CBS JURY IS TOLD OF OFFICER'S LETTERS CITING 'LIES' ABOUT ENEMY STRENGTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150117-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 13, 2010
• Sequence Number: 117
• Publication Date: January 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150117-4
NEW YORK T IP 'ES
4 January 1985
CBS Jury IsTold of Officer's Letters
Citing `Lies' About Enemy Strength
By M. A. FARBER `.
The jury in the trial of Gen. William
C. Westmoreland's libel suit against
CBS was shown a series of letters yes-
terday in which an intelligence analyst
in South Vietnam wrote to his wife in
1968 that "outright lies" and "truly
gargantuan falsehoods" were involved.
in estimates of enemy strength.
The letters, from Comdr. James
Meacham of the Navy, were intro-
duced by David Doles, the lawyer for
CBS, as part of a wide-ranging effort to
show the network. used. reliable ma-
terial in preparing its 1982 documen-
tary, "The Uncounted Enemy: A Viet-
nam Deception," that is the subject of
As be read from 'the 10 letters-
which Commander Meacham had con-
sistently told CBS did not portray any
"faking of intelligence" ?-. Mr., Boles
asked George Crile, the producer of the
documentary, over and over whether
he had depended on them.
Each time Mr. Crile said he lied; and
went on to explain what he regarded as
their significance. He said the letters -
portions of which were used in the
documentary - demonstrated Com-
mander Meacham's contemporaneous
"admissions" and acknowledgment of
the "perversion of a responsibility to
properly inform the country as to the
nature of the enemy we were fighting."
Called as 'Hostile Witness'
Mr. Crile - who also told the jury of
the many books, Congressional reports
and other materials he relied upon
while researching the program in 1981,
as well as of the intelligence officers of
the "highest integrity" with whom he
had spoken - was called in December
as a .'hostile witness" by Dan M. Burt,
the lawyer for General Westmoreland.
Yesterday, Mr. Boles completed his
cross-examination of the producer be-
fore Judge Pierre N. Leval in Federal
District Court in Manhattan, and Mr.
Burt is expected to follow today with
questions on redirect. , . -
Commander Meacham, who is now
military correspondent of The Econo-
mist, the British publication, served in
South Vietnam from mid-1967 to mid-
1968, when he was 37 years old. He re-
Virtually every day when he was in
Vietnam - where General Westmore-
land commanded American forces
from January 1964 to June 1968 - Com-
mander Meacham wrote to his wife,
Dorothy, in Charleston, S.C. Most of his
letters dealt with such matters as his
living accommodations, his adventures
as an amateur photographer and his
children's well-being.
'No One Would Believe It'
Some of the letters, however, con:
tained starkcomments on the progress
, mander Rave em to muel A.
Agency analyst who was writing a book
on a dispute between the C.I.A. and the
military over enemy stren urine
tw~r. In 1981, Mr. Adams became a
paid consultant to CBS for the docu-
mentary, and both he and Mr. Crile are
.defendants in the, trial.
Ina March; 20;1968, letter containing
a reference to Senator Robert F. Ken-
nedy, then an aspirant for the Demo-
cratic nomination for President, Com-
mander Meacham wrote:
"I never thought I, would consider
voting for Bobby, either, but one can
have no small comprehension of the
mismanagement of this goddam war
unless he has seen the outright lies and
the machinations" of General West-
moreland's command.
"I'm not talking about confusion-and
inefficiency, which to a certain extent
are products of all wars," he wrote,
"but about muddle-headed thinking,
cover-your-ass orders, lies and outright
foolishness on the. very highest levels.
The crime is that you couldn't tell any-
one even if you wanted to - no one
would believe it.",
In a letter the next day, the com-
mander sounded the same theme:
"We had a crash project to prepare a
briefing for the press on enemy
strength as of 29 Feb - complete with
viewgraphs. Got it at about 4 - due at
noon tomorrow. Anyhow I stayed until
about 8 and wrote it and the graphics
birds are working on the slides - they
have a night shift anyway. I have never
in my life assembled such a pack of
truly gargantuan falsehoods. The re-
porters will think we are putting on a
horse and dog show when we try to sell
them this crap."
