Coordinates: 15°10′42″N 108°52′10″E / 15.17833°N 108.86944°E / 15.17833; 108.86944

Mỹ Lai Massacre
Location	Sơn Mỹ village, Sơn Tịnh district of South Vietnam
Date	March 16, 1968
Target	Mỹ Lai 4 and Mỹ Khe 4 hamlets
Attack type	Massacre
Deaths	347 according to the U.S Army (not including Mỹ Khe killings), others estimate more than 400 killed and injuries are unknown, Vietnamese government lists 504 killed in total from both Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khe
Perpetrators	Task force from the United States Army Americal Division 2LT. William Calley (convicted and then released by President Nixon to serve house arrest for three years)

The My Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰɐ̃ːm ʂɐ̌ːt mǐˀ lɐːj], [mǐˀlɐːj] ( listen); /ˌmiːˈlaɪ/, /ˌmiːˈleɪ/, or /ˌmaɪˈlaɪ/)^[1] was the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children, infants, and elderly people. Some of the bodies were later found to be mutilated^[2] and many women allegedly raped prior to the killings.^[3] While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at Mỹ Lai, only Second Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years under house arrest.

The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village.^[4][5] The event is also known as the Sơn Mỹ Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Sơn Mỹ) or sometimes as the Song Mỹ Massacre.^[6] The US military codeword for the "Viet Cong [sic] stronghold" was "Pinkville".^[7]

When the incident became public knowledge in 1969, it prompted global outrage. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Three US servicemen who had tried to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were initially denounced by several US Congressmen as traitors in an attempt to cover up the massacre. They received hate mail and death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps. The three were later widely praised and decorated by the army for their heroic actions. ^[8]

Incident[link]

Background[link]

Company C of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division, arrived in South Vietnam in December 1967. Though their first month in Vietnam passed without any direct enemy contact, by mid-March the company had suffered 28 incidents involving mines or booby-traps which caused numerous injuries and five deaths.

Vietnamese women and children in Mỹ Lai before being killed in the massacre, March 16, 1968.^[9] They were killed seconds after the photo was taken.^[10] Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

During the Tet Offensive of January 1968, attacks were carried out in Quảng Ngãi by the 48th Battalion of the National Liberation Front (NLF), commonly referred to by the Americans as the Vietcong or Victor Charlie (from the initials corresponding with the NATO phonetic alphabet). US military intelligence assumed that the 48th NLF Battalion, having retreated and dispersed, was taking refuge in the village of Sơn Mỹ, in Quang Ngai Province. A number of specific hamlets within that village—designated Mỹ Lai 1, 2, 3, and 4—were suspected of harboring the 48th. (In February, the Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre and Ha My massacre were perpetrated by South Korean Marines in Quang Nam, a neighboring province of Quang Ngai.)

US forces planned a major offensive against those hamlets using Task Force Barker, a battalion-size unit made up of three rifle companies of the Americal Division and led by Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker. Colonel Oran K. Henderson urged his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good."^[11] Barker ordered the 1st Battalion commanders to burn the houses, kill the livestock, destroy foodstuffs, and perhaps to close the wells.^[12]

On the eve of the attack, at the Charlie Company briefing, Captain Ernest Medina told his men that nearly all the civilian residents of the hamlets in Sơn Mỹ village would have left for the market by 07:00 and any who remained would be NLF or NLF sympathizers.^[13] He was asked whether the order included the killing of women and children. Those present later gave different accounts of Medina's response. Some, including platoon leaders, testified that the orders as they understood them were to kill all guerrilla and North Vietnamese combatants and "suspects" (including women and children, as well as all animals), to burn the village, and pollute the wells.^[14] He was also quoted as saying "They're all V.C., now go and get them" and was heard to say "Who is my enemy?" Medina added, "Anybody that was running from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy. If a man was running, shoot him, sometimes even if a woman with a rifle was running, shoot her."^[15]

Company C was to enter the hamlet, spearheaded by its first platoon. The other two companies in the task force were to cordon off the village.

Killings[link]

Dead man and child. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

On the morning of March 16, Charlie Company landed following a short artillery and helicopter gunship preparation. Though the Americans found no enemy fighters in the village, many soldiers suspected there were NLF troops hiding underground in the homes of their wives or elderly parents. The US soldiers, including a platoon led by Second Lieutenant William Calley, went in shooting at what they claimed to have deemed an enemy position.

Once the first civilians were wounded or killed by indiscriminate fire, the soldiers began attacking humans and animals alike, with firearms, grenades and bayonets. The scale of the massacre grew, the brutality only increasing with each killing. BBC News described the scene: "Dozens of people, herded into an irrigation ditch and other locations, were killed with automatic weapons."^[16]

A large group of about 70–80 villagers, rounded up by the 1st Platoon in the center of the village, were killed on an order given by Calley, who also participated.

Members of the 2nd Platoon killed at least 60–70 Vietnamese, as they swept through the northern half of Mỹ Lai 4 and through Binh Tay, a small subhamlet about 400 metres (1,300 ft) north of Mỹ Lai 4.^[4] The platoon suffered one dead and seven wounded by mines and booby traps.^[4]

After the initial "sweeps" by the 1st and 2nd Platoons, the 3rd Platoon was dispatched to deal with any "remaining resistance." They immediately began killing every living person and animal they could find. This included Vietnamese who had emerged from their hiding places as well as the wounded, found moaning in the heaps of bodies. The 3rd Platoon also rounded up and killed a group of seven to twelve women and children.^[4]

Since Charlie Company had encountered no enemy opposition, the 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, was transported by air to its landing zone at between 08:15 and 08:30 and attacked the subhamlet of Mỹ Khe 4, killing as many as 90 people.

