Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund
In a November 1983 four part series for Gannett-owned Washington DC television station WDMV (now WUSA) Channel 9 called "Vietnam Memorial: A Broken Promise?".
- ...he "raised serious questions regarding the financial propriety" of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, a private organization that raised $9 million to build the wall. Sherwood reported that only $2.6 million had been spent and wanted to know where the rest of the money was.
Bob Doubek, project director for the Fund, said that "It was a hit piece. All of Sherwood's stuff was conjecture, smoke and mirrors." To prevent a lawsuit, the station aired a retraction and donated $50,000 to the Fund. Sherwood was arrested and charged with illegally taping one of the subjects of the report, John P. Wheeler III, chairman of the Fund and special council to the chairman of the SEC. The charges against Sherwood were later dropped. An audit of the Fund by the General Accounting Office, made public in May 1984, concluded that Sherwood's charges regarding the Fund were baseless.
In December, the station refused to air another report by Sherwood criticizing the Fund. Sherwood quit and got a job for the Washington Times at a lower salary. A New York Times headline on this controversy read "Reporter's Project Ruins His Career". (July 17, 1984)
Read more about this topic: Carlton Sherwood
Famous quotes containing the words vietnam, veterans, memorial and/or fund:
“Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1992)
“[Veterans] feel disappointed, not about the 1914-1918 war but about this war. They liked that war, it was a nice war, a real war a regular war, a commenced war and an ended war. It was a war, and veterans like a war to be a war. They do.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“School success is not predicted by a child’s fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.”
—Daniel Goleman (20th century)