I would like to spend a little time with you tonight talkin about what my boss said CBS News dexilant calls the Siamese twin a freedom of the press and that is journalistic responsibility. Many people have linked freedom of the press with the responsibilities of the press. But according to the Constitution there can be no such linkage. You cannot tie the freedom of the press to the responsibility of a journalist. In fact a basic component of freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the Constitution is the right short of libel or obscenity to be wrong to be unfair Are you going to be irresponsible? Tom wicker who is the nationally syndicated columnist of the New York Times has written the American Press cannot have responsibility imposed on it by legislation by judicial interpretation or any other process. He said Freedom contains within itself the possibility of irresponsibility. no, man is truly free who is not occasionally permitted to be a responsible and it's the same for any institution and you know, it has to be this way because if the official determination of responsibility Is the condition to First Amendment rights, then those guarantees would have to be granted or withheld by a decision made by the government is to who is responsible and who is not isn't that just the kind of intrusion that by the government that is prohibited by the First Amendment to other diverse people have said it and very different ways Albert Camus wrote many years ago a free press can of course be good or bad. But most certainly without Freedom it will never be anything but bad is examples from my own experience. I would offer the newspapers and radio and television stations in some of the countries where I've worked as a correspondent Vietnam and Cambodia come readily to mind. We're in those countries all too often. The Press was little more than a mouthpiece for the government in power. On a second-hand basis. I might offer the Press of the Soviet Union and of mainland China for that matter where there really is. No such thing as freedom of the press as we know it Milton Friedman and a conservative Economist who writes regularly for Newsweek magazine specifically referring to our fairness Doctrine its CBS News wrote. There is no objective standard of fairness furnace is strictly in the eyes of the beholder if speech must be fair, But it cannot also be free. I know why the linkage of freedom of the press and responsibilities of the press is constitutionally forbidden philosophically professionally, ethically. And anyway, you would care to regard it that linkage is right and proper and necessary. To remain free the Press must be responsible and perhaps more importantly, it must persuade the public that it is trying to be responsible and believe me. That's not an easy job because they're always at least two sides to every story. The freedom which the Constitution guarantees the Press is not rigid and unyielding this Freedom will over the long run expand or contract according to how conscientiously and how responsible how responsibly journalism does and is perceived to be doing its job. And as I said before that's not easy Benjamin Franklin wrote to serve the public faithfully and at the same time, please it is entirely impractical. But as a practical matter there is a profound relationship between freedom and responsibility. If the Press has to survive by maintaining its credibility among the people of this country. The Constitution of the United States gives us as journalist special privileges, but these are privileges granted to us as surrogates of the people is your representatives and the inescapable fact that the first amendment is the linchpin of a viable Democratic Society requires us to impose some awesome responsibilities upon ourselves. There's some fundamental things that that I should mention. First of all we must as journalist be fair. We must be as accurate as human fallibility permits. We must recognize and then compensate for and put aside our own personal biases and selecting and Reporting our stories bringing the same open mind and skepticism to those with whom we agree as to those with whom we disagree and believe me that's not easy either. It was one of the first lessons I learned as a journalist and it's a lesson that is constantly being reinforced 16 years ago and my life with no formal training as a journalist no real experience. I found myself on the Streets of Philadelphia, which is my hometown covering. What was one of our first modern day riots in this country. At that time I work for a small independent radio station in Philadelphia and was just beginning to learn the tools of my profession. I should probably say that I didn't really work for them at that time. They permitted me to be on the air, but for year, they never paid me, but that's another story. Anyway that time it was a difficult experience for me to report on and to interview people. I knew and whose plight I shared and understood but even then I knew without anyone telling me what my responsibility was as a journalist when I went on the air just two months ago. I was in Malaysia working on a documentary for CBS reports, which came to be called the boat people the story of the thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese who are leaving their country. That reporting brought back a lot of memories for me from the more than two years. I spent in Southeast Asia. And it also brought back some of the conflicts. I had during that. I went to Vietnam as a reporter to cover a war. As a human being I was opposed to that wore. Now that raised all kinds of conflicts for me and believe me. It wasn't easy to draw a line across that line, but it was absolutely necessary. Just last week. I was in Philadelphia again working on another documentary that takes a look at some of the progress that black stuff made in this country in the 25 years since the Supreme Court's historic Brown versus the Board of Education decision that decision that supposedly led to the integration of our Public School Systems traveling around my my old Hometown and filming scenes as they happened and talking with people. I have known and grown up with wasn't easy. I have preconceived notions about race relations in this country, but it was important for me because of my job and my responsibility to get both sides of the story. It was important to me to bring the same scrutiny and questioning to the stories of people on all sides of the issues. We