War of Words

CBS accuses an attacker

For CBS News, the struggle to defend its controversial 1982 documentary The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception appears to be, like the war itself, a conflict of attrition fought on more than one front. It is still several months before the $120 million libel suit that General William Westmoreland filed against the network as a result of the broadcast is scheduled to come to trial. But last week CBS was engaged in a heated exchange with Macmillan, the publisher of a new book about the documentary, titled A Matter of Honor.

Written by Journalist Don Kowet, the book is a critical analysis of a January 1982 CBS Reports show, reported by Correspondent Mike Wallace and Producer George Crile. The program accused General Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces in Viet Nam, of participating in a "conspiracy at the highest levels of American military intelligence" to underreport enemy troop strength in order to create the impression that the U.S. was winning the war. Kowet first wrote about the documentary in a 1982 article he co-authored for TV Guide with Reporter Sally Bedell Smith (now at the New York Times). The article charged that CBS violated several fundamental principles of fairness in preparing the broadcast. CBS conducted an internal investigation after the TV Guide story, and subsequently released a report. The network said that it stood by the substance of its broadcast but conceded that one source who supported the documentary's thesis had been allowed to rehearse his interview and look at tapes of other interviews before being questioned. These and other practices are forbidden under CBS News guidelines. Crile was later suspended.

The picture painted in the TV Guide piece pales by comparison with Kowet's book. According to Kowet, Wallace had only a glancing knowledge of the complex issues involved in the documentary, and was reading from cue cards questions written by Crile when he conducted the hard-hitting interview with General Westmoreland that is seen in the broadcast. CBS's most fearsome interrogator, Kowet claims, was little more than "a puppet propped on George Crile's knee." Kowet's conclusion: "CBS had got the story wrong."

CBS News, which for the first time has hired an outside public relations consultant, John Scanlon, to defend it, countered with a barrage of letters and rebuttals from Wallace, Crile and others, charging that Kowet had engaged in "pure invention" and "grotesque distortions." Among CBS's accusations: Kowet had reported as quotations more than 100 conversations without Actually talking to any of the CBS employees involved; he had fabricated an alleged telephone call in which Wallace was said to have enlisted the help of A.M. Rosenthal, executive editor of the New York Times, in downplaying critical coverage of the documentary.

Macmillan then countercharged that CBS was engaged in a campaign to "chill" the publication of the book, which was "ironic for a company that is brandishing truth and the First Amendment as its defense in the Westmoreland case." Said a Macmillan press release: "CBS has created, by innuendo and the carefully selected use of 'buzzwords' familiar to First Amendment lawyers, the impression within Macmillan that Kowet and Macmillan will have to face legal consequences if the book is published."

Was Kowet right about the incidents he reports? Rosenthal told TIME last week that "Mike Wallace never called about the program, and Mr. Kowet never called to check as to whether Mr. Wallace ever made such a call." Kowet concedes that he did not check his account with Rosenthal and says that Wallace refused him an interview. He adds that CBS blocked his access to other employees; CBS denies that it did so. Kowet explains that he was able to "re-create" conversations quoted in A Matter of Honor by using information from a variety of documents and unnamed sources inside and outside CBS.

As for Macmillan's argument that CBS's actions were intended to discourage publication of the book, Wallace responds, "Everyone says this will increase sales." He is probably right. But given Kowet's own admissions about his failing to double-check some of the facts, questions about the accuracy of many of the scenes he describes are difficult to dismiss.