A MATTER OF HONOR

In January of 1982 a nationwide television audience viewed the controversial CBS documentary "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception". In the program, General William C. Westmoreland, former commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, was accused of engineering a conspiracy, in the year leading up to the Tet Offensive, to suppress the numerical size of the enemy. The resulting furor generated front page news across the country and, along with a cover story in TV Guide, co-authored by Don Kowet, induced CBS to initiate an unprecedented six-week statement by CBS that, while it admitted many of the charges, basically defended the integrity of the documentary. General Westmoreland then filed a $120 million libel suit - the largest in the history of American media. A Matter of Honor is the full inside story of the CBS documentary and its repercussions, is the result of some 100 interviews and 75,000 pages of pre-trial affidavits and depositions. We see the motives and techniques that went into the show's production, and how the CBS investigation was conducted. This book deals with many dramatic issues: the ethics and ambitions of journalists, the honor of a beleaguered general, the value judgments of CBS correspondent Mike Wallace and News Chief Van Gordon Sauter, the pride of a great news-gathering organization, and the rights and responsibilities of a free press in a free society.… (more)