PRODUCER TELLS CBS JURORS OF RATIONALE ON INTERVIEWS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000707160022-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: December 11, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/12 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000707160022-8
M 1fl .E I~;~~ EARED __
NEW YORK TIMES
11 December 1984
Producer Tells CBS Jurors
Of RaNonale on Interviews
By M. A. FARBER
In an effort to show that CBS was not
objective in preparing its disputed
documentary on Vietnam in 1981, law-
yers for.Gen. William C.. Westmore-
land questioned the program's pro-
ducer, George Crile,. yesterday about
his reasons for not interviewing a num-
ber of officials who held high rank dur-
ing the war.
an M Burt, General Westmore-
land's principal attorney, sought to il-
lustrate at the genera 's $120 mi7Ton
libel trial a ainst CB that e
an his colleagues feared the officials
wo contradict the docii*nen arv'
premise of a "conspiracy" by military
intelligence officers in 1967 to minimize
iffe strength of the enemy.
General Westmoreland was com-
mander of United States forces in Viet-
nam from 1964 to 1968.
Mr. Crile - whose testimony in Fed-
eral District Court in Manhattan began
last Wednesday but was interrupted by
the appearance of. Robert S. McNama-
ra, the former Secretary of Defense
generally said be had no cause to inter-
view the individuals cited by Mr. Burt.
Those officials, with their titles in
1967, included Ellsworth Bunker, the
United States Ambassador to South
Vietnam and General Westmoreland's
immediate civilian superior; Adm.
Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, the com-
mander of American forces in the Pa-
cific and General Westmoreland's im- ,
mediate military superior; Mai. Gen.
Phillip B. Davidson Jr.. General West-
moreland's intelligence chi e after
Robert W. Komer, who
~fficharge of the "pacification"
program in Vietnam and held the rank
of Ambassador.
Mr. Burt said yesterday that in June
1981 General Westmoreland recom-
mended that if CBS intended to be "fair
and objective," it contact most of those
officials, as well as others who were
subsequently not Interviewed.
Broadcast Assertion Contradicted
Mr. Komer testified at the trial in Oc-
tober an contra ct an asse on on
the brow cast that General Westmore-
lan sunntessed a May 1967 remit
b Ma . Gen. Jose h Sa.
X&I a on's predecessor as in-
Gene
yelligence c e on the si?e of Vietcong
irregular forces and political cadre.
At one point, Mr. Burt referred to a
letter written by Mr. Crile in February
i 1981 in which he indicated his intention
to interview Mr. Komer -for the 1982
CBS Reports documentary, "The Un-
counted Enemy: A Vietnam Decep-
tion." Mr. Burt also introduced a docu-
ment from that period in which Mr.
Crile was advised by Samuel A.
Adams, a paid CBS consultant,. that
Mr. Komer was an "impressive man"
and to "expect fireworks."
Mr. Burt closed in on the witness,
saying:
"You didn't interview Mr. Komer be-
fore the broadcast because you were
afraid half the audience would believe
him, isn't that right, Mr. Crile?
But Mr. Crile.said that was not the
reason. Having interviewed other peo-
ple about the same events in which Mr.
Komer figured, he said, "We didn't feel
the need to go to him."
Mr. Burt went on to show Mr. Crile
rttons o a
u-sed
an excerpt from un
m interview CBS with Col.
acts Haw an 'rite li ce o icer
in Vietnam in 1967 who is ei eted to
at ev witness for the network.
Colonel ~lawkins, who told Mr. Crile
in 1981 that he "arbitrarily reduced"
estimates. of enemy strength, ex-
plained in the same interview that Mr.
Komer was "thoroughly, completely
aware" of every figure "presented or
rejected" regarding the enemy, "and
you must assume that he was reporting
to the White House."
"Do you recall Colonel Hawkins tell-
ing you that?" Mr. Burt asked.
? But Mr. Crile said that the portion
seized upon by Mr. Burt did not ad-
equately portray Colonel Hawkins's
views and that, in any case, Mr. Crile
believed in 1981 that the colonel was
mistaken about the extent of Mr.
Kamer's knowledge.
Off-Camera Remarks Excluded
I "You can't take a piece of an inter-
view and hold that up as the sum total
of what Colonel Hawkins told me," Mr.
Crile said.
From time to time in the 10-week-old !
trial, which is expected to last another
10 weeks, Judge Pierre N. Leval has
cautioned witnesses against "debat-
ing" with the lawyer questioning them.
And yesterday, in what he termed his
most forceful instruction yet, he
? warned Mr. Crile to stop making self-
serving "speeches." in clear and
"Let me explain to you
unmistakable terms that that is not a
proper role for you to be playing as a
witness," Judge Leval told the 39-year-
old producer after the jury was ex-
cused from the crowded courtroom.
General Westmoreland contends in
his suit that CBS defamed him by say-
ing he deceived President Lyndon ?B.
Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
about the size and nature of North Viet-
namese and Vietcong troops in the year
before the Tet offensive of. 1968. i
The broadcast contended that the
purpose of the "conspiracy" was to
show that American forces were win-
ning the war.
Mr. Crile, as well as Mr. Adams and
Mike Wallace, the narrator of the
broadcast, is a defendant in this case.
The producer, who will continue on the
stand today, has been called as a "hos-
tile witness" by Mr. Burt, making his
direct testimony virtually the equiva-
lent of a C~ amination.
Yesterday, for example, he brought
out that Mr. Crile "very much" wanted ,
to interview General Davidson in 1981 I
but had believed be was terminally ill ,
with cancer. Mr. Burt asked Mr. Crile
whether it was true that Mr. Adams
had told him six weeks before the docu-
mentary was finished that General
Davidson had recovered.
Not to my recollection," the pro-
ducer replied.
'.
Mr. Burt showed Mr. Crile a question
he a written for ace in gad-'I
vance of an interview wi e
Westmoreland in May as g
whether the general ha ' `confid_en ce '
in the two officers who had served him
as chief of 'rite tiaence.
The contemporaneous notes for Mr.
Wallace?according to Mr. Burt, added:
"We want to get Westmoreland to say
McChristian was great stuff. We don't
give a goddamn about Davidson."
Mr. Crile testified that he had only
wanted ace at that time. to
draw a clear distinction between the
two mte 'pence a s.
" It was important that we didn't mix
them," he told the jury.
General Davidson testified for Gen-
eral Westmoreland in October.
Earlier yesterday, Mr. Crile contra-
dicted Mr. McNamara's testimony that
the 1967 dispute over enemy strength,
statistics was "an honest difference of
opinion..'
Approved For Release 2010/08/12 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000707160022-8