Cravath, Swaine & Moore

Cravath, Swaine & Moore is a major Wall Street law firm that traces its beginnings to the law practice begun by William H. Seward in Auburn, N.Y., in 1823. It assumed its current character when Paul D. Cravath joined the firm of Seward, Guthrie & Steele in 1899. Cravath became senior partner in 1906. After a number of changes, the firm became Cravath, Swaine & Moore in 1944. Cravath pioneered the development of the modern corporate law office and developed a system that paralleled the trends toward professionalizaton and bureaucraticization that were occurring elsewhere in the business world. The firm played a leading role in the industrial combinations at the turn of century and helped business to cope with the growth of the regulatory state in the years since.

Historical Background

On January 23, 1982, the Columbia Broadcasting System aired a CBS Reports documentary entitled "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception," which suggested inaccuracies in United States estimates of North Vietnamese troop strengths between 1966-1968. General William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam between 1964 and 1968, sued CBS, several CBS employees, and former CIA analyst Samuel Adams for libel on September 13, 1982. Westmoreland argued that the documentary defamed him because it asserted that he had led a conspiracy to manipulate intelligence on enemy troop sizes.

The trial was held in federal district court in New York City and lasted four months. During the trial, both sides introduced prodigious amounts of evidence into the record. On February 19, 1985, both parties agreed to dismiss the case.

PROVENANCE

The WESTMORELAND/CBS COLLECTION was acquired by the UCSD Library in 1985 from UCSD Political Science Professor Samuel Popkin. Popkin served as a consultant to CBS attorneys Cravath, Swaine, & Moore of New York during the suit. Complete sets of the Westmoreland versus CBS exhibits are available at the libraries of Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley.