House Ad Hoc Hearing for Vietnam Veterans Against the War

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117 Cong. Rec. 13104-13118 SuDoc: X.92/1:117/PT.10

 

PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 92d CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION

 

 

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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Monday, May 3, 1971

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Hearings for Vietnam Veterans Against the War

(Mr. Bingham asked and was given permission to extend his remarks at this point in the Record and to include extraneous matter.)

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Speaker, on Friday, April 23, Congressman Findley and I jointly chaired informal hearings at which members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War presented testimony.

These hearings were called when it became clear that the schedule of the Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments of the House Foreign Affairs Committee would prevent the subcommittee from continuing its hearings on the prisoner of war problem. ¶

On Tuesday, April 20, one member of the Vietnam Veterans had testified at those hearings but time had prevented further testimony from other members of the group.

Congressman Findley and I, both members of that subcommittee, felt that members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War should have an opportunity to present their views to the Members of Congress. ¶

Accordingly, we arranged for informal hearings the following Friday and arranged for a transcript of those hearings to be made, not at public expense.

Mr. Speaker, both Congressman Findley and I were most impressed by the demeanor and the sincerity of these men, all of who have served on active duty in Vietnam. ¶

Much of what they said will be, I am sure, of considerable interest to other Members of Congress and some of the charges they made are shocking and bear further investigation. ¶

I would like, therefore, to include the full transcript of these hearings in the Record at this point.

The transcript follows:

Proceedings

Mr. Bingham.  Good morning. I’d like to open the proceedings because it is traditional to have a member of the majority party preside at hearings. ¶

But I want to explain that the hearing today is under joint chairmanship. Mr. Findley and I will be conducting the session jointly, and we hope to be joined by other members of Congress as this hearing proceeds.

I might just give a little background on this hearing today. ¶

On Tuesday afternoon, at a session of the subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments of the Foreign Affairs Committee, of which Mr. Findley and I are both members, testimony was presented having to do with the prisoner-of-war issue. ¶

The request was made at that time for an opportunity to continue with that hearing.

And so in order to give an opportunity for others to testify who had not had the {13104c3} chance to speak at the hearing on Tuesday, we have set up this hearing on an informal basis. We will continue to hear witnesses whose names we have been given on the subject of the prisoners of war or other matters, stressing that we are particularly interested in practical information. We want this hearing to be as informative to us and to our colleagues as possible.

A transcript will be made of these proceedings and as soon as it can be compiled we will see that it is inserted in the Congressional Record.

We propose that each witness have eight minutes to make an initial statement, and then we’ll keep our questioning within an eight minute period. It may not run that long. We would like to have each of you identify yourselves, your name and address, and also what your position was in Vietnam. We’d like for you to be as specific as possible about statements that you make with dates and locations and so forth.

Mr. Findley.  I’d like to add that even though this is not a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee the proceeding here today is undertaken with the knowledge and the approval of the Committee’s leadership. ¶

The Chairman approved the use of this room for this purpose.

I’d also like to say that I would hope that witnesses would confine themselves to what they have observed first hand. We feel an obligation to make it possible for everybody who wishes to have an opportunity to speak.

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Rottmann, you gave us some rather extensive and very provocative testimony on Tuesday. ¶

I understand that you want to make an opening statement.

Lt. Larry Rottmann

Lieutenant Rottmann.  Yes, sir. I’ve been selected by the group to make just a short opening statement on behalf of the group, at which time I will give my short bit of testimony.

Mr. Bingham.  Would you again, for the record, state your full name and address and your affiliation.

Lieutenant Rottmann.  Yes, my name is Larry Rottmann. I’m from Parales, New Mexico. I was a first lieutenant in the United States Army from Friday, August 13, 1965 until March 26, 1968. I am a full time volunteer veterans coordinator in New Mexico and Arizona.

I want to express on behalf of all the veterans here in Washington our deep gratitude to Mr. Bingham and Mr. Findley for allowing these hearings to take place and for helping us and assisting us when we testified the other day. It’s most appreciated, this kind of reception.

We also appreciate the personal support and the visits of both gentlemen to our encampment. That’s the kind of support that we think is very important and very relevant and we really believe in eyeball to eyeball contact, and there was a considerable amount of it at that time.

I would like to also on behalf of the veterans wish Mr. Bingham a happy birthday. I believe his birthday is tomorrow. He’s 39, if the information I received is correct, and we also hope that with the birthday on the 24th for Mr. Bingham will come a new birthday for a new moral and political awareness and consciousness here on the Hill.

With that introduction I’ll move directly into my testimony. ¶

And the first few people who will be testifying this morning will be talking directly to the question of military censorship and the way military news is manipulated, if it is agreeable with the Congressmen. This is to give you some idea of the scope of the problem of getting the correct and right amount of information to you. This will be the first three or four people. And then we’ll move into a broader kind {13105} of personal experience. ¶

Is that acceptable to the committee?

There are only two short things that I’d like to say. And I’ll just begin with my statement. ¶

During the period from June 5, 1967 to March 19, 1968 I served as the Assistant Information Officer for the 25th Infantry Division based at Tu Chi, Vietnam. My duties at the time were to be officer in charge of the Tropic Lightning Newspaper, Lightning 25 Magazine, and the Lightning 25 AFVN Radio Program.

I was also in charge of division press releases, including photographs, officer in charge of visiting newsmen, including network TV crews and was a frequent briefer of the division staff and civilian news media and visiting Congressional representatives to the 25th Division.

I am also the compiler and editor of the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam: A Combat History published by the McCall Corporation of Atlanta Georgia in 1968.

Because of the nature of my assignment with the Army in Vietnam I am intimately acquainted with military censorship and news manipulation policy, and in the following notes, which are not necessarily in chronological order, I have indicated some personal instances of censorship and related policies of which I have personal knowledge.

The biggest and most frequent problem I ran into as an information officer was what was known as the non news, these were things that were never to be mentioned either in writing, in picture or in interviews with newsmen or representatives.

Some of these taboos were explicitly stated, usually verbally, by officials from the information offices in Saigon. These would be the Military Advisory Command Office of information, MACV, the Military Advisory Command of Vietnam, and the Joint United States Public Affairs office, which is the information branch of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Military censorship usually came from MacV or the 25th Division commanding general or chief of staff. In matters concerning policy or overall military planning or action, or special forces and CIA activities usually fell under the jurisdiction of JUSPAO.

The following is a partial list of things that were never to be mentioned while I was there in 1967 and 1968 by military news media personnel to civilian personnel or media or representatives of Congressional offices or official visitors. ¶

I’ll go back to the beginning of the list and just pick out some specific examples for which I have some documentation here.

M16 malfunctions and deficiencies. In 1967 there were rumors of numerous M16 malfunctions which were apparently getting back to Congress. U.S. Representative Richard Ichord launched an investigation of the Army’s much ballyhooed rifle even sending a team of experts to Vietnam to question GIs.

MACV told all information officers prior to my arrival that the M16 was not a topic for discussion. Newsmen were not to question soldiers about the weapon. No stories about the rifle jamming or malfunctioning were to be written.

This was done despite the fact that many GIs hated the M16, felt they couldn’t trust it. And until an order stopped the procedure, carried their own weapons instead: carbines, 45 caliber grease guns, rifles sent from home, captured AK47s, et cetera.

