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Related Media Monitors and Columns Reed Irvine's Letter to the Chairman of CNN Reed Irvine's Letter to the Managing Editor of TIME CNN NewsStand CNN NewsStand
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June 16, 1998 A CNN/Time Journalistic Atrocity CNN and Time launched a new TV magazine titled "NewsStand" on June 7 with a story about a 1970 Special Forces raid in Laos called Operation Tailwind. They came up with one of the worst journalistic atrocities seen in the past 30 years. The segment, titled "Valley of Death," charged: (1) that the purpose of the mission was to find and kill American defectors working with the enemy; and (2) that sarin, a deadly nerve gas, was dropped on the "village" where the defectors were believed to be; and on North Vietnamese troops attacking the 16 American commandos and the 140 Montagnards who made up what in Special Forces lingo was called the Hatchet Force as they were trying to reach the helicopters sent to evacuate them. Both charges are false. CNN, whose staff did the reporting, perpetrated a fraud on its viewers and Time’s readers. General Perry Smith, who has been CNN’s military consultant since the Gulf War, recognized immediately the falsity of the nerve gas charge. He obtained the detailed records that showed exactly what gas was used and when it was used in Operation Tailwind. It was CS, tear gas. CNN could have obtained the same records, but it was interested in getting a sensational story, not the truth. This is proven by the fact that even without the records, the CNN producers knew that there was no evidence that sarin had been used. We interviewed seven Tailwind veterans, including the four whose comments CNN used on its first program and one that followed a week later. Only one, Michael Hagen, was convinced that nerve gas had been used. Hagen, 48, has developed some serious health problems in recent years. Hagan’s doctor tells him that his problems are the result of exposure to organo-phosphates, which is what sarin is. He got a good whiff of the gas because his gas mask was damaged. Hagen is bitter because the government refuses to accept his doctor’s diagnosis and recognize his illness as service-connected. CNN neglected to mention this. It detracts from the credibility of Hagen’s testimony, and he is the only person they could find among those who were there who would say that it was nerve gas. Others whose gas masks were damaged or lost recognized the gas as CS, a tear gas they had been exposed to in their training. Most viewers probably came away with the impression that another Tailwind veteran, Robert Van Buskirk, had said that nerve gas had caused him to choke and vomit and that it had killed a large number of the Vietnamese who were attacking them. Van Buskirk told AIM that he never said either of those things, and the transcript bears him out. CNN used statements he made that only implied that nerve gas was used. For example, after correspondent Peter Arnett says that Van Buskirk had been privately warned about the lethal gas by an Air Force colonel, Van Buskirk is shown saying, "Be sure to take your gas mask. This stuff can really hurt you. It can kill you." Van Buskirk told AIM that he was informed that the gas would be CS, tear gas, which has symptoms that at first are very similar to sarin. The big difference is that sarin kills and CS doesn’t. Many of the Americans and the Montagnards in Tailwind were exposed to the gas that was dropped on the Vietnamese attacking the helicopter landing zone. None of them died, which is very good evidence that the gas was not lethal. But Van Buskirk had said, "I looked down into the valley. And all I see is bodies. And they’re not fighting any more. They’re no longer combatants." That explains the title of the program, "Valley of Death." But Van Buskirk points out that he didn’t say those bodies were dead. He only said they were no longer combatants. He recognized that the idea of a gas that killed Vietnamese but not Americans or Montagnards would not wash. When confronted with this dilemma he distanced himself from the nerve gas claim. The CNN producers can see this just as easily, but the Tailwind veterans they interviewed say that they were hammered for hours to try to get them to say that nerve gas was used. Prof. E.W. Pfeiffer, an anti-war activist who visited Hanoi in 1970 as a guest of North Vietnam, author of the book, "Chemical Warfare in Vietnam," and an admirer of Peter Arnett’s, made this comment: "My impression of that piece is that it is a total hoax¼It is not a credible piece at all for anybody who knows anything about chemical agents. I can’t understand why a well-respected reporter like Peter Arnett would have anything to do with that." Not everyone holds "Baghdad Pete" in such high esteem. It is harder to understand why such respected journalists as CNN Chairman Tom Johnson, President Richard Kaplan and Vice President Ed Turner would tolerate the tarnishing of CNN’s reputation by such dishonesty. Could there be a Fonda factor? |
