Who is Andrew Antippas?
In his column today, Star Tribune deputy editor Jim Boyd asserts his "responsibility to separate legitimate political opinion -- and the latitude is great -- from deliberate smear." According to Boyd, our two Star Tribune columns on John Kerry's Kurtz chronicles have both failed the test.
In our columns on Kerry's bogus journey to Cambodia, we rely on the testimony of Andrew Antippas that the Khmer Rouge did not take the field until the Easter Offensive of March 1972. We identified Antippas as the State Department's "Cambodia Man" at the United States Embassy in Saigon during the relevant period of time. As to our citation of Antippas, Boyd writes:
On the relatively minor point of the Khmer Rouge, Hinderaker and Johnson rely on someone named Andrew Antippas. What they don't say is that he has just popped up, in an op-ed on the subject published in the Washington Times, the Moonie paper that has been a veritable fountain of attacks on Kerry. I have no idea if Antippas is who H & J say he is, and I suspect they simply appropriated his Washington Times op-ed as truth.One thing we've learned about Boyd is that his skills at invective dwarf his skills at basic research. Ubi Libertas has posted the aptly named "Stribulations" and reports:
I googled Andrew Antippas, and it looks like he is the real thing – a Korean war hero with a 32 year career in the Foreign Service, including several years as the Cambodia guy in Saigon.Count the absurdities. Recall that it was Boyd who declared his responsibility to separate legitimate opinion from deliberate smear, implying that facts have something to do with the distinction.In Korea, Antippas served at Outpost Queen, a dangerous spot far in front of the main line of resistance. It was so dangerous that General Maxwell Taylor eventually pulled everyone back from it and other outposts, because the cost of keeping them against relentless Chinese assaults was too great. You can find some history of Antippas's Korean service here. Here’s a biographical statement:
www.northcoast.com/~dogface/xmas/appendices.html.
It reads:
"Andrew (Andy) Antippas, C Co., 180th Inf., 45th Div. Mr. Andrew F. Antippas, a native of Winchester, Massachusetts, entered the U.S. Foreign Service at the end of November, 1960, following U.S. Service as a combat infantryman in the Korean war and university graduation in 1958. Mr. Antippas majored in Political Science at Tufts, University and also received a Master's Degree in Public Administration in 1973 from that University. Following an initial assignment in the Department of State's Bureau of International Organizations, Mr. Antippas was assigned to the American Consulate in Douala, Cameroon, as Vice Consul; Bangui, the Central African Republic, as Third Secretary of Embassy; and the American Consulate General, Osaka-Kobe, Japan as Consul.Got all that, Jimmy? Korean war hero, combat infantryman at the sharp end, Master’s degree, worked on refugee settlement, famine relief, drug interdiction during a 32 year career all over the world. That’s who Andrew Antippas is. Who are you?His subsequent assignments, from 1968 to 1972, included political officer in the U.S. Embassies in Saigon, Vietnam and Pnom Penh, Cambodia. From 1972 to 1975 he served as desk officer for Cambodia in the Department of State. Following work on the Interagency Task Force for the Resettlement of Indochinese Refugees at the end of the Indochina conflict and as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Mr. Antippas was assigned to the American Embassy at Bangkok, Thailand, as Counselor for Consular Affairs. From 1979 to 1980 he served as Deputy and Acting Director of the Interagency Working Group on Famine Relief for Kampuchea (Cambodia). After a year's study at the National War College in Washington, Mr. Antippas was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, The Bahamas as Chargé d' Affaires where he served from 1981 to 1983 and was commended by Vice-President Bush for his efforts in narcotics interdiction in the Caribbean. Before being assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Korea as Consul General in February 1984, Mr. Antippas was sent to Grenada during the U,S. and Eastern Caribbean States' intervention in that island nation where he assisted in the establishment of the U,S, Embassy and served as Chargé d' Affaires.
Mr. Antippas was Consul General in Korea from 1984 to 1988 and served as Consul General in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from !988 until 1991. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1992.
Mr. Antippas is a three time recipient of the Department of State's Superior Honor Award as well as the Meritorious Honor Award. He is married to the former Judith Blewett of Ontario, Canada, and the father of Mark and Lydia.
Consider that Boyd asserts that we have crossed the line into deliberate smear. Focus on Boyd's dismissal of the Washington Times as a "Moonie paper" without regard for its journalistic bona fides. Understand that all this occurs in the context of Boyd's evaluation of our description of Antippas and our related reliance on Antippas for a subsidiary point.
Forget that the Times has broken more big stories in the past 10 years than the Star Tribune has in its entire existence. Boyd's discovery of the Times's description of Antippas as the State Department's "Cambodia Man" is on the one hand sufficient for Boyd to dismiss it and is on the other hand offered in support of his opinion that our column falls beneath the editorial standards of the Star Tribune's opinion pages.
It seems that we're getting a pretty fair take on Boyd's view of his editorial responsibilities. In Boyd's world, the distinction between legitimate opinion and deliberate smear appears to have precious little do with facts and overmuch to do with the proscription of certain conclusions as unacceptable regardless of the facts. Once folks like us have entered the territory of unacceptable conclusions, the editor seems to view his responsibility as engaging in "deliberate smear" rather than preventing it.
In answer to the question Ubi Libertas poses to Boyd ("who are you?"), I reiterate that we've learned a little more about Jim Boyd every day over the past week and we've already learned more than we ever wanted to know.
