Army Accused Of My Lai Cover-Up

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32350, 16 July 1970, Page 13

Army Accused Of My Lai Cover-Up

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 15. The United States Army was nursing another wound today as a result of the alleged My Lai massacre—this time after a blow unexpectedly delivered by friends in Congress. In a scathing report last night, a four-man sub-commit-tee that investigated charges accusing United States troops of killing more than 100 South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai village in 1968 concluded that there was a deliberate attempt within the Army to prevent word of the mass slaughter reaching higher authorities. The report implicated the State Department for the first time, saying that foreign service officers were apparently involved with the military it» a concerted effort to suppress all evidence of the incident and the initial Army investigation. The surprisingly critical report was made by a subcommittee of the “hawkish” house of Representatives Armed Services Committee, headed by a Louisiana Democrat, Mr Eaward Herbert, regarded as one of the Army’s strongest supporters on Capitol Hill. Further Than Army On the question of a coverup, the report went further than the Army’s board of inquiry led by Lieutenant-Gen-eral William Peers. As a result of the Peers Investigation, 14 officers were charged with a variety of offences, including dereliction of duty, but the Army board made no specific finding whether it was a deliberate cover-up effort. However, the sub-committee said: “To keep the My Lai matter bottled up within the America! Division and the district and province advisory teams required the concerted action or inaction on the part of so many individuals that it would be unreasonable to conclude that this dereliction of duty was without plan or direction.” On June 23, the Army dismissed criminal charges against a brigadier-general and one other officer implicated in the alleged cover-up, saying that the charges were unsupported by evidence. Similar charges are still pending against nine officers, including Major-General Samuel Koster, a former West Point superintendent who was commander at the time of the Americal Division. The sub-committee said an

initial written report on the incident, ordered by General Koster and made by Colonel Oran Henderson, was that only 20 civilians were killed, by artillery and helicopter assault.

This initial report said that allegations of wild and indiscriminate firing by ground troops were not substantiated, and that Captain Ernest Medina, the company commander, had shot a woman in combat circumstances that required no further action. The sub-committee said that Medina relayed orders to platoons by radio to go back into My Lai and count civilians killed, but that General Koster, flying overhead in a helicopter, countermanded the order and said Medina’s estimate of 28 dead sounded about right. The sub-committee also

cited James May, a foreign service officer who, it said, had been personally informed about the incident several times, but claimed he had no recollection of it. The sub-committee said that a tragedy of major proportions occurred at My Lai but it made no estimate of deaths. It said relatively few United States troops deliberately killed civilians but this could not be condoned.

It suggested the troops’ actions were so wrong and so foreign to the normal character and actions of the American military as to raise a question about the legal sanity of the men involved. It recommended a ban on court-martial proceedings involving a capital offence during a military action, until a soldier’s mental condition was determined.