At the same time the Army launched an all out propaganda campaign to make GIs in Vietnam more confident in the weapon they basically mistrusted. Special classes on the weapon were held in the units, new cleaning procedures were instigated, new lubricating materials were introduced due in a large part to GI demands for dry slide, a commercial lubricant manufactured in the U.S. that worked much better than Army oil which the Army refused to supply us with, not the oil but with the dry slide. They later did introduce a silicone lubricant which was roughly the equivalent of the dry slide.

A whole new campaign was initiated to instill in the American soldier the utmost confidence in a weapon that he didn’t like.

Along those lines during this time that Representative Ichord was conducting his investigation — yes, sir?

Mr. Findley.  Your testimony is extremely interesting and I hate to interrupt you, but how much longer do you have for your initial statement?

Mr. Rottmann.  Two more instances, if I may.

During this period I was information officer and across my desk came a photograph from one of the men in the unit of a GI, obviously in a fire fight, in a combat situation. It was the most fantastic photograph because he was desperately trying to unjam his weapon, while the bullets were flying.

I sent this photograph to Representative Ichord with a letter explaining that this is not an infrequent occurrence. ¶

This was during his conducting of the investigation. ¶

And I never received a reply.

Just two more instances, because I don’t want to run over the many people here who want to talk.

A specific example — you gentlemen are well aware that the official military policy is that there is no censorship in the Indochina War.

A young man who is a photographer in a combat unit in my division took a photograph of two 25th Division Infantry MPs who were moving a suspect, detainee from one area to the other. He sent this photograph up to my office, knowing full well that it probably would not be cleared, the reason being, as I stated in my earlier testimony, handling of prisoners of war, detainees, is a subject not to be discussed.

But he felt that the photograph said something and should be considered. I agreed with him and I sent it on to MACV. This is the original photograph right here (indicating). It shows two MPs from the 25th Division — one of them has a patch, hardly visible. They are carrying a suspect. The suspect has a sandbag tied over his head, like a {13105c3} hood. His feet are bound and then his legs are bound to his thighs so you can’t straighten out your legs. And his hands are tied behind him. Would you like to see it?

As you can see, stamped across it in red ink, it says: “Not cleared for release”. It’s a little hard to read. Not cleared for release. That means censored. And it was sent back to our office not to be released. Now that’s a specific example.

The final thing that I would like to say is that an information officer is in a quite unique situation in the war as regards disseminating information through the civilian media. And many times information officers ran into a great deal of flack in trying to do their job honestly. It’s somewhat the same position as being a doctor in the military. There are rules in the military about doctoring that don’t exactly jive with the Hippocratic Oath. And the same thing is true of the Journalists’ Creed.

I’ll just read you as the final thing that I do here an official directive from the Information Office Headquarters, United States Army, Republic of Vietnam. It’s called the “Colonel’s Kernals’ {sic: “Kolonel’s Kernels”}. And this is a letter that was sent out to all military information officers in Vietnam. It says ¶

This is datelined December, 1967.

End of the letter.

When I got the letter, the letter made the back of my neck burn just a bit. That concludes my initial statement.

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Rottmann, my own back- {13106} ground is in the newspaper field. I worked on a daily paper and a monthly magazine, and for a number of years operated a weekly newspaper. I also served in World War II and in my modest capacity as supply officer, one of my duties was censoring the mail. So I come to this question of censorship from perhaps a unique background. And it doesn’t surprise me that there is restraint, censorship, of the military personnel involved in the dissemination of battlefield information. Does it really surprise you that there would be a degree of censorship in this field?

Mr. Rottmann.  I was most astounded by the amount and the extent. I knew that for security purposes you can’t tell where your units are and that kind of thing. If you wanted to find that out you just check Walter Cronkite’s board.

But I was quite incredibly amazed at the extent and the amount.

Mr. Bingham.  In your statement, you read a list of items that were taboo. It was a very complete, well drafted list. Can you tell me, do you still have a copy of the official instructions that you had as information officer?

Mr. Rottmann.  As I stated, sir, most of the instructions came through verbally.

Mr. Bingham.  That is from your recollection?

Mr. Rottmann.  Yes, sir.

Mr. Bingham.  You have no documents that you can submit for the record at this time?

Mr. Rottmann.  Not a specific document. I have some similar things. For instance, if you submit several pictures similar to the one I did and they came back not cleared for release it becomes pretty clear in your head what you can send forward and what you cannot.

Mr. Bingham.  And yet is it not true that a private news agency camera man out there, had he taken that photograph, he would not have been restricted from the use of that photograph. Am I correct on that point?

Mr. Rottmann.  Yes, sir. Except part of my job as information officer was to escort members of the press and to keep them from taking photographs and interviews and pictures of things which were on that list.

Mr. Findley.  Mr. Rottmann, you are the author of a history—

Mr. Rottmann.  Compiler and editor, yes, sir.

Mr. Findley.  Compiler and editor. What was the history again?

Mr. Rottmann.  The 25th Infantry Division in 1967-68 — ’66 and ’67 in Vietnam, the book was put together as a sort of a — if you can call it, a yearbook of the unit’s involvement during those two years in Vietnam based on after-action reports, information office MI readouts and things like that.

Mr. Findley.  Did you write any part of the book yourself?

Mr. Rottmann.  I probably guess I wrote every word. But it was like I said, it was taken from after action reports and put together — a great deal of it was based on after-action reports and some of it was based on interviews and experiences of that nature.

Mr. Findley.  In doing this work did you feel that you were not capable of being honest? Did you feel under constraint, in other words, to comply with certain directives, express or implied?

Mr. Rottmann.  Very much, so, sir.

Mr. Bingham.  When did you come to your present views about the war in Vietnam in general?

Mr. Rottmann.  It’s a very difficult question to answer. I can only, perhaps, answer it on the basis of a short story. I had been in the country only a few hours and was flying from Tansanott [phonetic] Air Base to To Chi which was my main duty station. I was flying on a carrier, or a supply run. I was the only person on there who was traveling with them {13106c2} other than the people who were normally with them.

And at one point the chopper dove down and there was a Vietnamese man fishing on a bank of a canal. And the pilot of the aircraft nicked him in the back of the head with the skid, knocking him into the water. I was appalled. But I noticed that I was the only person on the aircraft that wasn’t laughing.

I guess my reevaluation of the whole situation began then and continued throughout my tour.

Mr. Findley.  The Defense Department has communicated to some members of Congress since your testimony on Tuesday that you have been asked on various occasions to give specifics of the charges with regard to mistreatment of detainees and prisoners, and that you have declined to cooperate in such investigations. ¶

Do you want to comment on that matter?

Mr. Rottmann.  Since I began working with the veterans movement; {—} I began working with the Vietnam Veterans for McCarthy and then moved to the organization of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, {—} I have been subject to quite a bit of harrassment by the FBI and the CID, Criminal Investigation Division. ¶

Friends and friends of my family, teachers, people that I’ve worked with, have been questioned and although no threats were made at any time, I have been, you know, subjected to that type of harrassment, and I have also — an attempt was made to court martial me from the Army Reserve as an officer, the charge being unlawful wearing of the uniform for appearing at anti ROTC rally in my uniform, and conduct unbecoming an officer, the charge stemming from a Peace Christmas card I sent from Vietnam.

The attempt to courtmartial me continued for the past few years and was resolved, I believe, although I do not know for sure if it was final or not, last Fall at the Boston Army Base, when the unanimous agreement of the courtmartial there was that all charges and specifications against me be dropped.

