Rick Sanchez Godless Communist

Sanchez [on tape]: Interestingly tonight the family of Elián Gonzalez is saying the little boy is himself fearful of Fidel Castro. They say his mother secretly taught him since he was a little boy about Fidel Castro's quote "cruelty." And someday, she told him, she would take him away from Castro and from Cuba.

Back live to the anchor desk.

Sanchez (tapping his pencil insistently): Hold on a second, Carmel. I don't see the connection between these clips and communist agitating. Isn't it possible that, you know, maybe I'm just being a bombastic blowhard here? I mean, given my reputation, isn't that more likely?

Cafiero: If this were just some two-bit reporter from another station, perhaps. But Rick, you are "one of the most recognized television anchors in South Florida," according to the WSVN Website. That same Website touts your "keen reporting skills" and commends you for having acted, during Hurricane Andrew, as "a constant voice of hope."

Sanchez [blushing slightly]: That was my finest hour.

Cafiero: And for you to treat this story in such a wildly unethical manner, I'm afraid, suggests a hidden agenda. Here's where the New Times research proved invaluable. The newspaper discovered a seemingly innocuous story that lent a fresh perspective to your Elián coverage, Rick.

Cut to archive footage of a WSVN broadcast. Activate more whooshing sounds. Hit more of that eerie piano music.

Cafiero [voice-over]: February 18, 2000. Immigration and Naturalization Service official Mariano Faget is arrested and charged with spying for the Castro government. WSVN broadcast the arrest, with file footage of Faget in his office supplemented by new footage of yellow police tape cordoning off his Kendall townhouse. Rick discussed the arrest with senior reporter Mark Londner.

Sanchez [on tape]: Mark, if this gentleman was partially responsible for who gets asylum in the United States, isn't it reasonable to conclude, then, that there may be other spies among us?

Londner [on tape]: I don't know if it is reasonable to conclude. But the INS says it will review all cases that Mr. Faget had to do with.

Cafiero [voice-over]: Londner may have been too hasty in his judgment. During a subsequent interview, exile leader José Basulto reminded viewers that Faget is only the latest spy to be outed. Just two years ago, Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque infiltrated Basulto's organization, Brothers to the Rescue. It's reasonable to conclude, Basulto implied, that there are others.

Cut to silver-haired man barking into the camera.

Basulto: It's a joke! It's been known to us for years. And these are just a few of the very many! I'd say this runs at least more than 1000 spies here in Miami, and many of them very well located.

Cafiero [voice-over]: More than 1000 spies? At the highest levels of power? Government? The media? New Times asked the obvious question: With all these spies running around, isn't it reasonable to conclude that some of them may have infiltrated the WSVN Newsplex?

Jennings: Yes?

Cafiero: That's right, Laurie. And if you were a Castro double agent and it was your intention to undermine Miami's exile community, what do you suppose would be the most influential position to hold?

Jennings: Um, maybe, mayor or something?

Cafiero: Not quite. In the unique media vortex created by the Elián Gonzalez story, the central players were people like Rick, who helped frame what should have been an open-and-shut custody case as a pitched battle between Cuban exiles and Fidel Castro. Rick's ostensibly idiotic comments were in fact an ingenious campaign aimed at rousing Miami's exiles to undreamed-of heights of impassioned irrationality. When the dust settled in Little Havana after the INS minivans sped away, Rick had successfully marginalized the exile community. Let's go to the videotape. In this first clip, from December 6, Rick launched a crusade against the National Council of Churches, an American religious organization that attempted to reunite Elián with his father. Lucia Newman is a reporter for CNN based in Havana.

Sanchez [on tape]: I'm sure you can understand how, Lucia, so many people here in South Florida and in fact many in the country… [believe] it's not really Mr. Gonzalez speaking. It's Fidel Castro that's speaking for Mr. Gonzalez. And now we have this National Council of Churches speaking for Mr. Gonzalez as well. And a lot of people are wondering why all of a sudden the National Council of Churches is allowed to go to Havana on a moment's notice, an organization which is very well tied to the Cuban Council of Churches in Havana, which as you know is tied to the Cuban government. Are they beholden to the Cuban government?

Newman [on tape]: Well, I don't know if one can say the largest U.S. religious organization, the one with the most… I think there's something like 56 million orthodox and Protestant churches that belong to the National Council of Churches… that is in any way an organization that is linked to a communist ideology. I think that would be going too far.

Cafiero [voice-over]: Simple hype? Hardly. Rick is very cannily baiting the most paranoid elements of the exile community into taking on the 50 million-member NCC, a battle the exiles can't possibly win. For maximum effect Rick keeps the heat on the church group: Nearly two months after talking to Newman, on January 25, Sanchez interviewed CNN's Martin Savidge in advance of the second scheduled meeting between Elián and his grandmothers.

Savidge [on tape]: Cuban officials here have actually been quite strongly saying they are not in charge of this meeting at all…. [The meeting is] totally in the hands of the church group, the National Council of Churches. So they don't believe in any way the Cuban government is sort of articulating what is taking place in Florida or in the U.S. with the two grandmothers.

Sanchez [on tape]: I have a document here in front of me, Martin, that seems to refute that. It says that this group, the National Council of Churches, is in such strict financial straits that it's something like five million in the red. That being so, who's paying them for these Lear jet trips all over the country?

Savidge [on tape]: Well, I can't respond to that. I don't obviously have access to the articles you do. It's quite clear that this church group represents quite a few parishes. It's estimated that the number of parishioners that belong in some way to the National Council of Churches is about 50 million people in the U.S. There is a lot of money that could be generated by these people and could explain how the trip is being funded.

Cafiero [voice-over]: Here Rick is paying homage to another brilliant manipulator, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his "I have a document in front of me"-style bullying. Again the exchange presents the exile community as being at war against millions of churchgoing Americans. Exile isolation can be the only possible outcome here. Diabolical. But it doesn't stop there. Like old Rocky Balboa, Rick keeps on fighting, sometimes with his own staff. Prior to the first scheduled meeting with the grandmothers, he duked it out with his own Patrick Fraser, who was at the Tamiami airport.

Sanchez [on tape]: You say the grandmothers have been in a closed meeting. Could they possibly have gotten a phone call from Havana telling them it wouldn't be a good idea to show up there?

Fraser [on tape]: Rick, it could be anything. Speculation here is that they are afraid to go over to Little Havana because --

Sanchez [on tape]: Afraid of people with flowers?

Fraser [on tape, somewhat annoyed]: Rick, I am not analyzing this. I am just telling you what the speculation is here. The word coming from inside here is that they have some concerns --

Jennings [on tape]: It does raise a lot of questions. Questions about a call from Havana. Questions about whether they want to defect --

Cafiero [voice-over]: Rick's speculation that Castro is controlling the grandmothers is totally unfounded; he simply made it up. Yet its mere broadcast supported conspiracy theories championed by paranoid elements of the exile community. While feeding this frenzy, Rick managed to convince his viewers -- and the family themselves -- that he was a benevolent friend. In this segment, taped just a few days later, he assures the audience and the Miami relatives that their futile campaign has been endorsed by no less an authority than God himself.

Sanchez [on tape]: [Elián is] wearing a crucifix around his neck, something I'm sure Marisleysis recently purchased for him. The last time I spoke to her, to Marisleysis, she talked very much about how she felt there was a spiritual force guiding her through this. She's a very spiritual woman, [with] a very strong Christian faith. I think since she's been with Elián, I think she's talked with Elián a lot about that, something Elián probably will not get a lot of if he returns to Cuba.