Cambodia - What Now, What Next?; 5; The Media and the Military

we now present cambodia what now what next a series of six broadcasts produced ford oh we already are white students at the columbia university graduate school of journalism this is the first in the series dealing with the media and the military now here's mark estrin executive producer of cambodia what now what next some people in the united states are sure they know just what role the mass media should assume in reporting and commenting upon great issues and major events one of the surest his vice president spiro agnew i mean to communicate directly with the people an ak and then the use of the us

without having to show critics in even the us at but the prejudice hostile critics home agnew sees all around him are less sure of the media's proper role in the reporting of the indochina war that is the vice president himself george peterson reports journalists love to talk about journalism so we brought four of them together in a studio at the columbia university graduate school of journalism and said talk they did trading insights facts opinions complaints and an occasional compliment in a mix that rarely if ever appears in print or on the air three of the four journalists are veteran vietnam correspondents jonathan show for the new yorker magazine ron milligan for westinghouse broadcasting and frank mcculloch former saigon bureau chief and current new

york bureau chief for time magazine before the journalist fred friendly was president of cbs news from nineteen sixty four to nineteen sixty six and is currently the television consultant to the ford foundation one word objectivity rancher the discussion like a thread through a suit jonathan shell the new yorker writer thinks the words blinded some of his fellow journalists reason that objectivity it's become discredited has been that people have decided that in order to be objective you have to take the middle of the road positions and these are people who would have gone to a nazi concentration camp and they would've come back it's most of them most magazines and newspapers have been coming back from vietnam recently and saying oh now it's not perfect representative democracy here but after these accounts that millions of people being murdered well well now some left wingers might say something like

that but they're actually out the truth lies somewhere in between i think there's been a confusion between what his objective than what is the middle of the road and for this reason i think that the media has been blind two to the primary horrors of yet no i think they have been blind to the level of destruction that has been actually taking place that i think this is why it took us along for the my lai incident to become the my lai massacre to become now and i think it's why for example when you have a situation then i pour in which eighty or ninety percent of the villages in that area have had actually been destroyed by our plans about you have a situation in which this has never actually been brought to the headlines it's never been directly reported know there've been reports that there'd been reports of isolated farming village but no one has put it together

we're with you then perhaps in a line that someone remains very minutes end up portraying for the american public the extent of damage and the number of people are getting hurt by year by our forces us amundsen and artillery but i wonder if you're not falling into your own error way he wondered if before the meeting ninety percent of the villages in an ai course weren't my own most directly an extensive experience with him iraq won nine month ten provinces now at that time this was two years ago when the bombing is hardly let up as you know assistant at that time seventy percent of the village's in quang i'd been destroyed and this was by my own estimate in fact the estimate of the three primary ground commanders in the area was considerably higher i know this is what i saw myself

by now i can accept that recline iraqi and the chemical like or actually why nine point in our favor and i believe they are doing i believe they are yes but in the province's north of that india what an artful called the street without your hat i would hardly expect that she would find less destruction as you get up towards the demilitarized zone so what we're talking about is one third of south vietnam were talking about one of the most heavily populated areas i don't think we should get into a discussion of whether it's a half of the province says the recorders or third the fact is that if even one problem we see this this treatment it should have been very heavily play in the press and that in the state of florida for the state of connecticut i were to be were to be almost flattened to the ground i don't know whether

the long lines no you're right and that's certainly one of the reasons why it hasn't been as reported as much as it should but the kind of thing were up again so it's not merely the technical difficulties of finding this out because it happened over a long period of time where because it's difficult to go into the air i think the fundamental reason why hasn't been noticed is that reporters have been unwilling to accept the fact that our government was able to do something that was quite as insane as this john you said something about a particular sort of oil and they're one of the

radio waves in which is to work to try to get in a controversial story the only other hand switch see both sides of the argument to explore and i think that it seems to me at least that people are really paying enough attention to this kind of telling us about to be yes but ashe professor lowe i think denying it i mean i agree with david that storage must be presented in their full complexity but they must be presented in the full complexity that is actually be here in the situation you're reporting that kind of reporting i think it's unfortunate as the kind of muddles up opinions with the issue that's right that's right it would be much simpler are all wore these the evil man well it's more complicated than that and more nudity

