WESTMORELAND LIBEL CASE SEEN AS GROUNDBREAKER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500150007-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: October 7, 1984
• Content Type: NSPR

STAT
Appra t 1 For Release 2006/01/12: CIA-RDP91-00901
WASHINGTON POST
7 October 1984
7 tmorelan Libel
Seen r S
. C1 Grow-idbrea
By Eleanor Randolph
Washington Post Staff Writer itary. Some of those observing say
Starched and confident
stood in a Pentagon briefing room
17 years ago, Gen. William C.
Westmoreland showed no visible
reservations when he said that
peace in South Vietnam "lies within
our grasp."
"The enemy's hopes are bank-
rupt," the commander of U.S.
forces in Vietnam assured report-
ers and their audience of. Ameri-
cans, many troubled and divided by
this distant war.
Fifteen years later, in a 90
minute television documentary
called "The Uncounted Enemy: a
Vietnam Deception," CBS charged
that Westmoreland and other high
government officials were conspir-
ing at the time to keep the enemy's
actual strength a secret not only
from the press and public, but also
from the president.
It could be argued, CBS said, that
such rosy predictions about the war
left Westmoreland's commander in
chief, President Lyndon B. Johnson,
unprepared for the Tet offensive in
January 1968 when the enemy
waged a massive guerrilla attack in
spite of Westmoreland's rosy pre-
dictions that their numbers were
waning. Such a tactical blunder,
according to CBS, helped lose the
larger war for public support.
Now CBS and Westmoreland will
defend their versions of this pivotal
time in the Vietnam war, in a trial
-expected to become one of the most
important and perhaps bitter court-
room dramas of this decade.
It is a battle for reputations in
one sense, as Westmoreland's 'at-
torneys accuse the network of bad
journalism and CBS lawyers charge
that Westmoreland hid the truth
about the unpopular war.
But the trial of Westmoreland's
$120 million libel suit against CBS,
scheduled to start Tuesday in U.S.
District Court in New York, is more
than the latest skirmish between
the trial could be the first major and ,
official inquiry into this crucial pe- I
riod of the war.
Years and miles from the conflict,
scholars for the military and the
press also hope for new answers, or
at least new perspectives, about
whether the war was lost on the
battlefield, in the war rooms or dur-
ing the nightly news.
And, as the inner workings of a
major network are revealed, some
other issues also could emerge that
have become emotional in a society
increasingly critical of its press es-
tablishment.
For example, can a public official
sue successfully over press criti-
cism of his job? Can a journalist
.'.have preconceived beliefs about a
' tory?,There also is the even larger
question of whether the press has
become as arrogant now as some in
government and the military
seemed to be 20 years ago.
"Among the questions in dispute
will be whether the high U.S. mil-_
itary command in Vietnam engaged
in willful distortion of intelligence
data to substantiate optimistic re-
ports of the progress on the war I
and whether one of the nation's
most important distributors of news
and commentary engaged in willful
or reckless slander," wrote U.S;
District Judge Pierre N. Leval, who
will try the case.'
As Leval explained last month
when he reluctantly turned down a
request that the trial be televised,
the drama to be played out in his
courtroom is destined to be "a rare
debate and inquiry on issues of
highest national importance."
It also could be a rare opportu-
nity for some of the most reluctant
managers of the Vietnam war to go
on the record ih their testimony
about one of the war's most crucial
periods: the months before the Tet
offensive. - -
The case will feature some of the
big names from the Vietnam era,
ier 1
including television journalism
stars, Also important c
l
ou
d be
some
of the usually anonymous military
and intelligence people who are ex-
pected to tell how they did their
wartime jobs.
The lineup of witnesses available
'for Westmoreland reads like a
"Who's Who" of the Johnson adrnin-
'istration, including former secre-
tary of defense Robert S. McNa-
mara, former secretary of state
Dean Rusk, former CIA directors
William E. Colby and Richard
Helms, Gen. Philip B.- Davidson,
'Gen. Joseph A. McChristian and
.President Johnson's special assis-
tants on national security affa r-s,
McGeorge Bundy and Walt W. Ros-
tow.
By contrast, CBS has as potential
witnesses a number. of intelligence
analysts who worked for the Army
and the CIA in Vietnam and Wash-
ington as opposed to the policy-
makers who are potential witnesses
for the other legal team.
As David Halberstam, author of
"The Best. and the Brightest" and
one 'of CBS' potential witnesses,
said: "What you have here is most
of the people who were the sources
for those of us covering Vietnam.
They are the ones testifying for
CBS-the people who actually did
what the brass told them."
As the trial nears, it becomes
apparent that Westmoreland will
try to concentrate on the issue of
whether he misled President John-.
son, instead of whether he distorted
facts to the press, the public and
Congress. It also has become clear
that the big names have become
more important in this trial. .
