CBS and Colonel Herbert

When Lieut. Colonel Anthony Herbert started his war with the Army two years ago, he found a receptive audience among newsmen and the general public. It was the time of the My Lai trials, and the military was being subjected to a barrage of bad publicity. Herbert was a much-decorated professional officer whom the Army had lionized. His charges that superiors had ignored his reports of atrocities and were hounding him out of the service because of his accusations seemed highly credible. Dissenting voices (TIME, Nov. 22, 1971) received relatively little attention.

Now CBS, on its 60 Minutes show last Sunday, has taken a new and critical look at the Herbert case. As Correspondent Mike Wallace recounted the story, neither Herbert nor the press came out a winner. Wallace repeatedly challenged Herbert's veracity--occasionally to his face--and poked holes in the retired officer's new book, Soldier (see BOOKS). Under Wallace's tough questioning, Herbert refused to reveal whether he had "documents" pertaining to his atrocity charges.

Longest Items. Much of the digging had been done by Producer Barry Lando, who worked intermittently on the Herbert story for more than a year, interviewing scores of sources in the U.S., Viet Nam, Thailand and Germany. As a result, 60 Minutes devoted half the program to the Herbert story--more time than it has ever given to one item. Among the specific points raised:

> Herbert said that on Feb. 14, 1969, he witnessed the murder of five Vietnamese by South Vietnamese police under the control of a U.S. lieutenant. He claims to have reported this incident to Colonel J. Ross Franklin, deputy commander of his brigade, twice from the field and again in person later the same day. Franklin, he says, then called him a liar. Then 60 Minutes produced Franklin's canceled check of Feb. 14 to the Ilikai Hotel in Honolulu; the check and the hotel register show that Franklin could not have been in Viet Nam until the following day. Herbert stuck by his story: "I know what I saw. I know what I did."

> In his book, written with New York Times Reporter James T. Wooten, Herbert described how Major James Grimshaw, then a company commander, coaxed a group of suspected Viet Cong out of a cave, adding that he had recommended Grimshaw for a Silver Star never awarded by the Army. Grimshaw told Wallace that the incident had not occurred and that Herbert had never recommended him for a medal. In the program's most dramatic sequence, Grimshaw appeared in a New York studio to deny--in Herbert's presence--the charge that the Army had ordered him to discredit the book.

> As a senior legal officer, Colonel John Douglass was the man to whom Herbert first complained after Major General John Barnes relieved him of battalion command on April 4, 1969. Douglass categorically denied Herbert's version of their conversation. According to Herbert, he spoke at length to Douglass and told him about the atrocities. Douglass said that it was a short meeting with no mention of bloodshed. "Why haven't you said this up to now?" Wallace asked incredulously. "Nobody's asked me," replied Douglass.

The program undermines Herbert's credibility without supporting the Army's. During his 58-day battalion command, Herbert earned a Silver and three Bronze Stars and was about to be recommended for a Distinguished Service Cross. Then he was abruptly relieved of his job. The explanation Barnes offered Wallace--that Herbert lied about enemy casualties and was a "killer"--seemed lame. Not surprisingly, 60 Minutes endorsed Herbert's request that the Army make public all records of hearings and investigations related to his case.

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