Exoneration Finally

 

In early 1966, a series of articles critical of US policy in Viet Nam appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology, an influential aerospace industry trade magazine.  The magazine broke sensitive stories so often that it was (and is) widely known as “Aviation Leak.”  Normally, the government can do nothing about it, other than complain to the publisher.  In this case, though, the author was also a pilot with the Marine Corps Reserve.

The government (apparently at the instigation of the Navy Department) took the position that the articles included classified information that the author, Tony Plattner, had improperly obtained as a service member.  This started a seven-year fight to punish Plattner.

Plattner recounts his fight blow-by-blow in Exoneration Finally.  Given the title of the book, I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying that Plattner eventually not only cleared his name, but removed the obstacles in the way of further promotion.  Plattner went on to complete a 27-year career in the Marine Corps Reserve, retiring as a Colonel.  The lesson of the book is that, if you’re going to fight the system, be prepared for a long, hard fight.

Plattner still writes in the Aviation Week style, which tends toward long trains of adjectives without benefit of commas.  Further, the book is far from a dispassionate account, pervaded as it is by palpable outrage and overly frequent protestations of wounded innocence.  But it’s a good story, generally well told.  Recommended for anybody who likes stories about underdogs persisting until they win.

Tony Platter, Exoneration Finally: The true story of a Vietnam reporter’s fight to prevent conviction by the US government

Outskirts Press, paperback, 2021

232 pp

 

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