Over the following two days, both battalions were involved in additional burning and destruction of dwellings, as well as mistreatment of Vietnamese detainees. While most of the soldiers did not participate in the crimes, they neither protested nor complained to their superiors.^[17]

Helicopter intervention[link]

Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot from an aero-scout team, saw a large number of dead and dying civilians as he began flying over the village—all of them infants, children, women and old men, with no signs of draft-age men or weapons anywhere. Thompson and his crew witnessed an unarmed passive woman being kicked and shot at point-blank range by Captain Medina (Medina later claimed that he thought she had a grenade).^[18] The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. They landed their helicopter by a ditch, which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement. Thompson asked a sergeant he encountered there (David Mitchell of the 1st Platoon) if he could help get the people out of the ditch, and the sergeant replied that he would "help them out of their misery". Thompson, shocked and confused, then spoke with Second Lieutenant Calley, who claimed to be "just following orders". As the helicopter took off, they saw Mitchell firing into the ditch.

Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that if the soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers. Thompson later testified that he spoke with a lieutenant (identified as Stephen Brooks of the 2nd Platoon) and told him there were women and children in the bunker, and asked if the lieutenant would help get them out. According to Thompson, "he [the lieutenant] said the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade". Thompson testified that he then told Brooks to "just hold your men right where they are, and I'll get the kids out". He found 12–16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two groups.

Returning to Mỹ Lai, Thompson and other air crew members noticed several large groups of bodies. Spotting some survivors in the ditch, Thompson landed again. A crew member entered the ditch and returned with a bloodied but apparently unharmed child who was flown to safety. The child was thought to be a girl, but later turned out to be a four-year-old boy. Thompson then reported what he had seen to his company commander, Major Frederic W. Watke, using terms such as "murder" and "needless and unnecessary killings". Thompson's reports were confirmed by other pilots and air crew.^[19]

For their actions, Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and his crew were awarded Bronze Star medals. Andreotta received his medal posthumously, as he was killed in action on April 8, 1968.^[20] As the DFC citation included a fabricated account of rescuing a young girl from My Lai from "intense crossfire"^[21] Thompson threw his medal away.^[22][23] He later received a Purple Heart for other services in Vietnam.^[24] In 1998, the helicopter crew's medals were replaced by the Soldier's Medal, "the highest the US Army can award for bravery not involving direct conflict with the enemy." The medal citations state they were "for heroism above and beyond the call of duty while saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of non-combatants by American forces at My Lai".^[25] Thompson initially refused the medal when the US Army wanted to award it quietly. He demanded it be done publicly and that his crew also be honored in the same way.^[26][27] The veterans also made contact with the survivors of Mỹ Lai.^[28]

Aftermath[link]

Dead bodies outside a burning dwelling. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

Owing to the chaotic circumstances and the Army's decision not to undertake a definitive body count, the number of civilians killed at Mỹ Lai cannot be stated with certainty. Estimates vary from source to source, with 347 and 504 being the most commonly cited figures. The memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names, with ages ranging from one to 82. A later investigation by the US Army arrived at a lower figure of 347 deaths,^[29] the official US estimate.

Upon returning to their base at about 1100, Thompson heatedly reported the massacre to his superiors.^[30] His allegations of civilian killings quickly reached Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, the operation's overall commander. Barker radioed his executive officer to find out from Captain Medina what was happening on the ground. Medina then gave the cease-fire order to Charlie Company to "knock off the killing".

Thompson made an official report of the killings, and was interviewed by Colonel Oran Henderson, the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade (the parent organization of the 20th Infantry).^[31] Concerned, senior Americal officers cancelled similar planned operations by Task Force Barker against other villages (My Lai 5, My Lai 1, etc.) in Quang Ngai Province, possibly preventing the additional massacre of hundreds, if not thousands, of Vietnamese civilians.^[32]

Reporting, cover-up and investigations[link]

The first reports claimed that "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" were killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". General William C. Westmoreland, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam commander, congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job". As related at the time by the Army's Stars and Stripes magazine, "U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle."^{[citation needed]} On March 16, 1968, in or around the official press briefing known as the “Five O’Clock Follies”, "a mimeographed release included this passage: 'In an action today, Americal Division forces killed 128 enemy near Quang Ngai City. Helicopter gunships and artillery missions supported the ground elements throughout the day.'"^[33]

Initial investigations of the Mỹ Lai operation were undertaken by the 11th Light Infantry Brigade's commanding officer, Colonel Henderson, under orders from the Americal Division's executive officer, Brigadier General George H. Young. Henderson interviewed several soldiers involved in the incident, then issued a written report in late April claiming that some 20 civilians were inadvertently killed during the operation. The Army at this time was still describing the event as a military victory that had resulted in the deaths of 128 enemy combatants.

Six months later, Tom Glen, a 21-year-old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, wrote a letter to General Creighton Abrams, the new overall commander of US forces in Vietnam, accusing the Americal Division (and other units of the US military) of routine and pervasive brutality against Vietnamese civilians. The letter was detailed and its contents echoed complaints received from other soldiers.^{[citation needed]}

Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old Army major, was charged with investigating the letter, which did not specifically reference Mỹ Lai (Glen had limited knowledge of the events there). In his report, Powell wrote, "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal Division^[34] soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Powell's handling of the assignment was later characterized by some observers as "whitewashing" the atrocities of Mỹ Lai.^[35] In May 2004, Powell, then United States Secretary of State, told CNN's Larry King, "I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored."^[36]

Independently of Glen, a former member of Charlie Company,^{[clarification needed]} Ronald Ridenhour, sent a letter in March 1969 detailing the events at Mỹ Lai to President Richard M. Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and numerous members of Congress.^[37] Most recipients of Ridenhour's letter ignored it, with the exception of Congressman Morris Udall^[38] and Senators Barry Goldwater and Edward Brooke.^[39] Ridenhour had learned about the events at Mỹ Lai secondhand, by talking to members of Charlie Company while he was still in the Army.

