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3 Comm. Law. 1 (1985)

handle is hein.journals/comlaw3 and id is 1 raw text is: 00 Communicafhons C cQuarterly publication of the Forum American Bar Association Volume 3 Number 1 Winter 1985 The Westmoreland Case Stirs Up Important Policy Questions for the Public and the Media BY JOHN G. KOELTL It has been called the libel trial of the century, the final battle of the Vietnam War, and the dismantl- ing of a major news network. The rhetoric, of course, refers to Gen- eral William C. Westmoreland's $120 million libel action against CBS and various individuals, in- cluding Mike Wallace, who were involved in the making of the 1982 CBS Reports production, The Un- counted Enemy: A Vietnam Decep- tion. General Westmoreland has charged that the CBS documentary falsely accused him of having been responsible for submitting to Presi- dent Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff distorted and incomplete esti- mates of enemy troop strength in the year leading up to the Tet Offen- A .sive of January 1968. He has claimed that the defendants incorrectly ac- I .. #h .cused him of having participated in a conspiracy to present a decep- ;. - l ...' *i tively optimistic view of the prog- ress of the Vietnam War by delib- ,erately underestimating the size of the enemy forces. The intense publicity about the ,. , lawsuit-including daily reports from the front lines-has made the . ' case increasingly important for the . media because, like the recent rash of other prominent libel actions, it can be viewed by some as a popular judgment on the fairness and relia- bility of the press. Whatever the outcome of General Westmore- 4 . .land's suit, the case already has generated a series of interesting and Continued on page 10 Article illustrations by Peter Hannan

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