''The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception'' was a controversial television

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

aired as part of the ''

CBS Reports ''CBS Reports'' is the umbrella title used for documentaries by CBS News which aired starting in 1959 through the 1990s. The series sometimes aired as a wheel series rotating with ''60 Minutes'' (or other similar CBS News series), as a series of i ...

'' series on January 23, 1982. The 90-minute program, produced by

George Crile III George Washington Crile III (March 5, 1945 – May 15, 2006) was an American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News. He specialized in dangerous and controversial subjects, resulting in both praise and c ...

and narrated by

Mike Wallace Myron Leon Wallace (May 9, 1918 – April 7, 2012) was an American journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality. Known for his investigative journalism, he interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his seven-decade car ...

, asserted that in 1967

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

officers under General

William Westmoreland William Childs Westmoreland (26 March 1914 – 18 July 2005) was a United States Army general, most notably the commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army f ...

, the commander of

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense, composed of forces from the United States Army, United States Navy, and United States Air Force, as well as their respecti ...

(MAC-V), had manipulated intelligence estimates in order to show far fewer

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

personnel in

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...

than there actually were, thereby creating the impression that the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

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

sued A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. T ...

Crile, Wallace, and CBS for

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

on September 13. A conservative public-interest law firm, Capital Legal Foundation, brought the suit on Westmoreland's behalf, and its president, Dan Burt, served as Westmoreland's ''

pro bono ( English: 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. The term traditionally referred to provision of legal services by legal professionals for people who a ...

'' attorney. The suit was funded by grants from several conservative organizations, such as the Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation, the

John M. Olin Foundation The John M. Olin Foundation was a conservative American grant-making foundation established in 1953 by John M. Olin, president of the Olin Industries chemical and munitions manufacturing businesses. Unlike most other foundations, it was char ...

, and the

Smith Richardson Foundation The Smith Richardson Foundation is a private foundation based in Westport, Connecticut that supports policy research in the realms of foreign and domestic public policy. According to the foundation's website, its mission is "to contribute to imp ...

whose goals were to kill ''CBS Reports'' and turn back the 1964 ''

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'' rule, which required that

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s or

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prove

actual malice In United States defamation law, actual malice is a legal requirement imposed upon public officials or public figures when they file suit for libel (defamatory printed communications). Compared to other individuals who are less well known to the ...

to win a libel suit against the press. The case went to trial two years later. The trial, ''

Westmoreland v. CBS ''Westmoreland v. CBS'' was a $120 million libel suit brought in 1982 by former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland against CBS, Inc. for broadcasting on its program '' CBS Reports'' a documentary entitled ''The Uncounted E ...

'', was approaching its end in 1985 when Westmoreland suddenly dropped his lawsuit, citing a statement by CBS that Westmoreland interpreted as an apology. CBS did not retract anything that had been said in the

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, 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.” CBS subsequently lost its libel

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over the case. 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.

Notes

References

* Sally Bedell & Dan Kowet. “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. *Bob Brewin and Sydney Shaw, ''Vietnam on Trial: Westmoreland vs. CBS'', Atheneum, 1987. * 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. CBS Reports 1982 in American television American documentary television films Documentary films about the Vietnam War 1982 documentary films 1982 films Pentagon Papers 1980s American films {{documentary-tv-film-stub

See also

Notes

References