Eventually, Calley was charged with several counts of premeditated murder in September 1969, and 25 other officers and enlisted men were later charged with related crimes. It was another two months before the American public learned about the massacre and trials.

In May 1970, a sergeant who participated in Operation Speedy Express wrote a confidential letter to then Army Chief of Staff Westmoreland describing civilian killings on the scale of the massacre occurring as "a My Lay each month for over a year" during 1968-1969. Two other letters to this effect from enlisted soldiers to military leaders in 1971, all signed "Concerned Sergeant", were uncovered within declassified National Archive documents. The letters describe routine civilian killings as a policy of population pacification. Army policy also stressed very high body counts and without regard to who was killed. Alluding to indiscriminate killings described as unavoidable, Commander of the Ninth Division, then Maj. Gen. Julian Ewell in September 1969 submitted a confidential report to Westmoreland and other generals describing the countryside in some areas of Vietnam as resembling the battlefields of Verdun.^[40][41]

Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, after extensive conversations with Calley, broke the Mỹ Lai story on November 12, 1969, on the Associated Press wire service;^[42] on November 20, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines all covered the story, and CBS televised an interview with Paul Meadlo, a soldier in Calley's unit during the massacre. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) published explicit photographs of dead villagers killed at Mỹ Lai.

In November 1969, General William R. Peers was appointed to conduct a thorough investigation into the Mỹ Lai incident and its subsequent cover-up. Peers' final report, published in March 1970, was highly critical of top officers for participating in the cover-up and the Charlie Company officers for their actions at Mỹ Lai 4.^[43] According to Peers's findings:

[The 1st Battalion] members had killed at least 175–200 Vietnamese men, women, and children. The evidence indicates that only 3 or 4 were confirmed as Viet Cong although there were undoubtedly several unarmed VC (men, women, and children) among them and many more active supporters and sympathizers. One man from the company was reported as wounded from the accidental discharge of his weapon.^[4]

However, critics of the Peers Commission pointed out that it sought to place the real blame on four officers who were already dead, foremost among them the commander of Task Force Barker, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, who was killed in a mid-air collision on June 13, 1968.

Court martial[link]

On November 17, 1970, the United States Army charged 14 officers, including Major General Samuel W. Koster, the Americal Division's commanding officer, with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of those charges were later dropped. Brigade commander Henderson was the only officer who stood trial on charges relating to the cover-up; he was acquitted on December 17, 1971.^[44]

In a four-month-long trial, despite claims that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, Calley was convicted on March 29, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. He was initially sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. Two days later, however, President Richard Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's sentence was later adjusted, so that he would eventually serve three and one-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning.

In a separate trial, Captain Medina denied giving the orders that led to the massacre, and was acquitted of all charges, effectively negating the prosecution's theory of "command responsibility", now referred to as the "Medina standard". Several months after his acquittal, however, Medina admitted that he had suppressed evidence and had lied to Colonel Henderson about the number of civilian deaths.^[45]

Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at Mỹ Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley was the only one convicted.

Some have argued that the outcome of the Mỹ Lai courts-martial was a reversal of the laws of war that were set forth in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals.^[46] Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in The New York Times as stating that Calley's sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders—a rationale that stands in direct contradiction of the standards set at Nuremberg and Tokyo, where German and Japanese soldiers were executed for similar acts.

Survivors[link]

In early 1972, the camp (at Mỹ Lai 2) where the survivors of the Mỹ Lai Massacre had been relocated was largely destroyed by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) artillery and aerial bombardment. The destruction was officially attributed to "Viet Cong terrorists". The truth was revealed by Quaker service workers in the area through testimony (in May 1972) by Martin Teitel at hearings before the Congressional Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees. In June 1972, Teitel's account of the events was published in the New York Times.^[47]

More than a thousand people turned out March 16, 2008, forty years after the massacre, to remember the victims of one of the most notorious chapters of the Vietnam War. The memorial drew the families of the victims and returning US war veterans alike.^[48]

On August 19, 2009, Calley made his first public apology for the massacre in a speech to the Kiwanis club of Greater Columbus Georgia:^[49]

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai", he told members of the Kiwanis club. "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."^[50][51]

Effects and analysis[link]

Some military observers concluded that Mỹ Lai showed the need for more and better volunteers to provide stronger leadership for the troops. As the Vietnam War dragged on, the number of well-trained and experienced career soldiers on the front lines dropped sharply as casualties and combat rotation took their toll. These observers claimed the absence of the many bright young men who avoided military service through college attendance or homeland service caused the talent pool for new officers to become very shallow.^[52] They pointed to Calley, a young, unemployed college dropout, as an example of the raw and inexperienced recruits being rushed through officer training. Others pointed out problems with the military's insistence on unconditional obedience to orders while at the same time limiting the doctrine of "command responsibility" to the lowest ranks. Others saw Mỹ Lai and related war crimes as a direct result of the military's attrition strategy, with its emphasis on "body counts" and "kill ratios". The fact that the massacre was successfully covered up for 18 months was seen as a prime example of the Pentagon's "Culture of Concealment"^[53] and of the lack of integrity that permeated the Defense establishment. South Korean Vietnam Expeditionary Forces Commanding Officer General Chae Myung Shin remarked, "Calley tried to get revenge for the deaths of his troops. In a war, this is natural."^[54]

Participants[link]

Commanders[link]

• Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker – commander of Task Force Barker who ordered the destruction of the village, controlled the artillery preparation and combat assault from his helicopter; he was killed in Vietnam on June 13, 1968, before the investigation had begun.^[4][55]
• Lieutenant Stephen Brooks - platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company.
• Second Lieutenant William L. Calley – platoon leader of 1st Platoon, Charlie Company.
• Colonel Oran K. Henderson – brigade commander who ordered the attack; he had been in a helicopter over Mỹ Lai.^[4]
• Major General Samuel W. Koster – commander of the Americal Division.
• Captain Eugene Kotouc – military intelligence officer who provided some of the information on which the Mỹ Lai combat assault was based; together with Medina and a South Vietnamese police officer, he tortured and executed suspects later that day.^[17]
• Captain Ernest Medina – company commander of Charlie Company who planned, ordered, and supervised the execution of the operation in Sơn Mỹ village.^[56]

1st Platoon, Charlie Company[link]

• Sergeant Michael Bernhardt – refused to participate in the killing of civilians. Captain Medina threatened Sergeant Bernhardt to deter him from writing to Bernhardt's congressman to expose the massacre and, as a result, was allegedly given more dangerous duties such as point duty on patrol.^[57] Later he would help expose and detail the massacre in numerous interviews with the press, and also served as a prosecution witness in the trial of Medina, where he was subjected to intense cross examination by defense counsel F. Lee Bailey. Recipient of the New York Society for Ethical Culture's 1970 Ethical Humanist Award.^[58]
• Herbert Carter – platoon "tunnel rat". He claimed he shot himself in the foot in order to be MEDEVACed out of the village.^{[citation needed]}
• Dennis Conti – testified he initially refused to shoot, but later fired some M79 grenade launcher rounds at a group of fleeing people with unknown effect.
• James Dursi – killed a mother and child, then refused to kill anyone else even when ordered to do so.
• Ronald Grzesik – a team leader. He claimed he followed orders to round up civilians, but refused to kill them.
• Robert Maples – stated to have refused to participate.^{[clarification needed]}
• Paul Meadlo – said he was afraid of being shot if he did not participate. Lost his foot to a land mine the next day. Later, he publicly admitted his part in the massacre.
• Sergeant David Mitchell – accused by witnesses of shooting people at the ditch site; pleaded not guilty. Mitchell was acquitted. His attorney was Ossie Brown of Baton Rouge, thereafter the district attorney of East Baton Rouge Parish.^[59]
• Varnado Simpson – committed suicide in 1997, citing guilt over several murders committed in Mỹ Lai.
• Charles Sledge – radio operator, later prosecution witness.
• Harry Stanley – claimed to have refused to participate.
• Esequiel Torres – previously had tortured and hanged an old man because Torres found his bandaged leg suspicious. He and Roschevitz (described below) were involved in the shooting of a group of ten women and five children in a hut. Later he was ordered by Calley to shoot a number of people with a M60 machine gun; he fired a burst before refusing to fire again, after which Calley took his weapon and opened fire himself.
• Frederick Widmer – Widmer, who has been the subject of pointed blame, is quoted as saying, "The most disturbing thing I saw was one boy—and this was something that, you know, this what haunts me from the whole, the whole ordeal down there. And there was a boy with his arm shot off, shot up half, half hanging on and he just had this bewildered look in his face and like, What did I do, what's wrong? He was just, you know, it's, it's hard to describe, couldn't comprehend. I, I shot the boy, killed him and it's—I'd like to think of it more or less as a mercy killing because somebody else would have killed him in the end, but it wasn't right."^[60]

Other soldiers[link]

Hugh Thompson, Jr. rescued Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre.

• William Doherty and Michael Terry – soldiers in the 3rd Platoon who killed the wounded in the ditch.^[37]
• Ronald L. Haeberle – photographer attached to the 11th Brigade information office who accompanied C Company.
• Nicholas Capezza – chief medic in Charlie Company. He insisted he saw nothing unusual.
• Sergeant Minh – ARVN interpreter who confronted Captain Medina about the number of civilians that were killed. Medina replied, "Sergeant Minh, don't ask anything – those were the orders."^[61]
• Gary Roschevitz – grabbed an M16 rifle from Varnado Simpson to kill five Vietnamese prisoners.^[62] According to various witnesses, he later forced seven women to undress with the intention of raping them. When the women refused, he reportedly shot them.^[63]

Rescue helicopter crew[link]

• Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson, Jr. – helicopter pilot who confronted the ground forces personally. Died 6 January 2006.
• Specialist Four Glenn Andreotta – crew chief. Killed In Action: 8 April 1968.
• Specialist Four Lawrence Colburn – door gunner.

Photographs[link]

The massacre, like many other operations in Vietnam, was captured in photographs by US Army personnel. The most published and graphic ones were taken by Ronald Haeberle, a U.S Army 'Public Information Detachment' photographer who accompanied the men of Charlie Company that day. Some of the black-and-white photographs he took were with an Army camera and were either subject to censorship or did not depict any Vietnamese casualties when published in an Army newspaper. Haeberle also took color photographs with his own camera while on duty the same day, which he kept and later sold to the media.

The derision "baby killers" was often used by anti-war activists against American soldiers, largely as a result of the Mỹ Lai Massacre.^[64] Although American soldiers had been so taunted since at least 1966, Mỹ Lai and the Haeberle photographs further solidified the stereotype of drug-addled soldiers who killed babies—according to M. Paul Holsinger, the And babies poster, which used a Haeberle photo, was "easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the conflict in Southeast Asia. Copies are still frequently seen in retrospectives dealing with the popular culture of the Vietnam War era or in collections of art from the period."^[65]

Another soldier, John Henry Smail of the 3rd Platoon, took at least 16 color photographs depicting US Army personnel, helicopters, and aerial views of Mỹ Lai.^[66] These, along with Haeberle's photographs, were included in the 'Report of the Department of the Army review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident'. Roger Louis Alaux, an artillery lieutenant who was with Captain Medina during the massacre, also took some photographs that day, including aerial views of Mỹ Lai from a helicopter and of the landing zone.

