More Vietnam Veterans Sue Over Retracted Nerve Gas Report

More Vietnam War veterans sued CNN and Time magazine Thursday over their since-retracted report alleging that the military used nerve gas on American defectors in Operation Tailwind.

With their lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, at least 25 people are pursuing legal action against the network and magazine, saying the reports in June defamed them.

The 11 plaintiffs in Thursday’s suit include former soldiers and pilots who either took part in the 1970 operation in Laos or had nothing to do with Tailwind but were quoted or pictured nevertheless.

“It was clearly a bunch of junk,” Art Bishop, 65, said of the original CNN report. A former Air Force pilot who now lives in Huntington Beach, Bishop took part in the operation, recording it in a journal that he says indicates clearly that the planes carried tear gas.

“Some people called me and said, ‘Geez, that sounds real bad using nerve gas to kill women and children,’ ” he said. “That’s not a very nice thing to have people thinking about you.”

He said he told CNN producer April Oliver the same thing.

“What I got was nerve gas questions, and I gave her tear gas answers,” Bishop said.

CNN and Time retracted the June story after an outcry from veterans and its own military consultants, and CNN spokesman Steve Haworth said Thursday that the network would have no comment on the lawsuits.

But Joseph Driscoll of Monterey, who piloting a Marine gunship in the mission, says he wasn’t appeased by CNN’s apologies to veterans, for the retractions repeated the falsehoods.

“That’s almost as insulting as the original charge,” Driscoll said.

CNN fired producers Jack Smith and Oliver, a third producer quit, and narrator Peter Arnett was reprimanded after both the network and the Pentagon found that the allegations broadcast in June during the premiere episode of “NewsStand,” a joint CNN-Time production, were unsupported by the facts.