full of feed and would be wrong tried to present them simply as evil men so you have to say although i don't think he on the other hand has a very good formula for you have to point out that these airmen with whom you know and many or most cases with good intentions accept that is that what they happen to be doing is unbearable but to get an example of what we're kind of reporting i think we don't need and that would be the kind of reporting that was according to be south vietnamese elections now it was reported as though it was sort of the route has somewhat shady sort of elections alone no state in the united states well says sure there were abuses but very young country and that any way you can expect too much and it was pretty good overall the report says they had to whereas far that

when i was in vietnam at the time that election with the first class role now when we send the commissioner commission acknowledges that as the season to try to get any easier since his november speech on the media buys president agnew has been journalism's nemesis several years ago fred friendly one of the pioneers of network news wrote that is missing and millions were convention controversy on the point of view that were compensated with a friendly himself thanks the agonies ayers the result journalists knowing what they should do i think the rhythm and was dragged into one such easy targets in television radio and in the movies that has changed is that the us but school of journalism comes full circle today when i say yes but the journalist's job is to say this is what was reported by the army by

the navy by the government yes by having my name is john shall i was there and what they say is so right yes but that is what is making them attacked the movie let me tell you and sixty five favorite of the prime minister i wanna tell you that there was no way of my being able to record the shock waves that it's cvs knows there's no one at all my only almost unwillingness to put on the air we didn't hesitate more than a second but to show i've been through my war to show my country as end of the massacre it was a very hard i can remember less than a week later being with two very high members of the johnson administration having them what they're saying don't you ever stop to think of what's good for the united states for america before you put something up here when you go out of new york came out of los angeles and out of what you will find

that although people are saying all of this they won't accept they can't accept that they won't need a little conventional newspaper and your listening and all the things that people in this school or places where all of you work except know that it has worked it was twenty six percent and seventy four percent of the public and yes i mean it is what what you say is real but i think it would be a mistake to be too complacent and one's judgment about what the american people will accept and what they can't accept certainly overnight you're not going to turn around public opinion in a minute but this is no reason for giving up its no reason for it for four words for not reporting the

truth and after all the fundamental a fundamental job has not turned around public opinion but it but to report the truth that regardless of whether people will accept it or not or says the report should be that way and we face a journalistic reality and art chung to him are prisoners am rather i am of a million dollars yes there are outlets for an allergenic or reporters that forty four million years there were no evidence yes it is the desk in the newspaper the suspect know and over again is that we are clear about the necessity for for better reporting things that they're always going to be a reporter when there is no water lady in the urine that sets in the nature

of things assistants have to be alive order order editors many of whom had never set foot in southeast asia often don't believe their men in the field there's is understandable feel correspondence themselves sometimes have difficulty screening and interpreting some of the information they get firsthand i want to tell me we got to wait a body count this week of enemy killed at such a search the whole thing's a grotesque kind of misinformation the bia be in the military again not the grand rounds to eliminate the enemy it's sort of the name of the

singer says the measure anybody really i think that the only way the only conceivable way of measuring any progress in this war and realtors would be through some kind of index of a political the wii success in establishing a political entity a government that would stand actually anything else is worth nothing because even if we were to kill three quarters of the vietnamese and i mean families and everyone else that one quarter traveling would be opposed to effectively let unless there was some kind of stable political entity and this is in this has not advanced by killing a great number of the

figure is so potentially inaccurate in unison people here will offend a lot about the wars and the here today we killed forty five am yesterday that i think it's part of the election i think it a bit this question of the body count does point up one of the dilemmas that the journals finds himself into the cause it does seem to be something that you more or less have to report you're giving somebody daily updated she can't put in parentheses course this is meaningless every time so that you get yourself in a funny position you perhaps go to the extent of their size and the figure but in doing so you seem to accept all idea that inaccurately you would be meaningful or you knew that the whole concept and doing things seem to accept that the figures are correct so it puts a great strain on a kind of data data journalism the controversy over the reporting a body count demonstrates that there's more than one way to look at a piece of information each journalist

whether he admits that are not as his own subjective interpretation of the word objectivity he cannot help the brain to each record his personality his politics his hopes and his fears for himself and the world in which he lives this is george peterson now backed mr castro journalist like our panelists fred friendly frank mccullagh ron milligan and jonathan shell are only too willing to discuss their role in the indochina war a role which often places them or their colleagues in the line of fire but the man most directly in the line of fire those in the military are as silent as the journalists are talkative statements from secretary of defense melvin laird official information officially released by the pentagon and a small amount of first hand observation these are the only tools on which reporters can regularly rely for their facts about the military

