Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files

The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files is a collection of formerly secret documents compiled by Pentagon investigators in the early 1970s, confirming that by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War were more extensive than had been officially acknowledged. The documents are housed by the United States National Archives and Records Administration. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army investigators — not including the 1968 My Lai Massacre.

Declassification and access

The records were declassified in 1994, after 20 years as required by the Freedom of Information Act, and relocated to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, where they went largely unnoticed. Nick Turse, a freelance journalist, discovered the archive while researching his doctoral dissertation for the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University. He managed to examine most of the files, and obtained copies of about 3,000 pages — representing roughly a third of the total — before government officials removed them from the public shelves in 2002, stating they contained personal information that was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Los Angeles Times articles

Nick Turse collaborated with Deborah Nelson, a former staff writer and current Washington D.C. investigative editor for "The Los Angeles Times", to employ these documents to form the core of a series of articles. They were augmented by Army Inspector-General records in the National Archives; FBI and Army Criminal Investigation Division records; documents shared by military veterans; and case files and related records in the Col. Henry Tufts Archive at the University of Michigan; as well as interviews with participants, witnesses, survivors and former Army officials in both the United States and Vietnam.

While the archive contains 320 substantiated incidents, the records also contain allegations of more than 500 atrocities that investigators could not prove or were otherwise discounted. At 9,000 pages, the archive is the largest collection of such documents to have surfaced to date. It includes investigation files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for senior military officers.

In total the documents describe a seemingly endemic violent minority within U.S. Army units throughout the Southeast Asian theater during this period, in contrast to the official picture of "rogue units", with widespread duplicity at various levels of the command structure. This official documentation lends considerable credence to widespread anecdotal evidence as presented by unofficial investigations of the time, such as the Russell Tribunal, the National Veterans Inquiry, the Citizens Commission of Inquiry, and the Winter Soldier Investigation.

ummary of substantiated cases

*Seven previously unacknowledged massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.
*Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.
*One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.

Two hundred and three soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners were found to warrant formal charges after investigation, and were subsequently referred to the soldiers' superiors for official action. Of the 203 cases, 57 of them stood a court martial. Only 23 were convicted, of whom 14 received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years; most received significant reductions on appeal. Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand, a fine or, in more than half the cases, no action at all.

The stiffest sentence went to a military intelligence interrogator convicted of committing indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut in 1967. The records show that he served seven months of a 20-year term.

ee also

*Winter Soldier Investigation
*Tiger Force
*Phoenix Program
*Pentagon Papers

External links

"Los Angeles Times" coverage; [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam20aug20-sg,0,7940522.storygallery "'Vietnam - The War Crimes Files "] [http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080606Y.shtml "Permanent Mirror"]

upporting documents

* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc1,0,1826136.acrobat "Memorandum from John W. Dean III, counsel to President Nixon"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/dean_memo.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc2,0,1891673.acrobat "'Press statement by James D. Henry"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/henry_press_statement.pdf " Mirror "]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc3,0,1957210.acrobat "Excerpt of Henry's 10-page sworn statement"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/henry_statement_excerpt.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc10,0,6346933.acrobat "Gregory Newman's sworn statement on Sept. 21, 1972"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/newman_statement.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc4,0,2022747.acrobat "Robert D. Miller's sworn statement on Aug. 5, 1972"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/miller_statement.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc5,0,2088284.acrobat "Johnny Mack Carter's sworn statement on Mar. 3, 1970"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/carter_statement.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc6,0,2153821.acrobat "Investigator's statements concerning Donald C. Reh"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/statement_on_reh.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc7,0,2219358.acrobat "Agent's statement concerning Gary A. Bennett"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/statement_on_bennett.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc8,0,2284895.acrobat "William W. Taylor Jr.'s first statement when asked about the wrong date"] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/taylor_statement.pdf "Mirror"]
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06-doc9,0,2350432.acrobat "Summary fact sheet for the final report of investigation on the "Henry Allegation" "] [http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/vietnam_war_crimes/henry_summary.pdf "Mirror"]