"The Selling of Colonel Herbert"
On Feb. 4, 1973, CBS's 60 Minutes aired a segment titled "The Selling of Colonel Herbert." CBS correspondent Mike Wallace and producer Barry Lando challenged his credibility, implying that Soldier was fictitious and that Herbert himself was guilty of war crimes.
Supporting the CBS allegations against Herbert on the show was Herbert's old nemesis, Colonel J. Ross Franklin who had been relieved of his command. Franklin had been relieved from his command for throwing a Vietnamese body out of a helicopter. (In 1991 Franklin was convicted and sent to prison to serve a five-year sentence for his role in a securities scam.)
Herbert suspected that the Nixon administration put pressure on CBS, which led to the story. CBS president Frank Stanton was under subpoena for an earlier broadcast called The Selling of the Pentagon. About that time Stanton paid a visit to Nixon White House counsel Charles Colson, who later said in the New York Times that Stanton volunteered to help Nixon and was unusually accommodating.
Read more about this topic: Anthony Herbert (US Soldier)
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