Two of the potentially biggest news stories of the year are currently playing themselves out in the same Federal court house in New York. Two well-known generals, William Westmoreland and Ariel Sharon, are suing two of the United States' biggest news organizations for libel. Westmoreland, former commander of the American forces in Vietnam, is suing CBS for $120 million ever a documentary it broadcast in 1982 charging that Westmoreland had taken part in a "conspiracy" during the war "to suppress and alter critical intelligence on the enemy." Sharon, mastermind of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, is suing Time magazine for $50 million for a report on his role in the Shabra and Shatila massacres.

Both cases have attracted widespread media attention, but both are also part of a larger trend: an increased number of libel cases, many involving enormous some of money, being brought against the media by high officials in government. Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) has sued the McClatchy Newspaper California for an article linking him to a scandal involving a Nevada casino, white South Dakota Gov. William Janklow has sued Viking Press and one of its authors over recent references to him in a book.

This "outbreak" of libel cases has raised a host of interesting questions concerning the role of a free press in the United States. What is the reason for this trend, and what are its implications for the way the press goes about doing its business? Has the press become arrogant? How can a public official redress what he or she sees as an unjustified attack on his or her reputation?

To address these and other questions. The Crimson last week assembled a panel of three campus figures who have encountered, on a practical or academic level, issues of libel. Anthony Lewis '48, a columnist for The New York Times, is a lecturer at the Law School and has written extensively on First Amendment subjects. Howard Simons, who stepped down this year as the managing editor of The Washington Post, is now curator of Harvard's Nieman Foundation for journalism. Charles R. Nesson '60, professor of Law, has moderated a number of television programs examining the media.

Crimson President Michael J. Abramowitz '85 moderated the discussion and edited a transcript of it, portions of which follow:

Crimson: What's the reason for [the upsurge in libel suits being brought by high government officials]?

Lewis: ...I don't know the roots of the reasons, but it is clear to me that people are trying to use libel suits as a political weapon. In other words, they are trying again to do again what Commissioner Sullivan and his colleagues in Alabama invented in 1962 when they used the libel suit. I think for the first time in American history, in such a crude way as a device to bar the press from a controversial area of reporting. That attempt was thwarted by the Supreme Court in 1964 in New York Times against Sullivan, but its back again.

Simons: I think there're two good reasons One is there is a perception on the part of public of facials and public figures that the press is a wounded animal these days, that the public doesn't like the press, that the press is arrogant. The press is under great pressure from its critics, and that's the time to go after it. And the second thing is that the jury trials in the last five years, last 10 years, in which a libel suit has gone to trial has gone predominantly against the press.

Crimson: Why are these decisions going against newspapers?

Nesson: ... I lay it at the door of enterprises like "60 Minutes," which the public loves to watch, but which they at the same time feel involves very aggressive forms of journalism. And when you get a jury returning a big award, to me that's nothing more than a reflection of the broader sense that journalism needs to be taught a lesson, and that getting it wrong is an opportunity to do it.

Crimson: But there is also a principle that has been expressed by Westmoreland's lawyers that public officials should have the right to protection of their reputations simply against falsehoods. Would you address this issue?

Lewis: Its not the law at the moment. But I have a view that at least as to high officials, policy-making officials like Ariel Sharon or William Westmoreland or Paul Laxalt or the judges of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court or any of these other people who are suing... that as to them there should be no libel actions whatever, that they are in the field of politics, and when they go into that field, they accept the risk, they undertake the risk, and answer back...

Nesson: Well I think the problem is not so much that if you are a public official you can somehow vindicate yourself by going to court. I think the problem is given the way the litigation system now works, the stakes are so extraordinarily high that you have the power not only to vindicate yourself but also wipe out the opposition in some cases or seriously cripple the opposition in some cases. I am not quite ready to go to a system that says. "We'll trust the press as far as any public official is concerned." ... If I were to take a cut at it, I would be attempting to address the amount of damage that somebody can do in a libel suit and yet still leave it possible for someone to vindicate himself or herself when he feels or she feels that victimized by the press.

Crimson: Do you think there's a problem just for the everyday person or the public person who may not be so high, the mayor of a city who feels he's been libeled? There's a great cost to bringing libel suits. Westmoreland's spent some 2 million dollars to sue CBS. What can be done to give these people the chance to redress injury?

Lewis: I think you have two questions there, both very important. I make a distinction...between William Westmoreland or Harry Truman or Arik Sharon on one side of the line and the ordinary person. People on that first side of the line have an easy time getting a platform to answer. General Westmoreland's reputation is a lot better today than it was before this whole matter started...I think it's very different with the private figure or even with the limited purpose public figure, someone who isn't a man or woman of general fame. I think they do have greater need for reputation. But even as to Westmoreland and company, I accept Professor Nesson's view...that there should be a ways short of the destructive power of the damages and costs as they exist now of redeeming your reputation. And in fact, as your question implies, the present system is lousy for the plaintiff as well as for the defendant. Where do you get these millions? When you sue CBS they drag you through the courts and they make you go to depositions seven days a week and you're bankrupt.