New research points to Nixon in My Lai cover-up attempt

[Ptah]

Source: CBSnews.com

This past week marked the 46th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, in which 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. troops in 1968. It's one of the most shameful chapters in American military history, and now documents held at the Nixon Presidential Library paint a disturbing picture of what happened inside the Nixon administration after news of the massacre was leaked.

The documents, mostly hand-written notes from Nixon's meetings with his chief of staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, lead some historians to conclude that President Richard Nixon was behind the attempt to sabotage the My Lai court-martial trials and cover up what was becoming a public-relations disaster for his administration.

One document, scribbled by Haldeman during his Dec. 1, 1969, meeting with Nixon, reads like a threatening to-do list under the headline "My Lai Task Force." Haldeman wrote "dirty tricks" (with the clarification that those tricks be "not too high a level&quot and "discredit one witness," in order to "keep working on the problem."

Haldeman's note
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
"Haldeman's note is an important piece of evidence that Nixon interfered with a war-crime prosecution," says Ken Hughes, a researcher with the University of Virginia's Miller Center Presidential Recording Program.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-research-points-to-nixon-in-my-lai-cover-up-attempt/

[Ptah]

1. Me Lie.

[burrowowl]

7. That's the Truth!

Me Lie!

[UTUSN]

18. The start of Colon POWELL's career as flunky for Old White Men n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. It never occurred to me he hadn't interfered.

Nixon was a known factor to many of us back then.
There never was any doubt.

[Ptah]

19. Dick Nixon before he dicks you

[Nitram]

20. Don't pull your Dick out in the middle of a screw...

...vote for Nixon in '72!

[uriel1972]

3. When he died I was gagging..

on the sainthood being bestowed upon him. A truly vile human being.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. On the day of Nixon's funeral, we got the day off

I was under contract to the GSA at Mare Island Naval Shipyard at the time.

I made it a point to go to work.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. They cordoned off his grave...

Too many people like me were leaving behind something nobody mistakes for flowers.

[Nitram]

21. He was never sainted.

Even the right mistrusted him. And hated him for embarrassing them. They never stopped looking for an opportunity to impeach a Democratic president, and get their chance with Clinton.

[gopiscrap]

5. I was a little kid when this happened but because

my dad died due to the Vietnam War, I listened to news stories coming out of there and even as an 11 year I thought something stinks! Boy Nixon was one dirty mfer

[loudsue]

9. Every republican president since Eisenhower has been one dirty mfer.

Republicans are far worse than democrats when it comes to nasty.

[gopiscrap]

15. I totally agree!!!

[jtuck004]

8. No doubt that he was heavily involved. It's unsettling to see this. Thank you. n/t

[tofuandbeer]

10. I have never been so grateful for Watergate, as I have after reading this thread.

That man was on a one way train to take over this country.
And I think he was the beginning of what we experience with today's GOP.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Surely takes forever for the truth to get out, doesn't it? Thank goodness for this new glimpse.

We are all owed all of the rest of it, all of it up to this very minute.

We are also owed a clean government.

[Berlum]

12. "Well of course we lied and covered up.We're Republicons. Smirk." - Tricky Dick (R)

[hobbit709]

14. Ask Lt. Colonel Anthony Herbert.

[UTUSN]

16. Maybe 30 yrs from now CBS will be reporting on Shrub & lauding Dan RATHER. Oh, and

no mention of Colon POWELL who started his career as flunky with the cover-up "investigation"

[UTUSN]

17. R#34 & kick for true heroes: Hugh THOMPSON, Larry COLBURN, Glenn ANDREOTTA

*********QUOTE********

Nixon's targets were the star witnesses of the My Lai court-martial trials: pilot [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Hugh Thompson and gunner Larry Colburn[/FONT]. They were the two surviving members of a U.S. helicopter crew that was flying a reconnaissance mission over the South Vietnam village of My Lai when they saw the massacre in progress that March day in 1968.

If not for the actions of the helicopter crew, [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the death count at My Lai could have been far higher. Thompson and Colburn were so horrified by the sight of American soldiers slaughtering unarmed civilians, they put their own lives at risk to try to stop it, even saving a wounded boy[/FONT] from a corpse-filled ditch and delivering him to the hospital.

Mike Wallace told the helicopter crew's story in the gut-wrenching 60 Minutes segment called "Back to My Lai" (posted in the video player above), which was first broadcast in 1998. That same year, the U.S. military officially honored the crew's actions in My Lai. Not present was the crew's [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]third crew member, Glenn Andreotta, who was shot and killed in action three weeks after[/FONT] the massacre. It had taken 30 years for the U.S. government to recognize the three men.

But when Thompson and Colburn first returned home after Vietnam, it was a much different story. They weren't received as heroes, but as traitors.

Thompson testified about the massacre in the U.S. government's court-martial trials, but according to author Trent Angers, [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]two Congressmen who were working in concert with Nixon[/FONT], managed to seal that testimony in order to damage the cases against the culprits of My Lai. Whether it was one of the "dirty tricks" Nixon prescribed in Haldeman's 1969 meeting note is a matter of debate for historians.

*************UNQUOTE*************

[Octafish]

27. Thank you, UTUSN!

History is so different when written by people who tell the truth.

[olddad56]

22. Nixon wouldn't have been a disgrace to the GOP if he hadn't been doing something despicable.

[rhett o rick]

23. Maybe someday we will find out what really happened on Sept 11, 2001. nm

[olddad56]

24. I think many of us intuitively know what happened on 9/11,

but most people don't want to know. They just can't wrap their heads around what really happened.

[rhett o rick]

25. I agree. To some their denial bubble is like their blankie. nm

[Politicalboi]

26. Yes indeed

[DeSwiss]

28. Now who to send to do the discrediting, hmmm.......

Maj. Powell's Response

The letter's troubling allegations were not well received at American headquarters. Maj. Powell undertook the assignment to review Glen's letter, but did so without questioning Glen or assigning anyone else to talk with him. Powell simply accepted a claim from Glen's superior officer that Glen was not close enough to the front lines to know what he was writing about, an assertion Glen denies.

After that cursory investigation, Powell drafted a response on Dec. 13, 1968. He admitted to no pattern of wrongdoing. Powell claimed that U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were taught to treat Vietnamese courteously and respectfully. The Americal troops also had gone through an hour-long course on how to treat prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, Powell noted.

"There may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs," Powell wrote in 1968. But "this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the Division." Indeed, Powell's memo faulted Glen for not complaining earlier and for failing to be more specific in his letter.

Powell reported back exactly what his superiors wanted to hear. "In direct refutation of this [Glen's] portrayal," Powell concluded, "is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."

Powell's findings, of course, were false. But it would take another Americal hero, an infantryman named Ron Ridenhour, to piece together the truth about the atrocity at My Lai. After returning to the United States, Ridenhour interviewed Americal comrades who had participated in the massacre.

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