David Boies, the lead attorney for
CBS, said at a news conference Fri-
day that the policy-makers from the
.era will be asked "whether they
were part of the deception or part
of the deceived."
In . many ' ways, the event that
spawned this legal drama was an
internal conflict between two arms
titans from the media and the mil-
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 ARTICLE APPEARETY proved For RJegseh 6I&14 I V -00901R0005 0150007-3
ON PACE_ 1 October 1984
0
SrnJ Behind the Baitlc
A libel suit now brings to the courtroom this
issue: Was the enemy's true strength in Vietnam
hidden from Americans? What one inquiry found-
Behind Gen. William C. Westmoreland's 120-million-dol-
lar libel suit against CBS-scheduled to open in a New York
court on October 9-is a tangled story of one of the Vietnam
War's most bitterly contested and bizarre battles-fought
not against the Communists but between Americans.
On one side were top U.S. military leaders in Vietnam.
On the other were civilian intelligence officials. Their
struggle centered on an issue that seems remote today but a
decade and a half ago went to the heart of U.S. strategy in
Vietnam: How to measure the nature and magnitude of the
Communist threat in the Southeast Asian war.
The controversy was sparked by a Central Intelligence
Agency claim in 1967 that Communist forces in South
Vietnam were nearly twice as large as was estimated by the
U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-MACV. West-
moreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam from.1964
to 1968, and other top officials rejected the CIA figures as
unrealistic. They argued that the intelligence agency includ-
ed Communist groups that had no offensive military capabil-
ity and were not "fighters."
The battle over enemy strength raised fundamental ques-
tions about the most divisive conflict in American history:
Was Westmoreland's strategy of attrition based on inac-
curate calculations and therefore doomed from the
outset? Were Johnson administration pronouncements
of "light at the end of the tunnel" justified? If the CIA
figures had been accepted, would support for a contin-
ued war effort have collapsed?
The 17-year-old dispute was rekindled by a 1982
CBS-TV documentary, "The Uncounted Enemy: A
Vietnam Deception," which alleged that there had
been an American military "conspiracy" to suppress
intelligence about the true strength of enemy forces.
Westmoreland charged that he had been libeled by the
broadcast and *filed a 120-million-dollar lawsuit against
the television network.
He specifically named veteran newsman Mike Wal-
lace, chief correspondent on the documentary, along
with two news executives and former CIA analyst Sam
Adams, who served as a consultant.
A US News & World Report team has pieced togeth-
er the complex story of the Vietnam and Washington
events involved in the lawsuit:.
Challenge From the CIA
On Aug. 19, 1966, a captured enemy document land-
ed on the desk of CIA analyst Adams at agency head-
quarters near Washington, D.C. From it, he concluded
that in South Vietnam's Binhdinh Province, i rre ar
enemy forces-bottPPR41 d JFiR l i lZM194
militia-numbered more than 10 times official U.S.
military estim2
outside the reg
North Vietnam
Intrigued, h
captured docu
formation to f
figures added
Cong irregulai
mated. This di
explain where ;
manpower to 6
lar army despit
sertion rate."
More research followed, and by January, 1967,
the CIA had decided that Adams and other ana-
lysts who had reached the same conclusion were
correct. Estimates at MACV headquarters of
277,000 Viet Cong in South Vietnam were "far
too low and should be raised, perhaps doubled."
Because of the contradictory figures, military and civilian
intelligence officials gathered in Honolulu in February,
1967, to standardize production of enemy-strength statistics.
A Westmoreland representative was Col. Gains B. Hawkins,
chief of order-of-battle estimates, whose own studies indicat-
ed "far higher" estimates of enemy strength than official
MACV estimates. The two sides agreed that the evidence
pointed to large increases in the Viet Cong order of battle.
But Colonel Hawkins's numbers ran into Pentagon flak. A
team of analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
thought his estimates for political cadres-the Viet Cong's
"shadow" government-too high. The DIA team also consid-
ered the techniques used by both Hawkins and the CIA to
arrive at Communist strength "tenuous methodology."
The DIA officials recommended dropping certain catego-
ries of Communist forces from the military order of battle.
In addition to removing the political cadres, DIA sought to
exclude the self-defense militia, which were poorly trained,
frequently unarmed and contained many old men and
women. They did, however, plant many booby traps and
mines, which accounted for 20 percent of U.S. casualties.
KIM Issue at Heart of Suit
CBS claim: There was "a
conspiracy.at the; highest levels
of American military intelligence
to suppress and alter critical
intelligence on the enemy in the
year leading up to the
Tet offensive
--From a Jan. 23, 1982, CBS Report,
"The Uncounted Enemy. A Vietnam Qeception
Westmoreland claim: "The
`statements :. were false; unfair,
inaccurate and defamatory
"
and were made "with actual
malice; with knowledge that
they were false, unfair,
inaccurate and defamatory"
: ? ` MjR000500150007-3
Wallace
Westmoreland
 STAT
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