CBSIC Working Reports to IFCSS 6th National Congress

(Excepts)

**********************************************************************
*                                                                    *
*      United, We Must Stand Up For Our Own Rights and Interests     *
*      =========================================================     *
*                                                                    *
*           a Working Report by the CBS Incident Committee           *
*                                                                    *
*              submitted to the IFCSS 6th Congress                   *
*                                                                    *
*                     July 23 ,  1994                                *
*                                                                    *
**********************************************************************


          CBSIC working report Number One, version 1.10 

Introduction
============

Chapters:

Chapter One:    History of the CBS Incident Committee
Chapter Two:    CBS Incident Committee Personnel
Chapter Three:  Working Reports
Chapter Four:   Current Status
Chapter Five:   Future Plan

Attachments:

I.    CBS-IC News Release
II.   protest letter package
III.  research excerpts and summary
IV.   CBS related phone #, fax # and e-mail and postal mail addresses

Chapter One: The Incipient of the CBS Incident Committee And Its Preparation

Chapter Two: CBS Incident Committee Organizations (personnel)


Chapter Three:  Working Reports
-------------------------------

o original material
  =================

    Mr. Luo Ning made a transcript from the video tape recording
or the CBS report, which was the basis of the IFCSS initial response
to CBS.

    Mr. Herb Ho has also made video recordings and transcript of the
program.

   Mr. Key Sun has made the tape of the section of the CBS report
available to the CBS IC members and many concerned CSS.


o Liason
  ======

-- Media

On May 24, 1994, Mr. Chengyan Liu contacted Mr. John Xie, World Journal 
reporter. He told Mr. Liu that CBS denied any audiences' response on
regard of their May 19th's evening news broadcasting, though a dozen
people had sent their opinions through Internet fax service. Mr. Liu
therefore showed Mr. John Xie the exact fax number. Mr. Xie expressed
his willing for further investigation and possible report.

On May 26th, World Journal published a detailed report on CSS
community's angry response to CBS May 19th "Eye on America" program. It
cited Xiaolin Li's protest letter, IFCSS HQ's inquiry letter and other
opinions from Internet. CBS released an official statement to World
Journal that "there is nothing wrong with May 19th CBS report and they
regret to hear CSS community's outrage response. All its news
broadcasting is aimed to be objective".

Liang Er has contacted several reporters, and some other american and
chinese civil rights groups. Among them, there are  Mr. liu kaiping,
journalist in tsing tao daily, and Ms. zheng hui yan, director for
information center of world journal. all of them are willing to put
efforts in cbs issue from different perspectives.

Xing Zheng has talked to Ms. Qiu Zhao-qi, a reporter in World Journal,
on May 29, and was told that a similar essay was posted in New York
Times in Feb.  She was planning to study this subject and might publish
on this issue.  She was willing to seek cooperations in this regard from
Chinese students and scholars, and try to get more complete information
and data.


On June 2nd, IFCSS President Lin Changsheng told Chengyan Liu that there
was a phone call from CBS to acknowledge acceptance of the inquiry
letter. CBS also said to Mr. Lin that "it is a mistake. the program is
based on a book." When Chengyan Liu asked Mr. Lin what is a mistake, and
on which day from whose office this call was made, Mr. Lin couldn't
remember since he is still in hunger strike and weak.

From June 12 to 14, Mr. Liu Chengyan and Mr. Huang Lin communicated with
reporters from New York Times and New York Daily News. The New York
Times is interested in CBS incident only there a lawsuit pending, and
did not carry the article prepared by the reporter.  However, the New
York Daily News carried an report by reporter Miss Ying Chan.  (See
Appendix 3.6)

Liang Er communicated with Mr. Gary Gach, a reporter in Asian Week,
which he claims as the largest English Chinese newspaper or magazine.
They are doing some article on CBS incident.  Following is an excerpt of
Mr. Gach's message to Liang:

> my editor, at the newspaper, took 2 weeks
> to digest the initial material i gave her about
> the incident, and sam cacas finally wrote
> something which is being published.  i told him
> i'll be giving him some follow-up stuff, and will
> be glad to give him your number, and so forth
> and such like.



-- Organizations

  tfeng@ARL.MIL has compiled a list of advocacy groups for further contact.

  YANG Chang-Qing has compiled some e-mail addresses

president@whitehouse.gov !President
vice.president@whitehouse.gov !Vice President
nightly@nbc.com !NBC Nightly News
bwreader@mgh.com !Business Week Magazine
71154.1006@compuserve.com !U.S. News & World Report Magazine


IFCSS Council member Liang Er called Mr. Henry Der, Executive Director
of Chinese Affirmation Association, Ms. Dorothy Lee, Executive Director
of Alliance of Asian and Pacific Minorities, and Mr. Charles Cheung,
Vice President of Alliance of Hong Kong Chinese in the United States.
The above three organizations have put tremendous efforts in the works
for the welfare and civil rights of Chinese and other ethnic minorities
in the United States and against any discriminations. They also have
fought together against KFRC, a radio station in California, for a
broadcasted racial joke about Chinese, and successfully got open
apologies from Mr. highs, President of KFRC. Mr. Liang informed them to
pay attentions to this issue and to collaborate with and help IFCSS in
any further actions.


