216                                    U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 19901991

            opinion and degrade the degree of public support we
            currently enjoy. Your troops can, better than anyone,
            tell the Marine Corps story in DESERT SHIELD.         I
            request that you simply share my concern with them.
            They will `mow what to do.

    There were still occasional media reports based on petty grievances by
Marines after that message was released, but for the most part they were
overshadowed by unfolding events.      As November passed, the Marine Corps
birthday, exercise IMMINENT THUNDER, President Bush's visit and Thanks-
giving observances all provided the media with plenty to report about.

                       Girding the Media for Combat

    By January 1991 the press contingent at the Dhahran International Hotel
numbered close to 1,000.    All felt they were entitled to free access to the
battlefield during combat operations.  Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public
Affairs, Pete Williams, in conjunction with public affairs officers from CENTC-
OM and the component commands, developed a system to limit media access to
small groups of reporters who could share their stories, film, and videotape with
other reporters.  These pools would be positioned with forward-based ground
units and remain with those units for the duration of the war.
    The system was doomed for failure, at least in the minds of the media es-
tablishment,  who complained loudly about being deprived of its First Amend-
ment rights.   They trotted out venerable Walter Cronkite, who testified before
Congress that the military "has the responsibility of giving all the information
it possibly can to the press, and the press has every right, to the point of
insolence, to demand this."
    That insolence created resentment among the American public who were
aroused more by the arrogance of some correspondents than the substance of
their reports.  In a Times Mirror poll 78 percent of those surveyed believed the
military was telling the public as much as it could under the circumstances and
was not hiding the bad news. More than half even expressed a concern that the
military wasn't exercising enough control over war reporting.  In a TimeICNN
poll nearly   80 percent of adults surveyed said they were getting enough
information about the war, and almost 90 percent supported some censorship of
the press under the circumstances.
    "There's an irreconcilable conflict," said former television newsman Marvin
KaIb in an article in Time magazine.   He went on to add:

            The press has not only a right but a responsibility to
            press for as much information as possible.  And it is
            the  government's  responsibility to  give  only   that
            information it feels will not be injurious to American
            troops on the line.