• 

  Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Tẩu (chín Tẩu), killed by US soldiers

• 

  Unidentified dead Vietnamese man

• 

  Unidentified dead body thrown down a well

• 

  SP5 Capezza burning a dwelling

• 

  PFC Mauro, PFC Carter, and SP4 Widmer (Carter shot himself in the foot with a .45 pistol during the My Lai Massacre)

• 

  SP4 Dustin setting fire to a dwelling

• 

  Unidentifed Vietnamese man

• Deadwoman2.jpg

  More victims at My Lai.

Media[link]

My Lai massacre memorial site, near Quang Ngai, Vietnam.

In 1989, the British television station Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary Four Hours in My Lai as part of the ITV networked series First Tuesday. Using eyewitness statements from both Vietnamese and Americans, the programme revealed new evidence about the massacre.

On March 15, 2008, the BBC broadcast the documentary The My Lai Tapes^[67] on Radio 4, and subsequently on the BBC World Service in both English^[68] and Vietnamese^[69] that used never before heard audio recordings of testimony taken at The Pentagon during the 1969–1970 Peers Inquiry.

On April 26, 2010, the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) broadcast a documentary as part of its The American Experience series entitled The American Experience: My Lai.^[52]

On December 10, 2010, Italian producer Gianni Paolucci released a movie entitled My Lai Four^[70], directed by Paolo Bertola, starring American actor Beau Ballinger as Calley and adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Seymour Hersh.^[71]

See also[link]

	Vietnam portal
	United States portal
	Military history portal

• List of massacres in Vietnam
• Russell Tribunal
• Operation Wheeler/Wallowa
• Human Rights Record of the United States
• Massacre at Huế
• Dak Son Massacre
• Tay Vinh massacre
• Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre
• Binh Tai massacre
• Phoenix Program
• Operation Speedy Express
• Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files
• United States war crimes
• Oradour-sur-Glane
• Lidice
• Premier ANZAC Day Group/All Around Good Blokes

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: My Lai Massacre

• Hugh Thompson Foundation web site (501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Lawrence Colburn in honor of Hugh Thompson): http://www.hughthompson.org

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: My Lai Massacre

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: My Lai massacre

• The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970
• Into the Dark: The My Lai Massacre
• 1969 TIME article
• 'Blood and fire' of My Lai remembered 30 years later
• My Lai Peace Park Project
• BBC World Service: The My Lai Tapes
• Calley Apologizes for 1968 My Lai Massacre - video report by Democracy Now!

Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, April 2008
Born	(1937-04-08) April 8, 1937 (age 75) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Occupation	Journalist
Spouse	Elizabeth Sarah Klein
Awards	Polk Award (1969, 1973, 1974, 1981, 2004)[1][2] Pulitzer Prize (1970)[3] George Orwell Award (2004)[4]

Seymour (Sy) Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a "five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award."^[5]

He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.

Early years[link]

Hersh was born in Chicago to Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian Jewish parents who immigrated to the US from Lithuania and Poland and ran a dry-cleaning shop in the far west side neighborhood of Chicago, called Austin. After graduating from the University of Chicago, with a history degree Hersh found himself struggling to find a job. He began working at a Walgreens before being accepted into University of Chicago Law School but was soon expelled for poor grades.^[6] After returning for a short time to Walgreens, Hersh began his career in journalism as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in 1959. He later became a correspondent for United Press International in South Dakota. In 1963, he went on to become a Chicago and Washington correspondent for the Associated Press. While working in Washington Hersh first met and befriended I. F. Stone whose I. F. Stone's Weekly would serve as an initial inspiration for Hersh's later work. It was during this time that Hersh began to form his investigative style, often walking out of regimented press briefings at the Pentagon and seeking out one on one interviews with high ranking officers. After a falling out with the AP over their refusal to run a story on the US government's work on biological and chemical weapons Hersh left the AP and sold his story to The New Republic. During the 1968 presidential election, he served as press secretary for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy.

Vietnam and the New York Times[link]

After leaving the McCarthy campaign, Hersh returned to journalism as a freelancer covering the Vietnam War. In 1969, Hersh received a tip from Geoffrey Cowan of The Village Voice regarding an Army lieutenant being court-martialled for killing civilians in Vietnam. His subsequent investigation, sold to the Dispatch News Service, was run in thirty-three newspapers and exposed the My Lai massacre, winning him the Pulitzer Prize in 1970.^[6][7]

In 1972, Hersh was hired as a reporter for the Washington bureau of The New York Times, where he served from 1972 to 1975 and again in 1979. In 1975, Hersh was active in the investigation and reporting of Project Azorian (which he called Project Jennifer), the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine effort to raise a Soviet submarine using the Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer.

After the New York Times[link]

His 1983 book The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House won him the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times book prize in biography. In 1985, Hersh contributed to the PBS television documentary Buying the Bomb. In 1993 Hersh became a regular contributor to The New Yorker.^[8]

Hersh has appeared regularly on the Democracy Now! show.^[9]

Selected stories[link]

My Lai Massacre[link]

On November 12, 1969, Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968.^[10] The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War in the United States. The explosive news of the massacre fueled the outrage of the US peace movement, which demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. Hersh wrote about the massacre and its cover-up in My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath and Cover-up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. A movie was produced, based on this book, by Italian director Paolo Bertola in 2009.^[11]

Project Jennifer[link]

In early 1974, Hersh had planned to publish a story on Project Jennifer, the code name for a CIA project to recover a sunken Soviet navy submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Bill Kovach, The New York Times Washington, DC bureau chief at the time, said in 2005 that the government offered a convincing argument to delay publication in early 1974—exposure at that time, while the project was ongoing, "would have caused an international incident." The NYT eventually published its account in 1975, after a story appeared in the Los Angeles Times, and included a five-paragraph explanation of the many twists and turns in the path to publication. It is unclear what, if any, action was taken by the Soviet Union after learning of the story.

