Word: westmorelands
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...mouth and bow tie flopping, to tell a similar number of reporters and photographers that the network also claimed victory. CBS had spent several million dollars defending itself, conducted an internal investigation that uncovered substantial violations of its own procedures, and endured widespread critical judgment that its treatment of Westmoreland had been one- sided. But Sauter asserted that the Jan. 23, 1982, documentary, The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, had been vindicated. Said he: "Nothing has surfaced in the discovery and trial process now concluded that in any way diminishes our conviction that the program was fair and accurate...
...Sauter, then president of CBS News and now its corporate overseer, to order an investigation by Senior Producer Burton Benjamin. Benjamin sternly criticized the methods of the show's producer, George Crile, but did not address most questions about substance. CBS announced that it "stood by the broadcast," and Westmoreland condemned that stance as a "whitewash." Although he had been counseled by former colleagues not to sue because a public figure was unlikely to win a libel trial, Westmoreland accepted the offer of Capital Legal Foundation to represent him; much of the $2 million cost of his case was provided...
Prior to the trial, the case was kept in the headlines by both sides' aggressive efforts at public relations. Much of the publicity favored Westmoreland. Once the suit reached court, Attorney Burt demonstrated that several key former officials who took Westmoreland's side either were not interviewed for the broadcast or, like President Johnson's National Security Adviser Walt Rostow, were left on the cutting-room floor. But Judge Leval counseled the jury that "fairness" was not an issue; Westmoreland had to prove both that the documentary was false and that CBS had good reason to know...
...case, the initiative shifted dramatically. A succession of current and former Central Intelligence Agency officers stated that estimates of enemy troops had been tainted by politics. Producer Crile offered an impressive point-by-point explication of the evidence for each assertion in the program. In the most dramatic moment, Westmoreland's former intelligence chief and close friend, retired Major General Joseph McChristian, testified that his boss had "improperly" held back a cable about high troop estimates because it would cause a "political bombshell" in Washington...
Opinion was divided on whether the outcome in Westmoreland's case, and in the libel case that former Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon lost against TIME, would encourage or discourage libel suits. Said Executive Editor Heath Meriwether of the Miami Herald: "The ability of CBS to put on a rousing defense was well noted, and I would hope that this has raised red flags among potential plaintiffs. Libel litigation has not proved to be either effective or efficient as the forum in which to seek redress for alleged wrongs." First Amendment Attorney Floyd Abrams, whose clients have included...