For this reason I have been reluctant to cooperate with those members of the CID who have come to my home and my employers to ask questions.

Mr. Findley.  Mr. Rottmann, isn’t it a fact that you have not met with the Army personnel who have asked to meet with you?

Mr. Rottmann.  No, sir. ¶

Just a second. ¶

I’ll give you their names. ¶

I have met with and talked at great length on at least one occasion with Mr. Elmer E. Snyder, CID ID No. 0903, Mr. Richard J. Mahon, CID ID No. 0947. ¶

These meetings took place in Watertown, Massachusetts, which was my residence last year.

Mr. Findley.  Last year?

Mr. Rottmann.  Yes, sir.

Mr. Findley.  Those documents to which Mr. Bingham referred indicate that attempts by Army personnel to interview you followed a news conference in May, 1970. ¶

Since the attempts to investigate the allegations were unsuccessful, the investigator was referred to Rottmann’s attorney, Mr. Richard M. Howland, who said that Rottmann would not make a statement. ¶

Would you care to explain why you chose that course of action?

Mr. Rottmann.  Certainly I would. Yes, sir, I would. ¶

We held sort of an investigation, informal one, in Boston which some of us who had been in Vietnam aired our views on the subject. ¶

Immediately following that presentation I was accosted — the man put his hand on my arm and said that he wanted me to make some kind of a sworn statement or something. ¶

And I said, Who are you? ¶

And he said he was with the Government, but he would not show me his identification, and I didn’t know who he was. ¶

And I said, If you are with the Government please, see my attorney, Mr. Howland. ¶

And I instructed my attorney, Mr. Howland, that he should let me know {13106c3} if anybody got in touch with him so that he could work it out.

Mr. Findley.  With regard to your meeting that you just mentioned with the CID personnel, do you feel that you responded to each question raised at that time?

Mr. Rottmann.  They were around, you know, sort of around the periphery, and talking to my boss and things like that—

Mr. Findley.  Did they talk directly to you?

Mr. Rottmann.  Yes, sir. ¶

And I responded in every instance to their questions, except I did not name names because it was not my feeling that I wanted to prosecute anybody, only to make a point about policy.

Mr. Bingham.  Is that still your feeling, Mr. Rottmann? ¶

That is, today would you be willing to name names or dates, or do you still feel that this is something that you cannot in good conscience do?

Mr. Rottmann.  That is correct, sir. ¶

I am not trying to prosecute anybody. ¶

All of us who went to Vietnam and participated and all of us here in the states who allow the war to go on year after year after year are to some degree guilty. ¶

I would be unwilling to name names because I’m not trying to prosecute anybody for atrocities or anything. ¶

I just want to raise a point of official and de facto military policy in Indochina. ¶

I think if the American people were fully cognizant of the scope and the extent of the way that we wage war there that they just wouldn’t permit it to go on. ¶

And that’s the main thrust of why I testify like this.

Mr. Bingham.  We are happy to have Congressman Morse from Massachusetts with us.

Mr. Findley.  Mr. Rottmann, I am troubled about the questions you raised about censorship, and I’ll express my concern this way: in time of military conflict do you think it’s unreasonable for the military leadership to establish a certain level of censorship day by day of the coverage of battlefield activities?

Mr. Rottmann.  There’s a fine line, I think. ¶

As a loyal American, and I feel I am one, I would certainly not want to in any way through the dissemination of information do anything that would be contributing to the loss of more American lives or Asian lives.

However, as the testimony I think will continue to show this morning, not only do we not tell the American people about the extent and the manner in which the war is raised, but in many cases the truth about the war as well as the truth about what is going on in our own country is kept from the American soldiers in the field, through the use of the same kind of policies that I spoke of in relation to unit newspapers and through the Stars and Stripes Newspapers, which are about the only two — and AFVN which would — we all call “Altered for Vietnam News” which prevents the GI from finding out what’s going on in the war himself, and it prevents the American people from knowing.

I know there has to be some sort of control, and I am wholeheartedly in support of that. ¶

But the extent and the kind, I think that I find very hard to live with.

Mr. Bingham.  Thank you very much, Mr. Rottmann.

Mr. Rottmann.  Thank you. I’m going to have to leave the chambers now. I’m helping with the veterans who are turning in their medals and awards this morning over on the Capitol, and so with the indulgence of the Committee, I’ll now leave and turn it over to my colleagues here.

Thank you very much.

[Applause]

Mr. Bingham.  Thank you very much, Mr. Rottmann. Now the next witness is Forrest Lindley—

Mr. Rottmann.  Excuse me. I’m sorry to change your schedule, but we have a man {13107} who would logically follow me. Mr. Mike McCusker.

Mr. Bingham.  Is he on the list?

Mr. Rottmann.  Yes, sir.

Another Veteran.  No, sir. He would not be on the list that you have. That was an ad hoc list I was compiling for our use that I gave to you.

Mr. Findley.  Well, is Captain Lindley here?

Capt. Lindley.  Yes sir.

Mr. Findley.  Captain would you come forward, and if this gentleman would give his name and serial number and other identification to the clerk here, well we’ll put him on the list.

Mr. Lindley, I’d like to ask you to confine your formal oral presentation to eight minutes.

Captain Lindley

Capt. Lindley.  Yes sir. I’m Captain Forest Lindley. ¶

I served for 18 months in Vietnam first as a 1st Lieutenant, with the Vietnamese Airborne Division and as an advisor to the Artillery Division of that Division, and the 7th Infantry Battalion of that Division.

I served for 6 months with 5th Special Forces Group, B23, first as a fire base commander at the Fire Base Annie during the seige of Bu Brang in November of 1969. ¶

Later as an assistant F3 for B23 and as a Special Forces Team Commander, Team A231.

Mr. Findley.  Where is your home now?

Capt. Lindley.  Colorado Springs, Colorado.

My general impression is that when I went to Vietnam I sincerely and deeply wanted to assist and aid the Vietnamese people in their struggle and help them take over the burden of the war for themselves. Having served with them for 18 months I came to the conclusion that they were unwilling to fight and die for something that they did not believe in.

I have several examples. I still believe that the Vietnamese Airborne Division is the finest unit there, but I don’t think that they are fighting for the Thieu-Ky Regime and what it represents, but rather for the esprit and the spirit and the heritage of their unit.

One incident in particular, we are at an artillery fire support base about five kilometers south of the Base Camp in (word unclear) Province. There was a North Vietnamese mortar crew approximately 400 meters from our position one night, and 100 meters from a regional forces camp. They opened up with at least 20 pounds of mortars which continued for a period of five minutes on another target, which I believe was later determined to be a village.

The mortar crew was silhouetted by the flashes of the mortar. Neither our unit nor the regional forces unit returned any fire or in any way attempted to engage the enemy.

When I asked my counterpart why they did not try to shoot back at them, he said, They weren’t shooting at us and he didn’t want them to shoot at us.

There has been a great deal of conflict that I’ve experienced between the Vietnamese Army and the United States Army. In one instance we were moving into a fire base to set up a position in (word unclear) which is located Southeast of — — — City. There was an American artillery unit which had been set up to support an operation with the 25th Division. When we moved in our battery our Vietnamese battery commander wanted to put his trucks where the American trucks were, and told the American officer to move his trucks and battery so that he could put his trucks there.

