Reviews for A matter of honor

The average rating for A matter of honor based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-05-23 00:00:00 Sandy Liu This is a devastating revelation about the making of a CBS documentary that ran during the winter of 1981-82 I believe. The title of the documentary was something like "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception." Producer George Crile (Charlie Wilson's War) chose to ignore basic CBS guidelines, not to mention fundamental fairness, in order to portray Westmoreland as a devious manipulator who had failed to prepare LBJ for the Tet offensive. Ironically, it is hard to realize that CBS once had ethical standards and purported to strive for fairness. Immediately after the Network settled Westmoreland's libel action by issuing him an apology, they again abused their power and launced a campaign to convince the public that they had won on the merits of the action by parading out jurors and other observers to appear on morning programs and speak favorably about how the trial was proceeding for CBS. And naturally, media such as the New York Times and Time magazine circled the wagons around CBS and its conduct. At the time, I was enormously pleased with the documentary and what I thought it revealed. Only to discover later that the documentary was the true deception. Unfortunately, Mr. Kowet is a terrible writer and getting through this book was quite a struggle even though the story was fascinating.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-10-22 00:00:00 Guy Gill Reading this book a month after I finished "Charlie Wilson's War" was an interesting proposition. I loved the book on Charlie Wilson. I was unimpressed with Crile as a journalist after reading how the sausage was made. This book describes the making of a CBS documentary about order of battle estimation during Vietnam. There was a dispute between CIA and the DoD in the way that these estimates were done, but the CBS documentary tried to turn this dispute into a conspiracy at the highest levels. The book is an interesting read, and gives some good insights into the way that television sausage gets made. My takeaway point is that I should read more books....