Liang Er also has made contacts with Mr. Jing Lin,  Silicon Valley
Chinese Engineers Association, which had  located a lawyer to sue CBS
for its May 19th evening news broadcasting.


As a Council member, Mr. Liang Er has taken a lead in informing the
Council about the CBSIC activities and actively coordinating between the
Council and the CBSIC.

June 10, Mr. Luo Ning and Mr. Frank Cheng contacted three Chinese
community organizations in the New York City metro area: Mr Hsin-Yuan
Cheng, President of Sino Radio Broadcasts Corp.; Mr Alfred Lui,
Executive Director of NY Chinatown Senior Citizen Coalition Center; and
Mr Z. Ming Ma, President of United Chinese Congress.  Frank Cheng, a
member of this committee, went together with me in the meeting with Mr
Ma of UCC.  Luo briefed them the CBS program on 5/19, the letter of
IFCSS VP to CBS, the establishment of our committee and networks, the
replying letter of CBS VP to IFCSS, and some of works we have been doing
such as news releases, letter campaigns, etc..

The persons Luo and Cheng had contacted with expressed their strong
support to us and solidarity in this cause of protecting the image of
Chinese people in the US.  They were not surprised that Connie Chung had
done such a program damaging the interests of all Chinese people in this
country based on their past experiences about Ms Chung.  They suggested
that we must be cautious and well-prepared in this collective action
against the media giant CBS.

Huang Lin contacted the ACLU and the NAACP on 15th of June. The ACLU
expressed that they only sue government, not CBS.

Mr. Liang Er reported that many Chinese community groups in San
Francisco Bay area who expressed concern and anger over the CBS report
have received responses from CBS within the last 10 days. However, they
are all similar to the response IFCSS have received. These groups
planned to do some of the following things: a press conference, a
protest in front of CBS's local station, a law suit, an ad on newspapers
to protest CBS.


Huang Lin contacted CAST. The CAST President Zhang says he has 1500+
members over 27 states. We discussed future co-operation aspect. CAST is
a non-political organization, and Huang confirmed him our CBS-IC is a
non-political organization and nothing else. Huang passed our protest
letter to him, and he highly appraised the work has been done so far,
thanks to Xiao Dong's background research, Ray Wang's professional
English and many other's hard work. CAST will send a coordinator to our
committee, and further co-operation is underway.

We also discussed the possibility of using the facts in the prospective
law suit against CBS that many high-power Chinese professionals are
under deep depress due to the CBS report, which, hopefully will avoid
the difficulties in either locating a actual victim or conducting a
costly public opinion poll. Dr. Zhang promised he will seriously looking
into this possibility. He told he himself is depressed since his company
has defense contract and routinely checks employees' communication
messages. CAST members are scatted mainly in eastern region, and an
internet connection between CBS-IC and CAST will soon be set up.


Frank Cheng (cheng@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu) was invited to the board
meeting of CAST (Chinese Association of Science and Telechnology) on
July 17 at Manhattan,NYC, I briefed them the CBS incident, the CBS-IC,
and the wonderful work done so far by Mr. Huang Lin and other hard
working committee member.  In response to the request for cooperation in
fighting against the CBS' report, Mr. Zhang Qiu, the president of CAST,
expressed they would help us in the following ways:

1) Collecting signatures: There are about 1,500+ professionals in the
list of CAST's members ( I obtained a copy of it). They authorized us to
include all its members in the signature list at this moment, and remove
those who don't want to sign up upon request. (They will make a survey.
We should wait for the result which may come up early next month.)  Mr.
Zhang promised to solicit more than 100 organizations to join our
signature  petition.

2) Fund raising: Mr. Zhang promised to lend us an account for fund
raising. If we want to raise fund, he would like to see the itemized
expenses first.




o News Release
  ============

In order to reach out for support at the grass-root level, and voice the
concern of ordinary Chinese, the CBS Incident Committee distributes
News Release electronically to Chinese communities.

Ten regular issues have been distributed as of 7/20/94 (once every five
days on average). In addition, special editions were released in cases
of special events.

Each regular issue of News Release have four parts: I. General Information
concerning the CBS incident (such as announcements, protest letters).
II. Case Study of Legal Issues, including feasibility study, strategy study,
etc. III. Activities of the CBS Incident Committee and Chinese communities
concerning the incident. IV. Suggestions from subscribers. The editor of
Part I and II is Miao Ye, while the editor of Part III and IV is Xiangdong Shi.
Past issues can be found by anonymous ftp from ifcss.org: ifcss/Legal/cbs.
Mr. Chen Dong maintains the archive.

Our news releases enjoy a broad spectrum of readers.

The releases are distributed to fcbs-l@ifcss.org net, Usenet newsgroups
soc.culture.china, talk.politics.china and alt.chinese.text, china-net,
china-news-post net, ccnl net, cssa net and IFCSS archives. Our direct readers
are estimated to be at least 5,000, mainly from North America. They consist of
not only Chinese from mainland, Taiwan and HongKong, but also non-Chinese.
Each week, the editors receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of
electronic mail from readers. They have become the steam of our Committee.
Many of the suggestions from readers have become solid actions of the CBS
Incident Committee. At the meantime, the Committee gain support widely by
reaching out, collecting more than 1,300 signatures within two weeks for
its first round of protest letter campaign.

