Then they decided to do a show about the astonishing Vietcong operation that had been dubbed the Tet Offensive.

Jasper was still angry about Vietnam. His rage burned low in his guts like a damped furnace, but he had forgotten nothing, least of all his vow to expose men who lied to the American people.

When the fighting began to die down, during the second week of February, Herb Gould told Sam Cakebread to plan a summing-up report, assessing how the offensive had changed the course of the war. Sam presented his preliminary conclusions to an editorial meeting attended by the whole team, including researchers.

Sam said the Tet Offensive had been a failure for the North Vietnamese in three ways. “First, Communist forces were given the general order: ‘Move forward to achieve final victory.’ We know this from documents found on captured enemy troops. Second: although fighting is still going on in Hue and Khe Sanh, the Vietcong have proved unable to hold a single city. And third, they have lost more than twenty thousand men, all for nothing.”

Herb Gould looked around for comment.

Jasper was very junior in this group, but he was unable to keep quiet. “I have one question for Sam,” he said.

“Go ahead, Jasper,” said Herb.

“What fucking planet are you living on?”

There was a moment of shocked silence at his rudeness. Then Herb said mildly: “A lot of people are skeptical about this, Jasper, but explain why—maybe without the profanity?”

“Sam has just given us President Johnson’s line on Tet. Since when did this program become a propaganda agency for the White House? Shouldn’t we be challenging the government’s view?”

Herb did not disagree. “How would you challenge it?”

“First, documents found on captured troops cannot be taken at face value. The written orders given to soldiers are not a reliable guide to the enemy’s strategic objectives. I have a translation here: ‘Display to the utmost your revolutionary heroism by surmounting all hardships and difficulties.’ This is not strategy, it’s a pep talk.”

Herb said: “So what was their objective?”

“To demonstrate their power and reach, and thereby to demoralize the South Vietnam regime, our troops, and the American people. And they have succeeded.”

Sam said: “They still didn’t take any cities.”

“They don’t need to hold cities—they’re already there. How do you think they got to the American embassy in Saigon? They didn’t parachute in, they walked around the corner! They were probably living on the next block. They don’t take cities because they already have them.”

Herb said: “What about Sam’s third point—their casualties?”

“No Pentagon figures on enemy casualties are trustworthy,” Jasper said.

“It would be a big step, for our show to tell the American people that the government lies to us about this.”

“Everyone from Lyndon Johnson to the grunt on patrol in the jungle is lying about this, because they all need high kill figures to justify what they’re doing. But I know the truth because I was there. In Vietnam, any dead person counts as an enemy casualty. Throw a grenade into a bomb shelter, kill everyone inside—two young men, four women, an old man, and a baby—that’s eight Vietcong dead, in the official report.”