Perhaps most important, though, is the human factor. Those who lead, fight, and cover the wars of tomorrow will be of a different generation. They will be working not in the shadow of Vietnam, but in the wake of the Gulf War. They will carry lessons from the latter conflict at the outset but, like my contemporaries and I who learned from the World War II correspondents, they will quickly develop their own perspectives dictated by the conflict at hand.

What will remain the same is the need for honest and dependable information from the field. This is what our system demands, and journalists will continue to do what they can to get it. I believe this is an advantage for our fighting men and women. Military leaders and journalists may agree to disagree about this, but in a constitutional republic based on democratic principles, a high degree of communicable trust between the leaders and the led is absolutely essential, especially in times of crisis.

We forget this at our peril. If the public is misled, if they are not told the truth—or if, through unnecessary secrecy and deception, they lack information on which to base intelligent decisions—the system, or some version of it, may go on. But it will not survive as a constitutional republic based on democratic principles. Political leadership may be able to survive for a time on the politics of lying, but not the country. War, moreover, cannot be sustained for long and cannot be victorious in a society such as ours if the military systematically conspires with civilian leaders in the politics of deception. Vietnam showed us how a disconnect between a war’s reality and the leadership’s official line can come dangerously close to pulling us apart.

Skepticism with Honesty

I am not convinced, though, that most US military personnel or journalists necessarily disagree on these fundamental precepts. On the contrary, I believe that most of the two groups do agree on the need to tell the people the truth and to give them honest information about the war and about their fellow citizens in uniform.

What is needed is a better understanding among military personnel and journalists that it is in the nature of political leadership to want to wedge us apart. The challenge is to retain the attitude of World War II, where press and military saw themselves as partners in patriotism, each needing the other to fulfill their different roles, but without the press abdicating the healthy skepticism learned in Vietnam. Our roles sometimes place us in adversarial positions, but we can and should be partners in trying to get truths about national defense to fellow citizens. In this spirit, perhaps, the soldiers and the journalists can find ways to work together, as can diplomats and journalists. With political leaders, developing such a spirit could prove more difficult, but it is no less important.

The new, more immediate, and more international media, with its immensely expanded reach into homes and decision-making centers around the world; the advances in weaponry and battlefield information systems; and the emergence of a global economy all place new and different demands before the political leaders who will try to keep the peace and who, failing that, will command the next war. But what should not and will not change in a country such as the United States is the absolute necessity of a high degree of trust between the leaders and the led whenever, wherever, and under whatever conditions any future war is fought. And for that we must not only look to the past and its inevitably imperfect lessons but also ahead. No one wants to fight the next war, and no one wants to cover it. But if we hammer out some understandings beforehand, we might find that truth and battlefield success can coexist.