Editing Board members:

Miao Ye         (my@math.luc.edu)
Sheldon Shi     (shi6@oddjob.uchicago.edu)

In addition to News Release, the CBS Incident Committee has edited
Internal Communications, organized by Jienan Chen.

Initial proposal includes 4 editors, a cross review and then  assemble.

==> Categorization:

        (1).  General (weekly or as appropriate) ------> Jienan Chen

                Ideas, goals, strategies, organizational structure
                (introduction of internal work bodies), etc.

        (2).  Activities (weekly) ------> Miao Ye

                Compile updates of committee activities (such as
                media interviews, contacts with other orgs, legal
                preparation, letter campaigns, surveys, activities
                of various internal work bodies, etc.).

        (3).  Releases (weekly or as appropriate) ------> Yang Changqin

                Official statements (including position statements,
                news releases, briefings, comments), announcements,
                supporting documents (including info packages),
                guidelines, etc.

        (4).  References (weekly or as appropriate) ------> George Gao

                Tape transcripts, letter correspondence (especially
                official ones), book extracts, legal case studies
                and analyses, etc.

        (5).  Specials (as appropriate) ------> Together or whoever

                Misc. info that can not be categorized or too large
                in volume to be included in the above topics.

==> Format:

        1.  Title.  Let's call it:

                CBS INCIDENT COMMITTEE
                        UPDATE

                        ISSUE #XX
                (Month/Day-Month/Day, 1994)

                (Whoever has more artistic talent, please make it more
                appealing:-)

        2.  Topic (Category): We can put all in one pot or in separate issues
                based on availability and volume.

        3.  Table of Contents (title, author name, # of lines)

        4.  Body content

        5.  Addendum (Coordinator, contact addresses, slogan, etc.)




o Telephone protest
  =================

    Since the CBS slander report on Chinese, many people have called CBS
in New York City to express their outrage.  Here are just some of the
reports made during early weeks of the incident.

    Mr. Liang Er called the office of CBS in New York, and have told
Ms. Beth Constock about the concerns on the report from Chinese Students and
Scholars community. I have expressed that we hope CBS could make more
further investigation upon this issue, and give us a correct explanation and
apology. I have also asked her to deliver the same message to Mr. Laurence
Tisch, President of CBS.

    Herb Ho called CBS headquarters and got transferred to the director
of its Audience Services Department. (6/1)

    Mr. Dong Xiao had made many phone calls to various CBS personnel relating
to this program, and posted a list of phone numbers.

1. CBS switchboard:  (212) 975-4321.

   At this phone number you can inquire phone numbers of any CBS personnel,
you'll be transferred to the Communication's Department where they will find
the phone numbers for you.

   You can also ask to register your complaint, you will then be transferred
to recording machines to make a recording.

2. CBS Evening News:  (212) 975-3691

   Here at Evening News you can talk to a person who takes down the complaint
about the CBS report slandering Chinese.  You might be advised by the person
to write a letter, but since you already called, you should get her to write
down whatever you have to say and pass it to the guilty party.

3. Eric Ober's office:  (212) 975-6581

   Mr. Ober is the president of CBS Evening News, vice president of CBS
and he is responsible to authorize the news program (all news programs)
to air.

4. Connie Chung's office:  (212) 975-7192

   Ms. Connie Chung is not only the person who read the report.  She came
up with the original idea.  She and the Producer Tom Anderson went to China
to meet Premier Li Peng to produce this news piece.  Another Executive
Producer of this program is Eric Sorenson.


o Protest letter Campaign
  =======================

Upon the outcry of the Chinese students and scholars, many of whom had
contacted the IFCSS headquaters by phone and e-mails, urging the IFCSS
to take action against the CBS slanderous report, the IFCSS Vice
President, Mr. Heping Shi, mailed an inquiry and protest letter via
Federal Express to CBS Vice President Eric Ober on May 23, 1994. The
letter is included in CBS-IC News Release Issue 1 (Attachment 3) and the
protest letter campaign package (Attachment 4).


On May 20th, 1994, after some discussions on newsgroup
soc.culture.china, Prof. Li Xiaolin, Purdue University, drafted a
protesting letter to CBS for its May 19th's evening news broadcasting on
hinted Chinese espionage in the United States. Until May 23rd, he has
received more than 200 co-signers. On May 24, 1994, Dr. Li Xiaolin
mailed the protest letter via Federal Express to CBS President, Mr.
Howard Stringer with co-sign signatures. Several days later Dr. Li sent
more co-sign mails to the CBS.

Some sample protest letters are carried in CBS-IC News Release Issue 1,
written by Xiaohong Wang (0005678497@mcimail.com), Muguang Wu
(wuxx0015@gold.tc.umn.edu), Jianxiong Song (songjian@STUDENT.MSU.EDU),
and Jinsong Xiao (xiao@mbisgi.umd.edu).  See Attachment 3.

Mr. Rui Sun drafted a letter, distributed it to everyone at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, ask people to sign individually before
sending it through all channels, mail, fax or e-mail etc to CBS.

