Key Dispute Over Memories

By William A. Henry III. Sunday, June 24, 2001
    • Retired Major General Joseph McChristian looked straight at the jury in a Manhattan federal courtroom last week, recalling a day in May 1967. He had brought to General William Westmoreland a carefully researched proposal to virtually double the official estimate of enemy troops in Viet Nam. "I stood in front of his desk, and I handed it to him," McChristian said. "I gave him a little bit of background on what it was. He read it. He looked up at me and he said, 'If I send that cable to Washington, it will create a political bombshell.' "

    With that statement, McChristian, who was Westmoreland's chief of intelligence for two years, contradicted sworn testimony by the former commander of U.S. armed forces in Viet Nam. Earlier in the trial Westmoreland declared that he had sought an explanation from McChristian of how he had calculated the troop estimates, and had then disputed inclusion of civilians because, Westmoreland felt, they had a limited impact in combat. McChristian said he never learned what happened to his report, but added, "I think that for a military man to withhold a report based on political implications would be improper."

    While McChristian testified, he did not look at his former boss, who sat 20 feet away. Westmoreland, the plaintiff in a $120 million libel suit against CBS News, has charged that a 1982 documentary, The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, falsely accused him of "conspiracy at the highest levels of military intelligence" to mislead President Lyndon Johnson about the success of the war of attrition against Communist insurgents. CBS contends that the documentary was true and that much of the program's evidence came from Westmoreland's colleagues.

    The trial has been under way since October. In order to win the suit, Westmoreland, as a public figure, must prove that the network either knew what it said about him was false, or acted in "reckless disregard" of evidence indicating that it was false. Westmoreland's lawyers, who finished presenting their evidence in early January, tried to establish that CBS had selectively quoted from some interviews to make them sound more damning and edited out others that benefited his side. CBS, in almost five weeks of subsequent testimony, has attempted both to back up the substance of the documentary and to show that its producers did not doubt its accuracy. The network has presented three kinds of witnesses: CBS employees, military and intelligence officers who worked with Westmoreland, and former soldiers who could attest independently to the damage inflicted by the civilian "irregular" forces. Last week witnesses from all three categories were on the stand.

    McChristian's testimony was among the most dramatic of the trial. He not only attributed to Westmoreland the "political bombshell" phrase, which the commander testified he had never spoken, but also rejected Westmoreland's claim to have disputed the cable on substantive grounds. Said McChristian: "He had the right to question the intelligence, but this isn't what happened at that meeting."

    CBS had a former Viet Nam combat officer, Captain H. Daniel Embree, demonstrate how easily a grenade could be turned into a land mine by a civilian "irregular." Similar booby traps, said Embree, "routinely" caused two casualties a day when his unit was on the move. This testimony, contended CBS Attorney David Boies, proved that McChristian and others were right to insist on including the so-called self-defense-force irregulars in the official enemy-troop estimate, or "order of battle."

    The network brought to the stand Producer George Crile, a co-defendant who had previously been called as a "hostile witness" by Westmoreland's lawyers. Crile asserted last week that he believed Westmoreland had suppressed intelligence estimates for "political reasons," and that he doubted Westmoreland had been "forthright and straight with us" when interviewed in 1981 for the CBS show. Crile's new testimony was offered as proof of his "state of mind," that is, his belief that the assertions of the documentary were true.

    The 17-week-old trial has worn down several of those involved. Westmoreland, 70, and CBS News Correspondent Mike Wallace, 66, the show's lead interviewer, have required medical treatment for trial- or tension-related ailments. But the end is in sight. Judge Pierre Leval allotted each side 150 hours to make its case: Westmoreland has used about 140, CBS about 130. CBS Attorney Boies says that he anticipates calling only a few more witnesses. Among them: Wallace, who is more accustomed to asking questions than answering them.