must all recognize that journalist. Just as yourselves are human and that means that we are fallible. And for us it means that when we are wrong, we must be publicly willing to admit that error. We must welcome and courage and open our minds to criticism both public and private no matter how much we might wish that the level of professional criticism could find a more sensible course between the all-too-common extremes of unsubstantiated and uncheck gossip on the one hand and ideological or professional bias on the other. This criticism of the press never seems to go away and it really shouldn't but I for one would feel much more comfortable about our system of government and the people of this country is that criticism could be maintained on some High Plain, but I guess asking for that is like asking for the impossible. Who can forget the criticism against the Press orchestrated by the Nixon White House? I mean it was no accident. No chance phrasing that had Spiro Agnew calling us the nattering nabobs of negativism. You do remember Spiro Agnew, don't you? I thought maybe I'd struck a dead nerves in it. Spiro Agnew as I would imagine not someone you would hold up for your children as a role model and we should not forget his boss Richard Nixon. I mean he was responsible for that campaign wasn't he? It could not have been done in isolation without his approval at that time. This country was involved in a very destructive War. Vietnam is an experience from which we have yet to recover, but which many people in this country would like to forget. The things that we're going on in Vietnam at that time, we're all too often incredible and unbelievable and the reporters who bear the truth there were ridiculed. And they were real That Home by a government that did not want to face the truth. Just think of some of the phrases that come to mind from that period of our recent history the light at the end of the tunnel or peace is at hand two years after Henry Kissinger told us peace was at hand there was still a war and the only time I saw the light at the end of the tunnel or felt that peace was at hand was on my last day in Vietnam the day that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong one that wore the day that the Americans were evacuated from that country. And in many ways the evacuation of Vietnam was indicative of our conduct of that war. Let me tell you a short story brief, but true about that evacuation. We were told by the American Embassy in Saigon, and this gives me some pause today realizing that it may be necessary to evacuate Americans from Iran. but we were told in Saigon to keep our radios tuned to the American armed forces stationed in Saigon and that when it came time to evacuate and announced it would break in and say the temperature in downtown Saigon is 100 degrees and rising and then he would play Bing Crosby's White Christmas. This was an April by the way. We kept our radios tuned and we never heard an announcement. Then we've noticed one day that there were a lot of Americans in the street with suitcases. There had been a curfew for 48 hours. We called the embassy and they told us there was an evacuation. To make a long story short, I spent about seven hours at day trying to get out of Saigon. We went to tan son nhut Air Base where we was supposed to be flown out of the country the Vietnamese soldiers their shot at us. We went to a poor facility where we could see the helicopters circling overhead, but not Landing. We went to the Embassy and spent more than an hour fighting our way through a crown and a distance of about 15 yards to reach the embassy wall and try to climb over while soldiers were on top knocking people back with rifle butts once getting inside the embassy walls. I watch money being burn barrels of money being burned. I saw one man carrying an armload of money. I've never seen that much money in my life. I said he's going to burn all that and he said no we don't have time to burn it. We're going to shred this. That was the organized American evacuation of Vietnam. When I reach the embassy proper and made my way to the 6th floor and helicopters are landing on the roof to take Americans out. It was a long line of people in the hallway. And at one end of the Carter was the ambassador's conference room. Brightly lit with fluorescent lights with dark in the hallway at the far end where I was standing there was an office and on the walls in that office were newspaper clippings that went back 10 years that had all of the catchphrases. We have come to know during that time Operation Rolling Thunder Search and Destroy Vietnamization. They had pictures of all the Vietnamese leaders and when kalki Nguyen van to posing with American leaders, Richard Nixon Lyndon Johnson Hubert Humphrey. When I stepped out into the hallway and look down at the end of the hall and saw that brightly illuminated room. That was the only time that I ever felt that yes, there was a light at the end of the tunnel and maybe there would be peace in the in that country but they were politicians and private citizens were as well at that time and to this day who will tell you that one of the reasons the United States lost that war was because of the press because the Press turned around the attitudes in this country of an unthinking majority. Let me give you another true story from those days at the time of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Lyndon Johnson realize that he had not been given the full proof that something was seriously wrong in Vietnam. He sent Arthur Goldberg to find out what it happened Goldberg was it had been a Supreme Court Justice Secretary of Labor? An ambassador to the United Nations, he went to a high-level briefing where Military Officers told him that things have gone. Well for our side since the beginning of the Tet Offensive Mister Ambassador, we have killed 45,000 of the enemy. Goldberg thought for a minute. He said what's the wounded to kill ratio? They said 3 and 1/2 to 1. Did some figuring in his head and said when it's about a hundred 6560 7045 thousand dead. That means they're over 200,000. Killed or wounded he said to the general. What was the the enemy's strength at? The start of the Tet Offensive said almost to Ambassador. It was a hundred 6270 thousand we estimate. I Goldberg Sossaman and he said well if they only had a hundred sixty thousand and now you're telling me that at least a hundred seventy or out of commission, why is General Westmoreland now