The incident came to potentially an armed conflict with the Vietnamese warrant officer pulling his 45 caliber pistol on an American officer and demanding that he move his battery and unit out of the position. The American unit responded by engaging a ma- {13107c2} chine gun and pointing it at the Vietnamese officer. I was able to intervene and preclude any further conflict, but I believe that if I had not been able to intervene, it might have led to an armed involvement.

My experience with special forces, and my (words unclear) was one that particularly concerned me, because we had a mission of border surveillance. We were located on the Cambodian border and had the responsibility for monitoring any infiltration, enemy infiltration or movement between the Cambodian border and our operational area. To do this we were required by higher headquarters to have a certain percentage of our troops involved in operations at all times. I believe it was 60% for regular operations, and 80% of our reconnaissance units on operations at all times.

We would submit an area of operation to higher headquarters and the number of troops that would be involved in that operation. It was thereby assumed by these headquarters that these troops would cover that area with the number of troops stated in the operational report. As it turned out, these troops were not going out to the areas of operation. If they did go out there — when this was discovered I attempted to make aerial incursions by taking them out to the border and herding them with helicopters into their area of operation.

Attempts later the next day to contact them would find that they had moved back, or were moving back toward our special forces camp. In many instances where they were sent out without American advisors they would go out two or three kilometers and set up camp for a week We once heard shots and went down the river and found that it was our operation, which was supposed to be ten kilometers from the location where we found them fishing.

I sent reports to higher headquarters to this effect and received word back that unless my operational statistics reflected that the operations were being carried out and that the stated number of troops were there I was subject to being relieved.

I therefore falsified my report. And this has been the consensus of opinion I’ve found in discussing this matter with fellow members of my team and other teams, is to give them what they want regardless of what actually is taking place.

Mr. Bingham.  What was your experience with regard to the treatment of detainees and prisoners of war? Did you witness any mistreatment?

Mr. Lindley.  Sir, I only witnessed two or three incidents, but in every case where we were engaged in a fire fight, and there was a wounded enemy, he was shot and killed unless I was able to intervene.

They made a habit of pumping five or six rounds of automatic into a dead body, several soldiers.

Mr. Bingham.  Who were they?

Mr. Lindley.  This is the Vietnamese airborne troops I was with. I would say that they have treated humanely prisoners that they have captured when advisors have been able to intervene; but for combat reasons or for some other reason they just shot them, several wounded ones.

There was an incident where we captured a sixteen year old local force Viet Cong from Hotmong Village, and he was treated quite humanely and with a great deal of respect, I believe, by not only the Americans but the South Vietnamese, and interrogated by them. He gave what knowledge he had about enemy caches, and we were able to find a limited number of claymore mines. But he was then sent forward to higher headquarters for further interrogation and when he returned he had marks all over his face. His face was completely covered with red marks. And it looked like somebody had put needles or pins through his skin. {13107c3}

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Lindley, when did you come to your present views on the war in Vietnam in general?

Mr. Lindley.  I think it wasn’t until after I had completed my tour. I would still be in favor of Vietnamization under the President’s program if I believed that the Vietnamese people were willing to fight for the Thieu-Ky Regime, or wanted the war to continue. But I believe now that they have the equipment and the knowledge to win the war or to fight it by themselves, but they do not have the will to do that.

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Morse?

Mr. Morse.  I have no questions.

Mr. Bingham.  Thank you very much, Captain.

[Applause.]

The next witness on our list is Les Johnson.

Les Johnson

Mr. Johnson.  Good morning gentlemen.

Mr. Bingham.  Could you give your name and address and your affiliation during the war

Mr. Johnson.  My name is Les Johnson ... {ellipsis in original} I’m from Denver, Colorado. I volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1966 in April with Armed Forces Radio, and I left that organization after three months because I did not agree with the programming policy of Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam inasmuch as it was programmed for the commanding officers of MACIO, instead of the troops in the field.

At which time I found a position as television advisor to the Vietnamese government and military organization. And my responsibility was training a television production crew from the military to do a one hour television program per week. At the time we were doing three hours a night on Vietnamese television.

Mr. Findley.  I don’t quite understand your statement. Were you in the Armed Forces?

Mr. Johnson.  Yes, sir. I was. I was a military advisor to the Vietnamese military teaching them television production.

Mr. Findley.  What was your rank?

Mr. Johnson.  Specialist 5, Sir.

My statement this morning is simple and not too shocking inasmuch as we were directed by General Westmoreland’s Headquarters and the Vietnamese government to sell the Vietnamese soldiers to the people as soldiers, as fighting soldiers, which we did with manufactured combat footage. And I felt nothing was wrong at the time because I felt my responsibility was teaching them television production, instead of trying to find some Vietnamese unit who at the time was actually engaging in good combat.

What I would like to address myself to is the Vietnamization program, in that we were doing a very simple part of it in 1966 and 1967, and I feel at this time that the Vietnamization program is actually an Americanization program to teach the Vietnamese how to become as Americans to carry on an American war. I think because the moral conflict within the war — and I’m speaking now as a person who has studied epistemology for the last seven years — that it has degraded into a war of ethnicide, inasmuch as we continue the war — if we do this — we will end up with a war of Vietnamese Americans against Vietnamese Vietnamese.

Mr. Findley.  A war of what? Would you clarify that. I missed that word.

Mr. Johnson.  A war of ethnicide, sir. A war of people that we have trained to be Americans against the Vietnamese ethnic culture. We are turning it into a cultural war instead of one of politics. And I came to Washington this week and slept on the ground for a week to ask the politicians in Washington to become statesmen and to think about this country in twenty years.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. Findley.  Mr. Johnson, your presence {13108} here shows that you are not pleased with present policies How would you change them?

Mr. Johnson.  I disagree with the President’s analysis of what this country needs in ten or twenty years, or in the future to hold itself together as the United States of America.

And I think I am here representing the people who will be responsible for the future of America and we are wanting an end to the war now, as opposed to the President’s wishing to win a military victory or convince the American people that we have won a military victory in Vietnam.

Mr. Findley.  Well, I’m sure that you give a different interpretation about what he says than some of the rest of us. But I think that he has very clearly rejected the concept of a military victory in Vietnam on a number of occasions.

Now, perhaps you read something into these events that would lead you to another conclusion. But he has said that, has he not?

Mr. Johnson.  I think, sir, that the President will consider it a victory if he can convince the American people that the Vietnamese are able to carry on this war.

Mr. Findley.  You also mentioned manufactured footage. Now do you feel that this manufactured footage was totally unrealistic, unrepresentative of the true situation?

Mr. Johnson.  Of course it was, sir. And I can give you a specific example of it, in that we sent a film crew out to make heroes of the transportation Corps, the Vietnamese transportation corps. And they turned half of them into Viet Cong, ran the train out of Saigon a few miles, blew up the railroad tracks, burned part of the train filming the defense of the train and how the transportation corps workers could get through. The train couldn’t go much further than it actually did at the time.

Mr. Findley.  Were these South Vietnamese, ARVN?

Mr. Johnson.  These were ARVN soldiers.

Mr. Findley.  There weren’t any American personnel involved directly, is that correct?

Mr. Johnson.  I was the advisor to the group that filmed it.

Mr. Bingham.  Thank you very much Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson.  Thank you gentlemen.

[Applause]

Mr. Bingham.  The next witness is Arthur Egendorf.

Arthur Egendorf

Mr. Egendorf.  My name is Arthur Egendorf. My present home is in New York City, Manhattan, 43 West 88th Street. I was in the service from August 10, August 11, 1967 until May 10, 1970. And I served in Vietnam from April 15, 1968 to April 14 1969.