situation in indochina but to those basic tools maybe added a whole additional set the knowledge of men would study the military intensively but are not themselves members of it such men indeed can offer overviews of the southeast asian situation which military man because of their closeness to the actual fighting would be unable to provide even if they were well i'm steve friedman reports the president has said that he will withdraw all us forces from cambodia by july first and bring home one hundred fifty thousand more american soldiers from vietnam by next may but to do this next and must create a military situation in asia that will allow him to make these withdrawals even if the communist do not prove to be as week as we suppose or the south vietnamese as strong as we hoped the american military policy in southeast asia is geared toward a settlement on us turns this idea is explored by a man who has written on the relationship

between international on the military aspects of war professor richard falk of princeton university's woodrow wilson school of international affairs he's been doing that i made that point falk also sees the americans search for a way out of the war as an attempt to ignore the facts three po president is underway to indian military involved without making it

appear that the world better and the problem will be a big political victory the political realities in the united states are a result of a timely military decision by north vietnam that the surgeon has analyzed by republican senator peter dominic of colorado stand up supplier to try and create much greater outflanking situation and will be and also the matter yeah yeah in a position where the market is going to

have a heart and a quote massive attack and seven can sometimes supplement a short line there is moore has been said about the military strategy of the cambodian invasion than about the political assumptions of the nixon administration when it ordered american troops into that country one of those assumptions as described by an opponent of nixon policies in southeast asia senator charles percy republican of illinois they really looked upon a section of some thirty kilometers in cambodia running up the border has almost none sovereign parts of cambodia which have been released by cambodia due to the viet cong and the north vietnamese they did not consider that that part of the country

was under cambodian control the south vietnamese government has made it clear that its troops will remain in cambodia after us troops pull out but there is no clear indication whether america's airpower will be withdrawn when our ground forces leave cambodia or whether american airstrikes will continue to be available to sell the enemy soldiers there democratic senator stephen young of ohio is a knowledgeable member of the armed services committee and an outspoken critic of this nation's southeast asian policy senator young does not doubt that us air support will be offered to the south vietnamese army in cambodia senator young like many others in congress is worried that a prolonged us involvement

in cambodia might lead to a major expansion of the conflict in asia communist china might be drawn into the war young speculates as a direct result of operations in cambodia socialist approach to china in american religious voters think about the thing that the chinese top of the world we're really get into north korea during their time and the character of the moment and about that admission one of america's leading authorities on campus affairs that has been the average inskeep is less certain of chinese willingness to enter the war the agent's key who was director of columbia university's research institute and

columnist affairs explains that the sino soviet split could affect china's decision my guess is that the candidates who are not inclined to build a record with the united states especially if they have problems with the soviets industry and in the relationship between prefers to have the other two entangled against each other that's right professor fox feels that if past experience is any indication america could that spread as ideals to other countries by leaving those countries along well at a refinery and

where political pressure the real world of work political or leaning political elite there is division in the united states over how our foreign policy should be handled and over the wisdom of our intervention in southeast asia but there isn't even larger split in southeast asia itself they're the vietcong themselves stop the enemies are fighting their own countrymen and the pro americans are the enemies are allied with vietnam's a longtime enemy cambodia fox says these unlikely political developments have been imposed by the united states

well the main army and equipment to get in the way and i think that had a mainly the current economic fire so even if the united states does succeed in extricating itself from southeast asia it will leave behind a people more divided more uncertain more embittered then we americans this is steve friedman now back mr kester conceding other people more divided on certain and in better than we is not an easy thing to do as a protest to the widening indochina war continued to mount the words of pollster lou harris almost sounds too optimistic contrary to my son or rationing their own human race that doesn't quite so the older generations spoiler

free no the young won't be eaten alive just yet but they may be shut down if they are into strenuous a protest or just in one day in the wrong place at the wrong time protests a word literally meaning a solemn declaration of opinion are protests enough are they as vice president agnew and others have suggested too much can the system take change from within or doesn't contain built in safeguards against such change these will be the concerns of the sixth broadcast in this series cambodia what now what next tonight's program was prepared by steve friedman george peterson and michael stearns executive producer mark yesterday this program was produced at the graduate school of journalism of

columbia university for the public affairs unit of double u r v e r new york