By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer
Note: Feel free to discuss this story on Aram Roston's Newsvine column.
In the fall of 2003, NBC News broke the story of an American special forces general, in charge of a secretive Pentagon unit, who had made unusual and divisive remarks about religion and politics. The story caught fire around the world, as the outrage grew over a high-ranking uniformed officer, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, making comments that seemed to disparage Islam.
His name was Lt. General William “Jerry” Boykin, and he was a legendary soldier who was a founding member of the Army’s storied Delta Force. He headed a task force hunting Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and he had served in hotspots from Vietnam to Panama to Mogadishu. In his new memoir, "Never Surrender," the now retired general takes NBC News to task for that story. In particular, he calls me out for my role in the story. Lisa Myers was the correspondent for the story, which appeared on October 15, 2003 on the “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw,” and I was one of the producers (and the only journalist to have interviewed Boykin at that time.)
Our story “stunned” Boykin, he writes in his book. He said, of the NBC report and subsequent coverage, that “the media was using the faith that had been my anchor to club me over the head.”
In particular, my interaction with him seems to have left an impact, and he tries to recreate every word verbatim over several pages. I had called him before the story ever broke, to get his side.
"'General Boykin, I'm Aram Roston from NBC,'" he quotes me as having said. "'You know, you're a controversial character,'" Boykin says I said. He claims I then said, "‘they’ve chosen you to go after these high-profile Islamic figures and you have a track record of hating Islam.'"
I’ve checked my notes for that call, and I'm certain I never said he had a track record of “hating Islam.”
Boykin quotes more from our conversation. He says I said, “'You've made a statement to a Somali warlord that your God was bigger than his.'"
Eventually, he said, he asked me to call the Pentagon's public affairs office, and, although I agreed, he describes how I "would keep agreeing to talk to public affairs but would then ask another question."
And when our story aired the next day, and Senior Investigative Correspondent Lisa Myers reported our findings, Boykin complains, "Aram Roston hadn't listened to a word I'd said."
He was wrong. I had listened closely.
NBC's report:
Here is part of our script from that NBC Nightly News story. It describes how General Boykin, in church speeches that used slides to punctuate his points, outlined that Satan was the true enemy of America:
LISA MYERS: In a half dozen video and audiotapes obtained by NBC News, Boykin says America's true enemy is not Osama bin Laden.
Gen. BOYKIN: Well, is he the enemy? (Picture of Osama bin Laden shown)
BOYKIN: Next slide, Ron. (Picture of Saddam Hussein shown)
BOYKIN: Or is this man the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He's called the principality of darkness, and the enemy is a guy called Satan.
MYERS: Boykin recalls a Muslim fighter in Somalia, who bragged on television the Americans would never get him because his god, Allah, would protect him.
BOYKIN (Beginning of clip from audiotape) Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. Audience: (In unison) Amen.
BOYKIN: I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.
General Boykin also talked politics in his church speeches, inferring that President George W. Bush was installed by God to help America fight in the war against terror. On videotape, Boykin was shown saying: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning he's in the White House because God put him there for such a time as this.”
In our story, Lisa Myers referred to my phone interview with Boykin:
MYERS: In a phone conversation, Boykin tells NBC he respects Muslims and believes the radicals who attack America are not true followers of Islam.
Boykin also questions this reference in his book. "When did I say that?" he writes, in italics. He seems to feel strongly that I had not listened.
What my notes reveal:
But notes of that interview show a different conversation than the one he remembers. (I had typed them up immediately.) Here's what I wrote about the key point: "Says he made it clear in Fort Dix [one of his speeches] that the radicals who attack America are not true followers of Islam. He says he honestly believes that the people who attacked the trade towers are no more representative of Islam than white supremacists are representative of Christianity." And that is why we cited him saying it.
In his book, Boykin writes that he told me, “‘I respect the right of everyone including Muslims to worship as they choose,’ I told Roston. “'I’ve spent thirty three years defending those rights.
There really is not much discrepancy on this point. As my notes have it, he said, "Let me assure you that I spent almost thirty two year defending the first Amendment."
My notes also show that Boykin was very pleasant. And my notes have him saying, "I don’t want to be controversial," and "I don't want to come across as a right wing radical."
In August 2004, the Pentagon's Inspector General largely cleared Boykin of wrongdoing regarding his numerous church-based speeches. The IG did conclude, however, that Boykin violated some Pentagon regulations. And the investigators confirmed that Boykin repeatedly said that Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were not the enemy but that "the true enemy is a spritual one: 'the principality of darkness'; 'a guy named Satan.'"
In the end, I don’t think Boykin puts forward a strong objection to our story. He admits I tried to get an interview with him on camera, and says he would have agreed had I done things differently. He speculates that I was playing “an old reporters’ game: put in a couple of calls, but don’t take the steps that would actually result in a real interview.” It was not a game; I tried hard to get him on camera.
To many, Boykin is a hero and an extraordinary man with an extraordinary service record. Our story was only about his speeches.
Ultimately, even he seems to concede the larger point. In his book he writes, “As I thought more about the way things unfolded, I saw that some of my statements, when taken out of context could easily have been misunderstood.”
This time, again, I tried to reach General Boykin by phone to seek his comment. His publicist "politely" declined.
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