Document: http://oceanpark.com/papers/tailwind.html
Author: Dennis G. AllardI will update this document as I obtain more information.
Interviews with April Oliver and Jack Smith, authors of the Tailwind story, available on the internet:
The Democracy Now web site is:
http://www.webactive.com/webactive/pacifica/demnow.htmlThe initial reaction to the Operaion Tailwind story by April Oliver, aired on CNN and then retracted by CNN, has been scary. The degree to which U.S. Citizens have hatred for the left is scary. It is as if people in this country no longer are willing to think for themselves. It is as if something from the left is wrong because it is from the left. April Oliver thouroughly researched her story. Following is a transcript of an interview with her and her co-researcher Jack Smith on the T.V. Program Crossfire, hosted by conservative Robert Novak and 'liberal' Bill Press.
Subject: Tailwind Producers On Crossfire -- Transcript From: USENET Date: 1998/07/08 Message-ID: <6o0ban$1lqa$1@news.missouri.edu> Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive The CNN program Crossfire for 7/6/98 featured April Oliver and Jack Smith, the producers of CNN/Time's Tailwind story. Here's the transcript, from CNN's web page at: <LI><a href Transcripts -- Crossfire 7/6/98 -- Tailwind</a> I videotaped the show and will vet the transcript sometime in the next couple of days. If there are any errors, I'll post a corrected version. Crossfire Operation Tailwind: Two Fired CNN Producers Still Believe in Their Story Aired July 6, 1998 - 7:30 p.m. ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Tonight, CNN has retracted and apologized for its Tailwind report. But why did two fired CNN producers, April Oliver and Jack Smith, still believe in their story? ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press. On the right Robert Novak. In the crossfire, former CNN NEWSSTAND producer April Oliver and former CNN NEWSSTAND senior producer Jack Smith. PRESS: Good evening, welcome to CROSSFIRE. CNN's apologized. CNN's retracted the story. So why do two producers still insist their story is accurate? That story, of course, Operation Tailwind, that American forces used nerve gas during the Vietnam War and targeted American defectors. What happened? How did such an inaccurate story ever get on the air? Two theories: An official inquiry by attorney Floyd Abrams concluded that the story, while carefully researched, was never conclusively proven. The evidence just wasn't there. CNN president Rick Kaplan says the producers fell so much in love with their work, they failed to notice weaknesses in their own story. But the two producers of Operation Tailwind, April Oliver and Jack Smith, fired by CNN, not only refuse to back down, they accuse CNN of caving into pressure from big shots like Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell. In the interest of hearing both sides, we have invited April Oliver and Jack Smith into the crossfire tonight for some tough questioning from both me and Bob Novak -- Bob. ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Let me start off by stipulating that Jack Smith for several years was the producer of the "EVANS & NOVAK" program and I also worked with April Oliver on that program. Jack Smith, quite a part from any kind of interference by Kissinger and Colin Powell, there is nobody in the journalistic community who has come to your aid on this story. There is nobody in CNN besides the two of you, I know, who have supported you. The -- in fact, CNN has been commended for cutting their losses. Isn't it time for you to say, hey, we were wrong? JACK SMITH, FORMER SENIOR PRODUCER, CNN "NEWSSTAND": Bob, you have been a reporter a long time, and I have been a reporter a long time. When you work on a story and you gather the facts and you're sure of your facts and you bring them into the newspaper, or you put them on the air, and all of a sudden a furor is created. A furor that comes from the Pentagon; a furor that continues from Kissinger; a furor that comes from competing news organizations, "Newsweek"; Rupert Murdoch's news organization, Fox. And your news organization gags you from responding to those criticisms that are pouring in -- April Oliver and I were gagged by CNN for three weeks, no response to this torrent of criticism that poured down on us. The story was allowed to hang out there from a tree and bleed to death and then it was lynched. That's what is CNN did to the story because they couldn't take the heat. They wanted to put it behind us, behind CNN. Rick Kaplan, Tom Johnson caved to pressure on this story. They caved to pressure because they didn't want further reporting done on it. Mr. Kaplan has to be asked this question: why were we not allowed top roduce the hour broadcast on the opposing voice of Tailwind that was initially proposed to follow up on our two reports on this? That story was on the launch pad and all