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Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.

May 17, 1999

Morley Safer

60 Minutes, CBS Television

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Morley Safer:

Who Murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?

The death of Volodymyr Katelnytsky

My source is a Ukrainskyi Holos (Ukrainian Voice) article mailed to me by someone that

knew Volodymyr Katelnytsky. The citation that is hand-written on the article is "4-20

August, 1997, p. 1."

The Ukrainskyi Holos article reports that Volodymyr Katelnytsky was tortured to death in

his apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine on the night of 7-8 July 1997. His mother, Lykeria, who

was 81 years old, was tortured and died before the eyes of her son; her body was found

with 21 stab wounds. When Katelnytsky's sister tried to enter the apartment in which

the crime had been committed, she was roughed up by Kyiv police. Some members of the

Katelnytsky family were arrested. The murders are considered to have been politically

motivated. Volodymyr Katelnytsky's funeral was attended by some two thousand mourners.

The life of Volodymyr Katelnytsky

Volodymyr Katelnytsky was a professional journalist. He was active in the Ukrainian

Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate, was head of the Brotherhood of St. Andrej

Pervozvanyi in Kyiv, and supervised the tour of the chief cities of Ukraine by

Metropolitan Wasyl in May 1993. He was also active politically, serving as Deputy Head

of the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party. In Canada and the United States, he may be

best remembered for the role he played as President of the Committee for the Defense of

John Demjanjuk.

Also prominent among Volodymyr Katelnytsky's activities was the dissemination of a

Ukrainian version of what happened at Babyn Yar, similar, I believe, to the version

advocated on the Ukrainian Archive. One result of Volodymyr Katelnytsky's Babyn Yar

activities is that he was sued for them by Jewish organizations in Ukrainian court, that

in his defense he brought forward historical aerial reconnaissance photographs showing

that none of the activities said to have taken place at Babyn Yar was visible from the

air - not visible, that is, were signs of the execution and burial of 33,771 Jews, or

the later disinterment and burning of their bodies. As a result of his convincing

defense, the court acquitted Volodymyr Katelnytsky of the charges brought against him.

Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?

As we have no direct evidence of who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky, we can only perform

a Cui bono? analysis which will at least tell us where to start looking. That is, if it

is the case that the three most prominent events in Volodymyr Katelnytsky's life were:

(1) that he defended John Demjanjuk, (2) that he contradicted the Soviet-inspired

Holocaust version of the Babyn Yar story, and (3) that he was tortured to death along

with his mother, then it would take a mental paralysis with which I have not as yet been

seized to refuse to consider the first two of these events as possibly having caused the

third.

I don't accuse you of having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination.

As you broadcast the Ugly Face of Freedom on 23 October 1994 and Volodymyr Katelnytsky's

assassination did not take place until 7-8 July 1997, I obviously do not accuse you of

having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination in your broadcast.

But I do accuse you of having missed the big story of which Katelnytsky's

assassination is but one piece.

However, the persecution and assassination of Ukrainians did not begin in 1997. It

began hundreds of years earlier, carried right up until your broadcast in 1994, and

continued through 1997 to this day. What I do accuse you of, then, is ignoring a

centuries-long stream of evidence attesting to the persecution of Ukrainians, and of

broadcasting instead the story of the persecution of Russians and Jews even in the

absence of evidence. Your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up anything like a

story of a prominent Russian activist being tortured to death in his apartment, whether

along with his mother or alone. And your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up

anything like a story of a prominent Jewish activist being tortured to death in his

apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. The story that you would have been

able to document, but that you chose to ignore, is that Ukraine is a nation which is

ruled by Russians and Jews, and in which Ukrainians are routinely persecuted and

murdered.

And I do accuse you of having helped cause Katelnytsky's assassination.

But even though you could not have covered Katelnytsky's assassination in 1994, you

could have in 1994 avoided giving encouragement to assassins who were at that time

plotting such assassinations. Instead, you did give encouragement to Katelnytsky's

assassins by demonstrating to them that the world press can be counted upon to continue

broadcasting anti-Ukrainian calumnies even while Ukrainians were being victimized in

their own land. It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom,

Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had

you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their

oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today.

Lubomyr Prytulak

cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,

Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.

HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 630 hits since 30Jun99

Morley Safer Letter 11 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko?

We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is reported that

8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to their television sets exploding,

we all believe that Vadim would have survived this kind of accident.

