Press: It Was the Best I Could Get

The retired general held his head high for the 200 reporters and photographers at his press conference at Manhattan's Harley Hotel last week. Pale and tired-looking but firm of voice, he claimed victory in his $120 million libel suit against CBS. Although William Westmoreland had withdrawn his case and had won no money, no vindication by a jury and no retraction, he said that a joint statement issued by him and the network had provided the affirmation of his honor that he had sought. The statement said, in part, "CBS respects General Westmoreland's long and faithful service to his country and never intended to assert, and does not believe, that General Westmoreland was unpatriotic or disloyal in performing his duties as he saw fit." Said Westmoreland: "It was in essence an apology. I'm going to try to fade away."

Minutes later at the Dorset Hotel, several blocks northwest, CBS Executive Vice President Van Gordon Sauter arrived for his own press conference, pipe in mouth and bow tie flopping, to tell a similar number of reporters and photographers that the network also claimed victory. CBS had spent several million dollars defending itself, conducted an internal investigation that uncovered substantial violations of its own procedures, and endured widespread critical judgment that its treatment of Westmoreland had been one- sided. But Sauter asserted that the Jan. 23, 1982, documentary, The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, had been vindicated. Said he: "Nothing has surfaced in the discovery and trial process now concluded that in any way diminishes our conviction that the program was fair and accurate." As if to underscore that feeling of triumph, CBS staffers had held a party in a hotel room the night before, and gathered again two nights later at the flashy disco-restaurant Regine's.

With those contrasting statements, which came after 18 weeks of testimony and just a few days before the scheduled end of the trial, one of the most celebrated libel cases in American history was removed from a court of law and placed where legal scholars believed it belonged from the outset, in the court of public opinion. The result seemed to validate the conventional legal wisdom that public figures have little chance of sustaining libel victories % against the press, but to prove as well that their suits can cause significant concern and expense (see ESSAY).

The jurors expressed disappointment at not being called upon to render a verdict. A majority said they had been leaning toward CBS, but some thought each side had presented a substantial case. Said Judge Pierre Leval, who had warned at the outset that the suit could easily turn into a futile effort to re-evaluate the war in Viet Nam: "Judgments of history are too subtle and too complex to be satisfied with a verdict. It may be for the best that the verdict will be left to history."