CNN AND TIME'S POISONOUS SMEAR

...The vomiting is the key to the puzzle...

...The book Tailwind may have been the starting point for Oliver and Arnett’s sarin-gas opus, but strangely it was never mentioned in the CNN broadcast...

...CNN had an obligation, at the very least, to warn its viewers about Van Buskirk’s remarkable change of stories...

...The Pentagon has denied the story from the outset and is conducting an investigation...

...it is Van Buskirk who says it was “pretty well understood that if you came across a defector . . . under any circumstances, kill them...

...In the CNN broadcast, the symptoms of exposure to the gas used in the attack were described as follows: “vomiting, convulsing, and falling quickly to the ground unconscious...

...I told them over and over that it’s just preposterous...

...According to their account, Van Buskirk’s “only recourse was to call for help from the air...

...CNN didn’t use any of Bishop’s interview on the air...

...She told me, ‘We have a document saying nerve gas was used,’” Bishop says...

...Once airborne we took fire from every direction...

...I don’t know how the newspeople get away with it,” he says...

...The other was running toward it...

...the nerves in the eye are dulled...

...military and of the soldiers who took part in the commando raid into Laos known as “Operation Tailwind...

...CNN’s Bernard Shaw and Jeff Greenfield anchored the broadcast, and the story was simultaneously published in Time magazine, under the bylines of CNN’s Peter Arnett and April Oliver, who had done the reporting...

...She described the signs and symptoms...

...Moorer said he had no knowledge of sarin use, although later, “in general discussions,” he had heard “verbal statements indicating the use of sarin on the Tailwind mission...

...It was the end of Van Buskirk’s Army career, but the beginning of a new life: He had an Easter Sunday vision of Christ in a German jail cell in 1974...

...They were friend and foe...

...Without this description of the enemy’s symptoms, Arnett and Oliver had no story...

...Nothing...

...If the concentration is great, miosis is severe and disorienting— and can lead to vomiting...

...A friend of Moorer’s says of the original broadcast, “The admiral got mixed up...

...By contrast, immediate vomiting is a common effect of tear-gas exposure when the gas is in high concentrations...

...I was able to see and shoot...

...Smith called the story “sleazy journalism...

...The key source for the NewsStand: CNN & Time allegations is Robert Van Buskirk, a lieutenant who led one of three platoons in the Tailwind mission...

...About half of our guys, I’d estimate, had thrown theirs [gas masks] away or were carrying faulty masks...

...The two versions can’t possibly both be true...

...Whereupon I immediately became sick...

...Finally, the sound of the first chopper could be heard to my left...

...Moorer, Capt...

...The lieutenant gave chase but just missed the blond man as he slipped into the tunnel...

...Now that many of those quoted in CNN’s “Valley of Death” say they were misquoted or misrepresented, and now that Adm...

...Moorer was only the first source to back down from the allegations attributed to him...

...The Air Force pilot who actually dropped the gas in question, Art Bishop, was interviewed for more than an hour by Oliver...

...He even described tearing the star-studded insignia off the dead regimental commander, which he took as a trophy and put on his jungle hat (this can be seen in the picture of Van Buskirk that accompanied the Time story...

...Had their exposure been great enough to cause vomiting, their miosis would have been so severe it would have lasted for days—and would have been obvious to any observer...

...The condition—if not treated with atropine eye-drops—can persist for days...

...But they come nowhere close to fitting the nerve-gas theory...

...This is a vague enough assertion to encompass his interviews with CNN, during which he no doubt heard precisely such “verbal statements...

...Asked about his eyes, Van Buskirk says with confidence that he never suffered a thing: When the gas hit, “I covered everything but my eyes...

...Van Buskirk has an explanation for the discrepancy— actually, two explanations...

...Until CNN and Time retract their story and apologize, a noxious cloud of dishonor hangs over them both...

...He radioed an Air Force controller above to call in two waiting A-1 Skyraiders to drop the ‘bad of the bad.’” In other words, a trapped Van Buskirk called in a nerve-gas air strike...

...Van Buskirk’s memoir was published by a small, evangelical Christian imprint, Word Books...

...News organizations don’t usually pass up the chance to reveal secret documents...

