Even before Watergate brought down his presidency, Richard Nixon was the prime mover in another illegal action that could have been grounds for impeachment. It is now clear, after extensive research, that Nixon initiated the campaign to sabotage the My Lai massacre trials so no American soldier involved in the killings would be convicted of war crimes.
Working with the president in this campaign were his chief of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman; one of his top propagandists, congressional liaison Franklyn “Lyn” Nofziger; and two of the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee, congressmen L. Mendel Rivers (D-SC) and F. Edward Hebert (D- La.).
The smoking gun is a series of notes by Haldeman from a meeting with the president, an overlooked part of the Nixon papers. The notes are stored in the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif.
The Haldeman meeting, on Dec. 1, 1969 was one of several in which Nixon struggled to figure out how to get control of the worsening public relations nightmare that the massacre brought down on the US government. The wartime atrocity had occurred not on Nixon’s watch, but during the administration of his predecessor, President Lyndon Johnson. Nevertheless, it was now Nixon’s problem.
He would have to deal with the fallout from one of the darkest chapters in US military history.
‘How come you ain’t killed them yet?’
The massacre — in which 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were slaughtered by out- of-control US soldiers on March 16, 1968 — had been covered up successfully for more than a year by officers in the chain of command in Vietnam at the time. A letter from former soldier Ron Ridenhour — sent to the president, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of the Army and about a dozen congressmen and senators — finally exposed the massacre.
By November 1969, newspapers across the country were on to the story. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published photographs of women, old men, children, even toddlers lying dead on a dirt road at My Lai — irrefutable evidence. That same month came a stunning television interview by Mike Wallace of CBS News in which ex-G.I. Paul Meadlo confessed publicly to shooting Vietnamese of all ages.
“There was about 40-45 people that we gathered in the center of the village,” Meadlo said. “Men, women, children . . . babies. And Lieutenant [William] Calley came over and said, ‘You know what to do with them, don’t you?’ And I said yes. I took it for granted that he just wanted us to watch them. And he left, and he came back 10 or 15 minutes later, and he said, ‘How come you ain’t killed them yet?’ And I told him that I didn’t think you wanted us to kill them . . . and he said, ‘No. I want them dead.’”
New revelations were being published or broadcast at a dizzying pace. The American people were disillusioned and disgusted. Some were simply in denial. Nixon and his advisors had been over this subject many times before in the previous six to eight months. Now it was clear that the need for damage control was even greater than they’d originally thought.
Not one to cower, Nixon’s style was to attack major problems. He was fond of saying one does not coast to victory but must fight to win.
Accordingly, on Dec. 1, 1969, he sat down with Haldeman — the chief enforcer of the president’s will — and began describing how the administration would approach the crisis.
First, Nixon ordered that a group of advisors, some of his best thinkers, be organized into a “My Lai Task Force.” He wanted input from them on political, military and public relations fronts.
The group would include Pat Buchanan, special assistant to the president for media analysis and speech writing; Henry Kissinger, national security advisor; Herb Klein, director of communications for the Executive Branch; and Nofziger, whose job was to get members of Congress to support Nixon’s policies and plans. The president then authorized Haldeman to minimize the damage to the reputation of the Army.
Haldeman’s note says Nixon approved the use of “dirty tricks . . . (but) not too high a level.”
“Discredit one witness,” Nixon said, according to Haldeman’s notes. Nixon was referring to Hugh Thompson, the man who was emerging as the star witness for the prosecution of the crimes at My Lai — the Army helicopter pilot who had confronted and countermanded superior officers while interfering in the ground operation at My Lai.
“[We] may have to use a senator or two,” Nixon said as Haldeman took notes. Haldeman had his marching orders.
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