I enlisted into the Army while I was a student in Europe after having graduated college, where I was doing research and studying on my own in Europe. After my draft board informed me that I was about to be inducted, I went to an Army recruiter in Germany and told him of my background and that I wanted to do something constructive. I described that I was not a conscientious objector, but that I had gone to a Quaker school and spent eight years in a Quaker school in Philadelphia, my original home, and that I did not want to be in the infantry.

I was sent to the intelligence school where I was informed that there was a special program for people of my background. I spoke a couple of languages at the time. And that the program was called Area Studies. And I was told that I would be doing studies in support of American operations around the world. That would be decided after my training exactly where I would be located.

After basic training I went to intelligence school in Fort Holabird, Maryland in the beginning of October, 1967 and was told the first day that area studies meant espionage. {13108c2}

I was to become a spy, and I was not to tell anybody this for the rest of my life so that the United States Government would be able to maintain what they called “plausible manial” [phonetic] {sic: plausible denial}, so that ever we were caught involved in what they called clandestine operations, and clandestine was a euphemism. It meant specifically illegal operations, illegal not only in terms of this country’s laws, but in the laws of the country where we would be operating, that the Government would be able to dissociate itself from us and disclaim any connection with us.

We were also told at the time that if we had any more qualms about this program we could drop out and be reassigned according to the needs of the service. Which was interpreted to us informally — I must say there was no document to specify this — that we had a good chance of losing our clearances and going into the infantry. Which as I stated before was the one thing that I wanted to avoid.

I stayed in intelligence not only to avoid the infantry, but because I didn’t believe it, didn’t believe that they were going to teach me how to be a spy. I was in a class with a number of guys who had dropped out of theological seminaries. I was in class with a lot of fellows who had dropped out of college, some career Army enlisted personnel, some of whom hadn’t finished high school, and I went through six months of training that I considered rather inappropriate for the kinds of things they stated they were preparing us for.

That is, we would spend most of our time learning how to fill out forms and things of that nature. I got assigned to Saigon and I went over there in April of ’68, and I was attached to a unit in Saigon whose existence, I was told right from the start, had to remain secret not only from other Americans but also from the Vietnamese in the Vietnamese intelligence because its existence was in violation of the protocols drawn up between our government and the South Vietnamese. It was a protocol which stated that we would not mount any of our own clandestine operations in South Vietnam without the specific knowledge and concurrence of the South Vietnamese.

I was attached to that unit and given credentials of a Department of the Army civilian rank of GS 9 and later of a civilian American company which I was made to understand had close relations with CIA and was willing to provide its credentials to any intelligence operative that the American intelligence community would designate.

I was put in charge of an operation using French agents going into Cambodia. I spoke French at the time, and although that ran on for a period of 12 months the highest evaluation I ever got on any report, intelligence report, was on an article written in the New York Times Sunday Edition during the Summer of 1968 on Cambodia by a reporter who just happened to get permission from the Sihanouk Government at the time, since we didn’t have relations with that Government at the time, to go into Cambodia. And he wrote an article and my team advisor, the Major, suggested very strongly that we send that article forward to see what kind of evaluation we got. And it was the highest which we ever got on a report in the entire year I was there. My agent was given press credentials in Saigon. I had to arrange for for that. They needed cover while operating in South Vietnam without waiting to have to go on operations in Cambodia. And contrary to what the Army has since claimed or disclaimed since that time, this was a normal occurrence, where agents not only of Army Intelligence but of the CIA and CID — I was made to understand this. Again there were no formal documents which I can present — were given cover both so that they could maintain themselves in South Vietnam and {13108c3} also for different sorts of agents so that they could keep their eye on civilian press perssonnel.

When I returned to Washington one of the operations that I was not directly involved in, but was a witness to in the preparation, involved an American oil company in Cambodia, and there was an attempt made to use the personnel of that oil company who were in the country where we didn’t have relations at the time, to supply information to Army Intelligence

And I later found out when I was reassigned in Washington to the United States Army Field of Activities Command that this is a regular occurrence, that the concurrence of company presidents is necessary, and required under the secret statutes that are the basis for clandestine operations.

So that the intelligence community of this country can use American personnel and even non American personnel employed by American companies overseas to supply information on our Government. Again this is called clandestine espionage, because it’s illegal.

I also found out that Government records were used to support these operations, information collected by the Commerce Department, for one purpose, were used by the intelligence community for quite different purposes. Records in the Treasury Department and the Justice Department and throughout the military hierarchy are falsified to support operations abroad. And it was at that time that I became quite incensed having begun a search of a very different nature on American companies abroad under the understanding that this was a helpful force in promoting world peace.

I found out quite to the contrary that the very heads of these private organizations were involved illegally and covertly with certain arms of the Government for ends that were not made clear either to the people or to — as I believed at the time — the elected representatives of the people.

That concludes my testimony.

Mr. Findley.  Thank you very much, Mr. Egendorf. ¶

Mr. Bingham?

Mr. Bingham.  Having been in intelligence myself in World War II I am not startled by your report. I remember being told that about 90% of the intelligence that we were able to produce from this supersecret unit of the Pentagon was available from the New York Times.

As you see it, how would you summarize in your view the evil of what you’ve been describing?

Mr. Egendorf.  Well, there’s several. And it begins with the recruitment under false pretenses of people to work in this type of field I am speaking as somebody interested in psychology and a potential student. The kinds of mental states induced by this whole process are, I think without question, insidious. Having gone through training missions with some people who were not accustomed to living under difficult circumstances I watched a lot of fellows shake and break down, get very scared, afraid, in short: paranoia.

And not only are the personal effects insidious, but as a result of having talked with Army intelligence personnel over a period of three years, I developed a very strong belief that the reliance on information of a reliable information for Government officials upon which they can make decisions, it comes from people basically put in these difficult circumstances, and it’s completely in conflict. That a man whose loyalties are divided, who must lead a secret covert life, who’s under threat that he can not divulge, in fact, who he is to anybody other than his immediate superiors, and even there he’s under great conflict in not being able to tell what he’s really doing because there are again many regulations that specify you cannot do things that are most {13109} natural for you to do. And one example I can give, I lived in a hotel in Saigon, and this is where I had to train my spies. And I was told that my safe site would possibly be under surveillance and I was not to use an establishment financed by the United States Government funds for my own amusement. Therefore I was not supposed to have women in my room.

And all the maids who worked in the hotel used to joke anytime an agent went up to my room and claim that I was a homosexual. And I was able to deal with that rather well, but I know of others in my unit who would find that quite threatening.

What I’m saying is that people in that kind of position cannot be relied on to supply complete unbiased useful factual objective data. And that’s the second point; the first point being that you’re under strain. Two that the information that is supplied is unreliable, as an inevitable consequence of this.

And three, I see evil in the subversion of institutions founded on the basis of ideas in the open in a free, democratic, responsive society. And that this subversion of these institutions for covert reasons is in no way justified by the goals that are established for this subversion, that is, the furnishing of the information or the quality of the information that comes out.

So I see in no way that this should be allowed to go on without — I just don’t see it.

Mr. Bingham.  To your knowledge has the fact that this clandestine espionage is being carried on in Saigon and Vietnam, in violation of an agreement with the Saigon Government, ever been revealed?

