Don't Mess With the Long Ranger or Walter Cronkite

I was invited to a screening of a new documentary NO END IN SIGHT and it was at the same time both very well constructed and very depressing. It shows, as so many others have, the duplicitously conceived and ineptly run war that is destroying our country. It does indeed appear that there is in fact no end in sight.

We await the September report from General David Howell Petraeus. How can we POSSIBLY allow General Petraeus to decide anything? Had we allowed General Westmoreland to make the decisions in Vietnam, we would still be fighting there.

First, a little refresher about Vietnam, and the Tet Offensive...

Under General William Westmoreland's leadership, the United States "won every battle until it lost the war." Westmoreland was convinced that the Vietnamese communists could be destroyed by fighting a war of attrition. Following the Tet Offensive, Americans were very confused.

The "anchor" of the CBS Evening News was the respected and revered, grandfatherly Walter Cronkite, and he reported the following (that I have excerpted) on February 27, 1968. Almost forty years later, you can change a few names and places, and almost the same story could be reported today about Iraq. I do know that this is not an exact "fit" but it is close enough for me:

... Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I'm not sure... The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there... On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities... We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds... It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that-negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

This is Walter Cronkite. Good night."

In my not to humble opinion, the same story COULD be reported today by CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC and won't be. How sad.

I wonder why not one single broadcast network documentary about the war has been telecast? Ask your friends at The Walt Disney Company, General Electric, CBS/Viacom, and News Corp.

Are they "cowardly giants" who fear that if they mess with the government, they will be punished, and they are probably right? They accept the profitability aspect of their being given the publicly owned spectrum space, yet they perceive that presenting insipid interview shows on Sunday morning somehow fulfills their "public service" responsibilities.

It must not have been easy for Bill Paley and Frank Stanton to allow Edward R. Murrow to take on Senator Joseph McCarthy, but they did.

Bill Paley and CBS had pride and were aware that they were to serve in "the public interest, convenience, and necessity," and that is what they invariably did.

Paley and Stanton were "the good guys." Where are "the good guys" today?

Norman Horowitz
A Once Proud CBS Executive