. Just before he finished his tour in
Vietnam, Commander Meacham wrote
that he hoped "it comes out after I am
gone, because the roof may fall in."
"I can't say more," he continued.
"I'll explain when the war's over."
He said in other letters at that time
that he had written a memorandum
and had a-talk with a superior and "let
him know the truth about the doctoring
of the strength figures. Now my con-
science is clear."
He wrote, too, that "the types'.' from
the Defense Intelligence Agency, the
intelligence arm of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, were investigating the situation
because they had "smelled a rat," but
that they "don't really know where to .
look for it. They know we've been falsi-
fying the figures,- but can't figure out
which ones and how."
Matters of 'Interpretation'
In 1981, when Mr. Crile and Mr.
Adams brought up the letters with
Commander Meacham during an inter-
view in London, the commander said
they did not reflect lies, but matters of
intelligence "interpretation."
In unbroadcast CBS film shown
earlier to the jury, Mr. Crile then asked
whether Commander Meacham had
not been "saying that you were manip-
ulating figures to come out with
estimates should oulnotions as to d be? Faking what the'1
gence?"inteW-
"No, no, I'm not saying that at all,"
said the commander. "We certainly
weren't faking any intelligence. No-
body that I have any connection with
ever faked any intelligence."
But what, Mr. Crile persisted, "could
be clearer" than the letters? "You're
not producing honest intelligence re-
po ?
"Well, there isn't such a thing as an
honest intelligence report, there's my
view and somebody else's," Com-
mander Meacham replied. "We quite
clearly didn't agree with the- figures
that we were having to use, but it's not
a question of honesty or dishonesty."
In a pretrial affidavit, the com-
mander said the "exaggerated rheto-
ric" of his letters resulted from his
Approved For Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150117-4
 Approved For Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150117-4
having been "bored" with his job. "I
.ever intended that the harsh language
is those letters be. taken literally," he
said. But in another affidavit, his wife,
from whom he is divorced, said. he
saved the letters because they might be
"of historical importance."
Commander Meacham appeared
briefly on the documentary, confirm-
ing a statement that he hAd been asked
by his superiors to "tamper with" data
in a military computer that held statis-
tics on enemy strength after the Tet of-
fensive of January 1968. But in an
unused part of the interview, he told
Mr. Crile-the episode was considerably
more complicated.
The documentary charged a "con-
spiracy" at the highest levels of mili-
tary intelligence in Saigon to minimize
the size of the enemy to make it appear
that America was winning the war.
General Westmoreland contends that
CBS defamed him by saying that, for
political and public-relations reasons,
he imposed an arbitrary ceiling of
300,000 on estimates of enemy strength,
partly by suppressing reports by his in-
telligence officers.
Although the computer incident in-
volving Commander Meacham oc-
cirrred after Tet, the broadcast main-
tained that much "faking" of intelli-
gence took place before the attack.
And yesterday Mr. Crile testified
that he.had been told in 1981 by former
intelligence officers that, had their re-
ports been allowed to "go forward" to
policyrnakers in Washington and the
public, the "shock'.' of the Tet offensive
would have'been tempered.
Mr. Adams, who contributed what
Mr..Crile has described as "exhaustive
research" to the documentary, is ex-
pected to testify within a week as the
first witness for CBS. Yesterday Mr.
Crile called Mr. Adams a man of
"great competence and even brilliance
in terms of analytic ability" and a' per-
son of "extraordinaryintegrity."
The producer also said it was "al-
most unprecedented" 'in television ? to
have obtained the cooperation - as he
said he and Mr. Adams had - of for-
mer intelligence officers who had
"held major positions of trust" and
who were "making admissions against
their own interests" about "official
misconduct" they had participated in,
or witnessed, in Vietnam....
Approved For Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000707150117-4