Herb Ho wrote a letter and distributed to may computer newsgroups.
around June 1.  (See Appendix 3.4)

An e-mail fax site for Connie Chung at CBS was located.  It is:
remote-printer.Connie.Chune/cbs@9.1.5.1.5.7.9.2.1.2.1.tpc.int

After the initial protest, on June 1, the vice president of CBS Hard
News and Special Events sent a letter to IFCSS vice president Mr. Shi
Heping, in response to his inquiry of the CBS report. In the letter, the
CBS VP said CBS stands by its report. He also said that Chinese Ministry
of State Security had recruited hundreds of ordinary Chinese citizens to
steal U.S. secrets based on U.S. intelligence and CBS reported concrete
examples of this having occurred. He also cited that between 1986 and
1993, one in eight of illegal export enforcement cases closed by U.S.
Commerce Dept. involved P.R. China.

To respond,  the Committee started a major letter campaign offensive.
Dong Xiao, Huang Lin and Ray Wang drafted a protest letter with help
from Committee of 100 and Marc Forino, one of Committee's legal
advisors, in reply to the CBS vice president Lane Venardos.

The letter has gone through numerous versions and discussions among the
committee members, legal consultants.  The final version 5.40 was
released on July 9th, CBSIC's News Release.

About the letter campaign strategy.  There are two and only two reasons
to send a copy of the letter to a recipient.  One, sending it to the
recipient will help us to make our concerns go public.  Two, sending it
to the recipient will apply pressure to CBS in public. The letter will
be sent to

CBS President Howard Stringer
CBS Vice President Eric Ober
Producer Thomas Anderson
Producer Eric Sorensen
News Anchor Connie Chung
News Anchor Dan Rather

Major national newspapers
Local CBS stations

US congress members   (cpeng)
government agencies   (Jinping Shi  ,
                       cheng@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu)


by means of

) E-mailable: we can send to those without costs, so no great concerns,just
   need to put them into a single file, so we can send our barrage's in one
   shot;
2) Faxable: those may be sent through internet, we have several volunteers
   who can do exactly this. But please put them into a manageable file;
3) Postal mailable: those will incur costs, so please sort them into
   first priority; second; and third. The first priority group is what
   we will send out anyway; the second we will, and the third if resources
   permit.

On 20th of June, our National Coordinator Huang Lin was informed by a
caller from Committee of One Hundred (a celebrity Chinese-American an
Organization including Connie Chung)  that Connie Chung confessed to her
sister that she has gotten 1000+ initial protesting letters so far.



o Legal actions
  ==============

    A most favorable means of legal action is a class action suit
against the CBS libel.

There are many reasons to file a lawsuit.

First, whether we can win or not, a lawsuit is one of the few
powerful signals that we can hope to send to CBS to say
that we do not accept its slandering. In other words, the filing
of the lawsuit itself is important, since it can effectively show
that we do take the matter seriously.

Second, the lawsuit will itself make news to the media and thus
generate the publicity that we so much need and desire. With
some good public relations work, we can provide a news peg for
the journalists every step of the way, making it expedient for
the media to write their stories. On the whole, sustained media
attention will only do us more good than harm.

Third, the lawsuit will put pressure on CBS to take us seriously.
The best thing that can happen to us is that CBS retract its
infamous story and apologize publicly to the Chinese community.
As the lawsuit drags on (a lawsuit of this nature usually takes
a long time to conclude), CBS may find it in their interests to
settle the matter out of court by "voluntarily" redressing the
wrong that it has done.

Fourth, it is not out of the question that we win. Mi Mi's concern
over the proof of "intent" is understandable, but may not be
entirely warranted. Intent in the eyes of the law does not always
require the element of deliberateness, as Mi Mi seems to have
assumed. Recklessness and wilful blindness to the nature or
consequences of one's action are often equated with intent by
the court. Besides, since we as plaintiffs are not public
officials, CBS will have to bear the burden of proof, which
means once we prove that we have suffered damaged or that the
publication was libellous per se, it will up to CBS to disprove
intent, not up to us to prove it.

The more problematic issue is whether we can by proper rules
of construction establish that the CBS story was libellous
per se. If we cannot, we will have to demonstrate damages, which
can be something that everyone knows about but few can sufficiently
prove in the court of law.


    Many committee members are involved in consulting the lawyers to
explore the legal option.  Most contacts are made by:

*   Luo Ning and Huang Lin
*   Liang Er
*   Liu Cheng Yan


    Mr. Zhang Qingsong has forwarded a list of possible legal assistance
groups to CBSIC for further contacts around end of May.


1) Legal Consultations:

   Front 1:  Luo Ning and Huang Lin
   ================================

    In June 1, 1994, Huang Lin wrote a letter to Legal Referral Service
in New York City requesting reference for lawyers specializing in libel
suits.  Appendix 3.1 is the content of the letter.

    The Legal Referral Service has recommended several lawyers.

    On July 6, 1994, Mr. Huang Lin and I met Mr. Arthur Block, an attorney
in downtown Manhattan, on behalf of the CBS Incident Committee.
We discussed the possibility of filing a
lawsuit against CBS on its 5/19 program. Mr. Block is a high profile solo
practitioner in New York City, specialized in libel, slander and civil rights,
especially in political and minority cases, referred to us by the Bar
Association of New York City. By the way, the Bar Association of NY has
provided us with three attorneys but Mr. Arthur Block was the only one who has
arranged a meeting with us. Mr. Arthur Block is a Harvard graduate.

