Publisher's Synopsis
Just weeks after CBS correspondent George Polk was murdered in Greece in 1948, his peers created the "George Polk Award" to honor the best in American journalism. Polk would have been bitterly disappointed, however, had he known that the "best in American journalism" accepted, largely without protest, an investigation into his death in which evidence was not only ignored, but manufactured to convict innocent men an investigation in which politics played a bigger role than the truth. Reconstructing the murder, investigation, trial, and aftermath, "Who Killed George Polk?" offers a penetrating analysis of the willingness of the American media including CBS and a committee of prominent journalists headed by Walter Lippmann to accept the government's version of events despite numerous inconsistencies. The book also explores the fate of the handful of journalists who had questioned the original coverup and shows that even when additional developments turned the official version on its head, they were no longer in a position to press for a new investigation. All had become victims of anticommunist witchhunts. Arguing that this mainstream media and the U.S. government were so blinded by c;Instead, based on evidence uncovered during Vlanton's 19-year investigation, the author presents the only plausible scenario of how and why Polk was murdered. At its core, this perceptive interrogation explores how the press served U.S. national interests at the expense of the truth and journalistic integrity. As a Washington, D.C. writer, researcher, and Greek-American community activist for 20 years, Elias Vlanton has been deeply involved in U.S.- Greek relations. An authority on U.S. government archives on Greece, his writings have appeared in the "Nation", the "Village Voice", and several other United States and Greek publications. Zak Mettger is a published writer-editor living in Washington, D.C., who works for non-profit advocacy organizations.
