'HISTORY BY LAWSUIT'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150007-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 13, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: February 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150007-6
ARTICLE APPEARED -""
ON Pa l Q
WASHINGTON POST
24 February 1985
Edwin M. Yoder Jr.
'History by. Lawsuit
The scorecard on the great Westmoreland-
CBS encounter seems a bit smudged. But one
unmistakable loser is the impatient attempt to
write history by lawsuit. i
CBS said as much: "Complex and controversial
issues of the Vietnam war," observed itg post-
settlement statement, are not suited to "judicial
determination." If CBS had added, "or determi-
nation by television documentary ," the point
would be more rounded and less sanctimonious.
Though they differed about many things, Gen.
William Westmoreland and CBS agreed in their
i
search. for quick, dear settlement of some very
murky issues. The general, wounded in the
newsroom, had been encouraged to think -he
would find healing in the courtroom. The insult-
ing charge that he'd conspired, for political rea-
sons, to undercount the enemy in Vietnam might
be :leanly repudiated in a yes-and-no fashion by a
libel jury. It was a sad delusion, for neither a trial
nor an hour television documentary can offer.
that ultimate satisfaction. -
The general's original mistake, entangling him
in all that followed, was to work for a coma
minder-in-chief, Lyndon B. Johnson, who tried to
fight a big war without seeming to fight one at
all. Johnson's fear, founded on years of shrewd
observation, was that the Vietnam war might
consume his domestic agenda. Conservatives
who opposed him on civil rights, or Medicare, or
the war against poverty would, he believed, seize
on any big mobilization for war to demand the
suspension of domestic business. They always
did.. This, he believed, was a standard' conserva-
tive tactic, as old as the earliest guns-vs.-butter
contest. Military adventureshad always been the .
nemesis of domestic reformers. This.. time, it
would be different.
So Lyndon Johnson, for what-he deemed good
reason, dodged the usual burdens of war mobili-
zation. He sought no price controls or new taxes
(at least until the 1968 surtax, too little and too
late). He asked for no reserve callups; and he and
Congress tolerated damaging discriminations in
the draft lest more fortunate, more vocal Amer-
icans notice that there was a war on. And all of
this, apparently, for fear that those who opposed
his "Great Society" would notice we were in a
fight and demand that we concentrate on one _.
thing at a time.
Whatever running debate there was among in-
telligence officials, in Washington or in Saigon,
about who might properly be designated a com-
batant was rooted in this wrongheaded design-
in this foolish attempt to fight a war while pre-
tending it was a small skirmish. If battle-order
figures were cooked, or estimates of the enemy
trimmed, this was the start of it.
CBS portrayed all this, darkly, as "a conspir-
acy at the highest levels" to deceive the presi-
dent and others. Conspiracy theories are handy,
and come easily, to journalists and lawyers, neat
ways to make sense of a messy world. But histo-
rians, significantly, seldom find conspiracy a use-
,. ft l or accurate model of the way the world
warks. More often, good people persuade them-
selves to cut corners or make unsound judg-
ments for reasons that seemed to them good in
the heat of the day.
Besides, it would be hard to show that any
president was ever "deceived" by subordinates
about anything (as the CBS documentary implied
Lyndon Johnson was deceived about enemy troop
levels) unless he wished to be. Lyndon Johnson
had not put his highest premium ,on. facing what
he himself was trying hard to keep from upset-
ting the American public.
This, at a guess, is how-history will ultimately
deal with the difficult issues at the heart of the
Westmoreland-CBS case. However guilt is ap-
portioned,-the dilemma facing U.S: intelligence
and military officials in 1967 will be framed less
-simply' and starkly than they must be for pur-
poses of a television documentary or a libel trial.
The measured pace of historical judgment does,
indeed, generate impatience; for as was said in an-
other connection, "in the long run we are all dead."
But for those who do not find conspiracy theories
and other easy explanations satisfying, the winnow-
ing of history is worth the wait.
Meanwhile, those who seek instant judgments
risk the penalty foreseen by Sir Walter Raleigh:
"Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall
follow truth too near the heels, it may haply
strike out his teeth." Both Westmoreland and
CBS are missing a few today:
Approved For Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150007-6