It is often said generals always refight the last war. It looks as if some brass in the Pentagon definitely do not want to refight Vietnam in the Persian Gulf, insofar as dealings with the press are concerned. They want to re-fight the Korean War and World War II. They don't want reporters free to cover what they please and to write what they see. They want military censorship.
The military really can't have that. The technology of journalism, the professional skepticism and objectivity of today's journalists and the expectations of Americans of full and fair coverage of wars combine to make old fashioned military control of reporting as out of date as a 1942 Jeep.
The Pentagon said last week that it will allow coverage of hostilities only by "pools" of reporters selected by military commanders and accompanied at all times by military escort. That will be someM-!-what inhibiting - to reporters and to troops who would like to be interviewed. But the press probably can handle this. What it can't handle is the right of military censors to kill stories.