...I couldn’t see it for the gas fog and the tears that filled my eyes...

...Liquid sarin on the skin usually causes vomiting an hour or two after exposure...

...One of the nation’s most respected experts in chemical agents, Dr...

...Oliver never called the scientist back, and not surprisingly his comments did not appear on the show...

...Bishop kept a journal while in Vietnam, in which he described that day’s mission—even down to the detail that his plane was loaded with tear-gas cluster bombs...

...First, those aspects of the story that are shared by both accounts: In the CNN broadcast and in his book, Van Buskirk describes breathing enough gas that he was throwing up...

...There is only one circumstance under which immediate vomiting is associated with sarin, and that is when the vaporized chemical comes in contact with unprotected eyes...

...CNN’s longtime top military expert, Air Force major general Perry Smith, quit the network, after a follow-up broadcast of NewsStand: CNN & Time on June 14 stood behind the original reporting...

...The answer, it turns out, is no...

...He says he was haunted for years...

...Arnett and Oliver report that the gas was nearly invisible...

...Without Van Buskirk, NewsStand: CNN & Time would not have had its story—and that’s not just because his claims are the backbone of CNN’s report...

...Here’s how the interview with the captain was played by NewsStand: CNN & Time: McCarley “suggested that lethal gas was always an option,” said Arnett...

...The Vietnamese were hit with an invisible gas that made them vomit, fall to the ground convulsing, and then die—unmistakable symptoms, according to CNN, of exposure to sarin nerve gas...

...Most of those in the Tokyo subway had minimal exposure to the gas and yet suffered from miosis, which can be caused by as little as 1/100 of a lethal dose of sarin...

...After leaving Vietnam, Van Buskirk was assigned to an Army base in Germany, where he was arrested for trafficking in guns with terrorists...

...Never mind that at the front of his book, Van Buskirk provided this guarantee: “Because the last thing I wanted to do was hurt or embarrass anyone, I decided to change some names...

...This description of events is the heart of CNN’s claim that deadly sarin nerve gas was used that day...

...No shackles...

...But when she showed up it was all gas, gas, gas...

...It is Van Buskirk who claims to have killed two Caucasians he believed to be deserters...

...Adm...

...We called for air support, but the request soon had to be withdrawn because we [and the enemy] were literally at each other’s throats,” Van Buskirk wrote...

...What it hasn’t done is break down those numbers and tell how many of those sources believe the tale that was broadcast...

...Had there actually been any such documents, they surely would have been the centerpiece of the broadcast...

...After the broadcast, Moorer told Reuters and Newsweek that he had never confirmed the use of sarin to CNN and had no knowledge that nerve gas was ever used during the Vietnam war...

...Eugene McCarley, the Army captain who led Operation Tailwind on the ground, is livid at the way his quotes were cut and pasted by CNN to make him appear to say things that are the exact opposite of what he said...

...NewsStand: CNN & Time brags that its report, “Valley of Death,” was based on an eight-month investigation in which everyone from the soldiers on the ground to the top brass was interviewed—200 sources in all...

...Three or four months ago I got a call from a lady from CNN,” says the scientist, who asked not to be named...

...And Oliver and Arnett needed those on-camera claims—without them, they would have had no grounds to claim that nerve gas was used...

...I shouted, and with that we lifted off...

...The absence of miosis and the immediacy of the vomiting are two of the reasons why, when Oliver contacted a leading expert in chemical agents, she was told that the gas couldn’t possibly have been sarin...

...The fact that it did not demonstrates Arnett and Oliver’s fundamental dishonesty in “Valley of Death...

...It was a diversion intended to distract North Vietnamese troops from a CIA operation miles away...

...The effects of the gas were wearing off, and the enemy opened fire on the rising choppers...

...Then, according to his book, Van Buskirk and his men made it to the helicopter: “Okay, go...

...Oliver and Arnett should have known this...

...So, for the purposes of the “Valley of Death” broadcast, Arnett and Oliver ignored the account in Van Buskirk’s book...

...And no doubt millions of American veterans can attest to the same effect, from their forced exposure to tear gas in one of the classic boot-camp rites of passage, a “confidence-building” exercise that leaves gassed recruits weeping and heaving...

...Frederick Sidell, confirms this...

