Arnett Gives an Account of Gulf War : Media: Famed war correspondent defends his Baghdad coverage, assails controls on press.

SAN DIEGO — Good news for Peter Arnett: The Maoists are on his side.

“People should know the truth,” said an Arnett supporter, who declined to give his name, as he stood outside the UCSD auditorium Wednesday night hawking copies of a tabloid called “Revolutionary Worker” that was clearly sympathetic to the issues raised by Arnett’s reporting from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

This young Maoist was the only person acting even remotely political before the Arnett’s talk at the school or during the subsequent question-and-answer session with Arnett, the CNN correspondent dubbed “Baghdad Pete” during the war by his detractors.

If public opinion polls are to be believed, the American public doesn’t trust the media and they didn’t like the coverage of the war, especially Arnett’s role in it. But he told the audience that much of the more strident criticisms of his work came from “conservative” Southern California, and even the questions he fielded from the local media earlier in the day were “harder-edged” than those from his brethren in other areas.

Arnett, who has signed a major book deal for his tale of events during the war and is touring the country doing speaking engagements, was given a hero’s welcome at UCSD. Almost every question was prefaced with a “thank you” or a homage to his courage. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) may have spoken for a vast contingent of Moral Majority types when he called Arnett an Iraqi “sympathizer,” but the sedate, below-capacity UCSD crowd applauded when he said, “I like to feel Americans don’t feel like Simpson.”

The roughly 900 people in the audience represented a variety of backgrounds, from middle-aged men in suits, women in designer dresses to college students in blue jeans and T-shirts.

A large contingent of media groupies were in the crowd, including local media professionals who view a visit from somebody like Arnett in the same manner a rock ‘n’ roll fan anticipates an appearance by Mick Jagger.

However, those who were hoping for a lively confrontation were clearly disappointed, judging by the dozens who slipped out of the stifling hot gym before the end of the question-and-answer session. Equally disappointed were those hoping to bask in the glow of Arnett’s celebrity.

Arnett’s post-war fame has been rivaled only by that of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. Arnett said he had known Schwarzkopf in Vietnam when he was a little-known colonel who was always willing to welcome the media.

Arnett is far from the image of a glib television news persona. No taller than 5-foot-8, balding, dressed in a dark, conservative, double-breasted suit, he looked like a feisty bank executive addressing a meeting of the board of directors.

The 56-year-old native of New Zealand made his name as a wire service reporter, a nuts-and-bolts war correspondent. In some circles, he is revered as the Chuck Yeager of war reporters, the guy with all the right stuff. He has been talked about with the tone of awe and respect reserved for a legend, which, in the world of war correspondents, Arnett undoubtedly is.

In 1966 Arnett won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Vietnam War, and he is given credit for one of the war’s most memorable lines: He quoted an American military adviser, after the destruction of a village, saying, “It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”

However, all that doesn’t make Arnett a dynamic orator, although he spoke with profound credibility when he discussed the major ethical issues of covering a war, primarily the interaction of the military and the press. The military’s desire to protect strategies and secrets is “valid,” Arnett said, but he added that the “tradition had been established that reporters go where the troops are.”

Under the Persian Gulf guidelines, World War II reporter Ernie Pyle wouldn’t have been able to do the type of interviews with the troops that made him famous Arnett told the crowd--and he explained who Ernie Pyle was.

The Vietnam War is often tossed out as the prime example of harmful media coverage. But it was not that the media let out military secrets that drew the wrath of the government, but that top officials didn’t like what was being said about the war, Arnett said.

“I didn’t fear going out with the troops” in Vietnam since they didn’t mind the coverage, Arnett said. “The concern for what we wrote came from the highest levels because they didn’t like what the GI’s were saying.”

Arnett’s rambling 30-minute speech was a primer course, detailing the events of his coverage, which have now settled into the lore of the Gulf War. His landmark interview with Saddam Hussein. His coverage of a bombed building he believed was a milk powder factory. His reports of civilian casualties, which, during the height of the conflict, were the only real television images of the human side of war.

“Why shouldn’t we show what bombs do when they hit a country?” Arnett asked the crowd.

He spoke haltingly and often refered to notes. He touched all the bases, discussing each major media issue of the war without any stunning revelations. The crowd perked up only when he shared some intimate details of his experiences, such as being thoroughly strip-searched and disinfected before his meeting with Hussein and his interaction with his Iraqi censors.

Arnett was not the foaming at the mouth liberal some may have expected. More than once, he called the Iraq conflict a “just war” and Schwarzkopf a “hero.”

Arnett also used a good portion of his speech to praise his boss, Ted Turner, who he refered to as “the premier internationalist of our time.”

Not surprisingly, the questions from the audience didn’t focus on Turner’s dynamic business philosophy, but nor did the audience challenge Arnett on the weighty issues of journalism.

Even an angry young man who yelled at Arnett praised him before asking him to stop doing a “goody two-shoes tap dance” and tell “what really went on.” But most of the questions were genial, and barely touched on the serious attempts by the military to censor news during war.

At least for now, Arnett is in the role of celebrity, not reporter, and the evening ended in a manner befitting a star. As the crowd filtered out, Arnett sat on stage signing autographs and posing for pictures, surrounded by a dozen of his admirers.