of a sudden, it just disappeared because Kaplan and Johnson wanted to get this behind them. NOVAK: But there's another thing that happened, Jack, that shortly after the story ran that people have forgotten about to a great extent, and that is what I would consider your primary source, Former Army Lieutenant Robert Van Buskirk said that he was not the source for the story. He said "I am not their source for sarin. I am not their source for a bomb strike on the camp, which I didn't know was there until I stumbled onto it. I am not their source for scores of civilians who were allegedly killed." That docks out your story, doesn't it? APRIL OLIVER, FORMER PRODUCER, CNN "NEWSSTAND": No. He's absolutely right. PRESS: One at a time. NOVAK: Who? SMITH: Let April go. I had a first shot. OLIVER: He's absolutely right. This story was multiply sourced. We had, you know, eight people at least on our source book on the lethal gas end of this. NOVAK: Name one. OLIVER: We had Admiral Moore read and confirm the script on -- six days before we went to air, I went out to see Admiral Moore with the script in hand. Admiral Moore and I had met for eight hours over the past six months. NOVAK: That's your source for the story, a 87-year-old man in a nursing home? OLIVER: If I could correct you, sir, he's not in a nursing home. He's in assisted care home. He's a very distinguished gentleman and even the Floyd Abrams report says he's of sound mind. That is man who had great courage to step forward. He told me he was doing it for the purposes of history. He thought that it was important that this issue get debated and vetted in the public. He read the script line by line six days before air and gave it the sign off -- the signal of approval. The day after the story broke when the controversy exploded in his face and the pressure of the pentagon came down upon him, I went out to see Admiral Moorer again within the presence of Jack Smith." He looked at me and he said, "first of all, young lady, people today don't understand the context of the times back then. They just -- they don't get it." PRESS: OK. Let me go right to Admiral Moorer, because he seems to be the cornerstone of your story. OLIVER: He's not. We have multiple sources. PRESS: One. OLIVER: You have to understand that we have multiple sources on this. PRESS: I don't mean to exaggerate his importance, but very central to your story. He is very important to the story, former head of the joint chiefs of staff. I would like to show a clip, first of all, from your broadcast of Operation Tailwind, about what Admiral Moorer said on that broadcast. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, CNN's "NEWSSTAND," "Valley of Death") OLIVER: So CBU-15 was a top secret weapon? ADMIRAL THOMAS MOORER, FORMER CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS: When it was, it should have been, let's put it that way. OLIVER: What's your understanding of how often it was applied during this war? MOORER: Well, I don't have any figures that tell you how many times. I have never made a point of counting that up. I am sure that you can find out that from those that used them. OLIVER: So isn't it fair to say that Tailwind proved that CBU-15 GB (ph) is an effective weapon? MOORER: Yes. I think -- but I think that was already known. Otherwise, they never would have been -- as a matter of fact... (END VIDEO CLIP) PRESS: Now, listening to that, you get the impression that nerve gas was used. He's just not sure how many times. It was certainly effective. Here are some outtakes from the interview that did not make the air, your interview from (INAUDIBLE). OLIVER: That's earlier in the interview. PRESS: Let's see this... OLIVER: Earlier in the interview, OK? PRESS: All right. Let's listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OLIVER: It was the first time that the U.S. ever used what's known as a lethal nerve gas in combat. Are you -- how much awareness do you have of this? MOORER: None. And what you should do when you make a statement like that is get -- you said you'd been told by people, so get all of those people in front of this camera... OLIVER: We have. MOORER: ... and let them tell you that that was the case. OLIVER: We have gotten them in front of the camera. MOORER: But I don't have the information to confirm what they said. (END VIDEO CLIP) PRESS: Now, when I look at that, he says he has no knowledge of the use of this gas. And he cannot confirm what you're saying. Wasn't it dishonest to leave that out of your broadcast? OLIVER: Absolutely not. And I'll tell you why. Over the course of eight months, we met with Admiral Moorer very many times. That particular interview you just showed was done in January. I met with Admiral Moorer again in May and his may interview which is virtually excluded from the Floyd Abrams report which ostensibly came to this conclusion that there was insufficient evidence, that May interview was the