Mr. Egendorf.  I’ve never seen the specific documents, but I was told that the nature of our protocol specified that our operations, and specifically intelligence operations would be in cooperation with the South Vietnamese. And that although they were more or less aware of the fact unofficially that there was probably something else going on, we were to maintain secrecy of our presence because we were in violation of specific protocols drawn up. Were you asking did I ever see the protocols?

Mr. Bingham.  No, I wondered if the information had been brought out previously that these activities had been going on?

Mr. Egendorf.  I have been speaking freely about this for some months. Now, I don’t know if somebody else has brought it out.

Mr. Findley.  Mr. Egendorf, during this period of time did you feel that your real employer throughout was the Army, the U.S. Army?

Mr. Egendorf.  Yes, we did.

Mr. Findley.  At what point in this service did you decide that this was reprehensible? Did you reach this conclusion during the training period?

Mr. Egendorf.  During the training period the only conclusion I would reach was that it was completely absurd. I didn’t believe it was going on. I had difficulty dealing with the reality of it. It was just absurd. And one example I can cite was that after six months or five and a half months of having training in paper work we were sent on an agent operation exercise where there were hundreds of dollars spent on each member of our class — and again there are thousands of men who go through this training every year — and I was flown from Maryland to New York, had to use a different name, flown to Puerto Rico, got on a submarine, go out five miles, get on a raft, paddle ashore, get back to Puerto Rico, change my name, fly back to New York, then to Dallas, get in a hotel, change my name again, wait for the cops, or the Army Reservist Military Intelligence Personnel to come get me, take me to the police station, gruel me in the same room that Lee Harvey Oswald, had been grueled in, and see how long I could maintain my {13109c2} story that I was really a citizen of aggressor land USA and a whole lot of other cock and bull and see how long I could stand up under that grueling, and then go back to the hotel, look for bugs in my room, train another intelligence enlisted man whom I was designated to need as an agent, teach him how to do secret writing, meet him at another place in town, go back to the hotel, fly back to New York then to Maryland, and then write up my report.

I just didn’t believe it.

[Laughter]

Now, I didn’t reach the conclusion that it was insidious until one, I found out in Vietnam that we had no information about Cambodia. I went to two, specifically two meetings at the U.S. Embassy where there were members of different intelligence agencies in Saigon who were supposedly experts on Cambodia, where we would have a free exchange about information in a plastic container suspended from the ceiling so that I guess the Vietcong wouldn’t bug us.

And I reached the conclusion just by talking to my agents who went and traveled in Cambodia I knew as much if not more than the CIA and State Department experts who were in that room. And I began to wonder on what basis we were maintaining our presence in Vietnam and especially — this was something I heard and never saw — but I heard at the time that we were planning operations into Cambodia and that is why they needed so much information on the Cambodian area, the interior where I was designated to send in agents. And I began to worry that we were taking steps which we had absolutely no knowledge, real knowledge, of what the situation was. And I began to wonder.

I didn’t reach the absolute decision of the insidiousness and the reprehensibility of the situation until back in Washington where I sat on a desk where I got lots of reports not only from Army Intelligence in the field and State-Department and CIA, and found out that we knew even less than I thought we knew before, and in addition to that were implicating all around the world private agencies that were set up by private citizens for private reasons and reasons that were supposedly of available and public knowledge, and we were subverting that.

And I felt personally involved, having studied corporations myself in a very different vein. And I found out about falsification of Government records and that sort of thing.

It was there that I reached the conclusion that it was reprehensible, and could not be justified in my mind.

Mr. Findley.  Mr. Egendorf, as one who has long questioned the value of the CIA to our nation, I must say that your testimony here today has weakened the remnant support I’ve had for that institution.

I want to add, too, that some of our colleagues here may question the value of a hearing like this. Some, I think relatively few, view this as a kind of a rag tag army that has come here to Washington and why waste time in listening to them.

Well, the sober, sensible, rational, objective comments you’ve made here today I feel are a very worthwhile contribution. And I know I’ve learned something from it. And I dare say Mr. Bingham shares the same feelings. So I thank you very much.

[Applause]

{Kip A. Kypriandes and Phillip Lowley}

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Kypriandes?

Mr. Kypriandes.  Mr. Bingham, I’d like to call Phil Lowley, who served with me in Vietnam.

Mr. Lowley.  We were both in the same company and in the same platoon together, and our testimony corroborates each other.

Mr. Bingham.  I see Mr. Lowley that you are on the list and you may be heard at the same time if you wish.

Mr. Lowley.  Thank you very much. {13109c3}

My name is Phillip Lowley, I live in Danbury, Connecticut on 7 West Street. I was a Corporal, United States Marine Corps, Graves Registration.

Mr. Kypriandes.  My name is Kip A. Kypriandes. I live in New Haven, Connecticut. I was a corporal — United States Marine Corps.

Mr. Lowley.  Our job was as gravemen to get the American dead, process them and send them to embalming. We were in the I Corps Area. Our main station point was Danang. We got the bodies, either they were sent to us out of the field or we went on what was called an S&R into the field. When we got the bodies into our morgue they were usually fully clothed, or what was left of them.

We took their clothes, stripped the clothes off the bodies, tabulated personal effects and put the bodies up on a slab, washed them down, fingerprinted them, filled out death certificates and marked on our board a number for each body that we had.

At the end of thirty days we tabulated from all our teams in the I Corps area, we tabulated our death counts and sent them into division. And our main testimony here is we want to know how come the counts that the Government gives don’t tabulate with the counts that we get as gravesmen. And for every count we had we had a dead body, sir.

Kip will elaborate on that a little more, the differences between the Government’s count and our count.

Mr. Kypriandes.  Yes, I was in Vietnam from April 28, 1967 to June of 1968. I have right here a copy I have of a slide. It’s a board, both boards on dead, of the dead received from the Navy, the Air Force and the Marine Corps. The majority, 90% are marines. Right in the corner here you can make it out, 774 bodies for one month. Just the I Corps area. Now we’re not talking about Saigon. We’re talking about the I Corps Area: Dam Ha [phonetic], Khe San, Pu Bay [phonetic] and Danang. And that’s it.

Mr. Lowley.  And no Army personnel go on our counts, sir. The Army has its own graves unit.

Mr. Bingham.  What was that month?

Mr. Kypriandes.  That month, I believe was April. But even so, it really doesn’t—

Mr. Bingham.  What year?

Mr. Kypriandes.  April of 1968.

I was stationed in Danang when I first went to Vietnam. I was writing a letter home to my parents and in the letter I told them that we were taking heavy casualties and I gave them the number. Well, our gunnery sergeant, I was on duty that night, he came in and looked over my shoulder, read my letter and said to me that I had no right to put down the dead count because that was secret.

Well, I thought that was pretty cool. I said, Yeah, all right. A couple of weeks later I received orders to go to the DMZ to Khe San. They did this to all the graves registration personnel.

I received a letter from my mother one month saying that there was something like 700 men who had died totally in Vietnam. I repeat that again 700 men had died in Vietnam. Well, our board — I can’t specify what month, but our board read over 700, 750 to be exact. And that was just Marines, Navy and Air Force. Our purpose for being here is we want to know why the Government is not telling the public the truth.

Mr. Lowley.  And another situation—

Mr. Bingham.  May I ask a question just to clarify this. Is your point that the United States Government is not telling the American people how many Americans have been killed?

Mr. Lowley.  Yes, sir. That’s definitely correct, sir. And we would like to know why.

