urged, America should "negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable
people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best
they could."
Because of its source, this strong editorializing-intertwined with honest
news-had tremendous effect and gave, as a commentator put it, "strength and
legitimacy to the anti-war movement." President Lyndon Johnson was reported
as saying that if he had lost Walter Cronkite, he had lost the country.
Partridge, through interviews with a series of people on the scene, managed
to suggest that not only might Cronkite be wrong but that, well aware of
his power and influence, the CBS anchorman had behaved, in one
interviewee's words, "like an unelected President and contrary to his own
vaunted tenets of impartial journalism."
When Partridge's piece reached New York it was discussed for hours and went
to the highest CBA levels before a consensus was reached that to attack the
national father figure of "Walter" would be a no-win gambit. However,
unofficial copies of the Partridge report were made and circulated
privately among TV news insiders.
Partridge's excursions into areas of heavy fighting usually kept him away
from Saigon for a week, sometimes longer. Once, when he went underground
into Cambodia, he was out of touch for nearly a month.
Every time, though, he returned with a strong story, and after the war some
were still remembered for their insights. No
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ARTHUR BAILEY
one, including Crawford Sloane, ever disputed that Partridge was a superb
journalist.
Unfortunately, because his reports were fewer and therefore less frequent
than Sloane's, Partridge didn't get noticed nearly as much.
Something else in Vietnam affected the future of Partridge and Sloane. She
was Jessica Castillo.
Jessica . . .
Crawford Sloane, driving almost automatically over a route he traveled
twice each working day, had by now turned off Fifty-ninth Street onto York
Avenue. After a few blocks he swung right to the northbound ramp of the FDR
Drive. Mo-' ments later, alongside the East River and free from intersections and traffic lights, he allowed his speed to increase. His home in
Larchmont, north of the city on Long Island Sound, was now half an hour's
driving time away.
Behind him, a blue Ford Tempo increased its speed also.
Sloane was relaxed, as he usually was at this time of day, and as his