
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102210521
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CRONKITE: LET PRESS LOOSE

Walter Cronkite says the Pentagon's system for dealing with journalists in the Persian Gulf War is doing the public such a disservice that he'd prefer reporters be censored but free to range over the battle front.

But Pete Williams, the Defense Department's chief spokesman, said the former CBS anchorman's idea wouldn't work. He said war moves too fast these days to permit correspondents to hotdog it on their own, showing up on a unit's perimeter unexpectedly in a four-wheel-drive vehicle and expecting to be welcomed. They'd probably be shot by sentries, he said.

"We can't say, `Y'all come to the battlefield,"' Williams said.

Williams and Cronkite laid out their ideas for war coverage Wednesday at a hearing by the Senate Governmental Operations Committee on the Pentagon's press restrictions.

by CNB