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There's not a lot I can add to it, because everything I've got is, of course, second- hand. Or third-hand. I did feel that when Murrow left, if we're talking about that particular incident, he flew from wherever he was, where he boarded in the Pacific, and came down on Northwest Airlines, I think, in Minneapolis and chose to come on the air from Minneapolis and give the report that he couldn't give under the operating procedures in the war zone.
I took the position that if he couldn't do what he wanted to do because of the restrictions in Vietnam, that he shouldn't be doing it from Minneapolis; that this was something we ought to talk about in New York before we tried to second guess the military on what was proper and what wasn't proper.
A lot's happened on that point since that time--some constructive and some non- constructive. I think I'm more supportive of Murrow today than I was at that particular time. Maybe it's age; maybe I've learned some things in the meantime. But one has to be awfully careful, it seems to me, to go into a theater and say: “I agree to these conditions,” and then violate that, as Ed wanted to do.
Could you describe a little bit about how reporters were instructed. What were the protocols in Vietnam, for example, from the State Department, about how to proceed?
It's too far back in history for me to give you the terms of the agreement, but the code certainly prohibited certain kinds of reporting, for the protection of the armed forces, the men in the field. It wasn't for any political reason at home; or at least that was my
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