Who Killed George Polk?: The Press Covers Up a Death in the Family

This so-called expose by two freelancers is ultimately unsatisfactory because it concludes that ``there is still no certainty about who killed George Polk.'' Polk, a CBS correspondent in Greece, was murdered in Salonika in 1948, at a time when that country, still ravaged by the WWII Nazi occupation, was torn by a civil war between a fascistic government and a communist guerrilla army in the hills. Polk reported the weaknesses of each side even though the U.S. had just enunciated the Truman Doctrine of aid to Greece and Turkey to keep them from becoming communist. When his murder was attributed to the left, Salonika authorities tortured and otherwise coerced people into confessing. Although the killing may never be solved, the book has value in showing how the U.S. government can use the press as an instrument of policy and how the press in this case allowed itself to be steamrollered. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)