June 30, 1999

Morley Safer

60 Minutes, CBS Television

51 W 52nd Street

New York, NY

USA 10019

Morley Safer:

The conclusion that you offered in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of

Freedom was that Ukraine is a place where Jews and Russians are oppressed by militant

Ukrainian nationalists, and where they are the targets of Ukrainian violence. The

closest that you came to substantiating this claim was to broadcast Rabbi Bleich's

allegation that an elderly Jewish couple had been attacked and robbed somewhere in

Western Ukraine. However, this allegation was devoid of substantiating detail, and my

request for specifics (both in my letter to you of 24May98, and in my letter to Rabbi

Bleich of 23May98) was answered with silence. I repeat that request to you now - please

inform me of the details of this attack, which minimally would include the time, the

place, the names of the victims, and the address where a police report is available. If

you do not have such information, please retract the allegation.

You must be aware that I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well as

of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine has questioned whether such an attack on

the two elderly Jews ever took place. Levitas's doubt was first expressed in an open

letter to you, and I reminded Rabbi Bleich of it in my letter to him of 23May98, of

which you were mailed a copy. In view of I. M. Levitas's doubt, and in view of your and

Rabbi Bleich's silence in response to my request for particulars, the impression grows

daily stronger that you and Rabbi Bleich made the incident up.

The chief purpose of the present letter is to demonstrate to you yet again that your

conclusion which I summarize in my first sentence at the beginning of the present letter

is exactly backward. Ukraine is not a place where Ukrainians attack and murder, it is a

place where Ukrainians are attacked and murdered, as has been the case for the last

three hundred years, at least. Below is documented one further instance in support of

this conclusion. It is the story of Vadim Boyko, member of parliament, and popular

television investigative journalist. I would have expected that the story of Vadim

Boyko would have appealed to you, and for that reason that you might have included it in

any broadcast that you prepared about Ukraine, as his life - at least up to the final

moments - was not unlike your own:

February 23, 1992

Journalist's notebook in Ukraine

by Marta Kolomayets

Kiev Press Bureau

A colleague's tragic death

"He was a man engaged to a young Ukraine," said Volodymyr Yavorivsky, as

he bid farewell to Vadim Boyko, who died tragically on February 14, at

the age of 29.

Hundreds of mourners crowded into the third floor atrium of the

Ukrainian State Television and Radio headquarters, tearfully passing

each other on the steps Vadim so often bounded, rushing to the studios

where he recorded his popular television programs.

Now, on February 17, the mourners paid their last respects to Vadik (as

he was affectionately known), searching for a reason why such a

promising, talented life was cut short. As slow dirge-like music played

over the loudspeakers, they filed past the closed coffin, sewn up in

black cotton and laden with bunches of carnations of all colors.

At the foot of the coffin stood a black and white photo of the young

journalist and politician. An enlarged copy of the same photo,

decorated with a black mourning band, hung above the coffin. To the

left, the newly adopted Ukrainian national flag, also decorated with

black bunting, kept guard over its native son. Wreaths from the

Ukrainian Parliament, co-workers and friends surrounded the coffin.

Perhaps as a carryover from the Communist-atheist state of the past, the

wake of devoid of all Christian symbols and rites.

Vadim's father sat at the foot of the coffin, numb to the proceedings.

As a few speakers addressed the crowd, he wiped tears away from his

weary, red eyes. Vadim's mother was too weak to make the trip from the

family's home in Svitlovodsk to Kiev.

Mykola Okhmakevych, the stagnant, Communist head of the State Television

and Radio, whose removal has been pressed for by both democratic

deputies and workers of the television station, said a few uninspiring

words. Often harshly criticized by Vadim and his colleagues, Mr.

Okhmakevych now spoke of how Vadim had always loved his job. An angry

mourner, who saw this hypocrisy, cried out: "He loved Ukraine above

all. He loved Ukraine, say it."

We all descended the steps with Vadim for the last time. The coffin was

then placed in a vehicle for Vadim's journey home to Svitlovodsk,

Kirovohrad Oblast, his final resting place.

x x x

It has been almost a week now since my phone rang just before midnight,

on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was my friend and colleague Dmytro

Ponamarchuk. Yet his voice sounded different.

"I don't know how to say this, Marta. Vadim Boyko burned to death

tonight." I could not believe what I was hearing: "What is this, a

cruel joke?"

Dmytro, working at the radio station, had been called about a fire at

Vadim's apartment; the fire department reported that his television had

blown up. Dmytro arrived at the scene just an hour or so after the

reported fire, only to find Vadim's body sprawled across the floor,