Citizens Commission of Inquiry

Last updated March 26, 2024

The National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam was founded in New York by Ralph Schoenman in November 1969 to document American atrocities throughout Indochina. The formation of the organization was prompted by the disclosure of the My Lai Massacre on November 12, 1969, by Seymour Hersh, writing for the New York Times.^[1] The group was the first to bring to public attention the testimony of American Vietnam War veterans who had witnessed or participated in atrocities.

Origins

Schoenman had previously worked on the International War Crimes Tribunal founded by Bertrand Russell.^[2]

The Commission of Inquiry had a policy‐making board which included Noam Chomsky, Schoenman, Dick Gregory, Melvin L. Wulf, director of the Legal Department, American Civil Liberties Union, Eric Seitz, executive secretary, National Lawyers Guild and Andy Stapp.^[3]

Schoenman left the National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam in the hands of two New Left anti-war activists, Tod Ensign and Jeremy Rifkin.^[2] They were joined in early 1970 by several Vietnam War veterans, including Robert Bowie Johnson, a West Point graduate and former infantry captain, and Michael Uhl, a retired 1st lieutenant in military intelligence.^[4]

American Vietnam War veterans and GIs offer personal witness to war crimes

Overview

The National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam's first press conference was in Toronto, Canada, March 4, 1970. Ensign and Rifkin convened three more press conferences in the following two months: Springfield, Massachusetts (April 6, 1970); New York City, New York and Los Angeles, California (April 14); and Boston, Massachusetts (May 7, 1970). Uhl then traveled to Sweden and Australia to brief reporters that American Vietnam war veterans had first-hand evidence of atrocities they had either witnessed or committed themselves. National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam continued to mount press conferences in other cities, culminating in a three-day National Veterans Inquiry, held in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 2 and 3.^[5]

The testimony offered by veterans at these events provided documentation that American atrocities in Vietnam were not uncommon. This evidence was a counterpoint to the U.S. Army command's assertion that the My Lai massacre was an exception. National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam leaders asserted that atrocities committed by American soldiers were a result of military field policies like "search-and-destroy", "free-fire zones" and "forced urbanization", the saturation bombing of villages believed to be controlled by enemy forces.^[6]^[7]

Major events

April 7, 1970: David Bressam, a former Army officer; Peter Fossell, a former Marine Corps rifleman; and Robert B. Johnson, a former Army captain and chaplain. They allege that Col. Lewis Beasley, 1st Air Cav Div of 9th Cavalry, from his helicopter killed Vietnamese civilians who were "taking evasive action." Location: Central highlands north of Dak To. Date: August 1967.^[8]
May 7, 1970: Larry Rottman, a retired first lieutenant, affirmed that he had seen nerve gas stored at the Bien Hoa American air base while stationed there in 1967 and 1968. Michael Uhl, 1st Lt., military intelligence, Americal Division, witnessed electrical torture 15 times.^[9]
July 19, 1970: Six recently returned Army veterans tell of using electricity to torture prisoners. The veterans offering testimony are: Robert Stemme, Sgt, 172nd Military Intelligence Dept., attached to 173rd Airborne Brigade; Michael Uhl, 1st Lt., military intelligence, Americal Division; Peter Martinsen, Sp/5, 542nd MI Detachment, 101st Airborne Division; John Patton, 2nd Lt., 11th Regiment, Americal Division; Edward Murphy, Sgt., 4th MI Detachment, 4th Infantry Division; Fred Brown, 172nd Military Intelligence Dept., attached to 173rd Airborne Brigade.^[10]
October 28, 1970: Mike McCusker, Sgt., 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, 5th Marine Infantry Division, reveals that on September 6, 1966, his unit destroyed everything that moved in two villages near Chu Lai. Michael Shepherd, Special Forces medic, 101st Airborne Division, reported witnessing the shooting of wounded prisoners. Nick Kinler, chemical warfare specialist, told of witnessing the massacre by American troops of villagers who were chased from bunkers by tear gas.^[11]
November 24, 1970: Three active duty officers and three veterans blame U.S. commanders for policies that lead to atrocities committed by ground-level troops. The active duty Army officers, all stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, were: Capt. Edward Fox, Capt. Grier Merwin, and Capt. Robert Masters. The three veterans were: Louis Font, Lt., a West Point graduate; Robert Johnson, Army Capt.; and T. Griffith Ellison, Marine Corps Lance Corporal.^[12]
December 1–3, 1970: Forty veterans of the Vietnam War testify in the Dupont Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., at the National Veterans Inquiry into U.S. War Crimes Policy. They testify about the atrocities they either witnessed or participated in. They share a single opinion that war crimes committed by American soldiers in Vietnam were the logical consequence of command policies. Among those testifying were four West Point graduates: Louis Font, Robert Master, Bob Johnson and Gordon Livingston.^[13] Others whose testimony was cited by reporters include Steven Hassett (1st Air Cavalry Division), Stephen S. Naetzel (Sgt.), Edward Murphy (Sgt.), and Kenneth B. Osborne (intelligence specialist).^[14]^[15]
April 26–27, 1971: [slug: Dellums hearings]
August 2, 1971: Michael Uhl gave testimony about the Phoenix Program under oath to the Congressional Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations of the U.S. House of Representatives.^[16]

Impact and legacy

Telford Taylor, former chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials stated on the Dick Cavett Show that General William Westmoreland might be convicted as a war criminal if Nuremberg principles from World War II were applied to the Vietnam War. Taylor, himself a retired brigadier general in the Army Reserve, explained that the U.S. Army applied this standard of justice in the trial of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Yamashita was convicted of war crimes and hanged for atrocities committed by his troops in the Philippines. Taylor attributed his opinion to the evidence of atrocities and war crimes offered by veterans and active-duty soldiers, who were testifying under the auspices of the Citizens Commission of Inquiry.^[17]

The Concerned Officers Movement (COM) held two press conferences under the auspices of the Citizens Commission of Inquiry on January 12, 1971 in Washington, D.C., and January 20, 1971, in Los Angeles calling for an investigation into the "responsibility for war crimes of key military figures", including Generals William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams, and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. The Washington, D.C., COM members involved were CAPT Robert Master, USA and CAPT Grier Merwin, USA, both doctors; Capt. Edward G. Fox, a zoologist in the Army Medical Service Corps; First Lieutenant Louis Font, a West Point graduate; and LTJG Peter Dunkelberger, USN, a management systems analyst stationed at the Pentagon.^[18] In Los Angeles were LT Norman Banks, USAF, LTJG Ted Shallcross, USN, LT James Skelly, USN, and LTJG John Kent, USN, an Annapolis graduate, all-American wrestler and jet fighter pilot.^[19]^[20]^[21]

The Winter Soldier Investigation, which ran from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971, followed in the paths of both the Citizens Commission of Inquiry and the Russell Tribunal. This event was organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and some of its leaders have credited the National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam with establishing the credibility of veterans' voices of dissent. Internal divisions between the two groups led each to work independently of the other.^[22]

The Citizens Commission of Inquiry disbanded in December 1971.

Related Research Articles

The My Lai massacre was a war crime committed by United States Army personnel on 16 March 1968, involving the mass murder of unarmed civilians in Sơn Tịnh district, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. Between 347 and 504 civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children who were as young as 12. It is the largest publicized massacre of civilians by U.S. forces in the 20th century.

William Laws Calley Jr. is a former United States Army officer who was convicted by court-martial for the murder of 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Calley was released to house arrest under orders by President Richard Nixon three days after his conviction. A new trial was ordered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit but that ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court. Calley served three years of house arrest for the murders. Public opinion at the time about Calley was divided. Since his dismissal from the U.S. Army and release from prison, Calley has avoided public attention.

The Americal Division was an infantry division of the United States Army during World War II and the Vietnam War.

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Ronald Vernie Dellums was an American politician who served as Mayor of Oakland from 2007 to 2011. He had previously served thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 9th congressional district, in office from 1971 to 1998, after which he worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell Tribunal</span> Peoples tribunal formed in 1966 by Bertrand Russell

The Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal, Russell–Sartre Tribunal, or Stockholm Tribunal, was a private People's Tribunal organised in 1966 by Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and Nobel Prize winner, and hosted by French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre, along with Lelio Basso, Simone de Beauvoir, Vladimir Dedijer, Ralph Schoenman, Isaac Deutscher, Günther Anders and several others. The tribunal investigated and evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam.

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The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan. Discharged servicemen from each branch of the armed forces, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years 1963–1970.

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References

↑ Bilton, Michael; Sim, Kevin (1992). Four Hours in My Lai . Penguin Books. ISBN 0140177094.
1 2 "Peace Group to Set Up Panels on Atrocity Charges". New York Times. 29 January 1969. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
↑ Robinson, Douglas (7 April 1970). "EX‐PROT ALLEGES CIVILIAN SLAYINGS (Published 1970)". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
↑ Uhl, Michael. "That's Vietnam, Jake". The Nation (9 July 2001). Retrieved 10 June 2015.
↑ Uhl, Michael (2007). Vietnam Awakening. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-7864-3074-1.
↑ "They'd Probe Pentagon on 'Atrocities'". New York Daily News. 14 April 1970.
↑ Long, James (28 October 1970). "War Atrocities Termed Common Place". Oregon Journal.
↑ "U.S. Army Veteran Alleges Vietnamese Civilians Slain". Springfield Union. 7 April 1970.
↑ Crockett, Douglas (6 May 1970). "Two Ex-Gis Say Troops Torture Prisoners in Vietnam". Boston Globe. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
↑ Greider, William (19 July 1970). "Ex-GIs Tell of Torturing Prisoners". Washington Post. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
↑ Long, James (28 October 1970). "War Atrocities Termed Commonplace". Oregon Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
↑ Maynard, Robert (24 November 1970). "War Foes Blame U.S. Commanders for Viet Atrocities". Washington Post. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
↑ Uhl, Michael (2007). Vietnam Awakening. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 171–179. ISBN 978-0-7864-3074-1.
↑ "Yanks Tortured Red Prisoners, Two GIs Testify". Chicago Daily News. United Press International. 3 December 1970. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
↑ "War Veterans At Inquiry Feel 'Atrocities' Are Result of Policy" (PDF). New York Times. 4 December 1970. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
↑ Uhl, Michael (2 August 1971). "HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-SECOND CONGRESS FIRST SESSION". Veteran Scholar. Government Printing Office. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
↑ Sheehan, Neil (9 January 1971). "Taylor Says by Nuremberg Rules Westmoreland May Be Guilty". New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
↑ Sheehan, Neil (1971-01-13). "Five Officers Say They Seek Formal War Crimes Inquiries". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
↑ "4 More Officers Seek U.S. War Crimes Inquiry". The New York Times. 1971-01-21.
↑ "Military Leader Inquiry Is Urged". Independent Press-Telegram. 1971-01-21.
↑ Cortright, David (2005). Soldiers In Revolt. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. p. 110. ISBN 1931859272.
↑ Uhl, Michael (2007). Vietnam Awakening. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-7864-3074-1.