Safer earned is MSM cred as a young reporter with CBS in Vietnam. In August 1965, he reported on the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines’ burning of the Village of Cam Ne, near Danang. It contained those famous shots of Marines lighting grass huts on fire.
On the other hand, the Marines had taken fire and casualties from the area of the village, discovered tunnels and spider holes, booby traps, etc... In fact they also had been instructed to raze the village by the local South Vietnamese commander.
Some, not all of this, was reported by Safer, but what was important at that time were the images of US soldiers burning huts, and old men and women being arrested by the Marines.
Safer, like others at that time - Wallace, Ellsberg, Halberstam, Woodward - earned their stripes and benefited from the political agitation of the period.
What's sad is that most folks associate this with Nixon, rather than with LBJ. It's as if Nixon was solely responsible for the Vietnam War.