KAL 007[link]

In his 1986 book The Target is Destroyed (Random House), Hersh alleged that the Soviet shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007 in September 1983 was due to a combination of Soviet incompetence and United States intelligence operations intended to confuse Soviet responses.

Later releases of government information confirmed that there was a PSYOPS campaign against the Soviet Union that had been in place from the first few months of the Reagan administration. This campaign included the largest US Pacific Fleet exercise ever held, in April to May 1983. The report states that the Soviets, "probably didn't know (KAL 007) was a civilian aircraft" and uses Hersh's book as a reference for the PSYOPS campaign.^[12]

Mordechai Vanunu and Robert Maxwell[link]

In his 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Hersh wrote that Nicholas Davies, the foreign editor of The Daily Mirror, had tipped off the Israeli embassy in London about whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear weapons program first to The Sunday Times and later to the Sunday Mirror. At the time, the Sunday Mirror and its sibling newspaper, the Daily Mirror were owned by media magnate Robert Maxwell who was alleged to have had contacts with Israel's intelligence services. According to Hersh, Davies had also worked for the Mossad. Vanunu was later lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Davies and Maxwell published an anti-Vanunu story that was claimed to be part of a disinformation campaign on behalf of the Israeli government.^[13]

Hersh repeated the allegations during a press conference held in London to publicize his book. No British newspaper would publish the allegations because of Maxwell's famed litigiousness. However, two British MPs raised the matter in the House of Commons, which meant that British newspapers were able to report what had been said without fear of being sued for libel. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention". He fired Nick Davies shortly thereafter.^[14]

Attack on pharmaceutical factory in Sudan[link]

On August 20, 1998, Hersh strongly criticized the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan—providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan—by United States cruise missiles during Bill Clinton's presidency.^[15]

Iraq[link]

Hersh has written a series of articles for The New Yorker magazine detailing military and security matters surrounding the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. In March 2002 he described the planning process for a new invasion of Iraq that had been on-going since the end of the First Gulf War, under the leadership of Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Fried and other neo-conservatives. In a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Another article, Lunch with the Chairman, led Richard Perle, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."^[16]

A March 7, 2007 article entitled, "The Redirection" described the recent shift in the George W. Bush administration's Iraq policy, the goal of which is to "contain" Iran. Hersh points out that, "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."^[17]

In May 2004, Hersh published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq.^[18] The articles included allegations that private military contractors contributed to prisoner mistreatment and that intelligence agencies such as the CIA ordered torture in order to break prisoners for interrogations. They also alleged that torture is a usual practice in other US-run prisons as well, e.g., in Bagram Theater Internment Facility and Guantanamo. In subsequent articles, Hersh claimed that the abuses were part of a secret interrogation program, known as "Copper Green". According to Hersh's sources, the program was expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there and as part of "Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A."^[19] Much of his material for these articles was based on the Army's own internal investigations.^[20]

Scott Ritter points out in his October 19, 2005 interview with Seymour Hersh that the US policy to remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from power started with US president George H. W. Bush in August 1990. Ritter concludes from public remarks by President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker that the Iraq sanctions would only be lifted when Hussein was removed from power. The justification for sanctions was disarmament. The CIA offered the opinion that containing Hussein for six months would result in the collapse of his regime. This policy resulted in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

MR. HERSH: One of the things about your book that's amazing is that it's not only about the Bush Administration, and if there are any villains in this book, they include Sandy Berger, who was Clinton's national security advisor, and Madeleine Albright.

Another thing that's breathtaking about this book is the amount of new stories and new information. Scott describes in detail and with named sources, basically, a two or three-year run of the American government undercutting the inspection process. In your view, during those years, '91 to'98, particularly the last three years, was the United States interested in disarming Iraq?

MR. RITTER: Well, the fact of the matter is the United States was never interested in disarming Iraq. The whole Security Council resolution that created the UN weapons inspections and called upon Iraq to disarm was focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is a vehicle for the maintenance of economic sanctions that were imposed in August 1990 linked to the liberation of Kuwait. We liberated Kuwait, I participated in that conflict. And one would think, therefore, the sanctions should be lifted.

The United States needed to find a vehicle to continue to contain Saddam because the CIA said all we have to do is wait six months and Saddam is going to collapse on his own volition. That vehicle is sanctions. They needed a justification; the justification was disarmament. They drafted a Chapter 7 resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the disarmament of Iraq and saying in Paragraph 14 that if Iraq complies, sanctions will be lifted. Within months of this resolution being passed--and the United States drafted and voted in favor of this resolution--within months, the President, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his Secretary of State, James Baker, are saying publicly, not privately, publicly that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, economic sanctions will be maintained until which time Saddam Hussein is removed from power.

That is proof positive that disarmament was only useful insofar as it contained through the maintenance of sanctions and facilitated regime change. It was never about disarmament, it was never about getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. It started with George Herbert Walker Bush, and it was a policy continued through eight years of the Clinton presidency, and then brought us to this current disastrous course of action under the current Bush Administration.^[21]

Iran[link]

In January 2005, Hersh alleged that the US was conducting covert operations in Iran to identify targets for possible strikes. Hersh also claimed that Pakistan and the United States have struck a "Khan-for-Iran" deal in which Washington will look the other way at Pakistan's nuclear transgressions and not demand handing over of its nuclear proliferator A Q Khan, in return for Islamabad's cooperation in neutralising Iran's nuclear plans. This was also denied by officials of the governments of the US and Pakistan.

