar `dirt-eating rules,' as they call them." In making fun of the Superfund program, the Times failed to examine the basis for the EPA's premise that children need to be protected from industrial poisons in the soil. Kids Who Eat Dirt Are at Serious Risk The cleanup standard the Times ridiculed is based on the assumption that children eat soil, which is in fact true. Contami nated soil is an important source of toxic lead in children (Patrick L. Reagan and Ellen K. Silbergeld, "Establishing a Health-Based Standard for Lead in Residential Soils," Trace Substances in Environmental Healthy Vol. 23 [1990], pp. 199-238). The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has studied children's behavior. It turns out that some children eat soil directly and other children merely transfer soil from their hands to their mouths. CDC estimates that 5 percent to 10 percent of all children eat dirt directly (a behavior pattern called "pica") and that such children may ingest an average of 8,000 grams of soil during their first five years of life (R.D. Kimbrough and others, "Health implications of 2,3,7,8-tetra-chloro-dibenzo-dioxin (TCDD) contamination of residential soil," Journal o f Toxicol ogy and Environmental Health, Vol. 14 [1984], pp. 47-93). The best available evidence, therefore, indicates that the EPA's cleanup standard (3,000 grams ingested during a lifetime) may not be strict enough to protect all children. The first four articles in the Times' s series were remarkable in several respects: They never mentioned pollution prevention; they claimed, or implied, numerous times that toxic chemicals and radioactivity have not harmed anyone, but they provided no evidence that this is true; and they ignored a large body of scientific literature that contradicts their claims and conclu sions. There can be little disagreement that the United States' envi ronmental goals and priorities have gone awry in the past 20 The Superfund S u p e rfu n d refers to the main body of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liabil ity Act. As noted above, the recent Times series on envi ronmentalism ridiculed the Superfund law for being too stringent. However, many argue that it does not go far enough. Passed in 1980, the act was meant to locate and detoxify chemical waste dumps across the U.S. But the problem was much more intractable than initially per ceived by the authors of the law. In 1989, Congress's Office of Technology Assessment concluded that the standard remedies for Superfund sites were not working. By the early 1990s, it was clear that the original methods called for in the Superfund had to be thoroughly revamped if the central goal of the law--to protect the public from toxins released into the soil from chemical dumps--was to be achieved. As Peter Montague noted in RHWN #332, the only sure way to detoxify waste dumps would be to excavate con taminated soil and store it in reinforced concrete buildings. However, according to Montague, "this solution suffers from a major drawback: It would make the size of the problem visible to everyone, and therefore eventually might create major unrest among the public. Therefore, solving the problem of old chemical dumps is now known to be technically difficult, very costly, and potentially politically explosive." --Peter Rothberg years. In its analysis, however, the New York Times has failed to offer evidence to support its assertions. Furthermore its writers have exhibited a breathtaking ignorance of basic facts. What is most ominous is that when die Senate Committee on Environ ment and Public Works opened its hearings in Washington on March 24, 1993, debate was based partly on statements and viewpoints outlined in the Times series. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act In 1976 Congress passed (he Resource Conservadon and Recovery Act (RCRA), the nation's basic law for managing hazardous wastes, including municipal solid wastes. The legislation was announced as providing "cradle to grave" control of toxic waste. As that phrase implies. Congress and the EPA in 1976 fully expected to bury most wastes in "graves" (landfills). During the early 1980s, the EPA established elaborate licensing procedures for hazardous waste generators, proces sors, and haulers. However, as the 1980s progressed and more and more waste was discovered, the loopholes in the RCRA appeared to be larger and larger. Mining wastes, for example, which are voluminous, are exempt from RCRA. In 1991, the National Academy of Sciences revealed that about 95 percent of hazardous wastes are exempt from RCRA. In addition, since 1976, much has been learned about landfills. Now, the EPA admits that all landfills eventually leak, so putting toxic waste in such "graves'*' is unlikely to promote public health and safety. As a substitute, the EPA has been urging construction of incinerators, but now incinerators themselves have been iden tified as a major source of pollutants. RCRA will be reauthorized by Congress during the next year or two, and it promises to be a major fight between the polluters and the environmental community. --Peter Montague 10 LIES OF OUR TIMES 000062 June 1992