...Bishop showed Oliver the journal—but she was unimpressed...

...The scientist didn’t budge from his conclusion: Sarin could not have caused the symptoms the reporter had described...

...Arnett and Oliver write that, while trying to get to the rice paddy where the helicopters were landing to pick them up, the Special Forces team was nearly cut off by advancing enemy troops...

...I couldn’t see who was shooting at us, but there was someone down there...

...According to Dr...

...At first I tried to put it on while running, but it didn’t do any good so I tossed it aside...

...But it is...

...They are not fighting anymore...

...Needs a haircut...

...They gathered evidence during their reporting that the story wasn’t plausible—and that their main witness wasn’t reliable...

...On the air, Moorer’s clearest statement was, “I would be willing to use any weapon and any tactic to save the lives of American soldiers...

...But the only concession they extracted from the magazine’s top editors in New York was a headline with a question mark, “Did the U.S...

...He told her repeatedly that it was tear gas that he dropped on the landing zone...

...Instead, Arnett used the fact of Bishop’s denial as an indication of a conspiracy to keep the use of nerve gas secret...

...According to Arnett, “Moorer confirmed that nerve gas was used in Tailwind,” but he didn’t say so on camera...

...And it contradicts CNN’s and Time’s version of events...

...I saw the blond guy’s face every night...

...The mission did involve dropping gas on enemy soldiers, but it was gardenvariety CS tear gas, not deadly sarin nerve gas...

...Van Buskirk says he didn’t remember a thing about killing the defectors until he was talking to CNN, when the interviews helped him recover the memory...

...Even a pilot who dropped gas to get the commandos out said he was briefed it was just tear gas,” Arnett said darkly...

...Gen...

...He grabbed his wound and fell backwards into the laps of our guys...

...If it is Van Buskirk’s written version that is true, the symptoms described—vomiting, choking, and tearing—are perfectly consistent with exposure to CS tear gas...

...But none was shown or quoted from...

...Eugene McCarley...

...Did Not Drop Nerve Gas on a Laotian Village By Eric Felten Two weeks ago, some of the biggest guns in American journalism made a horrifying accusation: A U.S...

...He’s 87 years old...

...April Oliver called me and said that she wanted to do a story on Tailwind because she had learned about the amazing heroism of the men, their great bravery and the miraculous escape,” McCarley says...

...As the rescue choppers lifted his unit off, Van Buskirk manned a machine gun, scanning the elephant grass for targets, but there were none...

...The scientist says that Oliver became angry with him...

...McCarley says he sat through an on-camera interview that lasted for six hours...

...Here are accounts of how the CNN reporters supposedly got “confirmation” from key sources...

...Not a prisoner...

...Let’s compare...

...Otherwise, the stories are radically different...

...Sidell’s essay in the 1996 textbook Chemical Warfare Agents, vomiting does not occur when sarin vapor is inhaled...

...He shouted down the hole, identifying himself and offering to take the man home...

...When I wrote the book, I wanted women and children to read the book without being grossed out,” he says...

...I wrote the book Tailwind in ’83, and somebody got her a copy of the book...

...eyesight becomes blurry...

...Blond hair...

...The problem for CNN’s account is that, while inhalation of sarin may produce nearly instantaneous effects, absorption of sarin through the skin takes time...

...Then he offers this rather more trendy explanation: “I had pretty well suppressed the memory...

...All I see is bodies,” he recalls...

...While they tended to him, I moved forward and began squeezing off rounds in his place, firing wildly into the elephant grass below...

...In Time’s version of the nerve-gas story, (which includes material not in the CNN broadcast), Arnett and Oliver describe how Van Buskirk killed two American defectors while attacking a Vietnamese base camp: Suddenly Van Buskirk spotted two “longshadows,” a name for taller Caucasians...

...John Singlaub...

...That isn’t how Van Buskirk described it in his book...

...McCarley, and the pilot Bishop insist no nerve gas was used, Arnett and Oliver have fallen back on the claim that they are relying on confidential sources and secret documents, which they have yet to release...

...It is the story not only of the mission in Laos, but also of Van Buskirk’s epiphany...

...What kind of gas was it...

...It was only when Van Buskirk converted to Christianity that the nightmares went away: “I saw a new face...

