NEWS DISTORTION CHARGE SETTLED?

There may be only a week or two to go in Gen. William C. Westmoreland’s $120-million libel suit against CBS. But a public-interest law firm attorney says he’s puzzled why there hasn’t already been a decision announced in a different arena on the 1982 documentary that provoked the lawsuit.

John Martin, assistant director of the conservative American Legal Foundation, says that the Federal Communications Commission has reached a conclusion on the Foundation’s “news distortion” complaint about “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception.” The complaint was filed in January, 1983.

“To the best of our knowledge, the staff has finalized its decision and did that last September before the trial started,” he asserted in a phone interview this week from the foundation’s office in Washington.

The FCC declined to comment on the contention of Martin, who is scheduled to testify before the FCC in Washington today in support of the fairness doctrine in the second day of the regulatory agency’s hearings on the rule. (See related story by David Crook on Page 1.)

The Foundation’s complaint against CBS doesn’t involve the FCC’s fairness doctrine but rather a different section of broadcast law dealing with news distortion.

Martin said that he doesn’t know what conclusion the FCC has reached on his group’s complaint against the CBS documentary or why the decision hasn’t been released. He suggested--and there is similar speculation within the FCC--that the agency is waiting until after the Westmoreland-CBS trial ends to avoid any possibility of affecting the verdict.

“No comment,” said Dan Brenner, chief aide to FCC Chairman Mark Fowler, when asked about both that theory and when a decision on the complaint will be announced.

The Foundation asks that CBS’ licenses for the five TV stations it owns be revoked if the FCC finds that the documentary was distorted.

CBS has maintained that its documentary was true. Westmoreland, former commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam, contends that it libeled him by saying that his command deliberately underestimated the size of enemy forces in 1967 to show progress in the Vietnam War.

When asked about the Foundation’s complaint, CBS attorney Brian Hatchett said that as far as CBS is concerned, the group hasn’t proved any news distortion in the disputed documentary.

The nonprofit organization describes itself as “particularly involved in efforts to eliminate media bias.” It currently has another “news distortion” complaint pending against ABC News. It was filed Jan. 10.

Martin said that although his group’s complaint against CBS relies in part on documents and affidavits filed in the Westmoreland lawsuit, none of the material was sent to the foundation by Westmoreland or his lawyer, Dan M. Burt. Burt heads the Washington-based Capital Legal Foundation, a nonprofit, pro-business public-interest law firm.

The American Legal Foundation, Martin said, got the material itself and filed its complaint without assistance or encouragement from Westmoreland or his lawyers.

“A lot of our members had complained to us about the broadcast, so we decided to go ahead with it (the FCC complaint) on that ground,” he said. “We initiated this . . . independent of the libel trial.”

Burt, in a phone interview from New York, said neither he nor Westmoreland is associated with the action of Martin’s group. Asked why he never filed any complaint with the FCC, the attorney replied: “That’s a waste of time.”