Our purposes of the meeting:

(1) To explore the possibility of filing a lawsuit against CBS;
(2) To seek legal advice in a more broader base;
(3) To bargain for pro bono service or contingent payment.

We had presented the following documents:

1) Transcript (copy from CBS original documents) obtained by Luo Ning from CBS
   directly;
2) CBS VP's letter to Mr. Shi, a retyped copy,
3) Xiao Dong's Background Study  #13, which shows the illegal export case
   involves China is 3%;
4) Our News Release #1;
5) The tape of the 5/19 report.
We could not bring the spy book because it has been out of stock in New
York City.

Mr. Arthur Block examined the material we had brought to him with keen
interest. He understood our outrage instantly and pointed out all the fear we
had, and all the possible impact of this report would have on our job
application, background clearance, social discrimination and so on. He also
pointed out that this report is not balanced, and that is interesting to have
a Chinese American to report this program.

(1)   Mr. Block pointed out that we don't have a case against CBS at the
moment from the evidence we presented to him,  due to the protection of the
First Amendment over the news media. If we are going to proceed with class
action suit, we would have to, according to him, prove that CBS intentionally
and maliciously presented false information, which is very difficult.

(2)   On the other hand, Mr. Block suggested that we might consider to go
after the author of the book, or his employing government agencies.  The
author, Mr. Eftimiades in this case, does not have the kind of protection by
law that a news agency enjoys.  And such a book written by a current agent is
very unusual, and Mr. Block pointed out this instantly. What we need to do is
to find out evidence in the book which are both false and defamatory.
Furthermore, since Mr. Eftimiades is a current employee of an US government
agency, if we could find any evidence of linking some government policy with
discrimination or slandering against minority ethnic groups, then there will
be a case against the government. As an example, Mr. Block specifically
mentioned the Waco case in which FBI is charged with defamatory of the
Davidian Church and sending the government agents to confront them. To file a
freedom of information act is one way to probe such useful information for us.

(3)   We asked the possibility for him just to file the lawsuit against CBS.
He declined and said that a reputable lawyer would not file a lawsuit with
little legal bases.

(4)   Mr. Block is very interested in offering legal advise to us with
respect to other means of protest such as boycott.

(5)   He mentioned one interesting avenue:  Every seven years, the license
of local stations of TV networks have to be reviewed and renewed by Federal
Communications Commission, and this is a channel for people complaining
against unfair practices of TV networks.  The New York State's reviewing is
coming up soon.  There must be also other states which are going to review the
license this year. This is a great opportunity for us.

(6)   Unfortunately, Mr. Block is a solo practitioner and his pro bono time
has been used up.  It is difficult for us to pay for his service without any
definitive goals.  His rate is $200 per hour. However, Mr. Block is very
interested in our case if we have found any trace of wrongdoing by the author.
He expressed he would grant us another initial consultation at the same rate
if we come up with new evidence against the author and/or the government.

      The meeting lasted for about 45 minutes.  Huang Lin paid $25 for the
referral consultation, which was supposed to be 1/2 hour.


   Front 2:  Liang Er
   ==================

   Liang Er has contacted Mr. Dan Callister, a famous lawyer on civil rights.
The general opinion is that it is very difficult
to win this case if we file a lawsuit against CBS.

Liang Er also talked to Mr. Richard Shure, a lawyer in D.C. Liang Er told
him that we can make more publicity for this case once we file the
lawsuit, and through publicity we can fight against CBS more sufficiently,
he agreed to start to check related legal regulations in D.C.,
 study the transcript and prepare to file a lawsuit.
Liang Er has sent a copy of the tape to him.



   Front 3:  Liu Chengyan
   ======================

    One June 5th, Liu Chengyan reported that he contacted a lawyer (Chinese)
who is interested  in class action law suit, and worked on locating potential
victims.

2) Identifying a Direct Victim of the CBS Report
================================================

It was from the network we first identified a potential victim. Xiao Dong
first located a posting from the S.C.C and reposted to the network. Xiao
Dong's posting also had himself been identified as a potential volunteer of
the committee and he gladly accepted the invitation. Xiao Dong's contribution
then proved to be crucial to the committee.

One day later, when Liu Chengyan was probing into the legal aspect in the
middle west, this piece of information was used to locate the victim.
Unfortunately, the victim did not want to get involved, and even refused to
answer questions.

Appendix 3.2 excerpts the original post on soc.culture.china and some
relevant communications.


o Research
  ========

June 7th, Mr. Wang Gongli, from Committee of One hundred, which
represents some of the established Chinese in the US, called Mr. Huang
Lin on the CBS matter. They discussed the spy book.  South China Morning
carried a half page report in March, and Mr. Wang feared it would not be
contained. Then came the CBS report. He is very cautious about the law
suit. He says he fears that such activity will make the case even worse:
every body will look for that book and make it better known. His opinion
is to make the negative impact minimal, not to stir it.  Based on the
discussion Mr. Huang Lin initiated the research effort within the CBSIC
committee.  Mr. Dong Xiao acquired the book,  excerpts of the book was
discussed within the committee and Mr. Dong Xiao posted a series of
analyses on the book and later continued with the study series based on
other relevant materials.  Mr. Jay Qiu has done library search on
important source materials.