clincher for us. In this interview he concretely and exactly confirms that defectors were the target of Tailwind. Not says, not only does he say that, he says that Tailwind was not the only mission of its kind to target defectors. Then goes into very concrete terms about the wider use of sarin nerve gas being available for search-and-rescue missions. PRESS: But April OLIVER: Finally... PRESS: April, he also says -- please. OLIVER: Finally, he goes on a couple of weeks later to read every line of the script and reconfirm what he's already told us. PRESS: Now... OLIVER: Any good reporter knows that -- any good reporter goes... (CROSSTALK) PRESS: He also. OLIVER: Any good reporter knows that you don't get the story the first time out. You get it at the end. PRESS: He also said that he was never in charge of the operation. It was the CIA operation; it was not run through the pentagon, number one. He says over and over again, I read the transcript. He says "I am not confirming for you." He said "that's what you say, not what I say." OLIVER: That's what he said in January. That is what he said in January. PRESS: I am not confirming for you it was used. Over and over again he says I am not confirming and yet you use him as confirmation. OLIVER: Because by... PRESS: It doesn't add up. OLIVER: By June he had confirmed. He had read the script. NOVAK: Why didn't you put that on the air? OLIVER: It would have been wonderful to put a lot of things on the air. I asked for an hour from this network to do the story appropriately to have lots of different points of view, to have a lot of different context and nuance, the management of CNN turned us down on an hour. PRESS: Even if you -- I have to on that point even if you have what you get, 18 minutes, you still have to tell the truth. And you have to tell both sides of the story. You can't use this not getting a hour as an excuse. Eighteen minutes is an eternity. OLIVER: This is the truth. Admiral Moorer read -- our last contact with Admiral Moorer before the story aired was him sitting down reading the script line by line, smiling, reading we said -- we attributed to him as confirming, and then saying "well, I can tolerate a nuke. Give me gas, just don't stick me with a bayonet." The man -- we went to the extraordinary step of having him reconfirm the story. NOVAK: Jack... SMITH: Bob, I have -- I have to address that order for a minute. NOVAK: Go ahead. SMITH: Because when does a "yes" become a "no?" I will read from the transcript because there's a little bit cut out of it, April's question. So, Miss Oliver says to Admiral Moorer "so isn't it fair to say in light of all this, everything we have talked about, that Tailwind proved that CBU-15 GB is an effective weapon? Yes. Yes. I think -- but I think that was already known. Otherwise it would never have been manufactured . NOVAK: What's that got to do with that? SMITH: Bob, a yes is a yes. Effective use, right? NOVAK: It says that... SMITH: That is a confirmation, Bob, under any construction... NOVAK: It doesn't seem like it to me. SMITH: It's a confirmation. NOVAK: Let's move on, Jack. Captain Eugene McCarley, who was the Tailwind commander. SMITH: Yes. NOVAK: you had him on camera and off camera you say he said that it was impossible they used nerve gas on Tailwind. SMITH: That's correct. NOVAK: But on camera, here's what you ran. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, CNN's "NEWSSTAND") PETER ARNETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Captain McCarley told CNN off camera the use of nerve gas on Tailwind was, quote, very possible." Later on camera he said CAPTAIN EUGENE MCCARLEY: "I never, ever considered the use of lethal gas, not on any of my operations." NOVAK: And then there was another thing, he said, which you didn't put in. And I can't believe that you didn't put this into the -- even if you had three minutes, that you didn't put this in as a balanced report. Let's take.... (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OLIVER: What is sleeping gas? MCCARLEY: I don't know. I am not aware of any sleeping gas other than what the dentist gives to you. (END VIDEO CLIP) OLIVER: A lot of people don't know what sleeping gas -- I mean, the point here is that people knew this weapon by different names. Some knew it by the word "GB." Some knew it by the word "grubby." Some knew it by the word "CBU-15." Some knew it by the word "knockout gas," "drop dead gas," "sleeping gas." People knew this weapon by different names. I would -- this just goes to underscore the point that a lot of people knew about this weapon. We had six different sources come forward and talk about this weapon in two different broadcasts; that is a multiply-sourced story. NOVAK: That sounded like a "no" to me from (INAUDIBLE). SMITH: He may not have known it as "sleeping gas." He may have known it as "knockout gas." OLIVER: A third... SMITH: Bob, you have to listen. We