Sorkin's Simplistic Take on Operation Tailwind: Special Report on 'The Newsroom'

[MinM]

In June of 1998, CNN/Time premiered a new joint venture, a weekly program called 'News Stand'. Their first segment had revelations about a 'Valley of Death' (as one of the veterans interviewed called it) during the Vietnam War. The news story of this 1970 U.S. military black operation known as Operation Tailwind aired nationally over two consecutive Sundays. It quoted members of the military who alleged that commandos from the U.S. Special Operations Group (SOG) had been dispatched to a village base camp in Laos with sarin gas, a toxic nerve agent that causes a painful death. (It's the same gas that was used by a Japanese religious cult in the 1995 terror attack in the Tokyo subway.)100 people in the Laotian village reportedly died as a result of Operation Tailwind. Moreover, the story purported that U.S. military defectors living in the village were the primary target.

News of the secret attack, named 'Operation Tailwind', shocked the nation and also created a firestorm of protest directed at the news organization from the Pentagon, veterans, and high-placed figures like Henry Kissinger (who had been National Security Adviser at the time of the black op). It was not long before CNN was issuing apologies and firing the story's producers, reassuring the nation that the story was untrue and the whole thing was a mistake. Consequently, 'Tailwind' has gone down in the annals of broadcast journalism as a cautionary tale about accuracy.

Fifteen years later, it is back in the public consciousness thanks to the award-winning scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, who has spun his own creation off of the idea of the Tailwind journalistic scandal. In the current season of his HBO fiction series The Newsroom, the hour-long drama about a fictitious cable news program ('News Night') on a network known as the Atlantic Cable Network , Sorkin has been exploring leaks about an alleged war crime reminiscent of the Tailwind episode as CNN initially presented it. This time, the incident is more current than Tailwind was when CNN/Time ran its story; a military source reveals to Jerry, a News Night guest producer (played by Hamish Linklater), that U.S. forces used sarin gas on civilians in Pakistan during an 'Operation Genoa.' (Sorkin invented the story and the codename.) Through a multi-episode flashback structure, Sorkin makes clear from the outset that the big scoop is false, and that getting sucked in by it will prove disastrous for the characters. That's certainly a rich plotline for a dramatist to mine. However, in seizing on it, Sorkin may be doing a disservice to the original producers of CNN's 'Tailwind' expose, reporters who stood by their story throughout the ensuing fracas and who accused CNN of a cowardly retreat in the face of Pentagon opposition to it. And Sorkin may also be betraying the Quixotic principles the characters on his show so passionately espouse; in this case siding, not with the underdogs his dialogue so often champions, but with the powerful...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/25/1233396/-Sorkin-s-Simplistic-Take-on-Operation-Tailwind-Special-Report-on-The-Newsroom#

[Bluenorthwest]

1. But this author is just claiming it is supposed to be about Tailwind and that's simplistic and

I don't agree with his take. Folks who don't like Sorkin need to go take classes about writing for the screen before they try to frame their 'criticisms'. Just daft as daft can be.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The article also implies there was only ONE suspected chemical use

during and after VietNam. And that the Tailwind incident was false.

Taking potshots at Sorkin is a lot easier to do than Sorkin quality film writing, for sure.

[Doctor_J]

3. this article takes pains to point out that Newsroom is fiction, then bashes Sorkin

for not adhering to the actual Tailwind facts? I don't get it.

BTW I don't get HBO. Has Kelen Coleman appeared scantily clad yet this season?

[MinM]

4. April Oliver

# Original airdate: May 9, 2013
Guests: April Oliver
Topics: Operation Tailwind

Play April Oliver (1:08:11) Real Media or MP3 download

# Tonight's show is a rebroadcast of BOR Show #5, from May 25, 2000

# April Oliver was a journalist and worked with MacNeil/Lehrer and CNN
# She was fired from CNN for reporting on nerve gas use in Laos in 1970
# It went through 44 drafts, an inherently collaborative team effort
# The televised report was titled Valley of Death
# CNN brought in attorney Floyd Abrams, his work did April in
# The military flexed their muscles, news executives saw dollar signs
# Abrams' report was written before April was interviewed
# The report met every standard of journalism, yet April was fired
# April learned of African-American defectors being targeted
# Operation Tailwind was to wipe out a defector training camp in Laos
# 40 million pounds of sarin nerve gas were weaponized for the US military
# A cover up in 1970, CNN crushed the story for the military in 1998
# Gary Webb's story on CIA cocaine smuggling, The Dark Alliance
# April's story is the message that Special Ops stories are off limits
# Fort Bragg Psyops troops were working internships at CNN
# Internet warriors were recruited to crush the Tailwind report
# Perhaps this 30 year old story has pertinence to current operations
# Admiral Moorer in a deposition revealed some startling things
# JCS sought direction from the Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG)
# Tailwind was a multi-force operation using SOG units
# April is pursuing a law degree specializing in First Amendment issues
# Organized efforts to discredit stories threatening establishment power
# Journalism's sensitivity to and quest for ratings
# Seymour Hersh and the final days of the Gulf War

http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black629.mp3

[MinM]

5. Keith Olbermann

Critique in the op aside .. have always been a big Aaron Sorkin fan. It's very cool that he's ostensibly created 2 series on the career of Keith Olbermann.

Sports Night

Newsroom

[MinM]

6. re: Keith Olbermann

@GregMitch: Would be fun if @KeithOlbermann returned to politics for one night on ESPN and did one of his patented Rumsfeld hits. How does he resist?

@KeithOlbermann: It's a SPORTS SHOW RT @GregMitch Would be fun if @KeithOlbermann returned to politics for one night on ESPN … http://tl.gd/mkji47