policy - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
their reporting highlighted the reporters' 'contention that the government
was not telling the truth concerning US involvement in the war in Vietnam.
General Westmoreland has argued that the joint award in 1964 of Pultizer
prizes to David halberstam and Malcolm Browne "confused reporting with
influencing American foreign policy."
The General maintained that other
reporters followed the line of criticizing the US military role thinking
they would improve their chances of recognition and reward. 27/
Thus,
by the mid-1960's correspondents in the field had come to
believe that the US Mission was not telling the truth to the people. They
believed that they were urncovering systematic attempts to deceive and that
they faced a US government that sought to manipulate the facts to deceive
the people. 28/
2. The Johnson Administration
The credibility gap that had developed in Vietnam during the
Kennedy years widened dramatically in Washington during the Johnson administration.
Johnson wes the exact opposite of Kennedy in his relations with
newspaper people. Unlike Kennedy who felt at ease with reporters, Johnson
was insecure in his dealings with people whom he perceived to be "men of
culture."
retirement:
Doris Kearns recorded Johnson's bitter recollections after his
WCT,
Actually, he believed, it was the intellectuals who
hated him: "The men of ideas think little of me, they
despise me"...It was not he who wanted to injure them;
it was they who wanted to injure him and were responsible
for his failure. In retirement, Johnson sir.-
cerely believed that he would have been the greatest
President in this country's history had it not been for
the intellectuals and the columnists - the men of ideas
and the men of words. 29/
While he felt that he was despised by the media, Johnson believed
that he could manipulate media reporting.
He said:
Reporters are puppets. They simply respond to the pull
of the most powerful strings... Every story is always
"slanted to win the favor of someone who sits somewhere
higher up. There is no such a thing as an objective
3-13
A,