In 1966, CBS reporter Morley Safer was stationed in Vietnam. He wrote an article on a meeting he had with Arthur Sylvester, who was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
It was a most revealing interview. He told the press corps the following: "Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're stupid. Did you hear that?--stupid."
This article was recently reprinted on a little-known site, TinyRevolution.com. The article deserves wide dissemination.
Recall that the U.S. government lost the war. Recall also that Lyndon Johnson was forced to quit the office. He knew he would be defeated if he ran again. In short, the government's officials overplay their hands. They seem to be on top of things. Then they aren't.
'Look, If You Think Any American Official Is Going to Tell You the Truth, Then You're Stupid'
By Morley Safer
Of the Columbia Broadcasting System
There has been no war quite like it. Never have so many words been churned out, never has so much l6-mm film been exposed. And never has the reporting of a story been so much a part of the story itself.
This has been true whether you are reporting television's first war, as I have been, or for one of the print media. Washington has been critical of American newsmen in Saigon almost continuously since 1961. That criticism has manifested itself in a number of ways--from the cancellation of newspaper subscriptions to orders to put certain correspondents on ice to downright threat.
As a friend of mine puts it, "The brass wants you to get on the team."
To the brass, getting on the team means simply giving the United States government line in little more than handout[s]. It means accepting what you are told without question. At times it means turning your back on facts.
I know of few reporters in Viet Nam who have "gotten on the team." The fact is, the American people are getting an accurate picture of the war in spite of attempts by various officials--mostly in Washington--to present the facts in a different way. That is why certain correspondents have been vilified, privately and publicly.
By late winter of 1964-1965 the war was clearly becoming an American war. And with it came an American responsibility for providing and reporting facts. American officials thus were able to deal directly with reporters. The formality of "checking it out with the Vietnamese" ceased to be relevant.
In Washington the burden of responsibility of giving, controlling and managing the war news from Viet Nam fell to--and remains with--one man: Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
By early summer of 1965 the first set of ground rules had been laid down for reporting battles and casualties. There was no censorship but a very loose kind of honor system that put the responsibility for not breaking security on the shoulders of correspondents. The rules were vague and were therefore continually broken.
For military and civilian officials in Viet Nam there was another set of rules--rather another honor system that was not so much laid down as implied. "A policy of total candor" is a phrase used by Barry Zorthian, minister-counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Zorthian is what Time calls "the information czar" in Viet Nam.
The breaking of the vague ground rules was something that annoyed everyone. Correspondents were rocketed by their editors, and the military in Viet Nam felt that Allied lives were being endangered. So in midsummer, when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara came to Saigon and brought Sylvester with him, we all looked forward to the formulation of a clear-cut policy. Sylvester was to meet the press in an informal session to discuss mutual problems. The meeting was to take the vagueness out of the ground rules.
The Sylvester meeting was surely one of the most disheartening meetings between reporters and a news manager ever held.
It was a sticky July evening. Inside Zorthian's villa it was cool. But Zorthian was less relaxed than usual. He was anxious for Sylvester to get an idea of the mood of the news corps. There had been some annoying moments in previous weeks that had directly involved Sylvester's own office. In the first B-52 raids, Pentagon releases were in direct contradiction to what had actually happened on the ground in Viet Nam.
There was general opening banter, which Sylvester quickly brushed aside. He seemed anxious to take a stand--to say something that would jar us. He said:
"I can't understand how you fellows can write what you do while American boys are dying out here," he began. Then he went on to the effect that American correspondents had a patriotic duty to disseminate only information that made the United States look good.
A network television correspondent said, "Surely, Arthur, you don't expect the American press to be the handmaidens of government."
"That's exactly what I expect," came the reply.
An agency man raised the problem that had preoccupied Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and Barry Zorthian--about the credibility of American officials. Responded the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs:
"Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're stupid. Did you hear that?--stupid."
One of the most respected of all the newsmen in Vietnam--a veteran of World War II, the Indochina War and Korea--suggested that Sylvester was being deliberately provocative. Sylvester replied:
"Look, I don't even have to talk to you people. I know how to deal with you through your editors and publishers back in the States."
At this point, the Hon. Arthur Sylvester put his thumbs in his ears, bulged his eyes, stuck out his tongue and wiggled his fingers.
A correspondent for one of the New York papers began a question. He never got beyond the first few words. Sylvester interrupted:
"Aw, come on, What does someone in New York care about the war in Viet Nam?"
We got down to immediate practical matters--the problems of communication, access to military planes, getting out to battles.
"Do you guys want to be spoon-fed? Why don't you get out and cover the war?"
It was a jarring and insulting remark. Most of the people in that room have spent as much time on actual operations as most GI's.
The relationship between reporters and public information officers in Saigon, or the other hand, has been a good, healthy one. The relationship in the field is better, and in dealing with the men who fight the war it is very good indeed.
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