Watching intense Petr Orlov watching American women being verbally abused by American men last week, one could revel in the Cold War being long over.
Without fear of espionage charges, Orlov, a reporter for Russia’s privately owned TV network, NTV, drove three hours south of Washington to join American media comrades ingesting history at the Virginia Military Institute.
He was welcomed no less wholeheartedly by a well-prepared school staff than local scribes from Richmond and Roanoke. The staff members’ solicitous and forthcoming manner reflected a yearlong effort, aided by a New York public-relations specialist in crises, who primed them in case things went awry as they had at The Citadel with Shannon Faulkner in 1985.
Orlov looked onto the humongous parade grounds, replete with enough TV satellite trucks to cover World War III, and himself was testament to a media mandate that crosses all national, racial and ethnic boundaries:
No matter how big or where the story, get a local angle.
In Orlov’s case, the arrival of the first 30 women at the 158-year-old military school meant pursuit of Yulia Beltkova, a Russian who is improbably in their midst. She was a high school exchange student in Virginia last year and has been transformed into a full-scholarship “rat,” the charming appellation for first-year VMI students.
Like all the guys and gals, Beltkova had her hair mostly shorn. But the women bore scant resemblance to even a lipstickless Demi “G.I. Jane” Moore. There is military austerity and, then, there is Hollywood military austerity.
Beltkova and 454 classmates confronted the “rat line,” the start of a six-month, proudly politically incorrect initiation ritual. That means that upperclassmen will yell at her, boss her around, force her to the ground to do pushups and, in similarly subtle ways, test her mettle.
Wednesday’s much-reported highlight–or lowlight, for those who wonder why this stuff still goes on in 1997–was instantly dispatched across the land by the media horde: the eight-minute opening of the ritual.
The freshman class marched into a gray, bleak barracks right out of a 1930s chain gang flick and was welcomed, gulag-style, by a stern senior.
“Rats, look at the men who stand before you. . . . They will teach and you will learn!” said the senior, attired in black-trimmed gray jacket and white duck trousers and whose role might have been suitable for a young Jimmy Cagney.
For sure, there was wariness among the male drill instructors who then heeded tradition and dispersed to hector the rats on the courtyard floor of the four-tier barracks. They did not make a beeline to the women, albeit with a few exceptions, including Beltkova.
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She stood her ground, didn’t flinch and made it through the first day just fine. Orlov, her chronicler, seemed professionally content with, if not necessarily admiring of, the general scene.
“This is not especially American,” Orlov, 35, said. “It’s pretty military.”
“All in all, it’s how the French Legion, the Russian Special Forces and others start off. Pretty military. And for me, as a civilian, it’s pretty disgusting.”
With that lack of equivocation, the Russian newsie opined on the American pressies surrounding him and the spotlight on VMI and related issues of women in the military.
“The female person in the Army is a big story here, and the coverage is pretty sensitive,” Orlov said. “But this male-female thing is very American. I find the press coverage exaggerates the issue, with the whole public-relations thing, trying to create an impression that there’s no difference between men and women.
“I also find a certain touch of hypocrisy. There is a difference between men and women. An obvious physical difference. So all this Pentagon-speak about men and women is pretty funny,” he said, alluding to the military’s groping to deal with the whole matter.
With somber, Eastern European resoluteness, Orlov said, “There is a man and there is a woman, and there is a difference. But if you say that in this country, you are politically dead.”
I’m sorry I didn’t have time to amble up to the Lee Chapel at Washington & Lee University, where Robert E. Lee sleeps in marble effigy.
What would Lee, the messiah of the Confederacy, have thought about all these women primed to defend the Union?
Cokie watch
Speaking on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” before the end of the UPS strike, Cokie Roberts opined that President Clinton was “concerned that it looks bad that he’s gone off to Martha’s Vineyard while blood supplies are not getting delivered. You know, it’s always awkward for a president to take a vacation when anything of any import is going on.”
When the topic arose of Clinton invoking the Taft-Hartley Act and ending the walkout, Roberts said, “I suppose if it dragged on for a long time the president could do something like declare a medical emergency for the transplants, those kind–those things that are not getting delivered.”
The notion of blood not being delivered was a myth, in part inspired by a single, maladroit press release Aug. 7 by one blood group, America’s Blood Centers.
For starters, most blood is delivered by air, via FedEx and Airborne Express. By the time of Monday’s NPR commentary, a little reporting would have made this all clear.
“I have no knowledge of any of our 3,000 hospitals, our customers, being negatively impacted due to the strike,” said Don Kirchoffner, chief of biomedical services for the American Red Cross, which supplies 45 percent of all blood.
“I tried to track down the reports (or problems) and didn’t come up with anything. I don’t know of any units having been lost,” said Eric Slayton, head of strategic planning and communications for the American Association of Blood Banks, an umbrella group representing the Red Cross, ABC and all blood blanks.
As for America’s Blood Centers, a spokesman conceded Friday that “we don’t know of any patients adversely affected” by the strike.
Dog days
The Tribune and other media not with the president on his three-week Martha’s Vineyard vacation need not feel guilty yet.
Judging by the daily press briefings, it may be tough for newsies to justify putting fingers to keyboard. A snippet from Friday’s, overseen by White House aide Barry Toiv:
Q: Were you able to determine whether the president was given anything at all for his birthday?
Toiv: I’m going to get a–yes, he was, and I’ve had a little bit of trouble getting a full description, but I know he received, I understand, a very lovely sculpture from the first lady.
Q: Can you describe it?
Toiv: That’s the part I’m having trouble with.
Q: Was it a person, an animal, a thing?
Toiv: I’ve given you all I know about it.
Q: What about from Chelsea?
Toiv: And Chelsea, I’m going to find out today too.
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Q: Regarding his private schedule for today, do you have them going to Carly Simon’s restaurant, and do you know what Hillary’s doing?
Toiv: I think I answered that question.
Q: Do you have anything more on last night? Did Mrs. Clinton cook dinner or did Mr. Clinton cook dinner? What did they have?
Toiv: Don’t know what they had; believe they did cook dinner.
The rigorous inquiry did extract word that the president did not do the dishes.