In the April 17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker,^[22] Hersh reported on the Bush administration's purported plans for an air strike on Iran. Of particular note in his article is that a US nuclear first strike (possibly using the B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon) is under consideration to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reportage as "wild speculation." ^[23]

When, in October 2007, asked on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's hawkish views on Iran, Hersh claimed that Jewish donations were the main reason for these:

During one journalism conference, Hersh claimed that after the Strait of Hormuz incident, members of the Bush administration met in vice president Dick Cheney's office to consider methods of initiating a war with Iran. One idea considered was staging a false flag operation involving the use of Navy SEALs dressed as Iranian PT boaters who would engage in a firefight with US ships. This idea was shot down. This claim has not been verified.^[25]

Lebanon[link]

In August 2006, in an article in The New Yorker, Hersh claimed that the White House gave the green light for the Israeli government to execute an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Supposedly, communication between the Israeli government and the US government about this came as early as two months in advance of the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah prior to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict in July 2006.^[26] The US government denied these claims.^[27]

Criticism[link]

Kennedy research[link]

Hersh's 1997 book about John F. Kennedy, The Dark Side of Camelot, made a number of controversial assertions about the former president, including that he had had a "first marriage" to a woman named Durie Malcolm that was never terminated, that he had been a semi-regular narcotics user, that he had a close working relationship with mob boss Sam Giancana which supposedly included vote fraud in one or two crucial states in the 1960 presidential election. For many of these claims, Hersh relied only on hearsay collected decades after the event. In a Los Angeles Times review, Edward Jay Epstein cast doubt on these and other assertions, writing, "this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy."^[28] Responding to the book, historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called Hersh "the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered."^[29]

Hersh repeatedly described Kennedy as a playboy and implied that many journalists were aware of his womanizing but turned a blind eye, even ignoring or denigrating witnesses to the infidelity who wanted to go public. One of Hersh's assertions on his theme, however, is backed with erroneous references (and remains unsubstantiated). The author identified one Florence M. Kater as a "middle-aged housewife"^[30] who supposedly knew of Kennedy's womanizing during his 1960 presidential campaign. According to Hersh, this woman, who was allegedly the former landlady of JFK's senatorial aide/love interest Pamela Turnure, decided in 1959 to break the news on this topic. Inexplicably, "in late 1958" (the year before she decided to go public) she "ambushed Kennedy leaving the new apartment [to which Turnure allegedly moved to escape Kater's eavesdropping] at three A.M. and took a photograph of the unhappy senator attempting to shield his face with a handkerchief."^[31]

Hersh did not publish such a photograph in The Dark Side of Camelot or cite an interview with Florence Kater. She died many years before he started work on the book. If another writer or journalist ever interviewed her, Hersh did not use such a source. In the book he asserted that Kater had attended a 1960 presidential campaign stop near Washington, DC carrying a blow-up of her alleged photograph of an adulterous Sen. Kennedy attempting to shield his face.^[32]

"Kater was not taken seriously by the national press corps," wrote Hersh, "but she came close to attracting media attention. On May 14, 1960, just four days after Kennedy won the West Virginia primary, she approached him at a political rally at the University of Maryland carrying a placard with an enlarged snapshot of the early-morning scene outside Pamela Turnure's apartment. Kennedy ignored her, but a photograph of the encounter was published in the next afternoon's Washington Star, along with a brief story describing her as a heckler.".^[32] The microfilmed editions of May 14, 15 and 16 of the Washington Star, known at the time as the Evening Star of Washington, DC and The Sunday Star, do not contain such a photograph or brief story. Hersh could not have confused it with the Washington Post or The Washington Daily News because neither the name "Florence Kater" nor a photograph of her appeared in those newspapers, either, in connection with the May 14 event.

A month before the book's publication, newspapers, including USA Today, reported Hersh's announcement that he had removed from the galleys, at the last minute, a segment about legal documents allegedly containing JFK's signature.^[33] A paralegal named Lawrence Cusack had shared them with Hersh and encouraged the author to discuss them in the book.^[34] Shortly before Hersh's publicized announcement, federal investigators began probing Cusack's sale of the documents at auction.^[34] After The Dark Side of Camelot became a bestseller, Cusack was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan of forging the documents and sentenced to a long prison term.^[35] The documents signed by "John F. Kennedy" included a provision, in 1960, for a trust fund to be set up for the institutionalized mother of Marilyn Monroe.^[34][36] In 1997 the Kennedy family denied Cusack's claim that his late father had been an attorney who had represented JFK in 1960.^[34]

Use of anonymous sources[link]

Some have criticized Hersh's use of anonymous sources in his reporting; implying that some of these sources are unreliable or even made up. In a review of Hersh's book, Chain of Command, commentator Amir Taheri wrote, "As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh in unknown circumstances... By my count Hersh has anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government."^[37]

David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh's unnamed sources, telling the Columbia Journalism Review that "I know every single source that is in his pieces.... Every 'retired intelligence officer,' every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' We talk it through."^[38]

In a response to an article in The New Yorker in which Hersh alleged that the U.S. government was planning a strike on Iran, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Brian Whitman said, "This reporter has a solid and well-earned reputation for making dramatic assertions based on thinly sourced, unverifiable anonymous sources."^[39]

Speeches[link]

Those who criticize Hersh's credibility especially point to allegations Hersh has made in public speeches and interviews, rather than in print. In an interview with New York magazine, Hersh made a distinction between the standards of strict factual accuracy for his print reporting and the leeway he allows himself in speeches, in which he may talk informally about stories still being worked on or blur information to protect his sources. "Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people... I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say."^[40]

Some of Hersh's speeches concerning the Iraq War have described violent incidents involving U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys:

In a subsequent interview with New York magazine, Hersh regretted that "I actually didn’t quite say what I wanted to say correctly...it wasn’t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of—and so you have to try and be more careful."^[40] In his book, Chain of Command, he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.^[40]

Link between the US government and Fatah al-Islam[link]