talked to pilots who called it "sleeping gas." We talked to pilots who called it "knockout gas." We talked to pilots who called it "GB." And we -- I got one more. Don't cut me off on that. Four is a home run. A pilot says it was "nerve gas." PRESS: You have a pilot who said it was a tear gas, and you didn't put that on the air. OLIVER: I... it was in our piece. SMITH: It was on the air, Bill, it was on the air in the second report. It was on the final cut that she and I made and it was cut out by the execs in Atlanta, because Rick Kaplan had to have his little conceptual paragraph in the front end of the piece. OLIVER: We had it in. It was in the piece that we sent to Atlanta. For us to take the bum rap on that is simply not fair. It's dishonest. NOVAK: All right. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about somebody who didn't exactly get a bum rap. He got a sort of a slap on the wrist, and that is the narrator of the program, Peter Arnett. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) NOVAK: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. Two producers were fired when CNN retracted its story of secret use of nerve gas by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War. But star CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, who narrated the documentary, got off with a reprimand. Is this fair? What was Peter Arnett's role? We're asking the two discharged CNN journalists, Jack Smith, former senior producer of "CNN NEWSSTAND," and April Oliver, former producer of "CNN NEWSSTAND" -- Bill. PRESS: OK, let's get to Peter Arnett in just a second. But first, I want to come back to the central question that I think Bruce Morton asked on CNN last night, which is: the question is not whether nerve gas was used. The question is: did you prove -- can you prove that nerve gas was used? And having read all your stuff as much as I can about this, even predisposed to believe it, I can't see where you prove it. None of your sources add up to that. OLIVER: What is the standard of proof in a black operation where everyone's supposed to deny, or information is tightly compartmentalized? We went the extra step and showed the script itself, the finished product, to three sources. One of them was Admiral Moorer. Two other ones were very highly-placed, confidential sources with access to information to confirm this. They both gave the script a thumbs-up in terms of 100 percent accuracy. We -- you know... PRESS: What gives me problems are the omissions, the stuff that was left out. I want to give you one example. OLIVER: I want to say, I asked for an hour, and they took out my -- skeptics Art Bishop. (CROSSTALK) PRESS: It does... I just don't buy the excuse of the time being an excuse for leaving things out. And this, what I'm going to show you now, would have taken little time to include. It's a clip from another source of yours, a Tailwind veteran, Michael Hagen, because CNN said in this piece, among other things, that women and children were killed. OLIVER: Which we have four sources -- no, it's not based on Hagen. That is an inaccuracy. PRESS: Partly based on this clip. OLIVER: I'm sorry, sir, it's inaccurate. PRESS: Let's listen to the video. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL HAGEN, TAILWIND VETERAN: The majority of the people that were there were not combat personnel. (END VIDEO CLIP) PRESS: Now, that certainly gives the impression there were women and children killed. Here's what the entire clip says. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HAGEN: The majority of the people that were there were not combat personnel. They were more of a transportation unit. (END VIDEO CLIP) PRESS: Now, that's another second, but it totally changes the meaning of that sentence. SMITH: No, no, no, it doesn't, Bill. PRESS: It does. SMITH: Time out. Anybody who is familiar with the war in Vietnam knows that support troops, support troops, quarter master, motor pool and drivers, always had their women and children with them. That's just a given. That's a given. Support troops of the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese had their women and children with them constantly. OLIVER: They... PRESS: Transportation troops does not prove to me -- is no evidence that... SMITH: Well -- no, we have sources, four sources, that tell us that women and children were killed. (CROSSTALK) PRESS: Why'd you leave that out? OLIVER: Even Captain McCarley says on camera; it would have been nice to put him in too. Even Captain McCarley says on camera about Tailwind: "If I have to take the hit for killing women and children, then I will just have to take that hit." SMITH: Schmitty (ph) came back from the hospital; one of the men on the ground said a nurse and two kids are dead down by that field hospital. If those aren't women and children, then I don't know what women and children are. NOVAK: Oh, Jack -- April, I want to ask you -- I want