June 11th, after studying the CBS VP's response letter, Mr. Huang Lin
send a memo to the Committee about one of the "facts" the VP used in his
letter.  Mr. Huang indicated that the illegal export cases was said in
the book that, China had 13.4 % of the total such cases. One point is,
what about the other countries? Only a few countries are on the list on
export ban, such as Soviet Union, form east bloc, Iran, Iraq, etc. If,
there are some other countries which had more violation than China, then
why pick up China?   Then the "one in every eight" is not that
impressive. Another point is, at one point the book pointed out some
sales did not hide the final destiny was China. So, all of these cases
are not stealing: they asked the permission to export, it is up to the
US to approve the sale. Huang indicated that if we can point this out,
we will further weaken the VP's letter. So,

Two pieces of information about illegal exports to China, which was
extensively and falsely used as evidence about the alleged spy threat,
are compilations of cases from the US Commerce Department and the US
Justice Department.  We ordered these lists and did statistical analyses
on the data.

   A compilation of the research result is attached.  (Attachment 3)

o Signature and information collection
  ====================================

  Mr. Huang Yinrong is the signature collector for the CBS Incident
Committee.  During the first week of call for collecting signatures,
there are over 1500 people singed up.

  Huang Yinrong is also responsible in collecting all relevant information
such as addresses, phone numbers of various related organizations.

  Xinming Lin compiled the following information:

1. major newspapers, TV networks, periodicals; address and fax number
(no local CBS stations information)

2. major companies; address only.


=============================================================================
 ***  Special Issue: An Urgent Call for Signatures Against CBS  ***
=============================================================================
*** Please send your signatures to huangy@sluvca.slu.edu including the
    signature line in form:

      SIGNED  NAME    UNIVERSITY/COMPANY      E-MAIL-ADDRESS

    e.g.

      SIGNED  XXXXX XX   St. Louis University    xxxx@xxxx.xxx.edu

    Please collect signatures as more as possible. You may use your
    e-mail-address for sending other people's signatures.

*** The deadline for sending protest letters to media is set to July 16, 1994.
    All the signatures received before that date will be included in the
    original letter. All the signatures after that, will be sent separately.



o Boycott preparation
  ===================

Boycott is a option that has under discussion and preparation. Besides a
law suit, boycott is the most effective way to fight CBS. The reason for
CBS to do the spy story is to get more advertisement profit by
attracting more viewers who like special noise. Therefore the best way
to fight CBS is to make it get just the opposite: either pay a huge sum
for a law suit, or lose significantly in ad profit by our boycott
campaign, especially when the boycott is related to the huge China
market.

In the boycott letter to those firms which are doing ad on CBS, we
should say that if they keep doing that on CBS, they will lose business
in mainland China. We also should set a deadline for those firms, after
the deadline we will send a list of offenders to all related government
branches and news media in China. We also could write up stories about
the CBS incident and media in China would love to carry them. WE CSS
could also press on Chinese government to cooperate on the boycott
campaign.

When some firms get scared and dump CBS, the stock value of CBS will
fall and we will bring CBS to its knees. Then an apology and settlement
by CBS are more certain.

This strategy is also easy to launch. If each and every netters send
some letters and stories to his/her hometown and home-province, those
firm would suffer a lot in the Chinese market.  We must realize that
Chinese community itself does not have much weight in against the media
giant CBS. However, our purpose is to make public statement through
boycott.  We should probably not target entire CBS or Connie Chung as an
individual, but the CBS Evening News.  To make the public statement more
effective, we should not only call all the people supporting us to
boycott the CBS Evening News, but also to inform all companies doing
commercials during the program that we are going to boycott their
products, after a specific date if CBS has not made any apology or
explanation in public.  The idea is to push these companies to call CBS
and ask "what's happening?"  Again, the whole thing has to be planned
and managed well.

On June 21 a boycott team has been setup to deal with this option. It
consists of Jay Qiu, Rui Sun, Tianyou Li and Liao Yuan Chen.

We should have a convincing statistical data to prove that we command a
significant portion of the CBS viewers.

There is possibly a good opportunity now for us to achieve a positive
result from a boycott campaign against CBS.  A joint boycott by all or
most of our Chinese against CBS broadcasting will possibly be one of the
most touching action now for CBS.  CBS's evening news is now "enjoying"
the lowest rate of audience population (7 to 8 points) among the three
giant broadcasting Co. ( NBC has 10 points, and ABC has 12 point
respectively).  CBS is also suffering the raid from Fox recently for
their affiliates.   These things may possibly provide us an opportunity
for playing a un-ignorable role to CBS.  If we get 20.000 Chinese people
(about 0.1 point) signed to join together to boycott CBS, and we then
convince Nelson rate company that this is a solid figure,  the CBS's
rate point of audience population might drop down further. If we make
this campaign successful,  CBS will feel deeply our fighting back by
seeing their rate entering into a further jeopardized stage (they will
suffer 1.5 % of further business loss, possible even more since CBS
earned extra credits from our Chinese community by choosing Connie Chung
as Ancho).

