CHARGES DROPPED

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32788, 13 December 1971, Page 20

CHARGES DROPPED

Incident at My Lai 6V.Z. Press Assn.— Copyright) FORD MEADE (Maryland), Dec. 12. The United States Army has dropped murder charges against Brigadier - General John Donaldson who had been accused of killing six South Vietnamese civilians by shooting them with a rifle from his helicopter in 1968-1969. The announcement was made by Lieutenant-General C. E. Hutchin, the commanddant of First Army Headquarters in Fort Meade where Colonel Oran Henderson is on trial on charges that he failed to investigate an earlier mass slaying of civilians at My Lai, and later tried to cover it up. The incidents involving General Donaldson, were alleged to have taken place after My Lai from November, 1968, to January, 1969. The My Lai massacre was on March 16, 1968. General Donaldson succeeded Colonel Henderson as commander of the 11th Brigade of the Americal Division, and was in that position at the time of the incidents. The Uth Brigade was still operating in coastal Quang Ngai province, which includes My Lai, at the time. According to Washington reports of the investigation of General Donaldson, before the General was actually charged, the then-unnamed general defended himself by saying that he fired at figures on the ground who were taking “evasive action.” Army sources said that it was an unwritten rule in Vietnam that anyone who ran when an aircraft approached was assumed to be enemy.