The Uncounted Enemy

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The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception was a controversial television

intelligence officers under General William Westmoreland, the commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MAC-V), had manipulated intelligence estimates in order to show far fewer communist personnel in South Vietnam than there actually were, thereby creating the impression that the Vietnam War
was being won.

In response, Westmoreland publicly rebuked these claims and demanded 45 minutes of open airtime to rebut them. CBS refused the request, so Westmoreland

public officials or figures prove actual malice to win a libel suit against the press.[1]

The case went to trial two years later. The trial,

broadcast, but stated that it had “never intended to assert, and does not believe, that General Westmoreland was unpatriotic or disloyal in performing his duties as he saw them.”[3] CBS subsequently lost its libel insurance over the case.[1] Additionally, serious, in-depth documentaries became produced far less frequently on CBS and the other two major networks of the time than had been the case during the 1960s and 1970s, a development that perhaps coincides with less aggressive investigative reporting on television on all news programs generally since the time of the suit.[citation needed
]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Tom Mascaro. "Uncounted Enemy, The". The Encyclopedia of Television. The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Archived from the original on 2002-06-20. Retrieved 2007-11-14.
  2. ^ Grace Ferrari Levine, “Television Journalism on Trial: Westmoreland v. CBS”, Journal of Mass Media Ethics 5, no. 2 (June 1990): 110.
  3. ^ Evans, Katerine (1987-04-05). "Declarations of Victory". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-13.

References

  • Sally Bedell & Dan Kower. “Anatomy of a Smear: How CBS News Broke the Rules and ‘Got’ Gen. Westmoreland”, TV Guide, 24 May 1982.
  • Burton Benjamin. The CBS Benjamin Report. Washington, D.C.: The Media Institute, 1984.
  • Connie Bruck. “The soldier takes the stand”, The American Lawyer (January/February 1985): 113–119.
  • Grace Ferrari Levine. “Television Journalism on Trial: Westmoreland v. CBS”, Journal of Mass Media Ethics 5, no. 2 (June 1990): 102–116.
  • Walter Schneir & Miriam Schneir. “The Right's Attack on the Press”, The Nation, 30 March 1985.


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