Nov 04/05 - Hugo Chávez Unmasked: Nothing but a liar

PMBComments: as was expected, at the conclusion of last night’s edition of Nightline, Ted Koppel did exactly what any self-respecting interviewer must do when they conclude that they have been used as launch pad for the propagation of lies. He set the “record” straight on Hugo Chávez’s “explosive charge” that the U.S had a Plan denominated Balboa that Venezuela had uncovered and which pertained to the invasion by U.S. troops of our country.

He called his bluff by replaying the segment in the interview where Mr. Chávez offers to send him “partial” proof of the documents discovered by Venezuela. Then Ted Koppel succinctly informed his viewers that:

“We need to report that after many requests, over more than two months now, we have received nothing from President Chavez or any of his people”.

Enough said. Now it remains to be seen if the few print journalists and Editorialists who seem to remain in awe with Lt. Colonel Chávez, pay some respect to the dogged, and soon to-retire, Mr. Koppel by including the “liar” label in their stories or editorials. I suggest, that in fairness to fact, they refer to him along these lines, “Hugo Chavez, a failed coup-plotter, who has won a number of elections with an ever decreasing level of transparency and by misusing hundreds of millions of state funds in his political campaigns, and who was recently caught lying on TV in both the US and the UK, and so on and so forth………”. PMB

Note: Koppel did inform his viewers that he had obtained information, from another source (“a former Venezuela Ambassador to the UN” - ?) which effectively identified Balboa as an old “war game” exercise of the Spanish Military (as the US Ambassador Brownfield already did weeks ago).

Transcript:

TED KOPPEL (ABC NEWS)

When we come back, I’ll have an update on an explosive charge.
[commercial break]

TED KOPPEL (ABC NEWS)

And here’s a note just to keep the record straight. In September, I interviewed Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez, arch-enemy of the Bush Administration. He claimed that he had documented proof that the United States planned to invade his country. The plan, he told me, is code-named Plan Balboa.

TED KOPPEL (ABC NEWS)
Can I ask you now, on camera, will you make that documentation available to me?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ (VENEZUELA)
I can send to you -I can’t send all that documentation. I can send part of it to you. I can send it to you.

TED KOPPEL (ABC NEWS)
Please.

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ (VENEZUELA)
I can send you maps and everything. And you can show it to the United States citizens.

TED KOPPEL (ABC NEWS)
We need to report that after many requests, over more than two months now, we have received nothing from President Chavez or any of his people. I did, however, receive a letter from the former Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN, who says he’s very familiar with Plan Balboa. It was, he says, a plan prepared not by the United States, but rather it was a war game designed by the armed forces of Spain.

TED KOPPEL (ABC NEWS)

That’s our report for tonight. I’m Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.