Mr. Findley.  May I interject in here, Mr. Bingham. It just happens that I am the {13110} member of Congress who began placing the names of Americans killed by hostile action in the Congressional Record. This began in early ’69. And periodically I have updated it

Now, I can only recall two letters that I have received in all that time from families who asked why I didn’t list the name of their son who was killed by hostile action.

Now maybe others simply didn’t see the Record, didn’t hear, and didn’t have any way—

Mr. Lowley.  Sir, I think it’s the great American apathy.

Mr. Findley.  I Just want you to know that my own experience has been to the contrary of what you say.

Mr. Lowley.  Well, sir, we can’t really substantially lay proof on you. But we had to work these bodies, and there was an awful awful lot of them. Now, one instance that I can give you when we ran a check on the Pentagon and they confirmed their count. It was February, 1969. We — at the end of thirty days, like I say, we do a total death count and we have to turn it into Division and it goes up the Chain to MACV. And then to wherever it goes out of the country.

Well, our board had 1200 bodies, sir, and AFVM radio came over and said 800 were killed in Vietnam that month.

Mr. Findley.  Just another little item. From the same information that I use in putting the list in the Congressional Record periodically, I also list in the Newsletter to my constituency periodically a Vietnam Roll of Honor representing the names of those killed by hostile action.

Now, this happens every three or four months. Everyone in my District doesn’t get it, but well over 100,000 families do. Over a period of time I’m sure all families hear about it and see it and I did have one family get in touch with me and ask me about it. It was our mistake. We had overlooked a name that had been supplied to us. Here again, it does appear that the list may be more complete than you think.

Mr. Lowley.  No sir. You brought up an interesting point. You said that you had lists of those that died in hostile action. People do die of other things over there too. They don’t classify them as hostile action all the time. There are a lot of suicides. There are a lot of traffic accidents, things like that.

Mr. Findley.  Those bodies that you were in charge of, would the deaths be both of natural causes and hostile action?

Mr. Lowley.  Yes, they would. They would be any dead American.

Mr. Bingham.  Is it possible that that would be the reason for the discrepancy?

Mr. Lowley.  I don’t think so. I don’t think there could be that big of a cut.

Mr. Kypriandes.  Our argument isn’t that we’re complaining about the number of people — not that the families aren’t getting told. It’s why the Government isn’t giving the correct dead count to the news forecasts.

There was a lieutenant who came into our quarters. I was on duty that night. He came in at 7 o’clock be exact because I had to log it in the book. And he asked for the total dead count for a couple months, because he was doing an investigation. And he showed me his papers. Well, I hadn’t the authority I was told not to give any kind of information like that out. Additionally, we had received word that this Lieutenant had gone up to Don Ha [phonetic] and Fu By [phonetic] and they had kicked him him out. Well, he came down to Danang and got permission. He already had permission. The general had refused him. But he did it anyway. He came down to our headquarters in Danang and wanted to see some kind of figures. I couldn’t give them to him I gave him to the gunnery sergeant. I called up the gunnery sergeant and the gunnery sergeant came up and kicked him out.

Mr. Lowley.  Sir, people tried to discredit our testimony by bringing up the fact that {13110c2} we were psychiatric medivacs. Both Kip and I were psychiatric medivacs. I’d like to add that, and so were most of gravesmen. You can only work dead bodies for so long before you go a little — what they say.

Mr. Kypriandes.  Another thing that we would like to talk about is the bounty that was on our heads. Every person in graves registration had sworn too, the way we were treated. I’d like to tell you the way that we were treated but—

Mr. Findley.  About the bounty, what do you mean by that?

Mr. Kypriandes.  They placed a $200 bounty on our heads dead.

Mr. Findley.  Who did that?

Mr. Lowley.  Some of the servicemen.

Sir, I’m sure that you’re familiar with the word “fragging”.

Mr. Findley.  Yes.

Mr. Lowley.  It does happen. We were one of the people who had prices on our heads.

Mr. Findley.  You were a target.

Mr. Lowley.  Yes, we were afraid to go out in the field to pick up dead.

Mr. Kypriandes.  There was an operation in Danang and they had finished the operation and then they had left bodies. They had buried some of the Americans, some Marines, three Marines out in the field because they couldn’t get them out. And I refused to go out in the field when I heard this. I almost had a nervous breakdown and I couldn’t believe it was true.

I told the gunnery sergeant I wasn’t going out. He could do what he wanted with me, but I refused to go out to the field. So he sent out a sergeant and the sergeant came back and said that he was shot at.

Mr. Bingham.  I don’t understand why there would be resentment against you on the part of other American personnel.

Mr. Lowley.  Sir, because when we do get sent out in the field we do have bodyguards and we do go out with a unit. Now, if you were an — infantryman or if you’re familiar with infantrymen these men are waiting to be lifted out to possibly a fire fight, and possibly death. And here we are just sitting on a log next to them. It’s sort of like sending the grim reaper out next to you, because our only business being there is if you happen to die.

Mr. Kypriandes.  Another thing is that when we see a body we tear off their clothes, we cut off their clothes, we wash the body and after that we fill out a chart. Well, the bodies have to be identified and their buddies come in and they see us tearing off their clothes and going through their pockets. And right off the bat they think wrong. They think that we’re stealing money. Another thing that I should bring up. We were accused a number of times of stealing. And I can honestly and truly say, may lightening strike me dead and I’m serious about it, that none of the personnel in graves administration ever stole anything from a dead person.

We had a safe and we had a twenty-four hour watch in the morgue.

Mr. Lowley.  It’s just the fact that their buddies come in to make positive identification of them and we’re on the ground with razor blades, slashing like this [indicating] clothes off dead people. They don’t like it.

Mr. Bingham.  How long — first of all, were you assigned to this—

Mr. Lowley.  It’s a voluntary unit.

Mr. Bingham.  And how long is it customary to serve in that unit.

Mr. Lowley.  Oh, you can serve as long as you want.

Mr. Bingham.  Well, thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. Lowley.  Thank you.

Mr. Bingham.  Mr. Vinny Giardina, is that correct?

Vinny Giardina

Mr. Giardina.  My name is Vinny Giardina, and I was with the 108th Artillery, F26 in Northern northern I Corps at Dan Ha. {13110c3}

Mr. Bingham.  Where do you live now?

Mr. Giardina.  Astoria, New York.

First I’d like to say something that I think should be made very very clear. There is no Vietnamization in Vietnam. It’s an Americanization of Vietnam people. But I don’t think the Congress of the United States really really knows.

We are trying to make them Americans, and this is a military command policy. First I’d like to say since if I don’t somebody will say I didn’t say it — or maybe I’ll lead up to it. First of all I was against the war before I went to the war. I became a college graduate because of the Vietnam War. All through my time in the military any time an American stands up for his rights as an American citizen in the military he is suppressed because it seems like once you enter the military you’re no longer an American citizen with constitutional rights.

I was sent to see a psychiatrist because I probably couldn’t conform to the regulations that make you less than an American citizen. It was recommended in Atlanta Georgia that I have a 212 discharge, which says that you re unable to adjust to military life. It is not a medical discharge and can only be given by your commanding officer.

I never received this in Atlanta. I received a courtmartial for it. Then left the United States for Vietnam in September of 1969, was scratched off the flight in Okinawa, did not have any records, because I couldn’t carry them for getting a courtmartial for missing KP, which nobody could prove whether I missed it or not. In Okinawa I was again recommended for a 212 discharge — by the way I’d like to add you go one time and you see a psychiatrist and he recommends you for this. And I was never asked to come back or anything like that.