...She told me she knew it was sarin gas because it had been confirmed to her by the Pentagon...

...They are just lying, some on their sides, some on their backs...

...Instead, vomiting occurs primarily when liquid sarin has been absorbed through the skin...

...The highest-ranking military source named was Moorer, who had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1970...

...But he has nothing to say about any Americans or Caucasians in the camp, let alone anything about burning them alive with a white-phosphorus grenade...

...This blockbuster story kicked off a new program called NewsStand: CNN & Time, a joint venture of the cable network and the newsweekly, which are corporate siblings in Ted Turner’s media empire...

...Big 50-caliber machine gun bullets were chasing us, and many rounds tore into the birds...

...In other words, though vomiting can be an effect of sarin exposure, the immediate onset of vomiting is not...

...And there is evidence Arnett and Oliver had good reason to know it was false...

...I told her a thousand times that poison gas was not used...

...CNN’s report is also demonstrably false on scientific grounds...

...Actually, it’s not strange at all: CNN never mentioned Van Buskirk’s book because the author’s written version of the facts contradicts his on-camera claims...

...But Singlaub was never interviewed by Oliver or Arnett for the Tailwind story...

...The G.I.s heard the canisters exploding and saw a wet fog envelop the Vietnamese soldiers as they dropped to the ground, vomiting and convulsing...

...When one is bent over sick, it’s hard to distinguish one from the other...

...they interrogated him for hours...

...It’s not hard to see why they would be unhappy...

...Special Forces unit in September 1970 had cold-bloodedly dropped lethal nerve gas on civilians in Laos while on a mission to assassinate American defectors thought to be in the village...

...Editors and reporters at Time have been speaking off the record about their unhappiness at having published the article...

...Then somebody upstairs had a bright idea—drop gas...

...But as I understand it, these gases, these lethal gases, are an Air Force ordnance in their arsenal...

...Thomas Moorer...

...When terrorists released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995, some 98 percent of those exposed suffered from miosis...

...it is Van Buskirk who says Laotian mercenaries found “beaucoup roundeyes” in the tunnels of the camp they destroyed...

...Arnett and Oliver took quotes from that story and pasted them into the “Valley of Death” story •Robert Van Buskirk...

...Then came a snippet from McCarley: “They might have had some of these other gases available or standing by with the Air Force...

...CNN reports that Van Buskirk flew out in an eerie quiet, the Vietnamese guns silenced because the troops were all lying dead in the field...

...Asked if he suffered any problems with his eyes in the days after the mission, Van Buskirk says he did not...

...Oh, I’d say about seven months ago I got a call one day from April Oliver,” says Van Buskirk, reached at his farm on the Broad River in North Carolina...

...Mine was punctured by bullet holes or shrapnel which rendered it worthless...

...One was sliding down a “spider hole” into the underground- tunnel system beneath the camp...

...Van Buskirk’s book said the gas was so thick and opaque that he couldn’t see where the helicopters were coming from...

...According to a spokesman, CNN won’t release these documents or unaired interviews, which it considers “work product” and would therefore never divulge...

...There was an Operation Tailwind in Laos, but it was not an assassination mission...

...he’s in a nursing home...

...Oliver’s insistence that she had documentary proof may explain why several other soldiers said on camera that they are now convinced nerve gas was used...

...It is Van Buskirk who claims to have personally ordered the air strike with “sleeping gas” (which Van Buskirk says “was slang for nerve gas...

...That is the one liberty I took with the facts...

...Singlaub is quoted in a way that makes it appear he is discussing Operation Tailwind...

...Looks like he was running off a beach in California,” remembers Van Buskirk...

...All of these parties, it is now clear, bear some responsibility for maligning the reputations of the U.S...

...He described the carnage as he ran out from the jungle and into the enemy officers’ mess hut, spraying them with machine-gun fire while they ate...

...These purported facts are ambiguous: Tear gas doesn’t ordinarily leave its victims unconscious...

...A young Marine door gunner standing next to me answered with his machine gun until he took a bullet in the neck...

...F— you,” came the reply...

...The gas “didn’t bother my eyes...