asking President Johnson to send another 200,000 American soldiers to Vietnam? Those generals and those officials had told those body count lies for so long that they believe them that story is in David halberstam's book the best in the brightest. If you haven't read it, I would recommend you do the best in the brightest gave us Vietnam the Press never send any troops overseas, but the Brett best and the brightest crafted are foreign policy. They determined that we should fight this war to Halt the spread of Communism and I would ask you is a communist government in Vietnam a threat to the security of the United States. Are we better people today? Because we propped up crooked dictators in Vietnam. I think that the coverage of the Vietnam War by the American Press will stand up far better than the conduct of our government officials during that. Still they were cries. Still there were cries at that time. To straighten out the press and those cries have not been stilled not too many months ago. They were coming from Washington in the person of 1 Bertram T lamps close friend of the president former director of the budget Lance has been involved in a deepening Scandal. Let me give you a little background on this again though. He attended a luncheon meeting with two men who are not his very old and dear friends at the time. He was involved in an effort to buy an interest in a Washington Bank Lance said that if that meeting none of the business involved in the attempt to purchase the bank was discuss Even though the two men he launched with were the man who was trying to sell the bank and another man who is trying to buy it. Lance said that the report in the paper that luncheon was guilt by association guilt by innuendo you maintain that no business involving that considered transaction was discussed. We're fine. I'm willing to believe bird lands, but are we not supposed to print that information are we not supposed to broadcast it and what's more it was not some reporter from a newspaper who just uncovered this information and report it on. The paper only reported the findings of an investigation conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission an official government agency and official government report. Are we to withhold that information when it's been released because it looks bad for bird lands. That's what they wanted us to do in Vietnam with hold the bad news and Report only the good and then Bert Lance refer to that old skirt. She said the Press was unbridled and uncheck and if the Press did not control itself, then it would be necessary for Outsiders to step in and establish control. And of course, you know the threat he raised that threat was censorship. Was it censorship which disclosed the Pentagon papers? Was it censorship which disclosed the secret bombing of Cambodia slick about that for a minute the United States of America the greatest country in the Free World secretly bombing the tiny country of Cambodia. Believe me. It was no secret to the cambodians. Censorship did not disclose that either and what about the CIA Revelations? efforts by members of the Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate leaders of foreign countries A plan concocted by CIA agents, whereby they would somehow. Put powder in the shoes of Fidel Castro that powder would cause his beard to fall out. They thought then he would lose his Charisma and the support of the Cuban people. That was something that the CIA was involved in. It sounds ridiculous and funny, but it's true. And what about Watergate? Did censorship of the Press on cover all of those sordid details? And all of those vicious schemes that we're concocted in and directed from the Oval Office. And you know when we look back at what is happening today in Cambodia? We cannot. pass off all of that responsibility on the Vietnamese and they should be blamed for crossing another country's borders. The Pol Pot regime should be condemned. For the massive violations of human rights, the outright murders according to Refugee accounts. Perhaps has many or perhaps more than a million people in Cambodia were killed outright or by starvation entire cities were evacuated people were taken out of hospitals and forced to move to the Countryside by the Khmer Rouge. But in 1970 intelligence estimates by this government said that the Khmer Rouge were an insignificant factor in Cambodia and what led to their growth the secret bombing. Strengthen the Khmer Rouge at LED more people to their side. There was a military coup in Cambodia, which led to the overthrow of Prince norodom. Sihanouk. He then join the Khmer Rouge and more people followed norodom. Sihanouk that military coup had the blessing of the United States government. Almost to the very end. We supported corrupt dictators in Cambodia. People in that country could not support their own government that led them to the Khmer Rouge even to this day. We have a hand in that no matter how indirect and no matter how hard it might be for some of us to swallow our responsibility. And censorship did not disclose that. I would hope tonight that you would agree with me when I say that this country does not need censorship. What we need is an even stronger press. We need a free press responsible. Yes held accountable by all means but to the people of this country and not to the government. There will always be attempts to stifle the Press. Bike people in and out of the government some will succeed to a greater extent than others, but I have to think that this freedom of the press which we enjoyed it. I will survive all efforts to stifle it for one reason and that reason is the people of this country. Someone said to me today at the reception across the street. How does it feel to be welcomed rather than to be a member of the hated press There are too many people in this country who did not realize. That the Press is not a part from the people. The journalist draw their strength, there's substance and their guarantees under the Constitution from the people of this country. And if we lose that Faith then we all lose. Enclosing let me say that. I think that with a strong Free Press and an enlightened public our freedom will be revived. Resisting all the tax as well as strengthen. Is Dixieland has said many times? If we try this course. And we still do not survive. We will at least die on our feet as practitioners of an honorable craft. Rather than on. Our backs is members of the world's oldest profession. Thank you.