It should be not too difficult to launch this campaign.  If one
volunteer collects 1.000 signature in one University campus.  200
university will make 200.000 signatures.




o Survey preparation
  ==================

June 15th, Mr. Huang Lin and Mr. Liang Er discussed our legal options.
Mr. Liang has contacted with several lawyers and they concluded that a
survey may be necessary to prove damages caused by the report.

The essence is, we need the fact that the damage exists. It can be in
two forms:

1) Potential damage, reputation damage. A opinion survey shows the trend
that many Americans who saw the report will think twice to hire a
Chinese IS a reasonable, predictable damage to the group.

2) Factual damage, at least one or two solid case on job discrimination.

If we want to file a law suit, or if anyone else wants to file, we must
have these results.

June 24, Shi Jingping drafted a survey questionare for discussion. (See
Appendix



o Public Demonstrations
  =====================

    There is discussions about public demonstrations.  Liang Er is a strong
supporter of this action, but some other members are not sure about
organizing such activities.  It is not a actively pursued option currently
on agenda.


o Fund raising
  ============

  Fund raising was formally proposed by Chen Jienan to CBSIC on
10th of July, and developed by Liang Er on 12th of July.

At this moment, we have two ways to get some fund for CBSIC: fund raising
mails, applying fund from relevant foundations or organizations.

To raise fund through mails may be the easiest way. However, the cost of
regular mails is relatively high comparing to results. Usually, mailing
responses are around 5-10% of sent-out mails, and the donations may differ
from project to project. However, with a list of 1,500 concerned Chinese
and scholars, we may work out much better using the information highway.

  The IFCSS HQ has discussed with Huang Lin about setting up accounts
on 11th of july.

  Ray Wang drafted a letter.

  A fund raising board consists of

cheng@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu  Frank Zheng
fmg@crusher.concert.net         Fengmin Gong
ji@eng.iac.honeywell.com        Kongyun Ji
mlei@eos.ncsu.edu               minglei
ZLIN@c.scs.uiuc.edu             Zhe Lin


is announced on 13th of July.


o Some Local Activities
  =====================

  Mr. Jiang Ping, President of Chinese Students Club in Stanford, and Mr.
Tang Pengfei, President of Chinese Students Club in Berkeley, both have
agreed to circulate the protesting letter in their local school. Mr. Tang
seems very interested in this issue.

  Mr. Liang Er posted Mr. Huang Lin's letter in the Berkeley
Chinese Scholars and Students Association's net, many people have had very
positive responses, and Mr. Cai Daqing told me that about 20 students have
signed on the letter, while only a small portion of the students staying
on campus.

Chen Jienan discussed the CBS incident w/ our FACSS/UF leadership and
a meeting (picnic) was held to collect signatures and donations
for the FCBS committee.Mr. Yang Lei, past
president of FACSS/UF, and Mr. Yu Senqiu, new president, sent
the names to the committee.


   Song Jianxiong at Michigan State University distributed the CBS transcript,
the National Coordinator's announcement about the CBSIC and the information
about the protest signature campaign in a local rally in MSU campus.

   There is a discussing to have stronger coordination in our nationwide
campaign.

1. Functions of each regional coordinator:

   Each regional coordinator performs definitive projects as we are doing
and going to do, and is responsible for getting things done in the region.

2. Methods

Identify coordinators or contact persons in each institutions and
organizations (not limited to IFCSS members but definitely include all
of them) in the region.  And then pass along the projects to local
coordinators in institutions and monitor the process, get reports and
results. The local coordinators can be either local CSSA officials or
those who are active in fighting this CBS slander.

To include local CSSA Presidents and urge them to set up local/regional
committee and act as coordinators in these schools, and please send
coordinators e- mail addresses to o\us to be included in our nation-wide
committee's list

3. Projects:

   a) Signature collection in the near future.

        The committee will release a letter in response to CBS in
        the very near future.  We expect to collect signatures from
        local institutions each of which amounts to at least in the
        order of hundreds, which should be a achievable goal, since
        this letter campaign has zero risk both politically and
        economically, and certainly is the will of majority Chinese.

        We also expect signatures from American friends, most of whom
        should be willing to sign, unless they really think that the
        Chinese spy threat is real.

        Most importantly, please collect all the Chinese organization's
        information and invite them to join our protest.

   b) Possible surveys

        There is a discussion about conducting a survey about public
        opinions to prepare a law suit.  If it become reality, it
        will be conducted through this network.

   c) Information gathering

        One immediate task is to collect addresses and phone numbers
        of local CBS stations and newspapers, campus newspapers
        and local organizations that may have a interest in the case.

   d) Possible actions against the CBS.

        There is also a possibility to call a campaign to boycott the
        CBS programs and advertisers.  It will be organized through
        this network.



Chapter Four:  Current Status
-----------------------------

    All the working committee are currently pursuing their projects.  
The next round of letter campaign is ready to go.  The letter has
been publicized and more than 3000 signitures collected.  




