Issue 4: July/August

CURRENTS
Words: How the West Was Spun

BY DAVID RUPPE

In a day devoted to celebrating what President Bush called “an entirely new relationship” with Russia, he and President Vladimir V. Putin signed a treaty today to commit their nations to the most dramatic nuclear arms cuts in decades.
The New York Times, May 25

In a gilded Kremlin hall, President Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed agreements today sharply reducing their nuclear arsenals from the peaks of the Cold War…
The Washington Post, May 25

Now in Moscow, where President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a landmark treaty today, calling for the largest reduction ever in their countries’ nuclear arsenals.
CNN Live Today, May 24

In May, with six months of U.S.-Russian arms control negotiations nearly complete, Bush administration officials began describing the proposed treaty in language that arguably conveyed a much greater sense of achievement than the treaty deserved. Much of the major media went along for the ride.

Previously officials had explained that the treaty would require the transfer of thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off “operationally deployed” or active status, and presumably into storage. But then administration officials — led by President Bush when he announced the coming agreement May 13 — began saying simply that the pact would “eliminate” or “cut” the warheads from the arsenal.

The substance of the proposed text, though, had not changed. Unlike previous nuclear arms treaties, the proposed text does not require that anything be destroyed, U.S. officials said. The United States and Russia could still have in 2012 the 6,000 warheads and associated delivery systems (missiles, submarines, and bombers) they say each possesses today. This is a point that most media did eventually explain, but only a number of paragraphs down from their leads.

For the most part, only the experts took note. “When even The New York Times gets it wrong, you know there is deep confusion about the arms control treaty,” wrote the arms control expert Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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