...Tom Marzullo, another Special Forces veteran who was interviewed but whose comments were not used in the final story, describes an experience like Bishop’s: “April Oliver told me she had documents that absolutely proved that nerve gas was used in Laos...

...Though retching is indeed a side-effect of sarin exposure, it occurs only under certain circumstances, depending on how the victim is exposed and whether the nerve agent is vaporized or in its liquid state...

...According to Arnett and Oliver, no less a figure than retired major general John Singlaub, a commander of the Special Forces in Vietnam, confirmed the mission to kill American defectors...

...But Bishop refused to change his story...

...In the CNN broadcast and in the book the soldiers get on helicopters and escape...

...Had it not been for a book written by Van Buskirk, titled Tailwind: A True Story, April Oliver likely wouldn’t have been working on the story in the first place...

...They are no longer combatants...

...This is a G.I...

...I told her that they did not fit with exposure to nerve agent...

...Eric Felten, a Washington writer, last wrote for THE WEEKLY STANDARD about the NAACP and Merriam-Webster’s...

...The gas was a nauseous kind, and I soon found myself wandering among dozens of other vomiting soldiers...

...Contacted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD, CNN refused to make Arnett or Oliver, or anchor Jeff Greenfield, who introduced the “Valley of Death” segment on NewsStand, available for comment...

...When Marzullo asked to see the documents, Oliver changed the subject, he says...

...Early 20s...

...Time’s managing editor Walter Isaacson, in a prepared statement, says, “We’re continuing to report thi sacstory and will clarify the charges and countercharges when we have more information...

...It’s a vivid tale—and it appeared nowhere in Van Buskirk’s book...

...When the Washington bureau of Time read the article that was about to be published, they were mortified, according to one Time reporter, because of the obvious holes in the story...

...Frustrated that McCarley kept denying any gas had been used, Oliver asked how he could possibly know that nerve gas had never been used in Vietnam...

...Indeed, the most common physical consequence of sarin exposure is a condition called miosis—an excessive contraction of the pupils...

...and it is Van Buskirk who describes seeing North Vietnamese troops wiped out by that gas...

...Van Buskirk wrote that the gas wore off, the Vietnamese recovered, and the helicopters came under heavy fire...

...Writing in 1983, he described in detail the attack on a North Vietnamese base camp in Laos...

...With miosis, the pupil contracts...

...Then he went on to repeat that whether or not a nerve agent was in the Air Force arsenal somewhere, he had not used it in Tailwind or any other mission—and would never have even thought to ask for it...

...Which is probably why they didn’t present Van Buskirk’s written account of what happened when the planes dropped their gas bombs: What confusion...

...Oliver interviewed Singlaub a year ago for a different CNN broadcast involving different accusations of nefarious commando actions...

...It all depends whether you listen to Van Buskirk now, or read his book...

...Otherwise, this book is, to the best of my memory, a true account of what took place...

...McCarley told Oliver that for all he knew “they might have had some of these gases available,” a reasonable caveat...

...Until the CNN interviews, Van Buskirk had also forgotten about the nerve-gas attack, though his book offered an intricately detailed account in all other respects...

...Boots on...

...For its June 14 follow-up, NewsStand: CNN & Time reinterviewed Moorer and was unable to get the “confirmation” it once claimed...

...We were equipped with gas masks, he must have reasoned, and the gas would keep everyone busy until we were lifted out...

...The delay can be as long as 18 hours and no shorter than 30 minutes...

...I made it to the chopper and could see to shoot the gun...

...Here is how Arnett and Oliver tell it: Within seconds, the Skyraiders swooped over the advancing enemy and dropped gas canisters, scoring a direct hit...

...CNN claims sarin gas was used in Operation Tailwind, and yet Arnett and Oliver provide no account of any of the gas-exposed soldiers’ suffering from miosis...

...There is in fact no plausible evidence to support the allegation of nerve-gas use—which Oliver has called a possible “war crime...

...Arnett and Oliver made much ado about the vomiting reported by Van Buskirk and other soldiers, claiming that vomiting is not a symptom of tear-gas exposure...

...No, it’s f— you,” answered Van Buskirk as he dropped in a white phosphorus grenade, presumably killing both longshadows...

...there is usually pain in the eyes...

...Art Bishop...