ABSTRACT
Since Israel became a nation in 1948, it has fought five wars. "The only war it ever lost", as Wallace said the US had-off the battlefields-was the fifth, Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Like Vietnam, the Israeli war in Lebanon was ultimately fought against entrenched regular forces and guerillas. The war itself created a higher rate of casualties for tiny Israel-close to seven hundred dead out of a population of 4 million-than the Vietnam War had for the United States. Nobody ever accused Westmoreland-not CBS or anyone else-of starting the war in Vietnam or even of expanding it on his own, as MacArthur had tried to do in Korea and then was fired for his temerity by President Truman. American magazines that cover the world's news were essentially written in New York. They required a special system, created around the comparative luxury of a weekly deadline, not afforded to daily newspapers or the evening television news.