Chapter Five:  Future Plan
--------------------------

We need concerted actions.  We need to liberate ourselves from some
undeserved fears.  In American politics, if you do not know how to use
the media as well as the legal system, you will get nowhere! Certain
steps can be taken to assure our control of the situation.  We can
assign one or a few well informed and knowledgeable people for media
interviews, with prior preparations (consult a lawyer before an
interview). Written news releases is a way to avoid blowout.  Guidelines
can be established for individual initiatives.  As long as we stay cool
and maintain our composure, we should believe in ourselves and feel
confident about our actions.  Interviews and even ads are needed.  No
action, no gain!

We need to work on several fronts simultaneously: lawsuit, media, inter-
organization relations, grassroots campaign, etc.  We have nothing to
lose by filing a lawsuit with good preparation. a lawsuit serves several
purposes: legal redress, pressure that may ultimately lead to an out of
court settlement with CBS (minimum goal: a public or at least official
apology -- then we can release it to the media), newsworthiness, and
community awareness.  Publicity is not a choice but a necessity.  CBS
will not take us seriously, and we may not get a fair hearing, without
generating/manipulating some publicity.


1.  Goals
=========

Minimum goal:   Seek a public apology from CBS to ALL CSS, either voluntary or
            by court injunction.

Maximum goal:  Seek both monetary compensation and public apology by filing a
            "class action" lawsuit.

To achieve the low goal, the following may be done:

(1).  Letter campaign to civil and governmental organizations, such as the
NAACP, ACLU, Civil Rights division of the Justice Department, the FCC, etc.

    A coordinated massive mail campaign has started and is continuing.

(2).  Contact Asian/Chinese civic organizations for help.

(3).  Press release (fax) to major news organizations.

(4).  Targeted demonstration (at CBS headquarters).  One well organized
demonstration will do (for symbolic purposes).

If the 1st step does not produce much result, an organized
demonstration can be held on a certain date in front of the CBS headquarter
and stations around the country.  We don't need many persons to draw
media attention although more is definitely better.


(5).  Class action lawsuit.

To achieve the maximum goal, a class action lawsuit must be pursued.  Remember,
a lawsuit will serve not only symbolic purposes, but also practical
purposes.  Many news organizations may not want to carry our story for lack
of substantiation.  However, they may be willing to report the lawsuit
matter-of-factly.  Also, win or lose, a lawsuit will likely discourage similar
incident in the future.  Furthermore, even without winning the lawsuit and
monetary compensation, a lawsuit will provide an effective platform to
settle the case with CBS out of court for a public apology (the minimum goal).


2. Some Strategies
=================

    First of all we are not fighting any single person in CBS such as
Connie Chung, nor are we against the CBS as a company.  We are fighting
the distortion in portraying the image of Chinese people.


(1) Connie Chung as a person?

        No.  We must avoid any personal attacks, for that only degrades
our own image.  She has done other reports on Chinese related topics, many
of them are good.  We just need to make clear to her and everyone that
those of her good doing does not give her right or privilege to defame
Chinese, otherwise, she is just selling her Chinese identity in order
to please her American colleagues, which no person with dignity will prove.

      However it has to be made
known that a reporter can not escape responsibility for what she or
he did.  If Connie Chung or any other reporters get an idea that
they can do whatever they want to defame the Chinese and only their
company will take the heat, they will continue attacking on us!

   So while the target is the false and distorted report, reporters'
names have to be mentioned
so they know they are the ones who made mistakes and have to be on
the hot seat also.


(2) CBS as a corporation?

        No. What we want to do is to protest its damage to us, and make
clear that such act will not go without getting punished.  At the same
time, we can encourage its positive reporting on Chinese people.

(3) The majority of American people?

        Definitely NOT. What we are fighting against is the anti-immigrant
sentiments among them, which is a sign of the decline of this great nation.
The strongest ally of this fight of ours is the majority of American people.

Can we believe in their conscience?  I do.  As I said before, if we can't,
then there is little we can achieve.  Law is not an empty word.

        In summary, what we are fighting against is not some individual
or some group of people, but her/his/their "bad behaviors".  If someone(s)
insists on "behaving bad", we want to do something to make it costly.
In order to achieve that, we must rely on the support of the "good behaviors"
that everyone has.  This may sound like old rhetoric, but it is an age-tested
wisdom.  The war between "good" and "evil" would be too simple if it is
just between "them" and "us", like some fundamentalists (have you noticed
Oliver North lately?) are doing.  Fighting alone, the chance of winning
is very small.  On the other hand, if we could convey our message to
American people that we are not only fighting for ourselves as Chinese,
but also protecting the fundamental principles of this nation, then we
are much stronger.

        Talking about "good" and "evil", we should not exclude ourselves.
Ultimately, the success is dependent upon our own act.  Our own fear,
impatience, ignorance and arrogance will defeat us if we are unable to overcome
them.  How do we picture ourselves in this society?  A group of "good
boys/girls" who know how to behave themselves but do not care much about
involving themselves into the dynamics of the mainstream society?  Or a
group fight-hunger squadrons?  Neither will get us far or help to rid of
the stereotypes of Chinese people.

        If we are clear about what we want to be, if we are confident that
we are able to establish a positive and participatory image of Chinese
in American society, we will be less frustrated and impatient, and fighting
each other among ourselves.


xiao@scri.fsu.edu
rwang@bingvmb.bitnet