Vet sues CNN over report on Vietnam

Greg Tuttle

Thursday, June 1, 2000 | 11:18 a.m.

A Vietnam veteran and former Las Vegan has filed a federal lawsuit against CNN claiming to be the latest casualty of the Tailwind debacle.

Peter M. Landon is seeking $11 million in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

Landon, who now lives in California, is the latest to file suit against the media company claiming its 1998 story detailing how Americans in Vietnam used chemical weapons was false.

Landon claims CNN, Time magazine and parent company Time Warner are guilty of slander and libel for reporting a U.S. Special Forces unit used the deadly nerve gas Sarin to kill American defectors hiding in Laos.

The story reported civilians, including women and children, died in the attack.

"It's not hard to prove the story was false," said Landon's attorney, William McDaniel of Baltimore. "There was simply no evidence that nerve gas had ever been used."

A CNN spokeswoman in New York referred questions to Susan Binford, the company's executive vice president in Atlanta. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

On June 7, 1998, CNN broadcast a program called "Valley of Death" in which veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett told viewers of a covert mission called Operation Tailwind. The story appeared on a program called "NewStand," a joint venture between CNN and Time magazine. Time also ran stories about the use of nerve gas during the operation.

The stories quoted one soldier involved in the operation saying it was possible the military used "sleeping gas" during the 1970 operation to find American soldiers who had defected and crossed the border from Vietnam into neighboring Laos.

The story also quoted retired Adm. Thomas Moorer, a chief of naval operations during the Vietnam War and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"I would be willing to use any weapon and any tactic to save the lives of American soldiers," Moorer said in the broadcast.

But the story was immediately challenged by Pentagon officials and veterans who said tear gas was used during the operation to cover the soldiers' escape, but nerve gas was never used during the war. The use of Sarin and other chemical weapons are banned by international treaty.

CNN hired an expert to review the credibility of the story and a month later issued a retraction. Three producers were fired, and Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage during the Vietnam War, later left CNN.

Numerous lawsuits followed. In August of 1998 a former Green Beret who was not quoted but whose picture appeared in both the broadcast and published accounts of the story was the first to sue CNN and Time. That lawsuit seeks damages of more than $100 million.

Since then, about two dozen similar lawsuits have been filed. Some have been settled out of court for undisclosed amounts.

Eleven lawsuits filed by former soldiers remain pending in federal court in California and are expected to be consolidated, said McDaniel, Landon's attorney. Landon's lawsuit will likely be joined with those remaining in California, he said.

McDaniel said Landon was a lieutenant involved in Operation Tailwind. He was not interviewed for the CNN story, but Landon was in a group picture published by Time magazine, McDaniel said.

Now working in construction, Landon was questioned by family and friends following the Tailwind story about his involvement in the operation, his attorney said.

"The story said women and children were killed (during Operation Tailwind), and that's not something anyone likes to hear said about them, especially when it's not true," McDaniel said.

Landon's lawsuit also seeks damages for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Landon was living in Las Vegas at the time the story was published.