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THE FINAL EFFORT AT A PEACEful settlement of the gulf war epitomized the transition from the old diplomacy to the new. Secretary of State Baker met for six hours with Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz but could not persuade him to accept a manila envelope containing a private letter from Bush to Saddam Hussein. As the meeting ended, both sides readied press conferences blaming each other. Aziz let it be known he would wait for Bush to appear, thus having the last word. White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater quickly telephoned CNN correspondent Charles Bierbauer. Tell your bosses in Atlanta and your man with Aziz in Geneva, said Fitzwater, that Aziz is going to have to speak first "if we have to wait until Christmas." Bush won. Says Fitzwater: "The whole thing took about five minutes to settle. CNN was the midwife on both ends."
CNN has also become a kind of global spotlight, forcing despotic governments to do their bloody deeds, if they dare, before a watching world. Sometimes they dare not, especially when CNN can reach even a relatively few citizens within the oppressed land and serve as a beacon of freedom. During the failed Soviet coup in August, as key state news organs were being taken over by supporters of coup leaders, Russian President Boris Yeltsin showed himself in public atop a tank to rally a crowd nearby -- and a far larger one throughout his nation. He knew that CNN might still be seen by about 100,000 Muscovites and thousands of residents in other cities, a tiny percentage of the population but enough to spread word of mouth that the battle for freedom was not lost. The image of a defiant Yeltsin sent the same signal to the rest of the world and heightened pressure on President Bush to denounce the coup. Historians will debate how much impact this televised imagery had on the outcome. But it is noteworthy that a diplomat representing one of the newly independent Baltic republics jubilantly called people at CNN days later and thanked them for helping to give his country its freedom.
The outcome is not always so positive. Although State Department insiders tell how spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler dragged Baker in to watch CNN footage of China's crackdown against protesters in Tiananmen Square, the only measurable political effect was to distance Baker a tad from the Chinese leadership. Says a senior official, discussing the bloodshed's being seen by the American people on CNN: "It demanded a solution we couldn't provide. We were powerless to make it stop."
In all these cases, many of the same gut-wrenching images could be seen on other networks. But CNN was apt to carry them first around the world and certainly to air them more frequently and at greater length. Moreover, the very existence of CNN has compelled rivals, inside and outside the U.S., to pursue more international news and air more of it live.