to clean this up. This show was presented originally as a Peter Arnett thing. Peter Arnett is big name in television. He was put in there. Now, did he parachute in and was given a script, or did he take part in the presentation -- the preparation of the show? OLIVER: I want to say that I have great respect for Peter Arnett. And he is a very fine journalist, and he certainly had a role in this. He did three of the major interviews for this. I did the prime reporting on this. There's no question, I spent -- I did the bulk of the eight months. And I am proud of this story. I consider it my finest journalistic achievement. NOVAK: He has not supported you and Jack on this. He has not come out and said: yes this is a good story. SMITH: I talked to Peter Arnett. I must speak now, because I telephoned Peter Arnett. And I said, "Peter, where are you on this?" And he said, "Jack," he said, "I haven't even read the final Abrams Coller (ph) report." And I said, "Peter, I think what you need to do when you come back," -- he's out on the West Coast taking a little time off -- "sit down and read this star chamber report that Abrams and Coller produced for the benefit of CNN management to cave on this story. Read it, then go back, Peter, and read all these transcripts and all these books that we have, and sit down and look at all the tape we have, and then come to your judgment on the story that, granted, you came in just like `60 Minutes' does, just like `Nightline' does, just like Kaplan's former broadcast at ABC -- correspondents come in and read it." Everybody who has any knowledge of this business knows that on news magazines, usually, the principal reporters are the producers like us. NOVAK: All right, so he was not a principal producer, or reporter. SMITH: He was not a principle reporter. OLIVER: I think that is fair to say. SMITH: And he shouldn't be any further punished than he is. We were the reporters. NOVAK: OK, Jack. We only have a few -- less than a half a minute left. And I want to ask you, this: I read the transcript of the original program again, and I must say there is, except for Van Buskirk, who said he had a repressed memory of this -- and... OLIVER: That is an incorrect... NOVAK: Just a minute -- and then repudiated -- there is nobody on camera on that broadcast who confirms what you're saying. SMITH: Right. And you know what? "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" put stories on page one every day with faceless sources, confidential sources. Who is Deep Throat? That story ran for years. We still don't know who it is. Bob, you couldn't put a newspaper out. You couldn't put your column out without confidential sources. PRESS: Let me ask you this. SMITH: No. Repressed memory, we have to address it. Repressed memory is a bugaboo here. PRESS: Very quick. Don't you think, taking all of this evidence, you certainly raise a lot of questions; you would have been better off if you said: this deserves an investigation by the Pentagon. Rather than saying: nerve gas was used. OLIVER: I think you should very carefully read the transcript and see it says "military sources tell us that nerve gas was used." We always are very careful to attribute it to sources. And, in fact, that's what they did tell us. Officers -- confidential officers told us -- confidential sources told us that this is what happened. And we have every reason to believe them. PRESS: And that's got to be the last word. I'm sorry. April Oliver, thank you very, very much for joining us. Jack Smith, thank you. I know you've got a lot more to go. We're out of time. Bob Novak and I, we've got some time left for closing comments, coming up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) NOVAK: Jack Smith is a highly respected broadcast journalist, but I've have been around even longer than Jack Smith, and I think I have developed what we call in the business, a BS detector. When I watched this show originally I said, gee, that couldn't have happened. And if it did happen, they sure haven't proved it. I still believe, after listening to their impassioned and I think sincere defense, they didn't prove it happened. And you have to prove it. PRESS: Bob, I think April and Jack are two of the best people around here, even though I never personally worked with them. Like you I didn't believe the story. Like you I still don't believe the story. I think it proves that even the best can screw up. And the skepticism going into a story like this I think is at one point along the line, in my view, became lacking. When you got the guy who is one of the chief people saying I am not confirming the story, that's what you say, there ought to be bells rings, there weren't. NOVAK: OK. PRESS: From the left -- you and I have to do better. From the left I am Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE. NOVAK: From the right, I am Robert Novak. Join us again next time for another edition of CROSSFIRE.