Westmoreland v. CBS

Westmoreland v. CBS
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Full case name	General William C. Westmoreland, Ambassador Richard Helms, Appellant v. CBS, Inc., et al.
Argued	February 14, 1985
Decided	August 20, 1985
Citation(s)	770 F.2d 1168, 248 U.S. App. D.C. 255
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	George Edward MacKinnon, Abner Joseph Mikva, Kenneth Winston Starr
Case opinions
Majority	George Edward MacKinnon

Westmoreland v. CBS was a $120 million libel suit brought in 1982 by former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland against CBS, Inc. for broadcasting on its program CBS Reports a documentary entitled The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception. Westmoreland also sued the documentary's narrator, investigative reporter Mike Wallace; the producer, investigative journalist and best-selling author George Crile, and the former CIA analyst, Sam Adams, who originally broke the story on which the broadcast was based.

Westmoreland's claims were governed by the landmark 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision, which held that, in order to recover for defamation, a "public figure" like Westmoreland must prove that the defendant made the statements in question with "actual malice" (essentially, with knowledge, or reckless disregard, of falsity).^[1]

The suit was originally filed in state court in South Carolina, but was transferred to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The trial ended in February 1985 when the case was settled out of court just before it would have gone to the jury.^[2]