Headline, May14, 2013

'''THE FEARLESS HEROINE OF ITALY :

 JOURNALIST ORIANA FALLACI'''

By any measure -Oriana Fallaci, was the journalstic world's most perfectly cut Diamond.

Her interrogation of world leaders such as Kissinger and Qaddafi and Bhutto and Indira Ghandi  -and on and on- make today's big name interviewers look like powder puffs.

This tempestuous Italian Journalist was just one of the kind, just one of Almight God's special creation!

Oriana Fallaci: When I try to talk about you, here in Tehran, people lock themselves in a fearful silence. They don't even dare pronounce your name, Majesty, why is that?

The Shah: Out of excess of respect, I suppose

 Fallaci: I'd like to ask you: if I were an Iranian instead of an Italian, and lived here and thought as I do and wrote, I mean if I were to criticize you, would you throw me in jail?

Shah: Probably.

Her absolute heroic period was that of the 1970s, probably the last chance we had of staving off the complete triumph of   ''celebrity culture.''  Through out that decade, she scoured the globe, badgering the famous and the powerful and the self-important until they agreed to talk with her, and then reducing them  ''to human scale''.

Facing Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, she bluntly asked him, ''Do you know you are so unliked and unloved?''

And she didn't spare figures who enjoyed more general approval, either. As a warm up with Lech Walesa, she put Poland's leading anti-communist at his ease by inquiring:

''Has anyone ever told you that you resemble Stalin? I mean physically. Yes, same nose, same profile, same features, same mustache. And same height.''

Henry Kissinger, then at the apogee of his near-hypnotic control over the media, described his encounter with her as the most disastrous conversation he had ever had. It's easy to see why. This well-cushioned man who had always been the client of powerful patrons ascribed his success to the following:

''The main point arises from the fact that I've always acted alone. Americans like that immensely.''

Neither Kissinger nor '' Americans'' liked that passage when it appeared in all its full-blown absurdity in late 1972. In fact, Kissenger disliked it so much that he claimed to have been misquoted and distorted. In this case, Oriana was able to produce the tape, a transcript of which she later reprinted in a book. And there it is for all to read, with Kissinger raving on and on about the uncanny similarities between himself and Henry Fonda. The book is called : Interview with History.

That title didn't suffer from an excess of modesty, but then, neither did its author. People began to sneer and gossip, saying that Oriana was just a confrontational journalist who used her femininity to get results, and who goaded men into saying incriminating things.

She induced Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to say what he thought of his opposite number in India, Indira Ghandhi.  Mrs Ghandhi was so angry that she declined to attend the following summit. Bhutto had to pursue Oriana, through a Diplomatic envoy. The envoy begged her to disown the Ghandhi parts, and hysterically claimed that the lives of 600 million people were at stake if she did not

During her interview with President Makarios of Cyprus, who was also a Greek Orthodox Patriarch, she asked him straight out if he was over-fond of women, and more or less got him to admit that his silence in response to her direct questioning was a confession. Many Greek Cypriots, were scandalized and quiet certain that their beloved leader would never have spoken that way.

One reputed author, who knew the old boy slightly, took the chance and asked him if he had read the relevant chapter.

''Oh yes,''  he said, with perfect gravity. ''It is just as I remember it!''

More often than not, Oriana Fallaci's interviews did influence History. Or at the very least, the pace and rhythm of events. She was the brilliant Italian Inquisition.Now a lot of people get interviewed, who don't deserve to be interviewed. When you were around Oriana, you knew something big, very very big, was going on.

Oriana Fallaci died at 77 from a host of cancers. With her also died something of the Art of the Interview!

With respectful dedication to the Students and Professors of Italy. See you all on !WOW!.

With respectful dedication to the great Art and Science of Journalism and its brilliant and fearless practitioners!

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless