"The former long-time political prisoner will address Congress," Dan Rather announced when Mandela arrived. TV reporters called Mandela a political prisoner eight times, but never referred to Mandela as a saboteur or terrorist, even though Amnesty International declared in 1985 that "Mandela had participated in planning acts of sabotage and inciting violence, so that he could no longer fulfill the criteria for the classification of political prisoners."
Network reporters did report Mandela's refusal to renounce violence in 14 stories, but most referred to it only in the context of fighting apartheid, not in the context of the ANC's involvement in black-on-black violence or the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.
Arafat, Castro, Qaddafi. Without Ted Koppel's June 21 "town meeting" with Mandela, the tour might have escaped controversy completely. Questioners asked Mandela to explain his praise for Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro and Moammar Qaddafi. The questions were prompted by Mandela hailing Castro's Cuba in May: "There's one thing where that country stands out head and shoulders above the rest. That is in its love for human rights and liberty." A week later in Libya, he praised Qaddaf's "commitment to the fight for peace and human rights in the world." These statements, which appeared in The New Republic, were never quoted on the networks when he said them, or when he visited here.