In March 2007 Hersh asserted in a piece in The New Yorker that the United States and Saudi governments were funding the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam through aid to Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.^[41] Following the publishing of the story journalists in Beirut uncovered that Hersh put forth the claim without any reliable sources. Hersh had heard the unconfirmed story from Robert Fisk who had, in turn, heard the story from former British intelligence agent Alastair Crooke. Crooke had only heard it circulated as rumor and no one had fact checked the claims before Hersh ran the story^[42] which prompted a variety of criticisms.^[43]

Morarji Desai Libel Suit[link]

Hersh claimed in his 1983 book The Price of Power that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administration. Desai called the allegation "a scandalous and malicious lie" and filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. By the time the case went to trial Desai, by then 93, was too ill to attend. CIA director Richard Helms and Henry Kissinger testified under oath that at no time did Desai act in any capacity for the CIA, paid or otherwise. Since Hersh did not have to take the stand or reveal the name of his alleged source, the Judge found in favor of Hersh.^[44][45]

Publications[link]

Books[link]

• Hersh, Seymour M. (1968), Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal, New York, New York: Bobbs-Merrill (US) and London: MacGibbon & Kee (UK). ISBN 0-586-03295-9.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1970). My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. Random House. ISBN 0-394-43737-3.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1972). Cover-up: the Army's secret investigation of the massacre at My Lai 4. Random House. ISBN 0-394-47460-0.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1983). The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-44760-2. Excerpts from The Price of Power hosted by Third World Traveler
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1986). The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It. Random House. ISBN 0-394-54261-4.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1991). The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House. ISBN 0-394-57006-5.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1997). The Dark Side of Camelot. Little, Brown & Company. ISBN 0-316-36067-8.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1998). Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-42748-3.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (2004). Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-019591-6.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (TBD). [book on the Cheney vice presidency]^[46]

Articles/Reportage[link]

• "Full list of published articles in the New Yorker

• "Huge CIA Operation Reported in US against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents During Nixon Years" by Seymour Hersh, New York Times, December 22, 1974 — Hersh's article detailing CIA covert operations which eventually led to the formation of the Church Committee.

This section requires expansion.

Forewords[link]

• Hersh, Seymour M. (foreword) (2005) in Scott Ritter: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover), Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-852-7

See also[link]

• Church Committee (United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Hersh's December 22, 1974 New York Times article on CIA operations was the main reason for the creation of this committee)
• Ari Ben-Menashe
• Mordechai Vanunu
• Robert Maxwell
• Opposition to war against Iran

References[link]

External links[link]

• Seymour Hersh at the Internet Movie Database
• Seymour Hersh Interviewed by Mehdi Hasan

Articles[link]

• "Current State of Investigating Reporting", talk given at BU, May 19 2009
• "The Traitor" — The case against Jonathan Pollard, The New Yorker, January 18, 1999 issue
• "Overwhelming Force" — What happened in the final days of the Gulf War?, The New Yorker, May 22, 2000 issue
• "The Cold Test" — What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program., The New Yorker, January 27, 2003 issue
• "Lunch with the Chairman" — Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?, The New Yorker, March 17, 2003 issue
• "Who Lied to Whom?" — Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?, The New Yorker, March 31, 2003 issue
• "Offense and Defense" — The battle between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon., The New Yorker, April 7, 2003 issue
• "Selective Intelligence" — Selective Intelligence, The New Yorker, May 12, 2003 issue
• "The Syrian Bet" — Did the Bush Admin. burn a useful source on Al Qaeda? The New Yorker, July 28, 2003 issue
• "The Stovepipe" — How conflicts between the Bush Admin. and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons. The New Yorker, October 27, 2003 issue
• "Moving Targets" — Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?. The New Yorker, December 15, 2003 issue
• "The Deal" — Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan’s nuclear black marketers? The New Yorker, March 8, 2004 issue
• "The Other War" — Why Bush’s Afghanistan problem won’t go away., The New Yorker, April 12, 2004 issue
• "Torture at Abu Ghraib" — American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?, The New Yorker, May 10, 2004 issue
• "Chain of Command" — How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, May 17, 2004 issue
• "The Gray Zone" — How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, May 24, 2004 issue
• "Plan B" — As June 30 approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds, The New Yorker, June 28, 2004 issue
• "The Coming Wars" — What the Pentagon can now do in secret, The New Yorker, January 24, 2005 issue and the response by the Department of Defense
• "Watergate Days", The New Yorker, June 13, 2005 issue
• "Get Out the Vote" — Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's Elections?, The New Yorker, July 25, 2005 issue
• "Up in the Air" — Where is the Iraq war headed next?, The New Yorker, December 5, 2005 issue
• "The Iran Plans" — Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006 issue
• "Last Stand" — The military's dissent on Iran policy., The New Yorker, July 10 & 17 2006 issue
• "Watching Lebanon" — Washington’s interests in Israel’s war., The New Yorker, August 21, 2006 issue
• "The Next Act" — Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?, The New Yorker, November 27, 2006 issue
• "The Redirection" — Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?, The New Yorker, March 5, 2007 issue
• "The General's Report" — How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties, The New Yorker, June 25, 2007 issue
• "Shifting Targets" — The Administration’s plan for Iran, The New Yorker, October 8, 2007 issue
• "A Strike in the Dark" — What did Israel bomb in Syria?, The New Yorker, February 11, 2008 issue
• "Preparing the Battlefield" — The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran, The New Yorker, July 7, 2008 issue
• "Syria Calling" — The Obama Administration’s chance to engage in a Middle East peace, The New Yorker, April 6, 2009 issue
• "Defending the Arsenal" — In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?, The New Yorker, November 16, 2009 issue
• "The Online Threat" — Should we be worried about a cyber war?, The New Yorker, November 1, 2010 issue
• "Iran and the Bomb" — How real is the nuclear threat?, The New Yorker, June 6, 2011 issue