On three occasions in Okinawa since I was on orders for Vietnam the Army tried to send me to Vietnam and couldn’t because of some regulation that says you can’t fly from a foreign country to another foreign country without a certain fun code. I don’t know exactly what the regulation is or why it is.

I then was in January, about January 19 of 1970 illegally sent to Vietnam without new orders cut for me, while a request was sent to the Department or wherever it’s sent, Department of Army, for a request to remain in Okinawa as a Finance Specialist since I am a college graduate with an accounting degree.

I was put on a manifest to fly to Vietnam without new orders cut. I was then taken under armed guard during a civilian labor force in the middle of mass confusion and forced under armed guard to go to Vietnam. When you can’t be sent when you have a request to the Army, I guess, the Defense department to remain in one place. You’re not supposed to be able to be moved until that is either denied or granted.

So I was put on a manifest by the — the whole command just calling up and saying, Hey, Harry, put him on a manifest and Harry puts you on a manifest and then when you get down there everybody realizes their mistake but they can’t do anything about it.

I was then sent to Vietnam and because of all that had happened, I had been trained before I left the States to work in a Depot. I went to Atlanta, Georgia Army Depot to learn how to run depots as a specialist. I was never sent there. I was sent eight miles from the DMZ. I assumed [this was done] for standing up for my rights.

I have been threatened by the CID and the CIA. Now I’d like to get into what I saw in Vietnam.

Mr. Findley.  Could you abbreviate a little bit? I think we’ve run over the eight minutes.

Mr. Giardina.  Okay.

I sat on the demilitarized zone from January, 1970 to June 1970 and saw American B52 bombers bomb North Vietnam and Laos while the American people weren’t told that we {13111} did this. Not every day, I’d say four times, five times, sometimes seven times a week. And the people back here when I wrote home and asked if they were told this — because when I left the states this was the policy that we were not doing these things. And we did these regularly.

Now, our outpost was Kay Sahn and others around there. I’d see indiscriminate firing over the borders for no reason. I’d see our soldiers crossing the borders when we were not supposed to be doing this, and I’m talking about before the American people were told we were doing these things. And I guess that’s about all.

Mr. Bingham.  Thank you very much I have no questions.

[Applause.]

Mr. Bingham.  The next witness is Michael Paul McKusker.

Michael Paul McCusker

Mr. McCusker.  My name is Michael Paul McCusker, and I’m from Portland, Oregon.

My serial number in the Marine Corps was 1671684. I served six years in the active reserve in an outfit called Fourth Force Reconnaissance which was parachute and scuba qualified. Before reenlisting into active duty for two years in 1966 to go to Vietnam, where I was in 1966 and 1967 with the First Marine Division Informational Services Office, I was a Sergeant E5. My prior experience with this type of business had been close to two years on a paper in Pasadena, California and another almost year on another paper in Monoga [phonetic] California.

So I was pretty well versed in the newspaper business prior to going over to Vietnam as a newspaper correspondent. I was a field infantry correspondent which meant I was basically an infantryman walking point with a camera and a rifle. So I had two duties to fulfill.

These atrocities that you’ve been hearing all day today concerning especially atrocities in the field, torture of prisoners, the absolute contempt toward Vietnamese and Vietnamese society, the degrading and humiliation of all Vietnamese within the I Corps area which ranged from the DMZ down to Duck Pho [phonetic] — basically I was stationed in the Chu Li area before the Army came in — all of these things, these atrocities, were never reported upon. ¶

Even if I were to write them, and sometimes I did, they were redlined and completely out of all copy that I wrote. ¶

Pictures, though the word was not called censorship — and Larry Rottmann brought it out — they were not cleared for release. But he was an officer. He did send his stuff off to MACV and got it stamped. Whereas in my case I had staff NCOs stand on every picture, every picture I developed or had developed, and they cleared those pictures before they were ever sent out of Chu Li to the Danang Combat Information Bureau, which was the Third Marine Amphibious Force clearinghouse for all journalistic endeavors.

My stories went through a battery of at least four people in the Chu Li First Marine Division Office before being cleared to go to CID in Danang, and there they went through another battery of about eight people. ¶

So about the time you saw any of your copy it really was not recognizable. All of the things, and even subtlety that you tried to sneak in there, really never got through either.

Also you could not write under military regulation to any newspaper in the United States without being a correspondent accredited by the military. In other words, you would have to be a military correspondent.

The Marine Corps burned a lot of guys in Vietnam who were fed up with what they were doing, and they would write home to their newspapers and their newspapers would sometimes publish them, and that man was in trouble.

In the year that I was there I went on several — I went on several major operations, {13111c2} most of the time being on the small operation, squad patrols, the small unit stuff, where your everyday atrocity, your everyday contempt for the Vietnamese really manifested itself.

I can’t really elaborate more than Rottmann did on the policy itself, because it was essentially the same. It was generally unwritten, the written policy being the cover for the actual things that were being done. ¶

The politics of torture you’ve heard from intelligence agents, nevertheless they never got very far with the prisoners themselves because eventually they would tell everything that you wanted to hear. ¶

Whereas the politics of torture actually are to implicate you even more into the crimes themselves and make it easier for you to do it the next time. ¶

It escalates your contempt. It escalates your desensitizing.

As a reporter in the field I had the experience of all these things. I can give you specifics if you ask for them. They’re in my testimonies both at the Citizens’ Inquiry in December here in Washington, D.C. Citizens’ Inquiry into American war crimes in Southeast Asia. They’re also in the Congressional Record of April 6th and 7th, both days because I testified twice in Detroit for the War Soldiers at the end of January and the beginning of February. ¶

So I really don’t need I don’t think, to elaborate on those farther, because my Senator was the one who introduced them into the Congressional Record.

I do know that the testimony I’ve given, the testimony that all of us gave in both places, the pertinent testimony of those who have not given testimony before, who are giving them now here this week in D.C., there are still, like within the state of Oregon where we held the Winter Soldier Investigation in the State of Oregon. We held the Winter Soldier Investigation in support of this past week and Tuesday. And there were more soldiers who testified that had not testified previously.

And I believe you’re going to find this within the next several months a mushrooming thing. Because each state sees Vietnam Veterans Against the War holding more and more and more testimonies as more and more veterans come out and speak. This body count that you see here camped out on the Mall just across the street over here in only representative of the great numbers of Vietnam veterans who remain behind in their states for one reason or another, on the average to put on actions in support of this.

So actually we’re token representation. We’re not too worried about a body count. I would like to add before I finish this testimony — and if you want to ask me any questions — I won three out of six writing awards, the first three writing awards of the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association for the Vietnam War in 1967 in the Mayflower Hotel. I got to shake the hand of Wally Green who was then Commandant. It was an exciting evening.

As a matter of fact I was hosted and toasted by all the hawks who thought I would make a good speaker around the United States which I imagine they’re quite disappointed now.

If there’s any questions?

Mr. Findley.  Mr. McCusker, what did you think that you would accomplish by coming forth this week? ¶

What would you say was your major objective? ¶

Did you really expect something to be different, and if so, what?

Mr. McCusker.  No, I personally didn’t expect anything to be different; but we still have a few liberals in the group.

My particular politics do not avoid any way of getting things done, I guess. ¶

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