Seymour Hersh's story of the My Lai killings goes out to American newspapers
For twenty months, the Army's account of March 16, 1968, had been a victory over Viet Cong forces in a Vietnamese village. On November 12, 1969, independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the real story: soldiers of Charlie Company had murdered unarmed civilians at My Lai. The report went out through the Dispatch News Service and was picked up by The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Seattle Times, and Newsday. The cover-up had failed, and the public argument over the war now included what American soldiers had done.
Americans argued over what their army had done, and over whether the press should have reported it. Coverage of Vietnam grew more independent of official sources and began to examine other atrocities. Hersh's work earned the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.
QWhere exactly did Charlie Company's killing take place, and how large was the toll?
My Lai was really two hamlets. The killing happened in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê, part of Sơn Mỹ village in Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam. The dead numbered between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians, and the count is still uncertain. The men responsible belonged to Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division, known as the Americal Division. Captain Ernest Medina commanded the company. The shorthand that entered American newspapers in November 1969 was the name of just one of the two hamlets.
QWhat did the helicopter pilot who landed at My Lai say he saw from the air?
Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr., the helicopter pilot, did more than watch. He and his helicopter crew set down near an irrigation ditch where civilians were being killed, led civilians out of a nearby bunker, and pulled a young girl from the ditch. Thompson described the scene in blunt words: "It's mass murder out there. They're rounding them up and herding them in ditches and then just shooting them." The ditch was one of the places where civilians had been executed. His account sits against the Army's early report, which claimed a victory over Viet Cong forces. The Army published the victory report.
QWhich question did a New York Times columnist pose about whether the press should print the My Lai story at all?
James Reston of The New York Times put the case against publication as a single long question. Should whatever happened in the massacre be reported by press, radio and television, he asked, "since clearly reporting the murder of civilians by American soldiers helps the enemy, divides the people of this country, and damages the ideal of America in the world?" The sentence gathers every argument for silence in one place. Reston was stating the objection in order to answer it. Representative Albert Watson's complaint about demagogues in the news media came from the same worry.
