An interim victory for CBS
When CBS News Producer Barry Lando interviewed Lieut. Colonel Anthony Herbert for a 1971 report on prisoners of war in South Viet Nam, he found the soldier too good to be true: a gung-ho, ribbon-covered lifer who was being quietly drummed out of the Army for uncovering U.S. war crimes. CBS broadcast Lando's report of Herbert's plight, and Herbert later became a talk-show hero among foes of the war; his 1973 autobiography, Soldier, hit the bestseller lists.
For a follow-up story, Lando began checking into Herbert's career and his charges against the Army, and concluded that the colonel...