|
Need for Investigation
Hon. Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon
In the Senate of the United States
Monday, April 5, 1971
MR. HATFIELD. Mr.
President, the moral sensitivity of the Nation has been aroused by the
conviction of Lt. William Calley. More clearly than before, this
incident has focused the fundamental moral questions that our Nation
must confront regarding our conduct in Indochina.
The Department of Defense said in its recent statement
relating to the Calley conviction:
The Department of the Army has had a moral and legal
obligation to adopt a continuing policy of investigating fully all
substantive allegations or violations of the laws of war involving
American personnel.
Every allegation of misconduct on the
battlefield--regardless of the rank or position of the person
purportedly responsible--must be thoroughly explored.
There has recently been brought to my attention
testimony relating to the policy and conduct of American forces in
Indochina which has grave and very serious implications.
The testimony is given by honorably discharged
veterans who had served in Vietnam, and was conducted by Vietnam
Veterans Against the War. Three days of testimony were conducted in
Detroit, Mich. on January 31, February 1, and 2 of this year. This
group, which represents 11,000 veterans, plans to send several thousand
to Washington the week of April 19 to petition Congress for full
congressional hearings.
I, of course, have no way of ascertaining the veracity
of all the testimony given, and I am not in agreement with certain of
the statements and judgments made by those who testified.
However, I believe that the allegations made by these
Americans, who served their country in Vietnam, are so serious and so
grave that they demand the full study by the appropriate committees of
Congress as well as by the executive branch.
The testimony and allegations raised by the experience
of these veterans includes charges regarding: the torture and murder of
suspects and prisoners of war captured by Americans and South Vietnamese
forces; the wanton killing of innocent, unarmed civilians; the
brutalization and rape of Vietnamese women in the villages; military
policies which enabled indiscriminate bombing and the random firing of
artillery into villages which resulted in the burning to death of women,
children and old people; the widespread defoliation of lands of forests;
the use of various types of gases; the mutilation of enemy bodies, and
others.
A recurrent theme running throughout the testimony is
that of institutionalized racist attitudes of the military in their
training of the men who are sent to Vietnam--training which has
indoctrinated them to think of all Vietnamese as "gooks" and subhuman.
Further, the thrust of the allegations made in the
3-day testimony is that such actions were the consequence of reasonable
and known policy adopted by our military commanders and that the
knowledge of incidents resulting from these policies was widely shared.
Several of the allegations made in this testimony
would place the United States in violation of the Geneva Convention and
other international agreements relating to the conduct of war which have
been ratified by our Government.
Therefore, the necessity for investigating fully these
alleged actions, and all evidence that bears on our actions in Indochina
and the international agreements we have ratified cannot be overstated.
Therefore, first I ask unanimous consent that the
testimony presented by over 100 honorably discharged veterans in Detroit
be placed in the Congressional Record.
I realize that the testimony is very lengthy, but its
full force and content must be made available so that it can be read and
judged on its own merits.
Second, I will transmit this testimony to the
Department of Defense and the Department of State and urge, in accord
with its stated policy, that the evidence and allegations it contains be
fully investigated.
Third, I urge the appropriate committees of the
Congress to conduct hearings on the policies governing the use of
military force in Indochina and their relation to international
agreements our country has ratified.
Fourth, I recommend consideration be given to forming
a special commission that would investigate in full these matters and
would provide a forum to assess the moral consequences of our
involvement in Indochina to us as a Nation and a people.
We as a Nation must find the proper way to honestly
confront the moral consequences of our actions, and to corporately turn
ourselves from the thinking and the policy that has degraded our moral
posture and to recognize that out of contrition an self-examination can
come a genuine rebirth of the ideas we hold as a people.
The testimony that follows and the steps I have
advocated are presented with this hope.
I ask unanimous consent to have the testimony printed
in the Extensions of Remarks.
There being no objection, the testimony was ordered to
be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Go to Next Page |